Bradley gone to Derby

[Canaryboy]

I think Alex Neil needs to explain this Johnson departure to the fans really, McNally has been notably quiet too. 

I think McNally really needs to come out and explain what went wrong with this window really. They have both been up front about our struggle attracting players, and we know about Gayle, but I'd like to know how much effort we put in to signing a centre back.

 

[KeiranShikari]

He's fairly comfortable on both feet, don't see why he couldn't do a job on the other side. I think he'd get picked ahead of Bennett there.

 

[Lavanche]

He has played on both sides so decent signing and in my opinion he was okay in West Ham too where he brought some flair and penetration when on the field.

I can understand why we sold Johnson for 6 millions, but can't understand why we didn't use that money. Also we didn't improve our first eleven much and our squad depth is worse than previous time in premier league.

 

[Indy_Bones]

Johnson was outstanding for the vast majority of last season and a key component of us getting promoted, however towards the end of the season his performances noticeably dipped and he's looked completely off the pace so far this season which is somewhat odd.

I've always thought he was a limited player with a great work rate and attitude, but in the end I'd argue that overall quality is what's needed more at this level, and thus I can understand the clubs decision to let the player move on.

I do think he'll be missed, I do wonder if there's something happened behind the scenes that's lead to this, but in the grand scheme of things I think there are better players already here and out there going forwards to worry about Johnson leaving now.

 

[KeiranShikari]

We had more depth in defence but nowhere else really. I was a big fan of Pilks, Fer and Snoddy but I'd easily pick today's midfield over that. Strikers is no contest, even Lafferty would have improved that mess.

From last season I'd say Mulumbu, Brady, Dorrans and hopefully Mbokani will be improvements. Maybe Wisdom too, has a chance to beat out Whittaker now, hopefully he grabs it. That's quite a lot of first team improvement imo.

The club were obviously trying to get a couple more in but it didn't happen and they have said before that they aren't going to add players for the sake of numbers. 

As for people wanting an explanation for the Johnson situation, isn't it kind of obvious? Robbie Brady, number 1 transfer target of our summer, plays in the same position. He's better than Johnson. Johnson would be bit part player if he stayed. Pretty brutal if the club forced the move but I suppose that's football.

 

[KeiranShikari]

I've always thought he was a limited player with a great work rate and attitude, but in the end I'd argue that overall quality is what's needed more at this level, and thus I can understand the clubs decision to let the player move on.

Mulumbu has a similar work ethic but far greater quality on the ball. That infectious energy that other players visibly get boosts from will come from him this season. 

Doesn't quite have the same shooting range though mind.  

 

[derehamyella]

people keep say Johnson was off the pace, this season, come on we have only played 4 games even Sir Grant Holt took longer to get going.   It was in my opinion a bad decision to let him go.  another injury case say to Tettey  and we are in the *bleep*. 

Hear in Sheffield Paper, Hooper wanted a VIP box for friends and family .  worth about £30k   they were willing to pay 500K loan fee and pick up his 32k wages  but could not get round the box. 

http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/sport/sheffield-wednesday/vip-box-row-scupper-owls-hooper-move-1-7438919?

 

[It's Character Forming]

I think Johnson had a place here, and selling him as soon as we've been promoted smacks of arrogance and naivety. If we go down this season then I can't think of a single player I'd want wearing yellow and green more than Johnson in that division. If chances were going to be limited here then perhaps we could have loaned him for a year, we've got no problem borrowing his 'replacement', so what would have been the problem in lending him out? 

At least we'd have him here as an insurance policy against relegation, and dare I say it if Alex Neil is possibly losing the plot a little bit, then perhaps he'd be favoured by a future manager in a different system. I'm reluctant to imply that Alex Neil doesn't know what he is doing, but going into a Premier League season with just 6 defenders in your 25 man squad just seems ludicrous to me, so I'm not ruling that possibility out entirely. 

 

My feelings exactly.

Part of our problem when we were relegated was that some of the new players like Fer or Elmander lacked the motivation you need when you're scrapping out ugly points or trying to break down a team like Hull who are sitting on a 1-0 lead with 10 men at home.  Johnson is exactly the player you want in your lineup in that scenario.

I'm deeply troubled by this decision, mainly because we had absolutely no need to sell, we don't need the money, we could simply have turned down an offer on the final day, and if the problem is that Brad wants to be playing we could have loaned him to Derby until Christmas instead.

 

[The Great Mass Debater]

 turned down a bid of £7 mill for Grabban at 3 minutes to 6  after telling Bournemouth £7mill was acceptable.  I reckon that was because Palarse stopped the Gayle move.   Also  Palarse accepted a lower amount for Murray than what City offered as the player didn't want to come to East Anglia, choosing the seaside instead

My missus has just said that the transfer window is like a house-buying chain. Its such a stupid system, everyone leaves it until the last minute because they wont allow a player to leave unless they know they're able to bring in a replacement, so it all becomes a big game of brinksmanship dominoes. If there wasnt a stupid window clubs would be more relaxed about letting their players go as they wouldnt be locked out from signing a replacement for 4 months.

I think Id be less upset about the BJ thing if we'd done it early in the window, as Id be thinking, oh well, an extra 6m to spend in the window on a better player. Accepting a last minute bid out of the blue is completely different. We've simply copped the money and weakened our squad in the process.

£6m in the bank isnt going to help us get any points over the next 4 months

 

[The Great Mass Debater]

This window reminds me of the Worthington window, when we fought hard to get our number one target Andy Hughes, and then the PR machine went into overdrive bigging up the signings of Peter Thorne and Jason Jarrett, and we all bought into the shared delusion that the signings we'd actually managed to make were better than they were. We suspected this was an inadequate investment at the time, but we all doublethought our way through it because we had faith.

We believe in McNally and Neil, so the complaints are muted. But I dont think the circa £5m investment is good enough for a newly promoted side. Somewhere our strategy has been wrong. Perhaps we havent been willing to pay the fees or the wages needed to tempt players to this club. Im disappointed that if we have been unable to buy the quality we need for the first-team, we havent instead used it to think long term and acquire players for the future. If we've still got 25m burning a hole in our pockets  are we back to an Ashton situation where we've decided to buy Austin for example in January. How easy will this be to do if we're bottom of the league and QPR are 6 months away from a good shot at promotion, with Austins goals key to that aim? Has prudence with ambition made a return to bite us in the ass?

I just have a sense of foreboding that we all know where the gaps in our squad are, and they remain unresolved - but we're all telling ourselves we have enough quality and that we'll be fine.

I think we'll be talking about this window all season.

 

[KeiranShikari]

We got the better left sided midfielder earlier in the window, he's been playing at left back recently.Would imagine that Mbokani, Mulumbu and Dorrans are quite a but better than Thorne, Hughes and Jarrett.

We haven't done badly. Let's worry about the light defence if people get injured. Although I'll admit, I am a Bennett fan so I'm less worried than a lot here.

I don't get you sometimes.

 

[Lavanche]

Well if you ask me I would take Fer over Mulumbu and Brady has not proved himself yet for me to be any better than Pilkington and Snoddy were. Both can ofc be major success for us, but as pure player talent perspective we had equal couple seasons back and these two are the major signings this season.

Compared to out championship squad we have brought 3 to 4 starters. Decent ammount, but is Mulumbu big improvement for Howson, Tettey, and Hoolahan? Dorrans brings some depth, but cant see him more than squad player even thought he has been most succesful from our signings this far. Howson and Mulumbu are probably better box to box and Hoolahan should play always when fit if we play one upfront. Defensive role isn't for him so he wont challenge Tettey.

Brady is only real improvement this far for our starting eleven and that is mostly because we didn't have natural left winger. Now we loaned thank god Jarvis that we are not without wingers if Brady or Redmond gets injury
.

So that leaves Wisdom and Mbokani. Jerome in my papers is our best striker until proved otherwise. Wisdom could be a starter, but we dont know that yet and seems that Whittaker is in AN's papers front of him so he was not signed as a improvement but for squad depth purposes (which is completely good reason to sign player, dont get me wrong here)

So at the end we have clearly improved one slot from our championship squads starting eleven. We have brought 3 players in purely for squad depth (Wisdom, Jarvis, Dorrans) who can compete for starting places when in form or starters out form (and had one of them already in championship as a rotation player) and 2 players that are at least par the level of our current starters and remains yet to be seem do we consider them first choise or squad players.

We are awfully thin in our defence with 7 players Toffolo included for 4 slots. Midfield is ok with 7 players for 3 slots and attack the same with 4 players for 1 slot. Wide players will have some problems if any of them get injured long time as our midfield wont gives us same penetration if played wide and Grabban is kind a only striker who can really play as invert winger. I probably forgot someone, but in my opinion window wasn't succesful and our squad balance seems very fragile.

Good team spirit and solid coaching can keep us up, but I personally will be very surprised if we are out of bottom four at the end of the season. We took quite a gamble with a luck.

 

[KeiranShikari]

Mulumbu isn't really comparable to Hoolahan but yeah, he is almost certainly better than Howson and Tettey, Dorrans has been great since he got here but especially this season. Our midfield is at a really good level right now, even without the Johnson option. 

 

[The Great Mass Debater]

We got the better left sided midfielder earlier in the window, he's been playing at left back recently.Would imagine that Mbokani, Mulumbu and Dorrans are quite a but better than Thorne, Hughes and Jarrett.

We haven't done badly. Let's worry about the light defence if people get injured. Although I'll admit, I am a Bennett fan so I'm less worried than a lot here.

I don't get you sometimes.

Im making a relative comparison here, off course those players are lightyears better. My point is our investment that year was inadequate, and I feel that this year in a similar vein it is also inadequate. We're telling ourselves the players we have are better than they are. We all know we needed a striker and a centre-back. The investment in those areas hasnt come, in the same way Worthy knew we needed Ashton in the summer not in January and ultimately we paid the price for it.

I wonder if we couldnt have signed some of these players we coveted if we'd been willing to offer a little more money.

 

[The Great Mass Debater]

We got the better left sided midfielder earlier in the window

The Brady signing was unnecessarily protracted though wasnt it?

Bruce called our opening bids of 2m 2.5m and 3m embarrassing and a joke. I understand trying to get the best deal, but if this is indicative of our transfer strategy then Im not surprised we've run out of time or been gazumped by other teams. Players like Walters we surely could have got over the line if we'd just not messed about. 3m and we'd have had a deal. Rumours (though I dont believe them) of us bidding 14m for Austin but not being willing to go up to 15m to get it over the line make me wonder if the problems of recruiting players were not of our own making.

Its hard to know because there is so much BS about transfer dealings. But if you believe all of the speculation, we've spent the window low-balling teams in the hope of doing things on the cheap, where just stumping up the fee would have made the deal happen and we've either run out of time, or been gazumped by other clubs who had the drive to get the deal done

 

[KeiranShikari]

We know a majority of the players we have here can do it in the Premier League, we've literally seen them. We've added more players that have already done it at this level and some that we believe will. 

I'm glad we've brought in a few loans and not spent wildly. Agreeing to extortionate demands really isn't something that this club can do. MUH 120 MILLION doesn't mean you can throw around 50 million in transfer fees.

The Brady saga was boring and a bit silly but who cares. We got the player and for what looks like a reasonable fee. We were more aggressive with Afobe and nothing came of it.

Like I've said before, had there been time on the contracts of Mulumbu we'd be paying a lot for his services. We all wanted a defender but we didn't get one, we're going to have to deal with that, 'till January at least.

 

[Yellow Fever]

BJ had two and a half years left on his contract and at 28, the offer of a 4 year contract at Derby guarantees a secure end to his career. I still can't help feeling that an important part of our team spirit has been lost through this.

 

[It's Character Forming]

The Brady signing was unnecessarily protracted though wasnt it?

Bruce called our opening bids of 2m 2.5m and 3m embarrassing and a joke. I understand trying to get the best deal, but if this is indicative of our transfer strategy then Im not surprised we've run out of time or been gazumped by other teams. Players like Walters we surely could have got over the line if we'd just not messed about. 3m and we'd have had a deal. Rumours (though I dont believe them) of us bidding 14m for Austin but not being willing to go up to 15m to get it over the line make me wonder if the problems of recruiting players were not of our own making.

Its hard to know because there is so much BS about transfer dealings. But if you believe all of the speculation, we've spent the window low-balling teams in the hope of doing things on the cheap, where just stumping up the fee would have made the deal happen and we've either run out of time, or been gazumped by other clubs who had the drive to get the deal done

This is the problem.  If you discount Dorrans (basically agreed last summer) over the summer we've got in Mulumbu and Kean as free transfers (so both presumably out of contract and no negotiation required with their previous clubs), a couple of loan signings (Wisdom/Jarvis), leaving only two "proper" transfer negotiations the club's done successfully.  Now the Mbokani deal sounds like it was a mess for reasons out of our control so getting him on a loan isn't a bad outcome, but that leaves Brady as the only actual deal where we agreed a fee and got the player.  Taking 3 bids to get to £3m before ending up paying £7m does look naïve.  Trying to pay as little as possible is fair enough but there's a point where other clubs don't take you seriously and I wonder if it has happened to us ?  In the last few days of the window we probably should've made the decision to lay out a bit more to bring in a couple of players, rather than leaving those bids to the last minute.

I do worry whether this, and BJ's exit, and the Grabban fiasco, could harm the squad togetherness which is going to be vital to staying up.  And I really don't understand the lack of concern about the CB position.

Combined with the strange lack of concern about the CB position

 

[Canaryboy]

but in my opinion window wasn't succesful and our squad balance seems very fragile.

Good team spirit and solid coaching can keep us up, but I personally will be very surprised if we are out of bottom four at the end of the season. We took quite a gamble with a luck.

This is how I feel too, squad feels disjointed.

Also must add that of our 4 strikers, we've got one who has fallen out with the manager, and another who won't exactly feel wanted knowing that we are willing to accept a £500k loan fee for his services.

Unless Alex Neil can get Grabban and Hooper back on side, I'd also be worried about that area of the pitch too. An injury to Jerome or Mbokani, or even just the latter not turning out to be very good at this level.

Still no Hoolahan competition / backup either. If he gets injured, where's our second striker / link man?  

 

[Dubai Mark]

I'm now over the BJ departure and other than the CB situation am comfortable with the squad,  which is marginally stronger than before the window. I thought like the majority it would be  a tough season before it started and nothing has changed.

Some masive over reaction elsewhere,  more balanced in here.