All of those named were signed by us at 25 or younger. Strikers don't tend to hit, or come in to, their peak until 25+. Lucas Joao is 29 and seemingly already passed his peak.
Yet another protential past it signing to add to the "sign twilight players" club. No thanks. I know we badly need a striker but we need to look a lot further a field than this.
As long as this isn’t the only striker we sign it’s a good signing on a free in my opinion. Not too sure what happened last season with him but it wasn’t so long ago Lucas Joao was one of the best strikers in the division.
Would be a bang average signing. If that is indicative of the quality we are looking at, then we will be in a relegation fight.
Injured .. Fit right in then! Would say there is nothing wrong with signing players who are 29 or so but they do need to have good fitness records etc .
I agree. He was shocking in the match we played in the FA Cup against our kids. Well past his best. Surprised he’s only 29. Plays like he’s 39.
Only about 3-5 players per season have hit 20 goals in the Championship in recent years. We do need a better striker undoubtedly but a 20 goal a season man isn't essential, we got automatic promotion a few years ago with Sarr top scoring with 13. We were spoilt in the season where both Deeney and Ighalo managed it and Vydra also chipped in with 16. Three years ago João got 19 but seems to have had bad injury problems since then.
In fairness, you'd expect him to want fairly hefty wages, even more so if he's coming on a free, and we can't really afford any expensive punts these days
Same thought. I believe I was championing us signing him a few seasons back. Hopefully it's just agent talk putting his name out there.
Yep, but when those punts didn’t work out, we fixed it by bringing in Britt and Araujo. So what’s the problem?
Looking forward to bringing in this injury prone striker on a 5 year deal, to work closely with our medical team who are renowned for getting the best out of injury prone players.
Injury hampered him last season and he fell out, quite publicly over Twitter, with their interim manager Noel Hunt about allegedly refusing to play. I'm 50/50 about this signing really. He's a decent striker at this level and after we failed to score in nearly a third of our league games last season he could be a big improvement. If we can keep him fit and get him firing again he could be a really shrewd signing. If we can't it's yet another Injury prone player on our books with a suspect attitude.
Would be a good signing on a free, considering our status these days as a mediocre Championship side.
I hear on social media we are signing BRLR. No fee involved. Seems worth a punt. EDIT. It seems Mrs BRLR is actually paying us £500k to take him.
Have watched Joao a few times over the last couple of seasons as I live in reading.. Never looked interested in the games, didn’t put himself about to make anything positive happen. Big bloke but from what I remember used to throw himself to the ground around the penalty area for free kicks rather than use his physicality to create chances. That may have been because he didn’t have any support. my verdict, another Isaac Success
