I’m sure the likes of Cathcart, Sema, Kabasele and Cleverley are very comfortable with their generous contract extensions.
I imagine players happy to sit in the 'reserves' on big wages is the same for most PL teams 'That' is not the reason for our failure IMO its because every 3-6 months we bring in a new coach and the players have to start all over learning a new system, they never have time to become accomplished and it all become second nature, therefore we are never greater than the sum of the parts Sides like Brighton are not successful (for their size) because their squad is full of world class players, it's not
The ONLY explanation for his continued absence in recent months was that we were avoiding triggering a clause to buy him. His 89th minute introduction tonight has surely blown that theory out the water? What on Earth is the new working theory?!
Must be **** if he hasn’t been able to get into our midfield for more than 2 minutes. Either that or Roy just wasn’t that invested in keeping us up.
Indeed, on the numerous occasions when Kucka is blowing fumes and all we have to replace him with is Cleverley. Maybe he's not been fully fit either and was just on the bench to make up the numbers?!?! It's really baffling.
Must be the latter as any sane manager would have played Kalu over Sarr in all those game when Sarr wasn't offering anything to the team and we still had the chance to survive the drop. Sent from my AUM-L29 using Tapatalk
Wouldn't have played for Nigeria if he wasn't fit. I think Roy doesn't like having too many options to chose from, he is happy with just Cleverley and Kucko and was trying to avoid the possibility of anyone forcing there way into the team ahead of those two. Same applies with Sarr too. Cucho and Kalu would offer more, but Roy will rather stick to Sarr and the same team and get us relegated. Sent from my AUM-L29 using Tapatalk
Etebo is not going to be signed. Think that's another mistake personally. Watford unlikely to sign Peter Etebo permanently from Stoke City | Watford Observer
He is presumably on a fairly decent wage packet and / or has no desire to play in the championship, which explains why Stoke were willing to flog him to us on what appeared to be a fairly unattractive deal for them and he has been farmed out on loan in recent years. If that isn't the case, then I would agree with you. Cut above the rest of the dross in our midfield except for maybe Louza, although that is a very low bar.
For a handful of games, it looked like we had a competent midfielder on our hands. Like many of our signings, a promising start turned into a complete farce. We sure do pick’em.
It’s disappointing when you consider the relatively low fee to sign him against the money we squander in other areas. Maybe the injury he had is preventing us from getting him or, like you say, he’d prefer to play at a higher level. Surprising, as it was quoted that Gino had been after him for some time. Whatever the reason it’s an early setback and an indicator that we’re not prepared to spend money in the window. Free transfers only. If we end up with a midfield of Louza, Gosling, Cleverly, TDB and Phillips then we’re just playing lip service to a promotion push.
Not saying we'd have stayed up, but think his injury was quite a key moment in how the season went. Didn't really have anyone else in his profile to step into the midfield, and we regularly got dominated in the middle
Yeah... the flaw is the bit that requires us to spend money while in the Championship. I don't suppose Stoke would accept an offer of zero.
Tbf he did get injured which isn’t really his fault . Chasing back after we’d lost the ball in a dangerous position v Newcastle I remember.
Another terribly foolish and short sighted decision. The amount of money Gino squanders we could have signed at least three promising youngsters as well as Etebo on a permanent. He's good at what he does and we did miss him. Gino is nothing if not a myopic moron.
I've been sceptical of Etebo in the Championship, but if he's supposedly happy to stay on, why on earth did we spend that money on Kayembe? No prizes for guessing, we all know the answer...
Do we know what physical state he’s in? Wouldn’t be surprised if the type of injury he just had is a ticking time bomb for reoccurrence.
Probably not much considering we knew he had a cheap option to buy, and he had put in some good displays before his injury, I mean some randomer from the Belgian league wasn't exactly the sort of superstar who was clearly worth spending the same money on
They would have got pelters for signing a player who's injured. I don't get the Kayembe signing either though
Well it wouldn't have been seen as a 'new' signing as such as he was already on our books and had impressed early in the season
A shame if you ask me. Could have been an asset in Championship. No doubt it'll be another season of ******* Cleverley and probably Gosling too. OAP FC.
Always a permacrock, and old, Etebo hasn't got a reputation for being injury prone and is still fairly young (or not old anyway), I feel we'll regret this when we see Kayembe bumbling along next season