HarvSFC

You’d think Burnley may be tempted to spend £15m+ on Tella as well, should they go up. We spent the same on Armstrong on Adams. Unfortunately, I can’t see another Forest throwing down £42m, as they did for Gibbs-White last summer.

Sulemana gives us much needed pace in attack. A. Armstrong, Djenepo and Edozie are our fastest attacking players at the moment, but none of them can actually do anything with the ball. They're just direct runners. You'd hope Sulemana could actually get some assists to go alongside his pace. Has to be better than Eluseless who has started most of the season and Aribo who I'm faster than, while Walcott and S. Armstrong are crocked. S. Armstrong, excuse the cliché, would actually feel like a new signing if he regained his fitness. Then you'd hope Onuachu knows how to finish his dinner, while also providing power and running upfront. If JWP's corners/indirect free kicks fell to him rather than Salisu then we may actually look dangerous from set-pieces. Essentially, Onuachu needs to be our Papiss Cisse/Pavel Pogrebnyak. Two average as hell footballers who had a scoring purple patch after joining the Premier League in January and never repeated similar stats in following seasons. Gabbiadini and Saganowski would be our own versions. So, it's been done before and you would hope Onuachu would be able to prolong the scoring, rather than being a half season thing. Now, the issue is that a lot of the clubs around us have also strengthened. Bournemouth have spent close to £100m this window, Wolves have spent over £60m, West Ham got a proven scorer in Ings, Leeds have gone over £60m, while Forest have signed a handful more, while trying to flog a few summer signings proving their scatter gun approach. So, it's going to be a very tough run in, I feel. There's been a severe lack of quality in the first half of the season at the bottom of the table, but the majority have now put the money where their mouth is. We're still in with a very good chance of staying up ourselves as despite being 20th, we are still only 3 points off 14th. That said, if Onuachu and Sulemana do sign then we need both to start on Saturday. We can't afford to waste anymore games with 18 left. We need 6 points from Brentford and Wolves if we're realistic about staying up and persisting with the same faces isn't going to get us those points. Now, lets all laugh at Everton. Tried to sign both Onuachu and Sulemana. Turns out the dugouts aren't that big a draw, they get no one, hopefully nailed on for 20th and it would be poetic if we stay up while they go down after smashing their glass ceiling.

Looks like Ryan Fraser's off to 15th placed Hull in the Championship. I wasn't particularly enthused when he was linked with us, but his reputation's gone right downhill if that's his best option. Karma for what he did to Bournemouth. Hopefully we sign both Sulemana and Onuachu whose names I have to keep searching for to ensure I'm spelling right. We've already seen Alacaraz looks exciting, Orsic not so much and Bree a squad option. Two World Cup players, three internationals. Impressive when we're 20th. What we need, rather than the quantity over quality signings we've made in the past. Then you think Everton were linked to three of the players we could potentially have at the end of this window and at the moment they look like they're ending up with nobody and they're our closest rivals. If you're still bitter regarding the dugouts like me, have some fun reading this thread: https://www.grandoldteam.com/forum/threads/ff-protest-at-1900-tonight.117009/

Posted yesterday that I was glad we had seemingly missed out on Sulemana and were now targeting goal scorers (Dembele, Vitinha, Onuachu). We have too many non-scoring wide players and need those who can put it in the back of the net. However, it’s probably a case of Sulemana’s the best we can attract given our position.

Know nothing of Onuachu or Vitinha, but both seem a lot more exciting given their records than Jackson, who we were linked to the majority of the month and is seemingly a bullet dodged given the injury. The Rennes guy wasn't particularly exciting either. Bit disappointed to be rejected twice in 6 months by Dembele, though. We're probably going to end up with Andre Ayew now though and that will make me Al Sadd.

Dembele would be a great signing, an almost perfect one. Only second to Danny Ings for me for the best realistic striker we could've signed before the window and that's only because Ings is a known entity for both us and in the league. But, Ings had the question marks over his injury record, which he's currently living up to, while there are some patchy season's on Dembele's record and a question mark on whether he can do it consistently at a higher level than he's played before. However, Dembele is a natural finisher, doesn't do a lot of the pretty things, but he does know where the net is and that's what we need right now. A striker who can put away the few clear cut chances that we can create during a match. Now, my only thinking is, is that he reportedly rejected us in the summer. We're now in a worse position than we were in the summer, so why would he be willing to join on January's deadline day? Know nothing of Vitinha, and Football Insider is a dodgy source.

At least Alex Crook has had another master class. Tweeted at half 9 last night that Arsenal had not made a second bid for Caicedo. An hour before Romano and Ornstein Tweeted a second bid has gone in. According to Crook the second bid had gone in after his original Tweet. So, they must be doing a lot of overtime at Arsenal.

He's a bad footballer. His purple patch coincided with having a world class manager in Carlo Ancelotti and coaching from Duncan Ferguson, who had a similar playing style. His highest scoring season without Ancelotti is 6 in 35. Two more than Adams currently has. Also more concerned with dressing like a woman and "breaking stereotypes".

These bloody fans. Celebrate the win, Nathan, let the results do the talking.

Positives are that Perraud's definitely staked a claim for the starting 11. Said in the week that is was strange that he had been dropped, as he's a dependable player at the least and has Jones' desired aggression. Him on the left and KWP on the right gives us more balance.

Also offered £30m to Roma for Zaniolo according to Romano. We can just look on with awe, I suppose.

I've got an anomaly. Pellegrino had Carrillo.

It's a Martina/Pied signing. Nothing to get worked up about. If he ever becomes our first choice right-back after selling KWP/Livramento and doing the Saints thing of sticking with what we've got then we'll have a problem. Additionally, if this is our last signing of the window. 6 days left, not many rumours considering we did both the Orsic and Alcaraz deals in the public, but got to have some hope they aren't as inept as we all believe.

Perraud’s nothing special, but he’s an average 6/10 player. Not too sure why he’s been frozen out. KWP hasn’t been much good on the left compared to last season and has looked a lot better on the right, which is helpful as he’s still our best ball carrier. Playing one of the centre-backs at full back has helped defensively, but limited us going forward. Perraud’s also one of the few with any aggression in the side, so you’d have thought he’d have been a Jones favourite like Lyanco.

First half was awful, little to no quality in the team and Newcastle ballooned a few shots over and had a goal disallowed. Second half was much better, we actually gave them a game in the second half up until the disallowed goal. Like Saturday, the disallowed goal killed all of our momentum, but you would say tonight's was more rightly chalked off. They did also bring a £70m forward off their bench, who proved to be the difference. One good, one bad on the new signings. Alcaraz looked real good for just 20. Lost the ball a few times, but is always looking to try something. Had a good shot and played Adams through, two potential match winning plays, which we don't have a lot of in the squad. Worried me when he got the early booking, but maintained his head. We definitely need to play through him more going forward. In the first half he wasn't as effective as a lot of our balls were long, aimless and going over him. Orsic produced his best Elyounoussi impression. Played like a player who's used to having all the time in the world when on the ball, which I guess he is at 30 and playing in uncompetitive leagues all his career. Needs to learn the pace of English football quickly, but then I was also surprised by his lack of pace alongside his poor ball control when he did get one of his few touches. Adam Armstrong and Edozie in comparison were a lot better and threatened Newcastle a bit more. Everyone's become a Newcastle fan all of a sudden, but it's only 1-0 and it would be sweet to be waving goodbye to Jacob Murphy, who's a horrendous footballer anyway after dumping them out of the cup next week.

I don't hate Adams, he plays a good support striker, but as the main man he's hopeless. We create at least one big chance every game and he fluffs it. Man United at home, I'm sure someone put him through and he eased it to De Gea. Wolves open goal. Home against Everton which would have put us 2-0 up. West Ham, which to be fair he created the chance and beat their makeshift centre-backs, but again he hit at Fabianski. Villa on the weekend, offside. Lincoln one on one for his hattrick. Tonight, again through, but hits it at the goalkeeper. This is why we need a clinical striker. The strikers aren't getting loads of chances, so we need to make the most with the ones we are getting, which we aren't at the moment. A new winger doesn't fix the issue.

One day I'm going to come on here and be welcomed by good news. As I posted a few months ago when a few said they'd welcome relegation, we aren't keeping hold of anyone with an ounce of talent if we go down to the Championship, including those coming through the youth ranks with Chelsea and Man City hoovering everything up. If he goes to Leeds that'll be disappointing and should be a big wake up call, but it won't be.

We can't compete with Bournemouth. We're little Southampton and lucky to be in their league, don't you know. Bournemouth have already spent £20m on a winger, last Thursday, who got an assist on Saturday. I thought spending £20m on two separate players in the same window was against the rules, or at least it is to those in charge. In a logical world this would be a blessing in disguise. We don't need another winger who will chip in with the odd goal every four weeks and I know nothing of Jackson really, but I expect he will be another Mara/Edozie, who will take time, clearly has potential, but there are better players in the here and now. We need a striker, a Gabbiadini, who joined a Puel team in January that was firing blanks, who raised the team, scored 6 goals in his first 4 matches and was only stopped due to injury and then suffered the shit managers of Pellegrino and Hughes. My only concern is that those in the driving seat/recruitment side haven't shown much logic/thought in the past year and after missing out on Jackson it's going to be another case of "the right players weren't out there for us, we're happy with what we've got".

After a days work, you find the only news is Jan Bednarek has been recalled. FFS. A leader, a voice, aggressive. We’ve got the wrong player. An overly passive, self-inflated egotistical knobhead full of mistakes and shirks the club paying his wages to sit on the Poland bench is the correct description. Villa couldn’t believe their luck getting him off the wage bill. If only Arsenal would recall Maitland-Niles.

Lets just be thankful Man City rejected our offer for Liam Delap in the summer. 3 goals in 24 Championship appearances. Now looking for his first Preston goal after struggling at Stoke, played 129 minutes for Preston so far. Another good player identified by the recruitment team/Shields.

They did start their new £9m midfielder, though. Which is probably another glaring error from Wolves. #TonicLikeLeminade

It's pretty crazy how in 2005 we went down with having Beattie for half a season, Phillips, Crouch, Camara for the second half and Ormerod (Pahars was out for the entire season). While Blackstock was playing the Mara role with a substitute hat-trick against Colchester and a goal vs Pompey. Unfortunately we don't have any Beattie's, Phillips', Crouch's or Camara's this time around, who would walk into this team.

From the stadium I didn't think we were as bad as some are making out. Villa had spells where they had the pressure and we had spells where we had the pressure with neither making it really count until Villa scored their goal. If Edozie had a final ball he'd be a good player, but his runs are pointless when he surrenders possession as soon as he passes. But, after 18 years of watching the Saints, that refereeing performance is up there with one of the worst. So poor. Not just the big decisions, but the ones that don't get picked up by Match of the Day too. Starting off with Villa making three professional fouls on Armstrong, Edozie and Salisu, all were goal side, albeit Salisu was in our half, but all were done simply to take out the man and stop the game. Okay, it's one of those refs who is going to say it's too early for a booking, we'd expect the same treatment. Wrong, Lyanco gets booked for his first foul, a lunge in the Villa half after losing possession. Villa were buying free kicks from him, we couldn't press them high as on the few occasions we did win the ball up the pitch, their player hit the deck and got a foul, we had a couple of situations where we were clean through, but it was brought back. Unfortunately, our players aren't as well versed in diving to win free-kicks, as would be greatly appreciated with JWP. Then you have our goal. Just watched it back on the Sky Sports highlights and I guess I am bias, I can see why it was disallowed, but that's piss poor and weak. You'll get defenders going down every time a striker goes near them if this is how football is now judged. Finally, stop signing crap squad players because they're cheap. We need players who are ready to come in from day 1 and improve the 11 straight away. At our best Les Reed's mantra was that we do not sign players unless they improve the starting eleven before he fell up his own arsehole. Nowadays, all our new signings make up the bench. Wood signed for Forest yesterday and started today. Bournemouth's new £20m signing who signed on Thursday got the full 90 minutes today. While ours who have been in for over a week now are an unused substitute and a five minute cameo. We're 20th in the league ffs, if we can't find players who are better than the eleven that have started every week of this season then our recruitment team is one of the worst in the business. (If we didn't already know that). Bet we're going to chuck £20m on Wacko Jacko, who won't be ready to start until Easter.

Going 2-0 up against City isn't for everyone.

On the topic of Aribo, where's he in the pecking order now? Behind JWP, Elyounoussi and Edozie for players just behind the striker, possibly A. Armstrong and Djenepo now following their showing's last week. Then that's just the players who he was already competing with. You'd imagine Orsic will take up one of the attacking position's and push him further down, while Alcaraz also plays the attacking midfield and will be looking for first team football. Then, if Jackson comes in, that's again one of the attacking midfield position's gone. Seems like Aribo won't work out here. Signed for buttons, but he just doesn't fit an energetic, battling side. Had it good in a luxury team in a league with little competition at Rangers.