Proven Championship Players Needed !

[Salieri]

I think its important the team retains a spine of English players, or at least players who have played in this country for a fair amount of time. You wouldn't want to pack a team full of players new to the country, there's the communication barrier as much as anything to get over.

As long as we (at least for now) keep players such as Weale, Hobbs, Morrison, Wellens, King, Gally, Fryatt etc in or around the team for now, then we'll be fine.

The reason Sousa is looking abroad is simply down to the overinflated prices in this country. Pearson got over it by using the loan market but it seems Paolo is not as big a fan of this approach. I'm sure like with all managers the signings will be hit and miss, but if he can unearth a gem or two from abroad at a bargain price then i don't think anyone will complain.

[Lillehamring]

urgh, pitiful thread....

i think for every 'failed' overseas player leicester have signed you could name a whole squad of british players we have signed that have proved to be crap.

saying british players will mean promotion is gash, too, 10 of newcastle's 30 man squad is not english, 14 of west brom's (11 if you include ireland), wigan's current squad has 14 - we currently have 8 (excluding loans), including jeff schlupp, who has been playing for us for quite some time, and berner and n'guessan are hardly new to english football.

as for arguments that overseas players might not adapt to english football/culture - well that's a risk worth taking, i'm sure ferguson and wenger lie awake at night worrying about it.

you also have to remember the we no longer have a british manager.

the core of our squad is very british (weale hobbs wellens, king, howard, campbell, fryatt) i'd rather have a japanese world cup player, or someone with champions league experience, than some nobody for arbroath, or another dennis wise...

face it, there aren't enough 'proven championship players' worth having...

[davieG]

Proven Championship players are just that Championship players, by definition if they're proven they been there a while which means that's about as high as they can go. With foreign players with a decent pedigree you've got the chance that they could play at a higher level.

As other have said as long as there's a decent balance I think it's fine surely better than season long loans which forces you to rebuild a good portion of the team at the end of the season.

[bettso]

Proven Championship players are just that Championship players, by definition if they're proven they been there a while which means that's about as high as they can go. With foreign players with a decent pedigree you've got the chance that they could play at a higher level.

As other have said as long as there's a decent balance I think it's fine surely better than season long loans which forces you to rebuild a good portion of the team at the end of the season.

I really dont want to come across as some sort of race warrior, but I cant help but be a little uneasy with the tone of this thread.

'Why are we signing so many unproven foreigners'

'I'd prefer us to sign English players'

I thought the relevence of where a player was from in conjunction with the preference of whether we signed them or not, dissapeared in the 80's.

We took a chance on Hobbs, Morrison, Fryatt, Weale and King who all had little or no experience of life in this league and it's not worked out badly at all so why would it be any different for a foreign player?

As an earlier poster pointed out, we signed several well established Championship players from these shores 2 years ago and we ended up getting relegated.

It seems that our poor start to the season has brought about some quite prejudice comments ('he wont pick morrison coz he's not Portugese enough' as an example) and it seems like some people are latching onto this train of thought as if it's the main reason for our poor start.

Lets not forget that on the opening day against Crystal Palace, there were no new players in the team just those from last season.

The squad as a whole are getting used to Sousa's style of play and training methods and this will take a little bit of time. The signings on the whole have been good and have made improvements to the squad so can we all please take a step back and allow the players to prove themselves to be bad signings before we dub them as such.

[Finnegan]

Martin O'Neill is still worshiped by most our support and he's made a career out of putting his faith in 'unproven' talent. I'd take one Abe Yuki over ten Joey Gudjonsons.

[Finnegan]

And hello, Tunchev? (can't edit posts with ft mobile?)

[HonradaRaposa]

Martin O'Neill is still worshiped by most our support and he's made a career out of putting his faith in 'unproven' talent. I'd take one Abe Yuki over ten Joey Gudjonsons.

What's so great about our English players, or any English players, who are so technically deficient (barring Paul Scholes)? Have we all forgotten how Enlgand's best were so cruelly exposed by the might of Japan, USA, Algeria and Germany's under 23's this summer?

Stop buying in to the Premiership and Champion League hype, our players are woefully inept.

[Candidcamera]

I think we should go for young foreign players as well as any good young home players. Hopefully the manager knows the world game more than most managers. There must be some good forwards that would be able to step into the team. The market over here still seems to be ridiculously over priced for players that aren't as good as those we have got. I think we are fortunate to have Matty Fryatt and that he will come good for us again. Why go for an inferior player when you have got one of the best ? Like everyone I hope Tunchev gets back this year but I do think our defence could do with strengthening. Hopefully the young Portuguese player will prove himself too. Some of the dealings we have done so far seem good sense. The market for who we would like is not promising and why get more of the same ? There may be some available on loan when the squad announcements are made.

[tomtom]

Sadly i don't think we have much choice but to sign these foriegn players as the prices for the likes of Waghorn, Spearing, Vaughan etc are just far to much for us to pay right now......Premier league clubs are financially so much better off nowadays due to the sky money that they don't need to let their youngsters go cheaply

[Lillehamring]

Sadly i don't think we have much choice but to sign these foriegn players as the prices for the likes of Waghorn, Spearing, Vaughan etc are just far to much for us to pay right now......Premier league clubs are financially so much better off nowadays due to the sky money that they don't need to let their youngsters go cheaply

exactly, and vaughan is a perfect example of why spending less for an overseas player makes sense.

personally, i would rather risk signing a guy who played 4 decent world cups a few months back, has 350 j-league games under his belt and is at the peak age for a midfielder, or Vaughan, who has played 10 championship games, and 40 odd prem games in the last 6 years...

Abe has played has many international matches as vaughan has played leauge matches. and i'm guessing he would probably expect the same wage, coming 'down' from everton.

[davieG]

I really dont want to come across as some sort of race warrior, but I cant help but be a little uneasy with the tone of this thread.

'Why are we signing so many unproven foreigners'

'I'd prefer us to sign English players'

I thought the relevence of where a player was from in conjunction with the preference of whether we signed them or not, dissapeared in the 80's.

We took a chance on Hobbs, Morrison, Fryatt, Weale and King who all had little or no experience of life in this league and it's not worked out badly at all so why would it be any different for a foreign player?

As an earlier poster pointed out, we signed several well established Championship players from these shores 2 years ago and we ended up getting relegated.

It seems that our poor start to the season has brought about some quite prejudice comments ('he wont pick morrison coz he's not Portugese enough' as an example) and it seems like some people are latching onto this train of thought as if it's the main reason for our poor start.

Lets not forget that on the opening day against Crystal Palace, there were no new players in the team just those from last season.

The squad as a whole are getting used to Sousa's style of play and training methods and this will take a little bit of time. The signings on the whole have been good and have made improvements to the squad so can we all please take a step back and allow the players to prove themselves to be bad signings before we dub them as such.

Why have you posted that in reply to me?

[Dr The Singh]

Why have you posted that in reply to me?

Cus he likes you!!!!

[Finnegan]

DavieG is a notorious racist. The mayor even said so.

[davieG]

Cus he likes you!!!!

Hmm as long as he doesn't ask me to join him in some nude mud wrestling unless bettso is a she and not a he then I'll reconsider.

DavieG is a notorious racist. The mayor even said so.

I'm getting a persecution complex

[leftsideoverhere]

There seem to be several of these threads going around at the moment, and giving people the benefit of the doubt, I'm prepared to believe that their resistance to the foreign players isn't inspired by racism or xenophobia, and that the OP isn't Wayne Brown in disguise. But in that case, I can only assume that the people arguing for 'proven championship players' are inspired by a woeful lack of ambition.

Pearson did an excellent job on a shoestring budget, bringing in loan players and picking people up from the lower leagues, and that approach served us well to restore our championship credentials over the last two seasons. But now, and especially with the new owners, we have an opportunity to lift ourselves above the likes of Preston, Coventry and Bristol, and actually stake a claim to be worthy contenders for the premier league.

To do that, we will need something more than 'proven championship players' who are just looking for the next place to do what they've done for the past half dozen seasons. We need players with hunger and fire - some such can be found in the lower leagues here, for sure, but to get that kind of player with real quality to boot, you're more likely to have to go further afield.

Sousa has already, in five games, given more first team bench time to our own academy players than Pearson did in two seasons. You can argue that he's been forced into that, but he could have panicked and made a slew of loan deals to tide us through for one more season, but he hasn't. He has loaned when there's been a real reason (presumably he's seen Vitor's quality, and look at the new keeper he's brought in as emergency cover for Weale) and bought wisely, including picking up Moussa from Southend so it's not like he's ignoring the lower English leagues.

Overall I think you've got to recognise that Sousa's dealings on the transfer market look like the actions of man with a plan, and that plan involves (mostly) younger players, with quality and footballing skill, and not so many premier league cast-offs or big names shoring up their pension fund.

Long may that approach continue. On that note, if Mandaric or Hoos tries to talk Sousa into taking Heskey I hope he tells them to take a running jump. I loved him when he was here at the start of his career, but I can't see it working out second time around: it would be for all the wrong reasons.

[Lillehamring]

There seem to be several of these threads going around at the moment, and giving people the benefit of the doubt, I'm prepared to believe that their resistance to the foreign players isn't inspired by racism or xenophobia, and that the OP isn't Wayne Brown in disguise. But in that case, I can only assume that the people arguing for 'proven championship players' are inspired by a woeful lack of ambition.

Pearson did an excellent job on a shoestring budget, bringing in loan players and picking people up from the lower leagues, and that approach served us well to restore our championship credentials over the last two seasons. But now, and especially with the new owners, we have an opportunity to lift ourselves above the likes of Preston, Coventry and Bristol, and actually stake a claim to be worthy contenders for the premier league.

To do that, we will need something more than 'proven championship players' who are just looking for the next place to do what they've done for the past half dozen seasons. We need players with hunger and fire - some such can be found in the lower leagues here, for sure, but to get that kind of player with real quality to boot, you're more likely to have to go further afield.

Sousa has already, in five games, given more first team bench time to our own academy players than Pearson did in two seasons. You can argue that he's been forced into that, but he could have panicked and made a slew of loan deals to tide us through for one more season, but he hasn't. He has loaned when there's been a real reason (presumably he's seen Vitor's quality, and look at the new keeper he's brought in as emergency cover for Weale) and bought wisely, including picking up Moussa from Southend so it's not like he's ignoring the lower English leagues.

Overall I think you've got to recognise that Sousa's dealings on the transfer market look like the actions of man with a plan, and that plan involves (mostly) younger players, with quality and footballing skill, and not so many premier league cast-offs or big names shoring up their pension fund.

Long may that approach continue. On that note, if Mandaric or Hoos tries to talk Sousa into taking Heskey I hope he tells them to take a running jump. I loved him when he was here at the start of his career, but I can't see it working out second time around: it would be for all the wrong reasons.

great post, especially the bit about ambition, you look at most teams who are competitive across europe and they are littered with imported players....

gone are the days of 'best of british' - fuckin Josh Low

[bettso]

Hmm as long as he doesn't ask me to join him in some nude mud wrestling unless bettso is a she and not a he then I'll reconsider.

I'm getting a persecution complex

Sorry dude just clicked the wrong post button.

No implication toward you whatsoever.