Official Summer 2015 Transfer Rumours Megathread

[gurujuan]

From Gray's own words, speaking about Watford, after the game and saying how impressed he was with their attacking ability.

He said something along the lines of Watford having three strikers capable of getting 60 goals between them our whole squad didn't even get anywhere near that.

He also said that's where we let ourselves down. Looking at our attacking options, they're all inexperienced but possess potential. 

Personally I like the look of Bus and Lavery and I think they could become decent players in the future.

But taking our attacking options as a whole, it's not good enough to be a realistic top half/play-off contender let alone a promotion chasing team.

I'd say we need at least two new decent strikers, as well as midfielders who contribute more, create more and chips in with some goals, McGugan we all know is a must.

We've got the defensive platform to build from, it's just the team going forward as a whole where we are very short.

That's all very well, we've been telling him that for months. If he's identified up front as where our problems lie, what is he going to do about it? He's just signed Bus and May, admitted he wants to bring Keane back, and sees Nuhiu as having a major role to play next year Not a lot of scope for changing things then is there.

[StudentOwl]

Will Keane would be the mistake IMO.

Get May out on loan and give him the season to prove he might have something about him that's worth keeping long-term, have Nuhiu on the bench. Leaves room for one marquee signing as a striker to play alongside one of Bus and Lavery, with room to be bring someone else in if someone excellent becomes available either for a free or for a cheap price (eg, ALF isn't up for much is he?). I'd imagine that that would pretty much solve our goalscoring problems. Perhaps a simplistic and overambitious example, but Wickham and Bus would probably get 25-35 goals as a strike partnership over a season, Lavery and Wickham would probably get something similar. Wickham and ALF would probably see 30-40 goals etc.

 

To me, as a bare minimum we need another "big" striker to go alongside our smaller lads, so we need a proven target man style striker, and they need to be good so that'll probably be our marquee signing. Chances are there's probably a list of half a dozen potential targets to fulfill that role... if not then Roeder et al aren't doing their job properly. (Coincidentally, I'd also be surprised if Wickham WASN'T on that list...)

[gurujuan]

I still say we need two, maybe three new strikers, but I'm not sure how we'll make room for them

[Guest wilyfox]

I agree that Keane would be a mistake. Amongst our current options, he simply wouldn't make sense. An experienced/proven forward, and a pacey forward; they are the two types we need. Keane is neither, and has a suspect injury record.

[Hawkeye]

Goals should be coming from everywhere. If they were spread evenly, to get to 90 goals this is a realistic expectation imo.

Centre halves - 10 between 3 of them

full backs - 6 between them all

wingers - 20 between 4 wingers

centre midfield - 20 between four of them

strikers - 12 each for first choice pair, 6 each for the third and fourth striker (36 between them).

92 in total. Defenders should be scoring from dead ball situations, something we've been woeful at but we're great at under megson. Wingers have failed miserably, as have our central midfielders bar lee.

Would mean minimal reliance on any one player to score our goals too.

[Dagmeister]

I still say we need two, maybe three new strikers, but I'm not sure how we'll make room for them

 

I think we'll be starting next season with Lavery, Bus, May and Nuhiu plus two new signings. By September we might see one or two going out on loan though.

[Dagmeister]

I agree that Keane would be a mistake. Amongst our current options, he simply wouldn't make sense. An experienced/proven forward, and a pacey forward; they are the two types we need. Keane is neither, and has a suspect injury record.

 

 

Good player but agree probably not what we really need.

[parkerowl]

Heard again today the rumour about James Forrest at Celtic ... from a different source within the club.

Looks like this one's got legs.

He any good ? Dont watch any scottish footy

[parkerowl]

I am actually related to Aden Flint, think he was my grandma s sisters grandson. I used to stay at his dad Nigel's house when we visited pinxton. Unfortunately I have not seen them since Aden was about 7 when my grandma passed away and everyone lost contact as we live in Bradford

His family still live in pinxton now and hes back up there all the time

[Oliver Read]

Samba Sam Larsson from Sc Heerenveen, we need a winger, he is class and cheap as chips so we can save for Jamie Vardy

SORTED

Plus, form the same club as a certain Gerald Sibon

[The Night-Owl]

Reading what Steve Cotterill had to say on the BBC about building a title winning/promotion team. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/32512953

Bristol City's record breaking title winning season was his third of his managerial career.

It's fascinating what he had to say and it rings true with what we lack and need to become a realistic top 6 candidate.

Some of the keys for him was mixing experience with youth; finding a formation that suits you, signing players to fit the way you play, keeping it tight at the back and goals throughout the team. We're part of the way there with our defensive platform, we just need to sign players who have been there and done it, up front we lack experience and quality, get more goals throughout the team and sign players who will fit how we will want to play whilst maintaining and building on from our defensive spine which as done so well for us this season.

Edited May 4, 2015 by MilansMissingMarbles

[Oliver Read]

Reading what Steve Cotterill had to say on the BBC about building a title winning/promotion team. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/32512953

Bristol City's record breaking title winning season was his third of his managerial career.

It's fascinating what he had to say and it rings true with what we lack and need to become a realistic top 6 candidate.

Some of the keys for him was mixing experience with youth; finding a formation that suits you, signing players to fit the way you play, keeping it tight at the back and goals throughout the team. We're part of the way there with our defensive platform, we just need to sign players who have been there and done it, up front we lack experience and quality, get more goals throughout the team and sign players who will fit how we will want to play whilst maintaining and building on from our defensive spine which as done so well for us this season.

And no more of this sitting back and bringing on Joe Mattock to sit out the last 30 minutes when we're a goal up

[The Night-Owl]

And no more of this sitting back and bringing on Joe Mattock to sit out the last 30 minutes when we're a goal up

Aye exactly, but to be fair to Gray next season we should have a squad more suited to playing how he wants to play and we should have more of a threat as a team going forward. 

[The Night-Owl]

Gray did remarkable in getting the defensive side of the team right this season. Defensively we are top 6 material but attacking wise as a team we're more like bottom 6 material. With a bigger budget at his disposal this season and with the changes to the set up, we should be able to bring in players to fit how he wants to play and to make us more threatening going forward. The season he took over from Jones and cleared up Jones' mess and kept us up that season, Gray was able to bring in some decent attacking players on loan which made a big difference. Hopefully we can do something similar now he's got a bigger budget to play with and we've got the defensive platform to build from.

Edited May 4, 2015 by MilansMissingMarbles

[gurujuan]

It was an interesting read, with some particularly valid points. While they had a top two budget for that division, so probably would have expected to be there, or thereabouts, the way in which they won the division was very impressive. One major lesson we could learn from the way he did it was, finding a way of playing, and then bringing in the players to fit the system. Our signings, after Lees and Westwood, were all over the place, with seemingly no thought gone into how those players might fit in.

[Hawkeye]

Gray did remarkable in getting the defensive side of the team right this season. Defensively we are top 6 material but attacking wise as a team we're more like bottom 6 material. With a bigger budget at his disposal this season and with the changes to the set up, we should be able to bring in players to fit how he wants to play and to make us more threatening going forward. The season he took over from Jones and cleared up Jones' mess and kept us up that season, Gray was able to bring in some decent attacking players on loan which made a big difference. Hopefully we can do something similar now he's got a bigger budget to play with and we've got the defensive platform to build from.

Under megson, he played a high pressure game that forced teams to play long ball - which enabled jones, reda, batth, Llera, Buxton etc to win the ball fairly easily.

He'd then work on trying to get plenty of crosses and dead ball situations, where we could exploit having a big, tall team in the oppositions box.

Awful to watch, but effective.

Gray's got us defensively tight, but our attacking options this year have been woeful. Had we managed to get fryatt and maybe mcgugan all season, we might have played different.

[The Night-Owl]

It was an interesting read, with some particularly valid points. While they had a top two budget for that division, so probably would have expected to be there, or thereabouts, the way in which they won the division was very impressive. One major lesson we could learn from the way he did it was, finding a way of playing, and then bringing in the players to fit the system. Our signings, after Lees and Westwood, were all over the place, with seemingly no thought gone into how those players might fit in.

Aye, well said and agreed. Gray needs to find a balance between defence and attack, keeping our tightness at the back but allowing us to become more threatening as a team going forward. Westwood and Lees were outstanding signings and added much needed calmness, quality and experience at the back.

As I said, the season we stayed up after he took over from Jones, we had some quality attacking players that season.

This season his first full season in charge, he gave us a defensive platform to build from which we never had under Jones and sacrificed the attacking side of the team.

But with a bigger budget at his disposal now, we should hopefully get the balance right between being a tight team at the back and a threatening team full of goals going forward. I would hope.

Edited May 4, 2015 by MilansMissingMarbles

[gurujuan]

Bournemouth set to sign Garbutt, but in truth there was never really any likelihood that he'd come here. Looks like they're taking a similar approach to last season, shrewdly looking to invest in the best young talent they can find

[prowl]

Our signings, after Lees and Westwood, were all over the place, with seemingly no thought gone into how those players might fit in.

I think that is just the result of shopping in Poundland. We were taking what we could get just to make up the numbers. The only players available were ones with history, either bad injury records or ones who were misfits like Drenthe and McGugan. personally I think we did well with what was available.

 

Next season we should be able to pick players we want who will fit the style we want to play. I'm still not convinced we will be shopping in Harrods but Waitrose would still be a step up.

[Hawkeye]

It was an interesting read, with some particularly valid points. While they had a top two budget for that division, so probably would have expected to be there, or thereabouts, the way in which they won the division was very impressive. One major lesson we could learn from the way he did it was, finding a way of playing, and then bringing in the players to fit the system. Our signings, after Lees and Westwood, were all over the place, with seemingly no thought gone into how those players might fit in.

You are always quick to post something negative on grays transfer dealings. what's wrong with that is you fail to be subjective far too often.

For example - lees and westwood were signed when mammadov was due to take over. The subsequent dragging on left us in limbo, with mandaric stopping the cash as he was on his way out, and mammadov unable to put cash in. So we ended up with filler whilst we treaded water.

Then you talk about signing players to suit a style of play. It's been well publicised by players that gray attempts to get them to play football on the deck. Our pitch has hardly been conducive to that style has it? So he changed his style to accommodate.

Last year, he was given players like Wickham. Any sign of that level of support? We even fooked around dithering before finally getting mcgugan in twice.

Signings wise, it's very easy to criticise and say players haven't been good enough. But actually, remember the melt down when it looked like may was going to Rovrum? Or Helan to watford? Or how many people wanted to drive Antonio to forest?

The January dealings were slightly different, but January rarely offers value, and we desperately needed bodies in. On paper, bus, Keane, vermijl, baker were good signings. Hasn't quite worked out that way yet, but it happens.