I can't help but notice that a lot of the players we are bringing in are either still carrying injuries or have recently recovered from quite serious ones. Cauna was not fully recovered from injury when he joined us, Rose has had fairly recent injury problems and now we have brought in Stepenov who has had a recent serious head trauma injury. Even Willo2 and Cowie had had fairly recent injury problems before joining us. My guess is that decent quality players such as those we have signed, only become available precisely because they have had injury problems, ergo it is slightly risky to sign them. Maybe BR has decided that because of our current financial state, that if he wants to bring in reasonable quality players he has to take this calculated risk? It seems to be so far so good, especially with Willo2 and Cowie, but lets hope it does not come back to bite us!!!
The two that have come in recently had to be taken on now becasue the window for sining free agents / loans ran out yesterday. They are both on short term contracts until the end of the season when I would assume a decision will be made if we keep them on or not. I believe Cauna was towards the end of the January window which was the last point we could do a season loan. I believe the players we have signed are close enough to full fitness to be a safe bet and all three were a now or never basis.
It's market economics. If these players had been fit and playing storming for the last 12 months, we'd have been in a bidding war with 12 other clubs and had no chance of signing them. So yes, there is a risk with the signings, but Brendan will have to weigh up the risks against the potential loss. In the case of Steppenwolf, and Corner the outlay is minimal. We can afford to take "punts" on players if there is no fee, small wages and short contracts so we have successfully managed the risk pretty well I'd say. If Steppenwolf collapses from a powedered skull in 3 weeks, or Alecxsandrs doesn't turn the Cauna with his injury, we'll not be too far out of pocket. If they do get fit and play well, however, we can sign a bargain.
Stepanov must have medical clearance to play and therefore be fully recovered. The problem in his mind must be pyschological as with Cech. Of course nothing is guaranteed and indeed said player will be more at risk of developing a neurodegenerative disease because of that trauma ie iron seeding in the brain. As for Cauna he has the whole summer to recover. Player have injuries all the time and if we had not nabbed him now we may have lost him to some other club. Its a calculated risk. Sometimes it will come off, other times not so.
