Morning Papers

The news I mentioned on here a couple of days ago seems to be gathering a bit of pace. Ross to Ipswich for cash and Jon Stead.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/footballna ... -27023575/

Jones anger at Forest.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/191 ... hittingham

TG promises new players.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/footballna ... -27023079/

Forest are out of order there ! Stead for Ross be a good move coz that means that Koumas can play the wide left roll instead ? Then if Keogh joins thats the forwards sorted

Carl I feel that new Centre Halfs are very much needed. Is there anything happening in this area..?

Not heard anything on it mate but I would think DJ is happy with his options there.

Carl I feel that new Centre Halfs are very much needed. Is there anything happening in this area..?

Not heard anything on it mate but I would think DJ is happy with his options there.

Midtable it is then. Thank god I didn't renew my season ticket this year.

So potentially by the end of the week we have lost Ross but gained Stead plus cash - Kennedy, Whitts and Ledley gone but we have Harewood, Keogh, Naylor & Olifijane plus Koumas and Drinkwater - no way that we will finish "mid table at best" - I'm happy I renewed mine and don't care if I do a 250 mile round trip to each game

So potentially by the end of the week we have lost Ross but gained Stead plus cash - Kennedy, Whitts and Ledley gone but we have Harewood, Keogh, Naylor & Olifijane plus Koumas and Drinkwater - no way that we will finish "mid table at best" - I'm happy I renewed mine and don't care if I do a 250 mile round trip to each game

Very positive this morning

Keep it up

Its our attacking options DJ is concentrating on , the signs are there for another top 6 finish but I do agree that our central defenders are too slow sometimes .

It still doesn't resolve the issues with centre defence.

You can have as many fair players as you want but if you don't have a solid centre defensive partnership you can forget it.

Was astounded no focus was put on central defence in Carl's "Where do you think" thread viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19145.

I quoted "I'll be a lot more optimistic if a quality centre half is added to some of the rumoured signings, especially an imposing midfielder such as Olinfijana it must be hoped. Back up to Bothroyd, as indeed it should have been last season, must also be a priority. With the quality of the Championship deteoriating ever further (which makes Jones failure given such investment last season all the more acute for me), this season's perceived more equal spread so to speak could either be positive or negative; get it right and it wouldn't be too difficult to see a side such as us win the league with relative ease, get it wrong and lower mid-table could even more easily be our fate. It is hard to judge until squads are finalised, but you would have to fancy top 6 at least, but I still can't help but have nightmares about our defending and centre halves especially. I'll go with 4th as it stands."

This is a drum I've been banging since we signed him, but the Chopra deal I felt was a huge gamble and one we shouldn't have taken. Scarce, precious and considerable funds were spent on an area that didn't need replacing (20 goal a season striker) while others in urgent, desperate and blatant need of doing so (centre half, midfield and back up to Bothroyd) were largely or completely neglected. If the gamble had come off and promotion acheived, the gamble would have come off and Jones and co would rightly have reaped the plentiful praise bestowed upon them, but they quite simply didn't and haven't got it right, yet have got off scott free anyway. Why? It didn't work and we're lumbered with a player that those who can afford him don't want him and those that do can't afford him. Chops is a good player, but not that good, and whilst evey striker goes through barren periods, Chopra's are far more barren than most. Whichever way some people may wish to dress it up, Chopra was signed in a gamble for promotion last season, it didn't work, simples. This error imo is also compounded in that it has turned a £5m player in McCormack who had just scored 20 goals (please don't tell me about penalties etc not counting as all goals count, equal arguments can be made about some of Chopra's goals being irrelevant if we are to be so churlish such as the amount he scored that didn't actually influence games, Derby for example) into a bloated drunkard bereft of the motivation to stake a claim as everyone knows that regardless of how well Ross plays or how poorly Chops does, Chops will be up front regardless. Of course that doesn't make Ross's attiude acceptable, of course it doesn't, but they are understandable to a degree given the unjustness of the situation.

The main point of the Chopra argument, though, is that other areas of the team could well do with an investment of around £4m and £20k a week in wages. Given we have at the club already someone who can score 20 goals a season as can Chopra, surely investing those funds in someone who can actually f*cking defend would be a better move?

It still doesn't resolve the issues with centre defence.

You can have as many fair players as you want but if you don't have a solid centre defensive partnership you can forget it.

I agree our Centre Half pairings are not great, but I'm convinced we will be even more potent as a team this season and I think for the greater percentage we will score more than we concede in games. Kev and Darcey looked excellent as fullbacks yesterday and that is a start. Too many goals came from the flanks last season - it was the first game of the season and I don't think that Hudson was that bad yesterday (albeit slow).
Jones appears to be looking for a dog in midfield if the rumours of Olifijane are true and I suspect that Kev will move to right back to allow Naylor the left back berth if he signs. This frees Darcey up for a return to the Centre and a partnership with Hudson/Gerrard or Gabor - not ideal but not every team we will play this year will have the ability to outscore us. Keep the faith

Carl I feel that new Centre Halfs are very much needed. Is there anything happening in this area..?

Not heard anything on it mate but I would think DJ is happy with his options there.

Midtable it is then. Thank god I didn't renew my season ticket this year.

I'm so glad that we have fantastically loyal fans when the club is skint.

The Blues are goin up ..........................

I agree with Salad on a number of the points he made but the most important is the Championship has gone backwards again in quality this season and we MUST take advantage.

Obviously I can see why central defence has been raised as a concern but the solution is within the club i.e. Blake/Gerrard.

I would also like to see a bit more work done on set pieces (attack & defence), delivery into the box, as well as the strikers and attacking midfielders encouraged to make more runs into the box.

Cheers Tony, prob just the two of us though!

Totaly agree about Blake and Gerrard, everyone can see it bar Jones, but still feel we need something better again though, not necessarily 2, but certainly one. Won't happen though as Jones couldn't warrant leaving Hudson out given the outlay on fees and wages. Bit like the Chopra thing, I've been banging on about Blake for ages. Indeed, I've just found the link to my post over on 606 from December 2008 http://news.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/A45333056. Says all you need to know about the intelligence of those on 606 that it was so easily dismissed...

Agree about the midfield too, midfield general has a decent debate going about this elsewhere and for all the technicalities and tactics that can be related to it, I'm a huge believer in balance. It's very simple, but essential to any successful side, to have players who complement each other and bring balance to the team, such as it's no good having two indentical players playing central midfield as indeed we did yesterday it would seem. Not sure as yet as to what kind of player Drinkwater is so will give Jones the benefit of the doubt for now, but moving Whitts into the middle suggested as I believe the general pointed out, not what a good moe it was, but that Jones got the balance and shape of the team wrong in the first place.

Cheers Tony, prob just the two of us though!

I've been saying about the lack of quality in this division for quite a time now and have used it to show DJ weaknesses. Everyone seemed to be saying he has had little money to spend and has done well to keep us challenging. Well I have totally disagreed with all this. He has had more money than most, About the only time I felt like sticking up for the Riddler when he said that. The division has got weaker since DJ has been here. Yes there has always been 2 clubs each season who were going to be guaranteed autos like last season but after them its been wide open which DJ has failed to capitulise. I mean look at the teams that got into the POs. We have been in this division alot longer than any of the other 3. Anyone coming up from league one will really fancy their chances of this division as has been proved over the last few seasons.

Totally agree. Jones and Ridsdale used to trip over their own tongues in their anxienty to point out how unfair it was that we had to compete against teams with paracute payments, hence bigger budgets. While this is of course true to a large degree, other clubs have succeeeded on far smaller budgets than us, let alone clubs such as them and while I accept they are the minority, nonetheless there have been some, Blackpool last season being probably the most obvious. Given Jones is often regarded as mercurial by those who adore him, how is it others, albeit a few, have delivered so much more with so much less? Yes, Jones has done a decent to good job since he has been here, but let us not forget he has been very well funded for all bar his first season.

I also didn't hear Jones complain about the unfairness of the situation last season in that we as a club hugely in debt and unable to pay the bills he was allowed to spend around £6m that summer on players, dish out very lucrative salaries to boot, whilst little old Blackpool made do with what really is a shoestring budget Dave, not the mythical one you oft purport to have played with when the truth is oh so different. While Newcastle and West Brom proved to be better than anything else in the league, and so they should given their stature and resources, not hugely so, and if other clubs such as ours had been managed better, no better than any other reasonably funded and managed Championship side. Unfortunately, we only met one of that criteria whilst how on earth the failure to beat such a poorly funded Blackpool side is accepted as such a brave effort I simply do not see, it was failure given the budget he was afforded. Given the funding on fees and especially wages that was afforded to Jones yet again, the squad should have been better equipped to not only win the play-off final, but push harder for automatic, that it wasn't is purely down to Jones's decisions on how he utilised his budget. Which brings me on to Michael Chopra...