I would not expect any free transfers before 30th June when contracts expire. Why would you pay someone a weeks pay when they are being paid by their current club
Probably to make sure you are the ones getting the opportunity to pay all their other weeks' pay, in fairness.
I'm okay being patient, but I know the type of horrors these clowns are going to bring in after last 4 windows. Meanwhile our rivals accumulate seemingly affordable HG players in a multitude of positions who seem to have a decent chance of (a) contributing and (b) appreciating in value. Whether they do it now or in 2 weeks, our owners are idiots who will bring in poor quality.
I think we'll see some freebies announced on Friday, god knows what the club have got lined up though...
You will see the hope drain from the twitter dribblers when they are announced. Even now they are attacking the legend that is Uncle Ron with a bit less venom.
Not sure I’m going to take that train of thought as serious given we paid Danny Rose a stack of cash last season to not even train.
Just over four weeks away, to be precise, with an entirely new coach and system to supposedly implement. The answer to your question, specifically, has to do with the recent historical precedent being terrible, and the fact that, just like in the last window, or the one before it, there is literally nothing but advantage to bringing in any players you are aiming to as early as possible, and really only disadvantage in not doing so. Again, we have to (as recognised by the Stability, head coach, etc, publicly) change the entire ethos of the dressing room and club and implement an entirely new, demanding style of play. That can't happen overnight - it can only happen with as much time on the training pitch as possible, and with it being clear who it includes. In the context of another truncated pre-season, it's always going to cause concern when we only see a largely very poor squad full of players who either have consistently shown themselves to be below par and are aging into getting continuously worse, and youth who have barely played senior football, as time starts to drag on. Only time will tell whether we do bring in or keep enough players of requisite quality, but either way, it's pretty difficult to make an argument for the positives in dawdling and giving your shiny miraculous new panacea of a head coach less time to do what he has been brought in to do.
Not concerned about signings yet, however if we get to next Friday (8th July) and we still haven’t signed 3-4 starting players (preferably 2 strikers, a CB and a DM) then I will start to worry. Just over 3 weeks is enough time for a new player to learn the new system.
I think we'll be in Austria already by then. Looking at the dates of the proposed friendlies I'm guessing it will be from approx. this Sunday or Monday (3rd or 4th) until the 11th. So it would be good to have as many signings this week as possible before we go away.
What do you expect the Board to say ? "Our current players are a bit **** really and clearly not up to the task" ?
Calibri is quite tidy and neat if we are looking for another Italian, or perhaps we could look to go more Arial ?
I very much agree with your argument about the benefit of getting players in earlier rather than later, especially for a club in our situation, but I'd disagree that there are no downsides to doing so. Gino seemingly loves his games of high stakes poker transfer negotiations. He'll have to pay some sort of premium for closing a transfer now, rather than waiting until closer to the deadline - and the size of that premium will depend on the balance of leverage between buyer and seller. A club with a want-away player, that needs the money in the door, will lose that leverage the closer to the deadline we get. But of course, by biding your time you do run the risk of another club swooping in and paying the full asking price. Having said that, in the grand scheme of things I don't think it makes much sense to be trying to save a few quid here and there, when we could secure the right player here and now by paying the premium. Egos in negotiations, and wanting to feel like you've 'won', often get in the way of making the right decision though.
Fair point obviously they aren’t going to be critical of players in public we will rely on (whereas they can of those have left ..) but some reality might be needed for now which Edwards showed by saying promotion isn’t a must or it could take time . We certainly have good Championship players who will a job but is the whole squad in general “excellent “? Obviously can all change by the end of August .
Let's be honest it has to. We need quality bought in right through the squad. Just look at the midfield. No disrespect to Gosling or Cleverly but they ain't going to last a season in the Championship. Quina is an enigma, Tom Dele seems to pick up injuries. Kayembe I won't even mention and Louza is not going to be ready for the opener I believe. Looks weak as ****. Defence, maybe Pollock will be the surprise of the season but it's a big hope. Apart from that we don't have one comfortable CB with the ball at his feet. Plus they're are an aging group. Hopefully JP stays and then atleast we have some youthful talent. Bayo could surprise too but again it will be more luck than judgement. So in conclusion we look weak as ****. Maybe Rob can get a tune out of a few but atm I can't see us starting well with this squad.
I’d rather they didn’t make themselves look like d1ckheads. There is a middle ground. “We have a solid core of pros, but given the disappointing results last season and expected departures we will be looking to bring in some reinforcements to enhance the squad”.
Considering our opening three games I can see us being nailed bottom for a few weeks. It takes time for RE to implement his ideas into the side and the players to take it on board. It doesn't matter if you start poorly (look at forest) as long as you keep progressing and turning those bad early games into learnt mistakes further along. Looking at our squad as is, right now, we will finish lower mid table. If we somehow keep Sarr and he turns into a goal machine then maybe.
Getting credit in the Spanish parliament for cancelling the Qatar friendly https://twitter.com/i/status/1541850809255792641
For me, the World Cup in Qatar already has a winning team: The @WatfordFC, which has decided to cancel its match against the Qatar team, for being a country that does not respect the rights of women and the LGTBI community.
World Cup winners 2022. I want that added to our honours list, next to the Sherif of London shield winners 1982.
People panicking about our squad before we’ve even signed anyone, calm down! I think our fans also forget that the Champo is garbage standard and our reserves would walk into most Champo XIs. WTE would probably be the greatest player in Rotherham’s history.
This is it, exactly - if you're a club in a good/strong position, knowing what you're doing and with a good direction of travel established, then of course, by all means, have at it and see what you can pull off. In terms of my comment, I am speaking/writing contextually, and in that sense, for us, the risk of playing silly beggars is far, far too high, and could easily end up being very costly.
Not a great result, but that’s irrelevant. Was glad the club actually gave us some updates unlike the last couple of years. Lineup was: Okoye (Bachmann ‘45) Ngakia (Kiko ‘45) Cathcart (Masina ‘62) Kabasele (Morris ‘62) Samir (Pollock ‘45) Kamara (Hungbo ‘45) Dele-Bashiru (Holding ‘62) Manning (Kayembe ‘45) Gosling (McKiernan ‘45) Bayo (Baah ‘45 (Adeyemo ‘85)) Cukur (João Pedro ‘45 (Blake ‘75)) I think we’ve switched from 5-3-2 to a 5-4-1 after the 62 minute subs? Otherwise don’t know how Kiko, Masina, Morris, Hungbo and Baah are all on the pitch together. Hopefully the JP sub was pre-planned and not an injury.
I suspect Baah would have been playing as a forward with JP in the second half. Morris appears to the square peg in that 2nd half team regardless of formation (I can only think he must have filled in at left CM, unless he played LWB and Hungbo was AM). I wonder if Pollock coming on had anything to do with our defence entirely falling apart? We conceded one in the first half, then just made one change to the CBs at half time with him coming on for Samir and then Cambridge immediately scored 2 more after the break.
I saw it as: DB - KF, SH, MP, AM, JM - JH, EK, JJM, KB - JP. Seems more logical than Morris or Hungbo playing centrally. But only a guess. Maybe Edwards would rather stick people out of position to allow the majority of players to become familiar with his preferred system.
