Rhodes or McCormack

[Ram a lamb a ding dong]

Neither. If someone is coming in it'll be aleft field signing

[uttoxram75]

There is no like for like replacement for Chrissy Martin. I can't think of one player who does what he does. Hendrick and Hughes (and tbf, Ince) know he'll try to play them in with a flick or back heel into a gap in the box - we're desperately missing that, its a nightmare to defend against.

Bent is a top finisher, McCormack and Rhodes would be ok, but i don't believe we'll be as fluent until Martin is back. 

IMO, Chris Martin is a better player than both, yet they are in the £10m+ bracket ?

[wixman1884]

How good of a friend is Mourinho to McClaren? Could we get Costa for a month?

[Ambitious]

Chris Martin simply doesn't have a price tag that I know of, but you're right @uttoxram75 

Martin's ability has slightly been undersold because 'he fits into our system perfectly' and that's what people see him for - I was guilty of this myself. 

He's much more than just a player that fits into our system perfectly; he is a player with a phenomenal first touch, outstanding awareness, vision and intelligence. He also scores as often as many of the player's touted for eight figure sums in this division. 

Darren Bent, as you said, is a great finisher but Martin's all-round ability is streets ahead. But, I think you have to credit the coaches for that... He's as good on his left than he is on his right now and his link up play has continued to improve. 

He obviously isn't physically the fastest, which people say is a reason he won't play in the Premier League, but that's one aspect of football out of many. 

Now, after all that ranting, it's just put me on a downer knowing he won't be in the side on Saturday 

[Alph]

"Likely to be outside the play offs"

Only from a Derby fan would you read/hear that. You won't hear any other fan's saying that about us. Not even the majority of Forest fans. 

[Mostyn6]

Simmo mentioned that Martin was still struggling. Hamstring injuries are rarely straightforward and his general fitness will getting worse everyday. Bent has not even started his recuperation yet. It is possible that neither will be back this season. It is likely that neither will play before the international break. By then we are likely to be outside the play off places. To suggest we don't need another striker is a little difficult to fathom.

For me, of the two mentioned above, McCormack is the better player, but Rhodes suits our current situation. He can play a bit with his back to goal and is decent in the air. He'd be a slightly different kind of target man to Martin, but effective enough to keep us in the mix.

[CornwallRam]

​what and what now? 

What the hell are you talking about?

[cloughandtaylor]

• We might be out of the race for automatic promotion before Martin is back if we lose to Norwich and Middlesborough though. 

[cloughandtaylor]

McCormack ..........more creative and scores freely... Be surprised if it happened though.

[Mostyn6]

​We play Norwich, Boro and Wolves before the next break. Unless the club are deliberately giving out mis-information to confuse the opposition (which I wouldn't rule out), then neither Bent nor Martin will be available. If Thorne comes back we might manage a couiple of points, but if not we are, in my opinion, going to lose all three. That would take us to 5th in any event as our goal difference would be at least three down and Norwich would have at least  3 extra points. If Brentford and Ipswich both win 2 out of 3 then we are down to 7th - 8th if Wolves get 3 wins.

Which is why the club are prepared to break the bank to bring in another striker.

[CornwallRam]

​are you positive that none of those teams are playing each other? if they were, there'd be no way that they could all gain maximum points. To add to that, we could quite easily get wins in each of those three fixtures. Aside of Norwich, everyone else is having inconsistent results like us.