'8 more players' - what now?

[Bianoic]

1 hour ago, BathRam72 said:

The damage may well be done by then. Could be playing catch up if it all goes wrong

Not done two bad so far ? And thats not including 3/4 points chucked away against Posh and Notts F

[BathRam72]

1 minute ago, Bianoic said:

Not done two bad so far ? And thats not including 3/4 points chucked away against Posh and Notts F

You miss the point. He has done a great job with limited resources. But as the season goes on and the inevitable injuries etc creep in. He hasn't got much back up.

[RoyMac5]

Just now, BathRam72 said:

You miss the point. He has done a great job with limited resources. But as the season goes on and the inevitable injuries etc creep in. He hasn't got much back up.

Agree. Plus if we'd already had better resources maybe we wouldn't have 'thrown' points away.

[brady1993]

In terms of the squad I think we could have done with three more coming in; a quick CB, short term cover at DM and a left footed wide right option. Another striker would have been a bonus. 

So where does that leave us ? With everyone fit the picture doesn't look too bad, actually it looks decent (rough punt at what Rooney would go for): 

Roos

Byrne Jagielka Davies Buchanan

Bielik Bird

Jozwiak Morrison Lawrence

Baldock

Subs; Allsop, Ebosele, Stearman, Knight, Shinnie, Sibley, CKR

With the likes of Fozzy, Stretton and Watson providing capable competition (and quite possibly swapped in for a few of the above). The primary issue is that we are suffering a minor injury crisis to complement our transfer restrictions and the concern going forwards will be "Can we get players back fit before other players have to play too many minutes?". That's probably going to be the deciding factor at least until January. Get a fair few of those players back fit and we probably do ok based on how we've been playing so far, lose another couple players and we could quickly get in trouble. 

 

[RadioactiveWaste]

Was it 8 more players to make us a decent outfit or 8 more players to survive?

I read it as with 8 decent signings we'll have a squad that is competetive for the division. In terms of surviving, there's no depth at all and injuries are probably what wil do for us.

But, the actual 11 isn't to bad at all really and they are fighting for each other and are trying to develop a style.

Still very worried about the season as a whole, but my worries aren't what they were before the season started.

[Bianoic]

13 minutes ago, BathRam72 said:

You miss the point. He has done a great job with limited resources. But as the season goes on and the inevitable injuries etc creep in. He hasn't got much back up.

Knight, Bielik, Colin to come back still ? Three of our best players

Plus at least a couple of  really good prospects ready to come through not available before now

And January window not that far away

We are where we are, nothing we can do about it for now

Except maybe a glass half full attitude 

[brady1993]

2 minutes ago, RadioactiveWaste said:

Was it 8 more players to make us a decent outfit or 8 more players to survive?

I read it as with 8 decent signings we'll have a squad that is competetive for the division. In terms of surviving, there's no depth at all and injuries are probably what wil do for us.

But, the actual 11 isn't to bad at all really and they are fighting for each other and are trying to develop a style.

Still very worried about the season as a whole, but my worries aren't what they were before the season started.

I've said before and I'll say it again here but I think people have read way way too much into the "8". In the context of the interview it pretty much just seemed like an off the cuff remark reflecting that of course he'd sign more if he could but he can't. 

If you look closely at the close season's activity and who he had in mind you can see the plan was to sign around 10-11 in total; Allsop, Jagielka, Stearman, Davies, Wisdom (maybe), Mengi, Carroll/Garner, Aluko, Morrison, Baldock, Delap (More a pipe dream this one). These were the only players we've been seriously linked with and of those we've missed out on 4 ish. Had we got all of those over the line I seriously doubt we'd have done anymore business regardless of restrictions.

[JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta]

12 minutes ago, RadioactiveWaste said:

Was it 8 more players to make us a decent outfit or 8 more players to survive?

I read it as with 8 decent signings we'll have a squad that is competetive for the division. In terms of surviving, there's no depth at all and injuries are probably what wil do for us.

But, the actual 11 isn't to bad at all really and they are fighting for each other and are trying to develop a style.

Still very worried about the season as a whole, but my worries aren't what they were before the season started.

This is pretty much where I am at with it. If Bielik comes in around January and stays fit for the remainder of the season we have a chance. If he has complications and we pick up injuries to the likes of Curtis Davis, Graham Shinnie etc we are in big trouble.

[gccrowdpleaser]

Barnsley used 24 players last season and finished in the Top 6. It can be done.

Rooney talking about needing 8 players was, in my opinion, his summation of what he would need in order to be happy and to consider challenging for the play offs. Remember he's a born competitor so whilst it sits in our mind as to what we need to avoid relegation I don't think he will think like that.

The challenge is the composition of the squad which us a couple of injuries away from being really challenged. 

It's good enough to compete based on its best 16. Outside of that not so much.

[Bald Eagle's Barmy Army]

All speculation, nobody knows exactly what’s going on at the club. 
 

One thing for sure is that we get through this season and I’m sure it can’t get any worse than what we’ve had it. 
 

Onwards and upwards hopefully. 

[BondJovi]

This is the third season running we have been operating under some form of restriction. I think our team now is much better than the team we were left with at the end of this window last season. However this is also a short term fix and we again will have a lot to do next summer. 

Whilst I think the team is stronger, it also contains a lot of players who haven't played a full season in a while, when the fixtures pile up this could get very tough. We really need to be picking up as much as we can whilst there is still a freshness.

What I wonder is who is lying here? Rooney expected to be able to sign more players. That didn't happen. Did he know? Was he fed false info? Likewise Cocu in this window last season fully expected a striker, he kept saying hopefully in the next few days. We finished the day with CKR, clearly not what the manager was hoping for.

I said last season I don't feel it can be a fair reflection of either manager. Both could have done better, but I think we should appreciate the mess this is. We have to believe in the players and Rooney and ride the storm.

[Eatonram]

I can understand an embargo stopping you “adding” more players to a squad when you are deemed to have sufficient. What I feel is completely and utterly unfair is if we still cannot use our home grown talent such as Cashin who is already on the books. This is just madness and surely not what an embargo is supposed to be for. 

[Chris_Martin]

2 hours ago, StrawHillRam said:

There’s always the January transfer windows to top up the squad

Bielik back by then too

[Gone]

I am not sure we should put all our hopes on improvement on Bielik coming back, especially after his 3rd serious knee injury. Him coming back also still doesn’t answer the most important question, who are the players in the team is going to score enough goals to win us games? That question still hasn’t been answered, it was our Achilles heel last year and still hasn’t been addressed (not through the fault of the football management) 

[thelovebelow]

It all reminds of the film Moneyball, where Brad Pitt sells the senior players to make sure the coach plays the players he wants played. 

Mel wants youth. No new players for WR under the guise of Embargo. 

[angieram]

1 hour ago, cheron85 said:

That's speculative at best...

I really hope not - He's been unimpressive when interviewed - An over-inflated sense of his own brilliance from a few decent insights on Sky TV

Interesting take on Rosenior there. I find him eager to please, a bit like a young puppy! 

I quite like him.

However, wouldn't want him as stand alone Manager. Don't think either him or Rooney are ready for that yet. 

[Rampage]

Is it really so difficult to end this embargo. If it was going to end up as a six point penalty we could have lived with it and signed some players and been taken over by now. I cannot think of any justifiable reason for not sorting it out and moving on, even after reading a lot of well informed posts by accounts experts. Is there another hidden 'advantage' for us not getting out of embargo other than not spending more money and still not being able to get a takeover done. Mystifies me why we have not resolved it as it seems to be entirely in our own interests to do so. It is surely better to be docked six points now rather than towards the end of the season when we would have less time to make up a shortfall. Some tough games coming up and a good few teams have really strengthened in this window. Warburton and Bowyer have clearly improved their teams. COYR

[Chris_Martin]

20 minutes ago, TexasRam said:

I am not sure we should put all our hopes on improvement on Bielik coming back, especially after his 3rd serious knee injury. 

is it ???

[Gone]

1 minute ago, Chris_Martin said:

is it ???

I thought it was his 3rd, maybe wrong

[Chris_Martin]

21 minutes ago, TexasRam said:

who are the players in the team is going to score enough goals to win us games? That question still hasn’t been answered, it was our Achilles heel last year and still hasn’t been addressed (not through the fault of the football management) 

There were many equally big problems last year as well. If your conceding 2 and 3 goals every week how do you expect to win games.