Sema has only made 1 start before tonight and a few dreadful sub performances yet he played 90 minutes. Sometimes the most obvious answer is the correct one.
Not started a game since October but surely he could've had a slot on the bench given he was making sub appearances for Bordeaux in late December? Would've been better than two centre backs on the bench.
He’s already oiled Bayet on some mediocre squad filler so job done. Whether he plays at all is secondary consideration.
But does old Mogster not want a big pay day from his 24(33) year old superstar? Think of the wonga he'll make from the Dennis sale (if he can worm his way into it). He could probably afford his bail
Maybe so, but Sema has been in our set up for a very long time and Kalu has not been, plus Kalu has also come to a new country and a vastly different league to what he is used to. Therefore he will probably take at least a week or two to adjust.
Exactly this. It shouldn't have needed forensic analysis. Simply meeting the player should have made any responsible owner think twice before forking out serious money for the player. He was signed in one of our best stocked positions and will probably barely play for us, before going on loan to sofia. Utter shambles of a club.
Given that we had to play Ken Sema only yesterday this is clearly not true. Kalu may well not be the profile of player we need for that position, but for sure we needed at least one other winger or forward in Jan.
Given we apparently made a move for both of them, not sure what your point is? The fact they rejected us had nothing to do with signing Kalu. That's not to say we shouldn't have signed a CB and a GK. We should have.
Cucho doesn't really do enough defensively to be a left-mid in a 442. He's also done absolutely nothing in every game he's started for us even in his preferred left-side of a 433 role.
Cucho is perfectly adequate to be 3rd or 4th choice RW for us, which is waht he is. Compare that with our first choice centre backs, goalkeepers, right back and midfield. Also look at our goals scored and chances created stats. It's clearly was not a priority for this window. If you said we were going to make 6 signings in Jan, I'd have said they should have been 2 first team centre backs, a first team left back, a first team goalie, a first team DMF and another first team DMF or a RB. As it is, we signed a goalie we won't see until next season, if ever, a young Colombian who will probably never play for us, a 64 year old right winger, a cheap centre back option, and a questionable midfielder. We did at least address the left back issue. There's absolutely no way that signing a 3rd/4th choice right winger was something we needed to divert resources or time into ahead of our areas of major concern. But people are so used to the pozzo method of buying players for their stockpile ahead of the team, that this is just seen as absolutely normal now.
Our 'making a move' has to be seen through the lense of experience though. We know what our 'moves' for such players are often like - derisory bids with zero intent on being successful. I'm sure there are times when Gino goes balls deep to sign a player and gets rebuffed, because of our status as a club, first team guarantees or budget, but I'm also convinced there are other times where it's because we've been told it will cost 5m and we offer 500k, but are happy to spend the same on a player from Belgium through Mogi.
Cucho is hardly very defensive and Sema probably fitted the defensive style Roy wanted to play better, hence Sema's selection.
At the start of the window on 1 Jan I posted: "What we need, in order: CB LB DM FW - either striker or left-wing, capable of more goal threat than King, JP and Cucho Good to have, in order: Goalscoring AM (but might just recall Zinc) RB GK" https://wfcforums.com/index.php?threads/transfer-window-january-2022.59010/#post-3081601 And as it turns out our four signings for the first team were pretty much exactly what I posted - nothing to do with me just blindingly accepting what the Pozzos have done in Jan after the fact. Kalu could turn out to be a dud and not the upgrade we needed, and it's a failure that he wasn't able to be used against Burnley, but another winger or forward was essential given how crap Cucho, JP and King have been lately. With Roy seemingly preferring 442 to 433 that also means that an extra winger who is capable of more defensive work is also even more useful than it was before. It was telling Cucho was brought on as one of the two forwards last night - he simply will not be suited to playing left mid in a 442, especially for someone like Hodgson. I've no idea what you're talking about with the "goals scored and chances created stats" either - the crux of it is that we haven't scored more than 1 goal in a match for 9 games. Burnley were cack last night yet none of the players on the field yesterday really looked capable of scoring. Cucho, JP and Sema have shown over this timeframe that they shouldn't be starters at this level. It remains to be seen whether Kalu is either but an upgrade was, as I posted at the start of the window, needed. At least given that the three other players we signed this window for the key positions appear to be the upgrades we needed, I won't 100% write him off until I've also seen him play for us. Kalu is adept at both left-wing and right-wing btw, in the last 1.5 seasons he's played more on the left than the right for Bordeaux. Given that we could well stick with the 442, I wouldn't be surprised if our starting front 4 with everyone available will be: ----- Dennis King ----- Kalu ---------------- Sarr Who are the other candidates we have for starting as LW in a 442?!
But... what's the point? To keep a few fans satisfied? Most people, myself included, are still pissed off that we didn't get anyone else through the door, and seemingly made our moves too late.
So he was match fit as far as we know, no news on injuries so why wasnt he at least on the bench? Even if R and R had had a look at him and decided he wasnt very good he should have at least made the bench, very strange.
If I understood the motivations of the batshit crazy decisions taken by our club over the past 4 years, maybe I'd have some better perspective, but I don't. All I and we have to go on are the reports and the snippets from the supposed ITKs about supposed moves we made. We frequently are linked with extreme low ball bids for seemingly decent prospects who we fail to land, whilst spending higher fees on unproven nobodies from Mogi or Turkey.
But do the moves for Jones and Henderson fit into that category? And did the signing of Kalu have any real impact on our ability to sign a competent keeper/CB. Personally I doubt it, it's just poor squad management and defensive recruitment.
Well, we can argue about it but it would be futile. The end result is the same. Perhaps we could have signed a keeper, central defender whilst negotiating for Kalu, but we didn't. Perhaps we had budget for another goalie besides Okaye, and it was just bad luck that we ended up forking out millions on him, whilst Bachman still started against Norwich. I think the only thing to agree on is that it's not one window. It's an ongoing theme for some years now. We used to have people defend the owners with arguments about how, perhaps they'd tried very hard behind the scenes to sign a CB and goalie, but that perhaps we had been rebuffed as an unattractive club or we couldn't match wages. I don't think those arguments hold water anymore. It's apparent to all by now, that our owner's transfer activities and our team's needs are not in concert.
You're completely ignoring my post in reply to your previous one a few up, where I pointed out at the start of the window we needed: "in order: CB LB DM FW - either striker or left-wing, capable of more goal threat than King, JP and Cucho" and, excepting the jury obviously being still out on Kalu, that's what we signed and the 3 who have played so far all seem good players - that sounds like being "in concert" to me. Sure, an extra CB would have also been good, but I still have perhaps misguided faith that Sierralta will eventually come good at this level given he was our best CB last season and hasn't yet had a run of games to get acclimatised, largely due to being unavailable. I don't think a new first GK was particularly needed given that Foster has actually been good this season when available.
On the bench tonight but still not used, you have to wonder why, unless he is not yet up to pace of the PL?
