It's a good post Andy and yes most of it I agree with but I also agree with what you Said the other day too....Charnwood wrote: ↑Sat Aug 31, 2024 5:19 amEven after the above disappointment, if Liam Delap fulfils his potential with Omari Hutchinson, Sammy Szmodics and Jack Clarke sitting fight behind him we should have enough goals in this attacking group to keep us up.
If this attacking unit was offered to us at the start of the window we’d have all thought wow, what a fantastic transfer window this has been. On top of this we have the classy Jem’s Cajuste to play alongside Morsy, O’Shea and Greaves in central defence and new keeper Muric albeit yet to convince us plus another handful of players to strengthen the squad eg, Townsend, Johnson and Ogbene this week from Luton.
Of course I’ve not even mentioned Kalvin Phillips who could well be the shrewdest signing of all.
Come on guys and girls let’s take the positives out of this. At the start of this thread most of us were thinking we’d sign half a dozen players and not spend more than £10m on any player. We’ve way surpassed this annd spent more than £100m and are in a much stronger place than we were when we won promotion. Furthermore the average age of our signings is only 24 with plenty of upside on the valuations of at least half of them.
Let’s not allow the lack of a late striker acquisition distract us from the fact this has been a fantastic transfer window for us, probably the best in the history of our football club
Let’s just get behind them and focus on the positives because in truth we should all still be in dreamland.
There is a part of me that feels this could well be the case, the best jigsaw puzzle in the world is rendered pointless if there is a big key piece missing from the middle of it, it looks unfinished.If we don’t manage to find a decent striker to either buy or loan for the rest of the season we may well have wasted a lot of money on all the creative players we’ve taken onboard.
A lot of our signings are creative players, players who probably create more than they score, Clarke, Hutchinson, Ogbene, Cajuste, Phillips. I think suddenly Liam Delap has become our most important player by some distance, he's gonna need to stay fit, to stay available, to be in form and to score goals, that's some ask and a lot of pressure, hopefully Szmodics will take some of that burden off him but again he's not an out and out striker.
Hirst also needs to get fit ASAP and stay bloody fit, history with us at least tells us he probably won't, as tough as he is he's pretty fragile. I never wanted Al-Hamadi to leave and thank god he hasn't, if he is a quick learner he could very well become an unsung hero now.
You are correct about our expectations at the start of this thread, I certainly never dreamed we'd sign this many for so much money and for that MA and co have been amazing and done us proud, my only question is if we were trying to sign a decent striker with hours to go then we clearly feel we need one so why the hell did we not go for Latte Lath a few days ago ? The fact he put his parts on and refused to travel suggests to me had we done so he'd be at Portman Road in a Blue shirt today, I hope we don't live to regret it as everything else has been done so well.
