Hughton happy with squad and just window shopping in the January Sales?
Posted on January 8th, 2010 | 285 Comments |
Particularly when all the noises over the last few months have been about not panicking in into getting loan deals and signing players for the sake of it. And Hughton himself said it was about working to a plan for the January transfer window, so we had probably all hoped that the plans were in place, but it seems like there is a bit of backtracking.
Speaking about the January transfer window, he had this to say:
“I would like to have the same numbers for the second half of the season,”
“But where we are at the moment, I am very very happy with the squad. I do not feel I need to add an awful lot.”
“I think the strength of where we are at the moment is that we have been able to stay a tight knit group. So far we have been fortunate with injuries.”
That doesn’t really make sense to me, considering we’ve yet to tie up deals to bring back Khizanisvilli or Harewood which leaves us two down already. Now I won’t lose any sleep if they don’t come back but I’d like to think they’re going to be replaced sometime soon. Geremi will hopefully be on his way soon and again while that is not such a great loss, we need to fill that void and hopefully with some real quality.
If we’ve been fortunate so far with injuries, then it stands to reason we’re due some bad luck? Particularly when you consider our recent history of injuries. So that must be a concern for Hughton given the tough run-in we’ve got ahead of us? I’d like to think he’s battering on the door, and insisting that he gets some reinforcements.
“In an ideal scenario I think you’d always like to bring in somebody you can see potential in, whether that’s financial potential or in terms of being a good age.”
“That’s always the best scenario, but for me the most important thing is that we have enough players to stay where we are for the rest of the season.”
“What you have to do is have an eye on the future, on next season and so on, but the large majority of our thoughts are about this season.”
Sorry like, but that to me really does sound like pro-board rhetoric. I absolutely loathe the idea that a manager thinks in terms of ‘financial potential’. I want our gaffer concentrating on the football and making sure the eleven on the park do the job and that includes fighting tooth and nail to keep those who players who might also represent good sell-on value. It just sounds like he’s reading from a script on that one.
“There’s been a lot of phone calls and there have been a few surprise names,”
“A lot of players become available who you didn’t think would. It is also a time for agents to do their business.”
“They wouldn’t think they were doing their job right if they were not throwing lots of names at you.”
“To a degree I had this before, when I was the temporary manager. At the moment we have got players coming from all angles to us.”
“This is a time for agents as well, this is their avenue to get information over and of course a lot of info they are giving to me they are giving to 30 or 40 (other) people as well.”
This isn’t really a dig at Hughton per se, although I’d like to see evidence that he’ll fight for his right to be given the right tools to do the job. As mentioned previously, some of us are concerned that there is no established recruitment plan in place and that it seems we’re literally searching for the cheapest options available.
As pointed out by tino11 (who should really be blogging on here incidentally), on the Journal thread, it would be interesting to know what happened to our ‘links’ to South America, having taken on Gonzalez in the deal that ultimately started this whole slide off. Where are the players that justified the infamous ‘favour’?
I hope all the doubters, including me, are proved horribly wrong. But once again, we’re only seeing departures at the moment and even though we seemed to have Kilgallon and Beckford lined up nicely, they seem to have gone pear-shaped too. If we get Beckford ,that may go some way to appeasing the fans but will it only mask the inadequacies of not strengthening on other areas, simply through the relief of finally getting one of our long-term targets?
I hate to think of us all sitting hopefully as the second tick by looking for snippets of information on players that may or may not end up at the club. Is this sudden turnaround from Hughton, just early justification in case we see little or no activity in this month’s transfer window. And will the club be able to use the weather as an excuse?
Future club statement –
“Mike would like to say he is as disappointed as the fans are, but due to severe weather conditions, the plans for the January transfer window were badly effected. However, he would like to point out that at the next available opportunity he will invest in the future of the club and hopes the club and the fans can move forward together for the future”
NUFCBlog Author: bowburnmag
bowburnmag has written 234 articles on this blog.
Haha the future statement could not have been written better…he will just get Stuart to cut and paste it for him :)
Starting to look gloomy 8.5 days in and not even secured a loan signing yet…I know we are not as wealthy as we where but even loan players for such a huge club is really tight in my opinion.
If I was Mike I would say CH here is 20m get 4 decent players and get us promoted.