Tombwfc wrote:
SmokinFrazier wrote:
Tombwfc wrote:
Adequate for the Championship, woefully out of his depth in the Premier League.
He was good last year with WBA. He didn't even look out of his depth in the Euros and is one of the few Ireland players who can hold their heads up.
I think I only saw him play once for West Brom (and even that is presuming he played at the Reebok, I can't remember) and haven't seen any of Ireland's games at the Euros. West Brom opted not to keep him on though, so he can't have been that good for them. At Rovers though he was the worst central midfielder in a squad filled with terrible central midfielders.
Incidentally, I think he scored at Barnsley the only other time I saw him play last season. I think he's perfectly fine for what we've brought him in to do, but nothing more than that. I think the clubs interested in signing him are a good indication of his level.
Prufrock wrote:
I'm perhaps with you on that, but you have to put yourself in one of two positions. Either you are the board, and you trust Coyle- in which case you might say (what I'm arguing I probably would say) Mark Davies isn't worth £5m, take that, and trust the manager to go out and find maybe two players of the required standard not only to get us up but keep us up. Or, you don't trust Coyle, in which case you take the £5m use it to sack him and get in a manager who can take the same squad minus one player and get it up and keep it up.
I just think when you see Gary Cahill out for £7m, and you see LCY in for £2.2, and Holden for nought, you'd be looking at it in terms of our 'model' of buy young sell for more and think £5m on a £1m outlay fits the model and sounds a good deal.
The 'model' though is not worth having when you don't bring in the right players. Assuming we're looking to at least double our money on these players (as we surely will with Davies and Lee, and would've done with Cahill had we sold him earlier), how many of the players I mentioned have a hope of doing that? It's too early to say with Sordell, but with the rest we just paid average money and received average footballers.
I'm with you on Andrews. Solid enough for this year, in fact I think he'll be a good 'un, Champo player Gareth Farrelly stylee, but not good enough if we get back up.
On Mavies, I don't think we'll ever be getting more than £5m, I don't think he is THAT good, although losing him would certainly be a 'loss', and I think if you are backing the manager which the board clearly are, you have to back him to spend that money wisely to improve the squad.
We're talking hypotheticals though, if Owen says don't sell him for that, we'll be worse, don't sell him, if he says he can improve the squad, and not just for this year, then sell him.
Or the Tea Lady
