Window Closed, Bigger Squad But Is The Club Serious About Promotion?

[Jean_claude_killy]

For me the lack of forward cover is the one issue I have with the recruitment we've done. I'm not talking about a Gayle, Austin or whoever as I don't think that would've made sense due to the way we play, but more about having cover incase anything happens to Grabban and/or Mir. The likes of Frazier Campbell are free agents still so I guess it's something we could explore if we wanted to.

For all the clean sheets Pantilimon got last season he did have his dodgy moments, hopefully one or both of Muric and Samba will prove to be more solid. OK, Muric had a shaky start but so did Pants if I remember rightly.

We've got an actual left back as backup to Robinson now and a right back who should - on paper - be better than Darikwa. I'd actually go with Richardson as backup to Jenkinson rather than Cash, specially seeing how the sheep's young right back did last season and how good West Brom's was against us.

Hopefully Dawson can stay fit, but we're certainly not short of right-sided options at centre half. No idea what Chema will be like on the left, but he has a reasonable pedigree having played in La Liga.

Bostock is probably the signing I'm most excited about. He can really play and pick out a pass, as long as we're mobile enough to give him the options. Semedo showed flashes on Saturday of what he can do and I'm sure Silva will improve. Watson has done well in pre-season and I didn't think he was bad on Saturday. Sow looks like a real enforcer and we've still got Yates to add to that and Carvalho to come back.

Whilst Adomah and Ameobi might not be the exciting names of Dias and Goncalves they at least know the division and I'd hope that over the season they can contribute a lot more (though that wouldn't be hard). Barring any unexpected moves abroad we've kept Lolley and we still have Appiah as an option out wide.

Up front is definitely the area of concern. If Grabban gets the service he'll score goals, but he has to get that service (and stay fit). Mir looked interesting in his cameo. Beyond that though it's a bit sparse. Ameobi, possibly Appiah and Johnson could all play through the middle, but it'd be asking a lot of any of them to step up to the plate in Grabban's absence if it happens. Murphy is still with us for now I suppose - I just hope we don't have to use him (no disrespect Daryl).

We just don't know yet how things will turn out. The first 15 minutes last week were so encouraging then the goals seemed to just knock the stuffing out of the team. They'll certainly need to be more resilient to setbacks than they showed against WBA and hopefully Lamouchi will instil that. Leeds away is probably the last match you'd want after losing our first game at home, but just think of the boost it'd give everyone if we could get an unexpected result.

Come on you reds.

A very good appraisal SR

The problem with Grabban is that we tend to play to his big weakness at times by isolating him; once we get players like Lolley and Carvalho close to him he looks a very different player.

You mention the first fifteen minutes last week; that is a great example of what I am talking about; we then went on to isolate him for the next 75 minutes and he looked poor.

Our frailties were cruelly exposed last week by a manager who had done his home work; he destroyed both of our full backs to an extent were we had to double up at times, which in turn stretched the midfield to breaking point, and he had just the players to take advantage of that situation.

It was not only Grabban who was isolated, Silva was dragged deeper and deeper where he is just not the same player.

Having said that, we reduced WBA to hardly any worthwhile scoring opportunities after the two goals.

We simply cannot afford any passengers in the side, especially in important positions like full back.

I am glad in one way that we have gone slightly over the top in signing players because you have to look beyond the eleven on the pitch; we cannot afford any weak links in the entire squad.