WINTER TRANSFER RUMOURS | Page 76 | Vital Football

WINTER TRANSFER RUMOURS

Last summer transfer deadline day everyone knows we desperately need a striker we sign yet another winger. Fast forward to winter deadline day we desperately need a striker we sign yet another winger. Coco Maloney says we cannot have 3 strikers but we can have more wingmen than the frigging RAF
 
Hello Bearsuit, with the large size of the squad this season, we should have been signing players who are best in their position or covering serious injuries (like in central midfield). This while loaning out or selling the understudies.

I hoped we would sign a third striker yesterday who would have been first choice and not third in line.

Fingers crossed for Darcy, Goodwin and Dale mind. They do, at least, deserve a proper chance.
Two things can be true at once:

1. We've got an excessive amount of players in the squad and especially in certain positions.

2. After Aasgaard left we are severely lacking goals in the squad when we were already the lowest scorers in the division.

The answer to the first problem isn't to ignore the second. We do need to decrease the size of the squad moving forward by getting rid of the ineffective players we already in overstocked positions. But we remain under stocked up front and this window we needed to add try and replace as many goals as possible that we just lost.

We all hope that the players we have step up and score goals at a rate higher rate than they've previously done to bridge the gap Aasgaard left. But that is asking a lot and certainly not something we can bank on.

Having Goodwin gives us the option to potential play Taylor deeper, but if Goodwin isn't fit or in form (a bit like now) - Taylor has to go up front as there is no other option. If Goodwin gets a run in the side, we play both together and they are both tiring in the later stages of the game and need to come off after putting in a tough shift we haven't got anyone who can go up front. It's not just injuries it's giving us options of how we can make the best use of Taylor in different positions.

Hi guys, I'll try an reply to both your posts in one go.

Signing our first choice striker this window would have been great. However, January windows are notoriously expensive and low on available players. Given that we are still building our squad from scratch with limited funds, I think the club is right to take the gamble (I admit it is bit of a gamble), cut some corners, and reserve funds to go for primary targets in the summer. If the Wiredu rumors are correct, we've demonstrated exactly what I'm saying, that we were willing to go for primary targets this window if they were available. I hope (and believe) that's the type of summer transfer window we are gearing up for.

As for the idea that we have a bloated and imbalanced squad, I wrote about a few days ago, and I just don't see it. We have some who will not take us forward, but I don't put any the players we have signed for a fee in that bracket (outside Asamoah most likely). To put some numbers to my perspective (they'll not stack up completely, as I'm not accounting for loans going back etc.)

From Transfermarkt:
- Current squad has 33 players (that's counting everyone: including the likes of Lonergan, Joe Adams etc.)
- 17 of the current squad have been signed this season (I believe in total we have signed 21)
- Only 4 of the current squad were signed last season (one of them being McManaman)
- The remaining players, who were with us at the start of Maloney's tenure are:
Sam Tickle, Tom Watson, Jason Kerr, James Carragher, Luke Robinson, Baba Adeeko, Scott Smith, Harry McHugh, Kai Payne (possibly, not sure), Chris Sze, Joe Adams (possibly, not sure).

I think you get the picture. Bar Kerr that's ALL academy players. Point being, outside of our Academy players, our current squad has essentially been built THIS season and clearly on tight budget.

So that some raw numbers providing context for my position. We have had a massive turnover of players since Maloney came in. To expect that we have a completely balanced squad, room to send our youngsters on loan etc. is, in my view, turning a blind eye to the realities of our rebuild (imagine we didn't have Smith and McHugh available right now). We should be happy we have a solid foundation we can add quality to in the summer, even though it is lacking quality in some areas right now. Rome wasn't built in a day, and it took Klopp 3 seasons to make Liverpool compete. I think we can allow Gregor and Shaun a little more grace.

That's a lot of words, and there is a lot more to be said if we could have a live dialogue, so I'll leave it here.

Love the conversation guys, thanks for reading (if you did ;))
 
Having Goodwin (who replaced Hugill) gives us the option to potential play Taylor deeper, but if Goodwin isn't fit or in form (a bit like now) - Taylor has to go up front as there is no other option. If Goodwin gets a run in the side, we play both together and they are both tiring in the later stages of the game and need to come off, we could put Darcy in as no10 but we haven't got anyone on the bench who could go up front. It's not just injuries it's giving us options of how we can make the best use of Taylor in different positions.

Hopefully it doesn't come back to bite us, but i think we've left ourselves a striker short.

One more note on this point specifically (I can't help myself): TayIor has been our main striker ever since Hugill got dropped. Unless we had gotten a permanent first-choice striker in, I think we will be doing ourselves a disservice trying to shift Taylor back to the "10" role and learn to play with a new guy on top. Essentially, with the type of striker Taylor is, we need to wingers to contribute with more goals.

Darcy has to be given a fair crack at making that position his own. We'll see if he deserves that.
 
Hi guys, I'll try an reply to both your posts in one go.

Signing our first choice striker this window would have been great. However, January windows are notoriously expensive and low on available players. Given that we are still building our squad from scratch with limited funds, I think the club is right to take the gamble (I admit it is bit of a gamble), cut some corners, and reserve funds to go for primary targets in the summer. If the Wiredu rumors are correct, we've demonstrated exactly what I'm saying, that we were willing to go for primary targets this window if they were available. I hope (and believe) that's the type of summer transfer window we are gearing up for.

As for the idea that we have a bloated and imbalanced squad, I wrote about a few days ago, and I just don't see it. We have some who will not take us forward, but I don't put any the players we have signed for a fee in that bracket (outside Asamoah most likely). To put some numbers to my perspective (they'll not stack up completely, as I'm not accounting for loans going back etc.)

From Transfermarkt:
- Current squad has 33 players (that's counting everyone: including the likes of Lonergan, Joe Adams etc.)
- 17 of the current squad have been signed this season (I believe in total we have signed 21)
- Only 4 of the current squad were signed last season (one of them being McManaman)
- The remaining players, who were with us at the start of Maloney's tenure are:
Sam Tickle, Tom Watson, Jason Kerr, James Carragher, Luke Robinson, Baba Adeeko, Scott Smith, Harry McHugh, Kai Payne (possibly, not sure), Chris Sze, Joe Adams (possibly, not sure).

I think you get the picture. Bar Kerr that's ALL academy players. Point being, outside of our Academy players, our current squad has essentially been built THIS season and clearly on tight budget.

So that some raw numbers providing context for my position. We have had a massive turnover of players since Maloney came in. To expect that we have a completely balanced squad, room to send our youngsters on loan etc. is, in my view, turning a blind eye to the realities of our rebuild (imagine we didn't have Smith and McHugh available right now). We should be happy we have a solid foundation we can add quality to in the summer, even though it is lacking quality in some areas right now. Rome wasn't built in a day, and it took Klopp 3 seasons to make Liverpool compete. I think we can allow Gregor and Shaun a little more grace.

That's a lot of words, and there is a lot more to be said if we could have a live dialogue, so I'll leave it here.

Love the conversation guys, thanks for reading (if you did ;))
Y'know Bearsuit, that's a really well supported set of reasoning that leads to this old duffer having to admit they can be wrong at times.

To elaborate, for your Klopp example you could add Ferguson at Manchester United - who needed more time, and some luck, to really get things moving.

Memo to self (and maybe some others here): some further thought and, indeed, grace would go a long way.

Cheers sir.
 
Y'know Bearsuit, that's a really well supported set of reasoning that leads to this old duffer having to admit they can be wrong at times.

To elaborate, for your Klopp example you could add Ferguson at Manchester United - who needed more time, and some luck, to really get things moving.

Memo to self (and maybe some others here): some further thought and, indeed, grace would go a long way.

Cheers sir.

Happy to dialogue when the counterpart is listening. Cheers.
 
One more note on this point specifically (I can't help myself): TayIor has been our main striker ever since Hugill got dropped. Unless we had gotten a permanent first-choice striker in, I think we will be doing ourselves a disservice trying to shift Taylor back to the "10" role and learn to play with a new guy on top. Essentially, with the type of striker Taylor is, we need to wingers to contribute with more goals.

Darcy has to be given a fair crack at making that position his own. We'll see if he deserves that.

I rate Taylor highly, i dont think he's probably a natural striker but he's done very well for us up front with Aasgaard behind him. He works his socks of and competes very well despite not being the biggest but I do think he benefitted from having Aasgaard's hold up play just behind him.

Darcy is a natural 10 but lacks the physical presence of Aasgaard, while Weir has the presence but probably lacks the creativity or goal threat.

Goodwin in theory should be able to offer the height and hold up we lost in Aasgaard and is a natural striker. So if he could come in and do well it could free Taylor up to fill Aasgaard's spot as a no10 where he'd have more time and space to really show his creativity. They are probably the best combination of profiles from the options we have if they both play well.

But as it stands Goodwin hasn't done enough in his initial apperances to make us trust him over Taylor to lead the line. But I suspect we'll try it a few times between now and the summer.
 
To be fair though his replacement had 8 goal contributions in 24 appearances (14 starts) in L1 last season and isn't so lightweight. He's only played a total of 20 minutes of football in the last 11 months or so - so it's probably not a surprise he's not hit the ground running.

I agree he's not made a great first impression in his limited minutes so far, but he has been a good player in the past and is still young, so i would hope given a bit of time to get fit and sharp he'll regain the form that saw Oxford pay 350k for him a year ago. Time will tell.
Far too early to judge Goodwin. We need to give him a chance
 
Last summer transfer deadline day everyone knows we desperately need a striker we sign yet another winger. Fast forward to winter deadline day we desperately need a striker we sign yet another winger. Coco Maloney says we cannot have 3 strikers but we can have more wingmen than the frigging RAF

To be fair after Thomas got injured, Olakigbe went back, McManaman looking like he's on his last legs and Asamoah seemingly not in consideration we did need another winger.

But we needed a striker too.
 
To be fair after Thomas got injured, Olakigbe went back, McManaman looking like he's on his last legs and Asamoah seemingly not in consideration we did need another winger.

But we needed a striker too.
He doesn't have to be a world beater to be better than the 4 you mentioned, you can add Rankine to your list too as he's not much cop either.
 
I rate Taylor highly, i dont think he's probably a natural striker but he's done very well for us up front with Aasgaard behind him. He works his socks of and competes very well despite not being the biggest but I do think he benefitted from having Aasgaard's hold up play just behind him.

Darcy is a natural 10 but lacks the physical presence of Aasgaard, while Weir has the presence but probably lacks the creativity or goal threat.

Goodwin in theory should be able to offer the height and hold up we lost in Aasgaard and is a natural striker. So if he could come in and do well it could free Taylor up to fill Aasgaard's spot as a no10 where he'd have more time and space to really show his creativity. They are probably the best combination of profiles from the options we have if they both play well.

But as it stands Goodwin hasn't done enough in his initial apperances to make us trust him over Taylor to lead the line. But I suspect we'll try it a few times between now and the summer.

Agreed. Taylor is still learning the position, and isn't quite a natural finisher. Goodwin will need some time and we need to improve as a team. Goals and quality of play will come if we play with endeavor and lose the fear, I believe.

The Lincoln game showed we've enough quality to be solid midtable as it stands. Fingers crossed we've had our share of injuries now though.
 
I think we have an opportunity to evolve a bit as a team after this window and let’s be honest we need to. We haven’t seen what Goodwin can do, we have a new number 10 and a proper League One standard winger.

I don’t get the chance to watch the team as much as you guys (going to the match rather than watching on TV) and MiW would say that is a blessing for me, but the best I saw us play was away at Bristol Rovers. Now I know Rovers were truly awful, but the key to that win was Jensen Weir who was doing what none of our other central midfielders do - he ran forward with the ball and even (wait for it) beyond the striker. When we are least effective with the boring sideways passing it is when we have no movement in midfield and we don’t drag players out of position or take players out of the game by dribbling past them. Maloney criticised Weir for doing this at Stevenage when he gave the ball away prior to his sending off but I would rather our players tried to beat a man and change the dynamic of the game than turn back and play the easy pass back to the keeper so we allow the opposition to get back into shape.

My point is that yes we will all miss Thelo, but I think if Weir gets a run of games, which he may get now due to injuries, he could be a spark to get us playing a bit more effectively and hopefully more positively
 
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I have been disappointed with Weir overall since he signed but I agree with the above SwindonLatic. His best game for us was vs Bristol Rovers and in fairness to him he had a decent game against Lincoln on Saturday in the 10 role.

I'm beginning to wonder if it's worth trying Weir as a 10 alongside Darcy for the remainder of the season. His best season in League One came during his loan spell at Morecambe and I can only assume given he noted double figures for goals that season that he was deployed as a number 10 there.

We have tried Weir deep in a more restrictive role and I don't think it suits him. Not to mention in March we will have Adeeko, Kai Payne and Francois back from injury combined with Norburn and Scott Smith, it should mean we have sufficient number in the deep midfield role. No need when they are back fit to keep playing Weir deep, so pushing him further up the pitch is worth a try. Given we paid a decent transfer fee for him, it's a transfer we need to see work out, especially in this more self-sustaining model we are now operating under.
 
I think we have an opportunity to evolve a bit as a team after this window and let’s be honest we need to. We haven’t seen what Goodwin can do, we have a new number 10 and a proper League One standard winger.

I don’t get the chance to watch the team as much as you guys (going to the match rather than watching on TV) and MiW would say that is a blessing for me, but the best I saw us play was away at Bristol Rovers. Now I know Rovers were truly awful, but the key to that win was Jensen Weir who was doing what none of our other central midfielders do - he ran forward with the ball and even (wait for it) beyond the striker. When we are least effective with the boring sideways passing it is when we have no movement in midfield and we don’t drag players out of position or take players out of the game by dribbling past them. Maloney criticised Weir for doing this at Stevenage when he gave the ball away prior to his sending off but I would rather our players tried to beat a man and change the dynamic of the game than turn back and play the easy pass back to the keeper so we allow the opposition to get back into shape.

My point is that yes we will all miss Thelo, but I think if Weir gets a run if games, which he may get now fit to injuries, he could be a spark to get us playing a bit more effectively and hopefully more positively
Considering not too long ago many fans were calling Thelo worse than shite and his own manager saw fit to drop him and sub him willy nilly so we should manage without him. We must likely will miss his goals but if Baloney plays Taylor in his position and Goodwin as the striker then Taylor could be in the goals. Thing is Baloney probably won't and will most likely persist with Dale as lone striker. One or the other but not both.
 
Considering not too long ago many fans were calling Thelo worse than shite and his own manager saw fit to drop him and sub him willy nilly so we should manage without him. We must likely will miss his goals but if Baloney plays Taylor in his position and Goodwin as the striker then Taylor could be in the goals. Thing is Baloney probably won't and will most likely persist with Dale as lone striker. One or the other but not both.

I dont think anyone called him worse than shite, it was just he didn't always show his potential and did go missing occasionally.
His most consistent period has been the last month which has also coincided with no International games for him to have to attend.
 
All these posts and reasons why but none can mask over the truth.Maloney was useless at Hibs so they binned him before the ink was dry on his contract . He is useless here but for some strange reason he is seen as the future of WAFC. Christ help us its looking like we are stuck with this agony for the foreseeable future. I want my club back the club I've loved for almost 60 years and cannot take much more of this nonsense. I've always disagreed with Frank on Mike Danson but the more he allows this lunatic to take over the asylum my support for him will dwindle
 
Considering not too long ago many fans were calling Thelo worse than shite and his own manager saw fit to drop him and sub him willy nilly so we should manage without him. We must likely will miss his goals but if Baloney plays Taylor in his position and Goodwin as the striker then Taylor could be in the goals. Thing is Baloney probably won't and will most likely persist with Dale as lone striker. One or the other but not both.
He recently tried two up front.

Do you remember how it went?
 
He recently tried two up front.

Do you remember how it went?
Yes similar to a lot of games this season. I didn't suggest playing with two up top or in 4-4-2 although I wish football in general would return to this as it was much better on the eye than the shite we witness nowadays. If you read my post again I suggested playing Goodwin up top and Dale in the attacking mid role vacated by Thelo.
 
Bristol away was by far Weir's best game, he was running the show that day. Since then he was tried as both def and attacking mid and struggled to make much of an impact in either role before last Saturday when he had by far his best game since his debut.

He clearly has potential but he needs to start showing it more regularly. Hopefully last weekend was him starting to turn the corner but time will tell.
 
I have been disappointed with Weir overall since he signed but I agree with the above SwindonLatic. His best game for us was vs Bristol Rovers and in fairness to him he had a decent game against Lincoln on Saturday in the 10 role.

I'm beginning to wonder if it's worth trying Weir as a 10 alongside Darcy for the remainder of the season. His best season in League One came during his loan spell at Morecambe and I can only assume given he noted double figures for goals that season that he was deployed as a number 10 there.

We have tried Weir deep in a more restrictive role and I don't think it suits him. Not to mention in March we will have Adeeko, Kai Payne and Francois back from injury combined with Norburn and Scott Smith, it should mean we have sufficient number in the deep midfield role. No need when they are back fit to keep playing Weir deep, so pushing him further up the pitch is worth a try. Given we paid a decent transfer fee for him, it's a transfer we need to see work out, especially in this more self-sustaining model we are now operating under.

According to Transfermarkt he was mostly used in central / def midfield (with former loanee Liam Shaw), rather than as a no10. Which makes his 16 goal contributions that season even more impressive, even more so when you consider they were a struggling side.

There's definitely a player in there we've not really seen yet.
 
I have been disappointed with Weir overall since he signed but I agree with the above SwindonLatic. His best game for us was vs Bristol Rovers and in fairness to him he had a decent game against Lincoln on Saturday in the 10 role.

I'm beginning to wonder if it's worth trying Weir as a 10 alongside Darcy for the remainder of the season. His best season in League One came during his loan spell at Morecambe and I can only assume given he noted double figures for goals that season that he was deployed as a number 10 there.

We have tried Weir deep in a more restrictive role and I don't think it suits him. Not to mention in March we will have Adeeko, Kai Payne and Francois back from injury combined with Norburn and Scott Smith, it should mean we have sufficient number in the deep midfield role. No need when they are back fit to keep playing Weir deep, so pushing him further up the pitch is worth a try. Given we paid a decent transfer fee for him, it's a transfer we need to see work out, especially in this more self-sustaining model we are now operating under.
I think his lack of contribution is more about tactics. Of the 7 players we have capable of playing those central midfield roles, between them they have amassed just 7 assists all season in the league. Matt Smith has 3 of those.

We just create nothing from those roles. They shield the defence well, as shown by the mean defence, but neuter the attack.