Lad called Macaulay Langstaff at Notts County is apparently available for £1.5m, he has been a prolific goal scorer in the lower leagues though not at Championship level. Having said that a fair few teams are showing an interest in him and seem to think he could make the step up and be worth a punt, maybe we should be one of those teams, especially as we supposedly have got £2m for Healy currently burning a hole in our pockets.
You said we should sign Luke Jephcott for the exact same reasons. We also don’t have £2m ‘burning a hole in our pockets’ - Christ knows where you’ve got that from.
£1.5mil for an about to turn 27 year-old from League Two doesn't in any way sound like the kind of transfer we'd make.
Langstaff is an odd one, he scored 15 goals in 4103 mins (45 full games) from the 17/18 to the 20/21 season. Then in 21/22 season he won the golden boot in the National League North with Gateshead. Moved to Notts County in the National League - scored 42 goals (0 penalties!) in the 46 league games and is currently top scorer in L2 as well. 90 goals in 113 games is an incredible record, especially since he's gone up a tier each time. Whether he'd be able to make the jump from L2 > Championship though is an interesting one and the fee seems kinda low - he'll be big loss for Notts County and it's not far off what we paid Stevenage for Ben Wilmot and Langstaff is much more important for Notts.
Al-Hamadi joining Ipswich for around £1m. Will be interesting to see what he can do at this level, it's certainly a great move for him.
Waiting for Mogi to get his shady back alley contacts in the loop about our financial situation. Then we can expect a few players we have never heard of brought in on the cheap to shore up the numbers.
If I was Val I would feel very let down. He will front up and say he’s happy etc. but we need far more - we won’t sign anyone now unless it’s from Udinese or Mogi’s bucket of utter crap
It's quite baffling to hear VI talk about how happy he is with the squad and that we don't need to add anything. We ended the last game with Sierralta and Ince playing center mid and TDB has been playing RB 4-5 times over the last month or so. What more proof do you need that the squad is way, way too thin/small? We currently have 24 players in our squad, and that includes Baah and Hurtado, so effectively 22-23 players. It's just not enough, especially in the Championship with 46 league games. A world cup squad, which is meant to play only 3-7 games, consists of 26 players ffs. How are we supposed to go through a _season_ with just 22-23? We need at least another DM, a center back and some sort of cover at RB just to make up the numbers, and even then the squad would be thin.
It's clear what we need, but Gino has lost all interest. That's obvious. The only deals we can do are the cheapest of cheap deals.....even then that's too expensive. His big love are in real danger of going down, so I suspect that’s where his attention is directed.
It’s not baffling at all. Ismael is just happy to be working, he’s not going to risk that by being honest. He does as he’s told.
We know he is a puppet, but he’d be better served just not saying anything on the subject. His comments on squad depth just come over as irrational. Pozzo could trim it down to 18 and he’d still say he is happy. Before anyone gets upset, being spineless with his boss doesn’t mean he can’t outperform in other areas as he has done, but surely it will catch up with him/us.
"Way too thin" for what ? A promotion charge, yes probably but we are skint ! I can't believe we will sign a 3rd RB unless we can get rid of Ngakia. I think like most other champ sides we will need to accept we will be weakened when our first XI players aren't available.
I've said this before that not sure what people expect as a back up full back in a mid table Championship team. Morris and Ngakia are not great and shouldn't be starting on a regular basis but as back ups I think they're perfectly reasonable
Yes, agree, the issue with Ngakia is his fitness/availability. He started the season as first choice after all. I doubt we will spend further limited sums unless we can get him off the books.
Lack of spending an indication that we are set for / positioning ourselves on a sound financial footing for a takeover in the summer ? The only glimmer of hope I can garner from this situation
Or simply looking to continue developing a squad most were fully behind and enjoying before the hysteria of the January window kicked in. Admittedly losing three or four (Pollock and Ince + Louza and Healey) with minimal replacements wouldn't be great. But does feel like during each window people lose sight of what's actually happening on the pitch, where we are generally continuing to at least fall in line with expectation. A neutral wouldn't have watched the Southampton game and said we need multiple new signings to compete.
All I know is we're two injuries away from Dele-Bashiru being our right back and Sierralta being our defensive midfielder for the rest of the season.
The games are coming thick and fast and we have lost/are losing 4 solid squad options. Not signing replacements will leave us with multiple players out of position and kids making up the bench. I actually came away from Southampton saying the complete opposite, we look knackered.
If we want to have a go at promotion then of course we need players to come in but not sure that was ever the plan this season. We are clearly not going down so maybe we don't have to gamble in Jan and look again in the summer. I would like to see a CDM come in but I can't see us signing any full backs
Hopefully at the next “At your place” serious questions will be asked about why we took out multiple loans before the January window to spend nothing and not strengthen.
It's pretty obvious by now the loans over the past 2-3 years are to plug holes in cashflow and keep the lights on, not to spaff on the playing squad.
We were excellent for the first hour and should have pulled further clear before running out of gas as their best players came on. Southampton are a quality side and a spell of pressure (plus a goal or two) was always likely. We’re just not as good as them. I agree we might be facing a tricky couple of weeks with fatigue and fixture pile-up - and as I said, it will look different if we do lose four players and sign one. I also don’t think we should bring three or four players in just to cope with a tricky few weeks of fixtures. In a perfect world we bolster two or three positions but the money most likely isn’t there to do it the way we’d like. That’s why promotion remains a long shot. My main point is that the streamlined squad has been key to the enterprising efforts this season. We have good players and have been fairly consistent in our performance levels for months - but the hysteria of a transfer window can obscure much of what we’re already doing well.
Doubt it, last year of parachute payments isn't it? If you think the squad is bad now wait until the Summer when Asprilla, Kone, Hoedt are sold off and Martins and Dennis finish their loans. Probably be the last season in a while with any chance of promotion as it currently stands.
I agree. I just want fans to pressure the leadership of the club to admit it. Regardless of what they say is on the agenda, fans should hammer them about the state of our finances and not back down.
