ts_1010

In all seriousness, I think we might win this. Which will probably hurt just as much as getting relegated.

I'm not a massive fan of Skipp by any stretch. But he's risen up in my estimation of him during the course of this season. We have a team full of players who don't seem to want to run for the team, to get stuck in, to graft. Skipp is one of very few exceptions to that. He's not worth £22m or whatever we paid for him, but it's not like he decided the value of his fee. Blaming Skipp because John Ruskin turned up to negotiations with Daniel Levy, with a ball gag in his mouth. Or because Steve Cooper binned our list of targets and demanded Prem experienced grafters, and ugly football, is a bit silly to me.

As with all things, context is everything. If he has 3 or 4 more years here playing well as he has this season, then the price tag doesn't matter in the long run. But if you view him in the context of him being the most expensive player in our promotion campaign, when we were probably more lacking in other areas, then yeah he probably was a bad/overpriced purchase. It's not his fault he's got that price tag, and the lad we have in the club at the moment is one of the few to come out of this season with any credit. So I don't think it's for to hold it against him.

As much as it sickens me to say this, to look at either of those clubs, we have to look up. Were so poorly run that we have no proper DOF and the last one was "not a football man" by his own admission. This means that our footballing philosophy/strategy/direction is always going to be led by the manager. This on its own leads to short-termism. In our current crisis a project manager, playing whatever football style works to successfully avoid relegation is a sensible course of action. We get to the end of the season. We release a load of our problem players like the morning after poo after your stag do, and we will look and feel much better. That'll give us a load of wage capacity making us instantly more attractive to a new manager.

We convinced a guy to use his own money to pay off his release clause to join us. Sold any player we could from under him and didn't replace any of them. Left him with an unbalanced and ineffective squad and a toxic atmosphere. Then sacked him before he could buy a single player in the January window. Don't get me wrong I think Marti wasn't the guy we needed. But when you put it like that, how many managers are going to want to come here? Were a career killer in our current state.

Not including Nelson in this as he's young and new; possibly Okoli too. But how many of our defenders over the last few years have given off the vibe that they actually enjoy the job of defending? Vesty and Faes always seem like they only really want to be in possession. That keeping clean sheets is the secondary element of their job. Lascelles has some flaws, but he's always seemed like the guy who wants to take on a big number 9 and gets real pride from a clean sheet. Happy to have him.

Come on now... We would never sign a target man with a 50p for a head. Not with our bulletproof scouting... Right?

I'm probably huffing the copium as much as anybody. But, because we carry no arial threat, both of our wingers have been increasingly ineffective this season. Opposition full backs and DCMs are coached to stop the run inside and force them down the line. Introducing an aerial threat changes that. It means that the full backs have no easy option, and no idea what our wingers will do. As much as I like Evans, no Championship CB is going to see him coming off the bench and start screaming "stop the cross lads" at his full backs.

From looking at YouTube and insta vids, he seems to be pacy and powerful and tall. If all he does is provide enough physical threat to make opposing defenders more worried about him than they have been about Ayew and Daka, he will make life easier for our wingers and Cam. Half the reason that Fatawu has become so predictable cutting inside on to his left is that he knows a cross into the box is a wasted effort. I probably clutching at straws here but this genuinely is better than nothing.

My sly bet would be Pearson and King to the end of the season.

I wont believe that the upper management have been honest with the managers about transfer budgets for years now. We always see our managers talking about looking at targets and wanting/expecting players in. Surely they wouldn't be saying that stuff if they had been told there was no cash available? Even players like sensi who seemed to be almost done, or Jago who seemed to think he was coming. It's like the club are trying to get hold of players but are being politely ignored by the guy who signs the cheques.

He's a similar build to Daka. Maybe a bit stronger. I was hoping for a physically dominant striker but I don't mind a cheap in form player. It's not like he's much of a risk.

He is a technically poor player who relied on pace, power and an unusually prodigious leap. If he's 35, broken his leg in 4 places, and was already losing pace according to west ham fans; you all need to lower your expectations significantly. He's going to be on a par with Ayew at best. I think the only reason we are looking at him is because he's free and the club has decided it won't spend any money this year on transfers.

Get him out on loan to a league 1 side. Surely he has been watched by some of their scouting teams. Give Newport another player who needs games. Evans and page feel like they are having a wasted season now. Does anyone know how many more players are allowed to send out?

Madison missed the penalty against Everton and then got a move to a big 6 (ha!) side. If he scored his move could have been jeopardised. We went on to draw that game, it's just a little too convenient.