Midfield_General

Two decent ones, two routine ones. Let's not get carried away lads

Red and White Flamin' Galaaar-my

They think it's bad now, wait until Martin returns to his spiritual home after Rangers give him the boot

And that is a very, very sad state of affairs

Ross Stewart calls his physio at half-time to reassure him that he's not seeing things and he has indeed managed 45 minutes unscathed

Half-time MaccaWatch: 1 good save 2 routine saves 1 caught in possession, got away with it 1 poor pass out to put the defender in trouble, got away with it

Great finish from Archer after Martinesque defending from Norwich. Edit: FFS Stewart has to score that.

Captain Darling? I assume they will have a cunning plan

To be fair they're used to seeing Eze on one wing and Olise on the other. I'm not surprised if they think he's a bit of a step down compared to that.

For me it's a draw between that, and playing two up top away against Bournemouth and starting with five centre forwards on the bench and none on the pitch.

I can't believe you need it explaining that he was bang average and unreliable to start with (hence not having been a first choice for years), which a couple of competent games a season and a half ago doesn't change, and at 35 is now 18 months older and highly unlikely to have improved. He was awful whenever he played last season (yes, in a poor side, but he was still personally poor), and poor in pre-season too. And the point isn't about who we should sign as a third choice to not get any minutes. It's about having credible competition for the goalkeeping spots and trying to actually improve the squad across the board. This point has all been set out above, I can't be bothered to explain it again. Mind you, I seem to remember you a couple of months ago confidently stating that Armstrong, Archer and BBD would all be good for 20 goals each in the Championship, so let's just say that we probably have differing views on the quality of some of our players and leave it there.

Even if Baz doesn't get injured, he essentially now has zero competition for his place. However badly he plays, we've painted ourself into a corner where we basically now can't drop him. What sort of DoF wastes a loan spot to knowingly create that situation? I've been giving Spors the benefit of the doubt until now but this is absolute amateur hour. I really hope I'm eating my words by the end of the window, but the cumulative effect of all his decisions so far mean that I'm now rapidly losing faith that he knows what he's doing or knows what a successful, promotion-worthy squad actually looks like.

The pioneer of the private executive toilet. Paid for by someone else, of course. The Hannah Ingram-Moore of the football world.

Nope. Verona rumoured to be interested but nothing concrete and as it stands he is still very much here. You don't need to start the Fiat just yet...

Go easy on him. He's spent the morning on another thread comprehensively proving he doesn't understand the EFL regulations either. He thought that if Bazunu got injured once the transfer window had shut that we could just go out and sign another keeper whenever we wanted 🤣 It's not been a good morning for Mr Wrong

Good. A poor signing who made no positive impact whatsoever. That anyone thought he was good enough to play in the Premier League, and then to move KWP out of his best position to accommodate him in the side is embarrassing.

Goalkeepers get injured all the time. On top of the general risk, Bazunu specifically has not long ago been out for 10 months with a ruptured achilles and then another two and a half months with a meniscus injury. He could easily get injured again at any time - any footballer could. In that not exactly unlikely scenario, if you think that a 35 year-old Alex McCarthy is good enough to be starting for a team that is meant to be going for automatic promotion, or that we can potentially afford to put out a weakened team until January and still be serious contenders for promotion, then we are just going to have to agree to disagree. We've just brought in at least £35m. We could have brought someone perfectly competent in for £3-£4m who would have pushed Baz and been better than McCarthy. Instead we've taken a massive, stupid and unnecessary risk in the goalkeeping position by putting all our eggs in one far from reliable basket, and wasted a valuable loan spot into the bargain. I 100% want Spors to succeed, but this on top of the decision to give Stephens a new contract, bringing in a rookie centre back and apparently pinning our goalscoring hopes on Downs, means that as far as I'm concerned he's now made a series of massive gambles concerning three absolutely critical positions. Maybe the Spertsyan signing will make it all worthwhile? Oh no wait, he got played like a complete fool for that as well. I hope the rest of the window is fucking spectacular because as it stands he appears to be making us less competitive with every decision he makes.

See below. I sincerely hope we don't have to find out.

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Opinions on Bazunu aside, the point is that this decision means that we are now one serious injury to Bazunu away from having McCarthy as our first choice goalkeeper for the season.

Bless you. Don't ever change, MLG 😛

No, you are completely wrong. Let's focus on after the window shuts which is obviously the point. The rule is EFL regulation 58. The EFL emergency goalkeeper rule only allows you to sign a new keeper, and only on a 7-day emergency rolling loan deal, if all of your senior goalkeepers are injured or ineligible to play. So if you have any fit senior goalkeepers, you are not eligible for an emergency loan and you have to play the one you have and cover the bench with a youth keeper. There is no rule that says you have to have three senior goalkeepers in your squad. So if Bazunu breaks his leg or gets a serious injury on 2nd September, or at any other point during the season, McCarthy is our keeper for the rest of the season and Long is the second choice. And I couldn't give a fuck if McCarthy had a few competent games 18 months ago. He has been average his entire career and is now 18 months older than he was then. He is obviously not good enough to be picked as a starting keeper for a team expecting to go for automatic promotion. So this decision means that if Bazunu gets injured, we are absolutely fucked.

To use an analogy, in a critical position we have now put literally all our eggs in one extremely unreliable basket. Why would you voluntarily take such a risk? I’m actually stunned at how pointlessly risky and inept this is. It is a huge, huge gamble that we didn’t have to make. We’ve just been given £40m. Spend £3m of it on a solid, proven Championship keeper like any of those who have been mentioned who is better than McCarthy and capable of pushing Baz, alleviate the risk and move on. But no. Instead take a massive unnecessary risk and fill the squad with more dross. Also what the fuck has Bazunu done that’s so special that he gets to be the only player in the squad with no competition for his place? Has he got photos of Spors or something? No club does that, especially not in such a key position. To all those saying it doesn’t matter because it’s only a third keeper, this decision now basically makes Baz undroppable for any game that matters, regardless of form. I hope you’re comfortable with that, but I’m fucking not. It’s an absolutely ridiculous ‘strategy’. Even if Spors pulls something major out of his arse in the next week, I am asking serious questions about his competence now, that he thinks this is a good approach.

No, making this signing is taking an enormous risk in a key position that can be the difference between getting promoted or not. It creates three issues: 1. The jury is very much out on whether Baz is a good enough no. 1 to start with 2. Now he has no credible competition for his spot, there is no-one to keep him on his toes, and we have no real options to swap him out if his form drops off 3. Let’s say he breaks his leg tomorrow. What then?

Dragan’s put loads of money in. He’s just allowed most of it to be spent really badly.