Is it our turn to go down?

I'm hopeful we can stay up with the first team, the worry is when injuries hit, which going by recent seasons is a given, we may lack the depth. I would definitely put us in the 'contenders for 18th' if this were to happen particularly given the business 2 of the 3 promoted teams have done.


Thoughts?

 

We're certainly going to be in the mix. If we can somehow stay almost completely injury free we might just about be OK, but that seems extremely unlikely, so with the squad we currently have I expect us to go down this year, yes.

 

There are always teams that are surprisingly crap. If we aren’t one of them then we’ll stay up.

 

I never knew there was a rota.

 

Yes. Us, Bournemouth and Cardiff to go down.

 

Yes, probably our turn. A host of injuries/fitness issues meant that our strongest area on paper (central midfield) was the one area we were desperately scrabbling about trying to reinforce at the end of the window.

We have a strike force that scored nine goals from open play between them last season. One of them has chronic fitness issues and can barely last twenty minutes at the best of times and has now missed the whole of pre-season. The other two have serious limitations.

We've strengthened on the cheap and are left desperately hoping that two young players who showed some potential a couple of years ago at Granada have put their attitude/injury/fitness/lack of goalscoring problems behind them.

We will need every gamble to come off to have a good season. Given how things have gone the last two seasons, can't see that happening.

 

'when' injuries hit?

They already have. It's ok though, we've signed some cast-off kid from West Ham.

 

I know this window hasn't seen a striker come in or the centre-back people wanted but there is another chance to sign players in January remember.

It doesn't mean we'll get them then, doesn't mean we won't but we're not necessarily stuck with the squad as it is for the whole season.

 

a scrap to avoid 18th between us and Newcastle wouldn't be the biggest surprise in the world.

 

At least parachute payments are even bigger these days.

I’m going to have to spend the whole season on the bog aren’t I?

 

Absolutely ridiculous to not have made signing a striker a priority this summer. If we struggle, or go down, we deserve everything we get.

 

Yes. We will be relegated.
JG will be sacked by the 10th game.
Disappointing transfer window.
Only Cardiff are above Watford as favourites to go down.
It is our turn and the club/supporters knew this before the end of last season.

 

Bit of a pointless table (no offence meant to poster)

If we hadn’t sold Rich we would be 1/3 of the way up, we have spent 30m more than Tottenham so guess they are ****ed

More seriously , think we are hard done by , imagine being a Newcastle or Palace fan

 

I appreciate your attitude and point, but the Pozzos and Duxbury have been very vocal previously about not finding any value in the January market, and we only have to look to last January to see a cast-iron example of us not bringing in players we obviously needed in that window; the only reason a bigger issue wasn't made is because it was generally implied that the issues would be addressed in the summer. And now we know, they weren't.

 

I realise their January stance but if those with the view that this squad is going to struggle are correct, it will mean we'll be in a worse position in the table than previous seasons. If that's the case I'd be stunned if they didn't get reinforcements in one way or another.

 

Yeah, but there is another table going around which shows longer term spend and we are among the highest.

 

I wonder what GT thought when faced with the prospect of getting us to the Premier League when stuck in the old Second Division. He certainly didn't despair. He got a great half season out of a crocked old Liverpool forward and put a striker in the back three. The next season, without barely a bean, he added two Carlisle players to the mix and got us up again.

The doom and gloom is just pathetic now. We have a good squad. They wouldn't be better if we had overpaid for them all. What matters now is how hard they work and how hard they fight. Hardly going to help if fans, with their limited knowledge of the circumstances, derived mostly from clickbait gossip, are ready to throw in the towel at the first sign of trouble.

We follow the transfer gossip because it's a laugh and a bit fascinating. But it is not real. it is not an accurate picture of the health of the club.

 

We will in the most part be bagging them in from midfield like we usually do. 'Out & out 'Strikers' in the lower half of this division are generally way overrated anyway, unless you have one with an established & proven PL pedigree & therefore worth 30m +

The fact that the likes of Fulham & Wolves have gone on massive spending sprees doesn't mean anything at this stage. A large proportion of those won't be successful & try gelling all those prima donnas together to make an effective team. We have for the first time in many seasons got a squad that is relatively settled & know how to play together.

If we need major reinforcements they will assess & acquire in Jan, whatever the cost.

 

What would be the point in bringing in players unless they improve the first team?

Our problem has been we spend our money on shyte squad players. This window we have kept it in our pockets unless players who will actually improve the first team appear.

No Oulares, Amrabats, Zeegelaars or Lukebakios.

We will have money to spend in January because we didn't panic buy this time around and piss money up the wall on our 5th choice signings on five year deals.

Injuries aside we have a good squad, and Gracia seems to have brought a good spirit, at least as much as can be seen before the season begins. I think we will do well this season.

 

As long as that south-coast scum go down too I'll be happy.

 

So glad we'll have money to spend in January when the market's worse, we'll only have half a season for those players to come in, adapt to the team and have a positive effect, and we'll quite possibly be in a worse position as a result, rather than at any point in the last 2 months the transfer window's been open, added to the however-long our scouting system has theoretically been working on 'identifying targets' before that.

 

Why would the players available in January be any better?

And if we do as badly as some of us fear until then, why would they come? They weren’t exactly beating our doors down now, were they?

 

Absolutely spot on!

 

Providing we have finally fixed our woeful medical team (and it's had a lot of investment) then we will be fine

Bottom half 45ish sort of points fine

 

Fulham will finish above us. Newcastle, Southampton and Muff will be there or there abouts.

 

Would you say the early signs are that the absurd issues in our player conditioning and recuperation have been addressed!? The midfield is already decimated, and no doubt by the time we come out of the first international break we'll be fielding Marriapa and Britos. At which point Chalobah will be "training with the first team" and not a word will have been said on Kaboul.

 

TBF the injuries were carried over from last season

 

Our first team is strong enough I agree. Our squad isn't - if we are regularly playing Okaka, Britos and Marriapa then we will be the comfortably the worst team in the league. It isn't our first team that worries me. It's our comical inability to keep players fit and our ludicrous recovery times. However, you reject this is a problem so you'll envisage the first team staying largely intact. As a result you'll be confident and I won't because I can envisage who will be playing by November.

 

Nope, we will be fine. We have a decent squad who have been together all summer and we haven’t wasted money panic buying a forward who will do nothing all season. Slight concern as ever is the injuries but surely we can’t have a 3rd season of long term injuries.

 

So you agree with me then. The good players didn't want to come to us.

Why then would we go and buy any old crap? Keep the money and maybe we find one or two good signings in January.

Or not - but at least we won't have a bloated squad of terrible players who we can't get rid of and suck all of the money out of our wage bill

So your suggestion here is what?

Everybody wants to sign quality players, but if they don't want to join us or we can't pay them enough, then that is pretty much that.

Would you feel better if we spent another £10m on some no-mark Spanish striker, who was 6th on our list of targets and who everyone knows will be ****? Or Oulare II?

Sign good players or sign nobody, I think that is a pretty reasonable position

 

That's true. But over the last 2 years most injuries takes longer than rival clubs to rehabilitate. I mean what has happened to Kaboul?

Hamstring in August (6 weeks)
Then metatarsal (8 weeks)
He was in full training in January 2018. That is the last the club has mentioned of him. It's farcical.

Does anyone expect Cleverly to be back before January?