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

[Marinakis Red]

Pukki was an unknown on a free transfer, he was not a top established striker. Let's see what mir can do before making judgements for a change.

[Redreg]

Muric/samba
Jenko/Cashy
Milo/dawson/wozza
Figs/Chema
Rui/Robbo
Bostock/sow
Semedo/yates
Silva
Joao/albert
Lolly/arvin
Grabben/mir

How can anyone think the squad is not stronger !!!

[Paplane]

My criticisms of this window do sound a bit like a child who didnt get the toy he wanted at christmas but every critism i make is based on the height of the bar set by Marinakis. Promotion or nothing.

So when player comes in I ask if he is a promotion team player? Or when a striker doesnt get signed, is the current imcumbent up to the job of promotion? Or when a player like Colback doesmt return is it beacuse we have better and dont need him?

I think deep down we all know we're not getting a promotion this year. So Marinakis can pipe down with this promotion or nothing talk and give Sari some time and space to build something with the tools he's been given.

[wassy04]

For me just keeping Tyler would’ve at least given us depth, maybe we can recall him if we get injuries? Going to be games where we play without a CF or worse that Murphy or Cummins have to play.

On the serious about promotion but, clearly marinakis is serious investing heavily where possible. However due to financial constraints and parachute payments elsewhere. He has to be more patient with the managers as we’re gong to need time to get promoted. I’m hopeful at least that Sabri is the type of manager that will suit EM’s ownership style and will be happy working within the restrictions provided.

We all agree there’s no point sacking another manager if we’re 12th at Christmas. However that will be the true proof of EM if he sacks another manager without any off the pitch issues this time (Assuming they don’t occur again)

[the jock]

we have to give the manager and our team full support and backing or else we have no hope at all.

psycho was flying for the first ten games and then crumbled badly.

time will tell. coyr

[zicorice]

There are so many "ifs" about our chances this season. It feels like if all the stars align we could go up. As someone else said, deep down, we all hope for promotion but dont really see it happening-even if we did sign Gayle or similar we would be about 10th favourites-about where Sheff Utd/Norwich started the seasons betting last year.
That said, if half our new signings are "Pukki-esque" in their impact, then our stars truly could align.....
It's the hope that kills you.

[the jock]

a few bookies around this time last week had us finishing 17th at the end of the season. i had checked myself.

[Sausage Roll]

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.

[Redreg]

Do who is Olympiacos going to release ?

[Uwantlee]

OOOMMMMGGG it really is depressing reading some of this. So we have signed some unknown (to us) players. Just because we don’t know them doesn’t mean our manager or scouting network don’t. We have signed a lot of players but our manager stated he wanted players, stronger and more technical and we have that.
The problem here is that we have signed players who fans don’t know. The myth is that only proven championship players will make it in this league this is false. Now we could have gone out and signed Gayle at the start of the window, paid £10 million for him and £60grand in wages but that would have been a huge amount of our budget and we wouldn’t have got players to cover other areas. That £60 grand in wages covers at least 5 of our New signings.
The market in England is broken. Signing quality proven championship players costs too much now unless you have parachute payments. The manager wanted strength in midfield and he got that. However, if we had paid colbacks wages we wouldn’t have signed other players. And we would be stuck with a good player who is suspended every few weeks. The opinion of the manager and those above was that the squad last year was not good enough by a long way and needed to be changed.
We need to calm down we have had a decent window we now need to let the manager do his thing. If we lose on Saturday it is not the end of the world (although I feel that it will be to some of you). None of us know how all of the signings will turn out so let’s not pretend that we do. This is not football manager We can’t just go out and pay big wages.
I know someone will come back with the quality (how do we know the players we have are not quality)not quantity but again, the manager was not impressed with the squad and wanted the changes. 2 or 3 quality (in our opinion) players would have left us a long way short of what the manager wanted. I also know that most of this will fall on deaf ears as many have already written off the season, burned their season tickets and thrown their shirts in to the Trent.

Honestly, reading some of then stuff on here is no different to being on Twitter.

[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.

[wassy04]

OOOMMMMGGG it really is depressing reading some of this. So we have signed some unknown (to us) players. Just because we don’t know them doesn’t mean our manager or scouting network don’t. We have signed a lot of players but our manager stated he wanted players, stronger and more technical and we have that.
The problem here is that we have signed players who fans don’t know. The myth is that only proven championship players will make it in this league this is false. Now we could have gone out and signed Gayle at the start of the window, paid £10 million for him and £60grand in wages but that would have been a huge amount of our budget and we wouldn’t have got players to cover other areas. That £60 grand in wages covers at least 5 of our New signings.
The market in England is broken. Signing quality proven championship players costs too much now unless you have parachute payments. The manager wanted strength in midfield and he got that. However, if we had paid colbacks wages we wouldn’t have signed other players. And we would be stuck with a good player who is suspended every few weeks. The opinion of the manager and those above was that the squad last year was not good enough by a long way and needed to be changed.
We need to calm down we have had a decent window we now need to let the manager do his thing. If we lose on Saturday it is not the end of the world (although I feel that it will be to some of you). None of us know how all of the signings will turn out so let’s not pretend that we do. This is not football manager We can’t just go out and pay big wages.
I know someone will come back with the quality (how do we know the players we have are not quality)not quantity but again, the manager was not impressed with the squad and wanted the changes. 2 or 3 quality (in our opinion) players would have left us a long way short of what the manager wanted. I also know that most of this will fall on deaf ears as many have already written off the season, burned their season tickets and thrown their shirts in to the Trent.

Honestly, reading some of then stuff on here is no different to being on Twitter.

Disagree with this, I think these are generally fairly balanced responses. The majority of criticism is toward not getting a backup striker and previous rhetoric from the owner about being desperate for promotion.

I think most want the best for the club, and not overspending is fine but then putting too much pressure on despite the lack of comparable budget is less welcomed.