Excited about our young wide players this year.

[KenMcnaughtsNuts]

The one big advantage of signing someone like Boyd, is we have nowt up front at all. So, whoever we sign will get games. And plenty of em. Totally different to playing for a team where you get dropped to the bench every other week. If we signed him, he would be in the team. A bit like Ched, Blackman, Kitson. All had obvious limitations, but all did a decent to good job for us. By law of averages, somebody has to score goals for us. Whoever we sign up front will get a decent amount of goals, purely because they will be near undropable and we have nobody else to score em. Unless we never score a goal and are bottom of the league!

 

[Kenilworth]

We weren't creating anything like the number chances we should have at the end of last season, certainly nothing of note that the "big" lads up front could put away - no use giving Porter 20-30 yards to run on goal and expect him to finish - he needs a ball whipped into the edge of the six yard box to get his nut onto. Any person observing the performances last season could easily see that we desperately needed to induce some pace and width into the play to get any success - to get the ball wide and behind defences to set things up for the strike pairing - but we never ventured much across the half way line with any level of support. Too many times players were isolated and crowded out, having to do too much on their own.

My worry is that the only real change is Febian Brandy. It's a good change but it is pretty much telegraphed to the opposition that if you cut the supply line out to Brandy you will negate pretty much any attacking threat from SUFC.

It's blatantly obvious that we need more goals - it's not apparent to me that this has been addressed anything like it needs to be. I appreciate that we are not at the start of the season yet and that there will be more changes to come. Whatever those changes are will dictate how we start the season and ultimately what we will be competing for.

 

[DazBlade88]

I mostly agree with you there, the only thing I would say is that McFadzean will get a lot more game time this season and he'll be a threat down the left with his directness. Him and Brandy on either wing should be very dangerous at this level, we just don't have much (especially in terms of pace) behind them.

 

[Gavlar]

we badly need strikers for sure, but its good that our wing options look much better than last yr. maybe murphy will come good this yr and start banging them in?

 

[KenMcnaughtsNuts]

If we don't stick McFadz in we're nuts. He's shown he could be just what we need. If he doesn't do it then fair enough, leave him out again until he's matured more, but we should be giving him a run to see if he's ready yet. He's still rough as a badger arse, but you can see glimpses of talent almost every time he plays for us. We shouldn't be playing with the fear that we had last season. The board, management, fans should all be saying look we aren't expecting promotion this season. Just to try to find our way forward with a new team. We never have a longterm plan, despite all the crap our board says, it's just stick plasters over the holes and get promotion. Every year we have a worse team yet supposedly every year we MUST get promotion. Ridiculous really.

 

[Pinchy]

We have no obligation to give anyone 'a run'. It's not the Sunday Sports League. I well remember giving Lee Baxter a run at Burnley.

It's actually up to the player in question to make it impossible, by excelling at a lower level, for the Gaffer to leave him put. That's exactly how it should be.

We're engaged in professional football, not Stars in Their Eyes.

 

[KenMcnaughtsNuts]

Yes Stars in Your Eyes. Hilarious. Very constructive.

Within reason i don't care too much how players do at lower levels, often players can look like Pele in the reserves but never do a thing for the first team. When i say "a run" i mean until he proves he doesn't deserve to be there. That could be 1 game, it could be 20 games. Almost all new signings who are expected to be in the team get this chance. If/when we sign a striker, it doesn't matter how he looks in training or plays in friendlies (unless he is utterly hopeless), he will probably start the season in the first team until it becomes apparent he shouldn't be there. I don't see why McFadzean should be any different. He proved to most people last season that he deserves to start the season with the jersey, not be stuck on the bench waiting for scraps. And more to the point, he could be very beneficial to the team. If he plays badly, drop him. If he plays ok stick with him until either someone else comes on as sub and looks better, or he actually plays badly. At the start of the season 11 players have the jersey, it's theirs to lose or until someone else wins it off them, all i'm saying is barring a really poor pre-season he should be one of them.

If we start the season with Murphy/Flynn or whoever else on the left, we could be missing out. Chances are either of those would do a competent job and McFadzean won't get a look-in except the odd 10 minutes here and there with virtually no chance to show what he can do. If Howard hadn't got injured, Long would still be stuck on the bench never getting a game.

 

[kingston RAWW]

Its Weir not we're.

 

[Sothall_Blade]

Very valid post.I am hoping Weir has a goal scorer lined up as now we probably have more pace and genuine wingers we need a striker who can strike.
It will be some time before Miller gets back to full fitness so to complete the side a striker is needed.
UTB

Two, in my opinion!

We won't be signing any new players unless we sell somebody first.
Weir has already given his "no signings imminent, I know the financial restrictions at the club" speech.
The fact that Creswell is still in the first team squad suggests his contract hasn't expired yet as others had suggested.
So we potentially have Creswell, Porter, Brandy, Ironside, Murphy, Miller, De Girolamo.
Not good enough, but there's no way that Winter and the board will sanction the signing of two extra strikers with all those still on the books.

The most likely scenario is that other clubs will make a late August bid for Long and/or Maguire.
They'll know from every other transfer window that this sends our board into panic mode and they'll accept whatever offer gets thrown at them, "You can't turn down an offer from a club in an higher league etc".
Weir will then have a few days/hours to sign cheap replacements for the sold players, maybe one new striker and he'll possibly be allowed to borrow a young player or two from Everton.

 

[Pinchy]

There is nowhere near enough goal threat amongst our existing strikers, especially as Miller and Di-De-Gi are out for an unspecified period plus lack of match fitness when (if) they do return.

Cresswell and Porter won't get a dozen between them and Ironside's next will be his first. If any one of those three is first choice centre-forward this season I shall be astonished and we will be unsuccessful. I'm quite sure DW is well aware of that [apart from my astonishment, of course, but he only has to ask].

I'm pretty sure there will be further recruitment.

 

[stannyblade]

I reckon that Porter will get double figures if he gets a good run of games playing alongside a quick partner.