Transfer gossip.

[morty]

80k a week!

I wouldn't pay him 8k a week on what I've seen since he arrived FFS!

Really?

He has scored the same amount of goals as Cameron Jerome.

I like the guy.

 

[KeiranShikari]

Mbokani is our best striker right now. Hopefully Naismith will bring the best out of him.

 

[Canaryboy]

80k a week!

I wouldn't pay him 8k a week on what I've seen since he arrived FFS!

I'd want £80k a week to play in Russia if I were a black man to be fair, considering the ridiculous levels of abuse they get over there. 

 

[dj161]

I'm not overly impressed by Mbokani either, would much rather have Jerome play every week, I feel that when you're in the situation that we are in where we're not going to be dominating games you need players in there that are going to work hard and make runs, where as I feel Mbokani just kind of lingers around the box and waits for the ball to given to him, Jerome offers so much more than Mbokani does, not to mention he already knows the English league and you feel he can score a goal from anywhere, I don't think Mbokani is ever going to score from more than 10 yards out

 

[Canaryboy]

I think there is a bit more to come from Mbokani.

Feeling like he won't ever score from more than 10 yards out is at least better than feeling that your striker is simply never going to score full stop, which is what Van Wolfswinkel brought to the table.

 

[Beauseant]

Really don't buy the age thing. Players go on for much longer these days and I remember O'Neil saying after pre season that at 32 he felt the fittest he's ever been. Wes is 34 (and starting to look it) but I wouldn't be too worried about anyone else. At the moment experience is more important to us than youth but if you look at the bigger picture you'll see that the club is planning  long term to with the likes of McGrandles, Thompson, Godfrey etc.

I also agree I don't think we'll sign Mbokani.

 

[kirku]

I think Mbokani is comfortably our most dangerous striker, if not always the best option. Sometimes Jerome is the better tactical choice. We've probably got the worst striking options in the league, maybe apart from Villa.

 

[ZLF]

Mbokani - this seasons Kamara

 

[KeiranShikari]

They're both big black blokes but that's about where the similarities end.

 

[Lavanche]

Beauseant:

Well I buy the age thing. I mean you can still be at right level for this league at 39, but if your all teammates are over 30 too you will see it from the game. Major reason why ManU falled was that Ferguson left a team where most important players just were too old.

Modern sport medicine wont do much if player doesn't have genes and it mostly just helps to keep them intact that 15 years they can play as a pro.

It is a fact that players are at their best during the years of 25-28 except GK, CB and ballplaying DM who can get few extra years because positioning developes later.

Of course there are freaks like Giggs and our beloved Wes who can do it longer, but there is good reason why teams keep their average age near 25. 

We see Manchester City with all that spending to struggle because their team cant keep up the performance week to week and again we see a hint of reasons when we check their most important players and their ages. 

EDIT: Oh yeah and I dont believe more than one or two of our current youngsters can break to the team in next 2 or 3 seasons and Redmond's contract has year left after this season so in my opinion we will have soon a problem with the team if we dont change our transfer policy.

 

[Indy_Bones]

Mbokani - this seasons Kamara

Actually they're almost polar opposites, Mbokani may possess better composure in front of goal and be slightly more physical, but he's virtually immobile most games and does little to nothing from a team perspective (and his first touch and pass are frequently lousy), whereas Kamara would have run himself into the floor for us and had pace on his side even if his finishing wasn't great.

Oddly enough though, I'd rather have Kamara out of the two (despite not rating the guy anyway), and considering I don't see a lot between them, I find it laughable that Mbokani could be on 80k a week, as there's no way he's ever going to be 4-5 times better than Kamara...

Either way, I hope he's not here at the start of next season as it will represent a shocking waste of resources IMHO.

 

[Indy_Bones]

Oh, and to add another name onto my now infamous 'potentials' list, I reckon we should be looking at bringing in Marco Sau,

Gives us pace, energy, decent finishing and wouldn't cost the earth either.

Admittedly he's unproven in the prem, but he does have an Italian cap to his name (but then RVW had dutch caps...) and at 28 has a good 3-4 years of his best available to us.

Thoughts?

 

[KeiranShikari]

Club could probably sign him [Unlike most of your suggestions] but I doubt they'd want to.

 

[It's Character Forming]

Beauseant:

Well I buy the age thing. I mean you can still be at right level for this league at 39, but if your all teammates are over 30 too you will see it from the game. Major reason why ManU falled was that Ferguson left a team where most important players just were too old.

Modern sport medicine wont do much if player doesn't have genes and it mostly just helps to keep them intact that 15 years they can play as a pro.

It is a fact that players are at their best during the years of 25-28 except GK, CB and ballplaying DM who can get few extra years because positioning developes later.

Of course there are freaks like Giggs and our beloved Wes who can do it longer, but there is good reason why teams keep their average age near 25. 

We see Manchester City with all that spending to struggle because their team cant keep up the performance week to week and again we see a hint of reasons when we check their most important players and their ages. 

EDIT: Oh yeah and I dont believe more than one or two of our current youngsters can break to the team in next 2 or 3 seasons and Redmond's contract has year left after this season so in my opinion we will have soon a problem with the team if we dont change our transfer policy.

Hmmm - I'm not convinced by this idea that players start to decline from age 28 but let's have a look at our squad anyway (ignoring GK and CB for the reasons you mention - not sure if we have a ballplaying DM so I'll ignore that point).

First I would take it as a given that we need as a club someone to replace Wes in the near future, given his age.  Could that be Naismith, or someone already in our squad ?  It's a given this needs to be dealt with.  So I am ignoring Wes's age - he's been a key part of our team for a long time and we know that replacing him soon is vital.

Taking our other positions :  left back - Olsson 27, Brady 24 (Toffolo 20).  No problem, age-wise. right back Pinto is 25, Russell Martin is just turned 30, so no age problem here either IMO - if Pinto takes the first choice slot that's fine, Martin (and Wisdom for the rest of the season) can be cover, if not we need to continue to search for an improvement in this area regardless, but it's not an age issue, it's a quality issue.

Then looking at our true flanking players, we have Redmond (21), Jarvis (29) and Brady (24).  I'd say there is a question mark over our depth at this position given Brady is currently playing at full-back and Redmond's contract - but it's squad depth rather than age that is the problem.  We must be happy Jarvis has potential here for a few years, or we wouldn't have bothered to sign him.  We are playing quite often with a centre midfield (eg Howson) on the outside when we're approaching a game defensively, but that's a different issue.  I guess one question is whether one or both Murphys will make the grade into our first team at any point ?  Which is more likely if we are relegated.  If we stay up, we either try to keep Redmond or (maybe and/or) look to bring in someone quality to strengthen here.

At centre midfield we have plenty of players - Howson (27), Tettey (29), Dorrans (28), O'Neil (31), Mulumbu (28), Andreu (27) Vadis (26). My concern here is more about the mixed performances of our players in this area rather than their ages.  Howson should now be coming into his prime and Vadis has started to make a real impact.  Tettey has made comments about his knees not standing more than one game a week, and Mulumbu hasn't come on the way we hoped, while Dorrans seems to have lost his way.  O'Neil we hoped would be an experienced Prem player to steady the rest of them ( :blink: ).  Will Andreu justify his signing, even if we drop a division ?  If we stay in the Prem, we will be looking to upgrade this area in the next year or two.

Up front we have Jerome (29) and Mbokani (30) ignoring those who are out of favour.  Plus anyone else we can bring in this January.  If we stay up, the likelihood is we'll be seeing who we can bring in next summer (along with most other Prem clubs) assuming we won't sign Mbokani permanently.  If we go down, Jerome has shown how well he can do in the Champ, who else would we have up front ?  Neither Hooper nor Lafferty made much of a contribution last season so we can't count on them for next season if relegated.  So if we can sign a player now who's competing for the starting position, we'll be ok here. If not, we need to be able to sign a striker in the summer - whether we stay up or go down.  It will just be a question of how much we have to spend and the level of player we're looking for.

So looking all around our squad, I don't have a concern about the age of our squad, because the only position where our players are genuinely on the older side, is up front  - where we need a signing (now or next summer) anyway.

 

[Lavanche]

The problem isn't age now, but age after few seasons as we dont have players "growing".

We kind a have to buy sure starters which wouldn't be bad if we would have younger players developing behind them. Now we only have almost only older players and if signing goes wrong our squads overall potential just goes down as time goes by.

Also finding a young player who is sure starter with low risk to fail is very hard in current markets so we can stuck in our current age structure quite easy, if we dont fix it before it gets worse. 

At the moment we are not in trouble, but as said few windows more with same kind of signings as we made this season we are just asking it.

 

[KeiranShikari]

To be fair we have signed 18, 26 and 27 year olds this window and a 23 year old in the previous window. I don't think it's anything to worry about at this point in time.

 

[morty]

Hooper on his way, clubs making enquiries about Whittaker.

 

[KeiranShikari]

Think Whitts is out of contract in June and we clearly have too many right backs. Decent player on his day but wouldn't be upset to see him go.

 

[morty]

Think Whitts is out of contract in June and we clearly have too many right backs. Decent player on his day but wouldn't be upset to see him go.

I like Whitts, and seeing how every other player at RB has suffered too, it shows his scapegoat status wasn't deserved. 

 

[GJP]

Won't be sad to see Hooper go.

Whittaker's time is up but he has been a good, hard working and underrated player for us.