Silly Season January 2014

[Fansince1988]

What striker would that be again?

That hon
Think he ment if one of Barry or McCarthy was injured,mirallas is the striker I want to see for the next couple of games.

 

[nsno-chris]

the transfer window shut 1hr 15mins ago and people are moaning about summer transfers already.

Everything is if's and but's; first season for a new manager, lets see where we finish and he can reassess his squad in the summer.

 

[steken1]

Absolutely made up you aren't the manager then! He at the very least has a much more level head.

I'm made up I'm not the manager too. I'd hate to be let down by my boss and be put in a position where i gad no choice but to lie about it.

At least we'll sign Lukaku in the summer when we'll put the arteta, fer, fellaini and jelavic money together, at last.

 

[Moomin]

Six or seven - basically rebuild a squad from scratch.

People assume the summer will see a bid for Lukaku - good luck with that if we have no European football whatsoever to speak of. Barry might come in, Deulofeu will be gone, as will Traore.

So we'd need two strikers, two central midfielders, a winger and a centre half who ideally can cover left back if required. Bare minimum. The chance of being in as good a position as we are now after that type of transition... pfft, not optimistic.

The chance was now IMO. Didn't need a world beater tonight, but we needed to make sure that we covered the worse case scenarios for the run in.

Even if we got in the Europa league, we could bid for Lukaku and hope to get him on a 20 million deal ( 4 years paying 5 million if Chelsea agree ) Its a lot of money we need really.

Champions league cash would have come in handy, I think we will regret not going for it in a few months. We always seem to reach a point, with a bit of investment or forward thinking we could have pushed on.

 

[CahillsCornerFlag]

How many players will we need to buy in the summer?? Replace the loans, Pienaar maybe?? Distan will need replacing eventually. I'm not even going to bother thinking about it, we all got excited last September that we would have some money in this window to spend.

At the very least 4. I'm talking bare minimum. Assuming ones Barry, ones Batshuayi, then we still need a striker, winger, centre mid and centre back. Another attacking mid would be nice too.

 

[Librarian]

Was sarcasm, the board are a joke, but we have known that for quite a few years now.

You're right, & past performance may actually be a very good indicator of future performance.

 

[marnie]

If........... you knew our league position now, and your real expectations (individually) 6/7 months ago.............. YOU WOULD ALL BE KNOCKING ONE OUT NOW.We never envisaged Champions League,the media set us that bar !!!!!!!!!!!!! EUROPA WILL DO ME THIS YEAR......... and then let the man do his job next season (with his team)

 

[uknightbreed]

How many players will we need to buy in the summer?? Replace the loans, Pienaar maybe?? Distan will need replacing eventually. I'm not even going to bother thinking about it, we all got excited last September that we would have some money in this window to spend.

well looking at the changes this season...

alcaraz - heitinga
mccarthy - fellaini
kone - anichebe
mcgeady - jelavic

the loans on top replaced no squad place really ..... barry deulofeu traore lukaku.... and are top drawer.

we defo need to work hard to replace these 4 loans quality.
the players on the fringe are imo hibbert osman gueye naismith pienaar. i can see atleast 1 of those going.

so atleast 5 new faces/signings

 

[AndyZ]

That hon
Think he ment if one of Barry or McCarthy was injured,mirallas is the striker I want to see for the next couple of games.

yes and no. we can play that way if we have to due to injury, but also many are calling out for more creativity from our central midfield. I think playing Barkley and Mirallas through the middle of the park would be fantastic. Very creative duo right there.

 

[Fansince1988]

Because they have been brainwashed by the likes of Alan Myers, Greg O'keefe and co. We had 2 long term injuries quite early into season which needed addressing, then we have lost another two in Jelavic and Heitinga. Replaced by McGeady and a injured striker. Alcarez can looks like he can only play 2 games max before missing a few, Distin is out injured. Martinez knew Heitinga was going for quite a while, plenty of time to earmark a replacement in my opinion. If money is spent in the summer, with a key sale, will you lot still be happy then ?

No I will not be happy if we have to sell to buy,we need to replace Lukaku and need a CM them two will cost around £25 million,see if we can get Deulofeu for another season,get Barry signed but I don't really want to see anymore than 2 loans that includes Deulofeu.

 

[Zodiak2]

Get Mr Miyagi in with his magic treatment for Kone, Gibson and Oviedo (perhaps a touch optimistic there).

We'll be sound.

He's dead.

 

[chicoazul]

He's dead.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

 

[Tubey]

People coming out with mad things here... Two things:

1 - We have to be now rank outsiders for a Europa League finish in the league after this window. Chelsea, City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Spurs, Man Utd are hot favourites for the top six. We needed to compete with Tottenham; United will definitely overhaul that two point gap, so we're in a straight fight for 6th unless we do amazingly well.

2 - People saying "at least we'll sign Lukaku now"... You're basing this on sheer optimism rather than reality. The only chance we had was if we had European football in my view. The only signs we've had are that Lukaku will be returning to Chelsea at the seasons end. Even if he did come available at a cut price of say £15m, a continental side who are in Europe would snap him up and they'd be an infinitely better lure for him.

This is why I'm saying the chance was now. Not wanting to put a downer on things but let's just be brutally honest - we're in an incredible position NOW to grab European football either through the league or the cup and what we needed to do was make the squad deep enough to give us the best possible chance via both routes. We could spend the "warchest" in the summer and I'd be amazed if we were in the position we are now in 2015.

 

[Moomin]

He's dead.

In respect of him, we should burn this thread.

 

[Fansince1988]

We might not actually have to sell to buy in the summer for once, gotta be happy with that surely.

That I would be happy with there's some key players we must keep.Theres a few older players but they still have a season or so left in them and there's no squad member I'm unhappy with ATM.We will need a main striker in the summer but Kone must prove himself to be a good back up.