Carlos, Wednesday and the jigsaw piece....

[Holmowl]

Just now, gurujuan said:

 

Well the obvious shortcoming is no pace, very pedestrian However, for the most part, we were able to grind out results. There is no disputing, that in spite of the shortcomings, we have done well to improve on last season's finish. Undoubtably it's been harder, and not just because of the parachute payments Sides like Reading, Fulham and Huddersfield have improved tactically, and have overtaken us in some respects. More may do so next season. I feel we are swimming against the tide a bit here, despite our sizeable transfer outlay.

 

But no pace and pedestrian six wins in six playing a proper 442.

 

 

[Lord Snooty]

Just now, Holmowl said:

@Lord Snooty

 

Loving the thread.

 

Why your strong opinion on needing to find a new formation.

 

What was wrong with the 442, done properly?

 

ie

 

2 CMs (Bannan with Jones then Lee)

2 wingers (Wallace and Reach)

2 proper strikers (any two from Hooper, Fletch, Rhodes)

 

It worked in three tough homes and three aways.

 

Well not so much a new one as the one which hit Arsenal to such devastating effect and which, Carlos was tyring to ease through the teething stages last season .

It was my belief then , and still is, that it (the team) was only a Wickham type in for Joao away from being a side which would properly dominate the division. 

Giving us an equal footing in midfield with any teams who wanted to try and clog.  Giving greater freedom and less defensive responsibility to Fernando and Wallace so they could use their talents higher up the pitch and also to let us go toe to toe with teams who wanted to make it a scrap.

 

As for 4-4-2. I have absolutley no problem with it.

Indeed, I wish everyone played it and games were more open like they used to be (in my rose tinted youth and middle years)!!

If I ever become Chairman of FIFA I may bring it in as a ruling All teams will play two strikers. Consisting of a "Bigman/littleman partnership"

 

I just find a great uncomfortbleness in watching us prodding the ball about, outnumbered. Four our 4-4-2 isn't the type I like. I like a 4-4-2 of flying wingers. Of streams of crosses flying into the box and our forwards piling in like looters in a blackout.

There never seems to be a real conviction.  I understand that the game evolves and that Counter-attacking seems to have over taken keepy ball etc.

 

[Costello 77]

Quality post. Top marks.

[York_Owl]

The best post I have read on Owlstalk.  Had Carlos spoken to you before the Huddersfield game we would have beaten them and now be looking forward to another play off final.

[HarryJ]

Great post and much better than one I posted in another thread.

Totally agree with the 3-5-2 although probably prefer the 3-2-3-2 approach to fill the gaps between the lines.

Need more pace though!

[York_Owl]

29 minutes ago, Holmowl said:

@Lord Snooty

 

Loving the thread.

 

Why your strong opinion on needing to find a new formation.

 

What was wrong with the 442, done properly?

 

ie

 

2 CMs (Bannan with Jones then Lee)

2 wingers (Wallace and Reach)

2 proper strikers (any two from Hooper, Fletch, Rhodes)

 

It worked in three tough homes and three aways.

Good question @Holmowl.  I think it comes unstuck when you come up against a team playing three central midfielders when one or more of them is of a very high quality.  Hull taught us this lesson at Wembley last year with Huddlestone running the show.  Mooy did exactly the same job for Huddersfield this season supported by a grafter, Hogg and the mobile, athletic Brown in front of them.  Our two, with Hutch sitting deep, just couldn't get close enough to them so they dominated midfield and dictated the play.

[Utah Owl]

I enjoyed reading that post, but at age 58 I can't remember it!

[York_Owl]

3 minutes ago, HarryJ said:

Great post and much better than one I posted in another thread.

Totally agree with the 3-5-2 although probably prefer the 3-2-3-2 approach to fill the gaps between the lines.

Need more pace though!

Ironically I too came to the conclusion that we might have been better off playing 3-5-2 this season with the players we have, especially the number of forwards which would largely be wasted in a 4-3-3 and, other than possibly Fletcher, we still don't have anyone suited for the lone striker role. 

 

Something like this v Huddersfield:

 

Westwood

 

Hutchinson

Lees

Loovens

 

Hunt

Lee

Jones

Bannan

Reach

 

Fletcher

FF / Rhodes / Winnall)

[nevthelodgemoorowl]

22 hours ago, Lord Snooty said:

 

 

 

 

It’s all over but the crying

 

 

 

I didn’t post the other night.  I try not to when the raw emotions are still sparking on the surface.  Not to mention the booze, which I had used to try and forget the terrible feelings in my body, the pangs of pain which overtake.

 

 

 

So now in the cold light of day I’ve thought back over the season, and in part last season, for contrast and to see what changes, subtle or otherwise, have been made and what impact they might have made.

 

 

 

To look at the players and manager and their performance through the season as a whole.

 

 

 

A Better season -  But was it?

 

This season-  as superbly demonstrated by Ryan’s excellent graphs -  (my favourite thread of the season! )was, overall a better season than last with a higher points total and a higher placing. 

 

Despite this many of us at various times came away from games with a sense of anguish and apprehension –even when we got results. In the end of course results are all. There was a clear change of playing policy. Effective, even though at times grim , but most fans will back a team when it is getting results. 

 

 

Clearly we had made a definite decision to slightly alter the playing style or tactics.  Wednesday were going, it became clear, be able to grind out results when the need arose.   Fans will largely accept that.

 

Where the difference in backing comes is when the two differing approaches start losing games.  When we lost a few last season, people were quite rational. “We can’t win them all”. This season when defeats came the outpourings were a lot harsher and style is -to my mind- the factor that made people quicker to turn and in greater frustrated numbers.

 

 Personally, though I do like free flowing football I find nothing wrong with the pragmatic approach to the game and the season which Carlos and his team have taken this season.  After all it worked well for Burnley last season and more than once it  was noted on the similarity . The signing of Jones in the summer was perhaps the signal of intent.

 

 

 

Did it work?  ……ultimately not to expectation 

 

We may have finished higher than last season but ended up falling short of making a proper challenge for the top spots and failing to make the play off final. 

 

Earlier in the season many, myself included –though not in as vociferous an explosion as some called for the players to be let off the leash and to go and express themselves as they did at times last season.  Not go mad, not go all-out attack, even tactical dinosaurs like me understand that with the modern trend for playing counter attack we didn’t want to go out and leave ourselves totally exposed to the sucker punch and getting picked off.  But  we seem to have swung from one extreme to the other. Last season more of a high paced pressing and attacking side, this season a soaking and grinding side.

 

 

 

I’m sure that most fans would accept  that as the great Bill Paisley once said, the best teams are neither one nor the other, but the ones that are a cohesive blend of both, which is surely  the ticket for the characters we have in this squad. 

 

The question now turns to how many of the squad will stay on though and indeed who will manage them.

 

 

 

 

 

Carlos out – Rumour/truth either way terrible timing

 

The timing this last week in the build up to the game about Carlos’ future couldn’t have been worse timed , creating a misdirection of interest and filling newspaper columns, comments sections and message boards with the sorts of rumours which ALWAYS find their way to the club and the dressing room.  

 

Does that really make a difference?  Of course it does. Yes, they are professionals, but they are also human beings.  Uncertainty over a manager’s position casts doubt on the future of all the players too.  Does this affect performance?  One would hope that once on the pitch that players to a certain extent can forget off the pitch issues.  But some won’t. Some will worry about their own future and feel lethargic with concern.  “If the new man doesn’t want me , we’ll be on the move again.  Looking for a new home. A new school for the kids”. We can all come on here and say that the nomadic life of a footballer would suit us because of the riches earnt.  But money doesn’t stop the way a mans mind works.  Worrier will always worry.  Some of the players I dare say might have gone the extra mile, wanting so desperately to get a result for a manager who has shown faith in them.  Indeed Iooked at Bannan last night, a player who has had an up and down season but always been back by his manager and I saw him playing like a man possessed.  Of course he wanted to win. To get to Wembley. To have a crack at the Premier league again.  That is a professional desire.  But personal desire must come into play too.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carlos Carvalhal

 

Looking back at the season we have to look at the manager. How has Carlos done?

 

As I said in the opening overall he’ll be able to put a 4^th place finish on his CV.  An improvement on last years 6^th place finish. 

 

On paper, that is foundations being built on. A solid first season and then building bit by bit.  It could be argued and I’m sure will that the next stage of this sequence would surely be to challenge for the top two. 

 

Whether he will be here to do so remains to be seen.  But if he does, it’s my personal opinion that Carlos needs to go back to his true self. With his true football beliefs. 

 

 

 

We all remember I’m sure early into his reign when one of the local radio journalists asked him about clean sheets he laugh and said “In Portugal, we don’t have words for this!”  A funny moment, a quip, but at the time it raised smiles not just because of the cultural difference and his mock shock, but because under the radar it sent the subliminal message to fans.  Carlos’ teams will attack. 

 

There were teething problems last season, but they did try and attack, even if it didn’t always come off. 

 

 

 

 

 

Carlos is a 4-3-3 man…

 

When the unheard of Carlos first came to Wednesday this phrase was uttered more times than I can remember, printed more times than I can remember.  I kept being told this and decided , like many of us no doubt did to research the new manager a little.  And indeed he was the 4-3-3 man and from an interview I read a huge believer in the 4-1-2-3 version of the system which Mourinho employed in his first spell at Chelsea.

 

 

Carlos’ Wednesday of last season played a lop sided 4-3-3 into 4-4-2  and early on he even played a 4-2-3-1 with Hutchinson and Lopez as a fulcrum for McGuguan a few times. His nod perhaps to English football. 

 

Sometimes a case of playing on small pitches where the space was so compacted 4-4-2 seemed the reasonable way to open it up and the experiment seemed to be over.

 

 

 

 But we did see glimpses of the tactics which we had heard about before his arrival. .. Often Fernando would be cast out wide in games or when subs were made and the debate raged in the pubs and on the forums,…in fact some fans couldn’t even agree one what system we were playing at all!

 

 

 

But it was against  Arsenal (who despite their excuses still had a side with over 400 International caps on show)  Carlos played with that system for which he had been known in his career pre Wednesday. -A  4-1-4-1  moving into a 4-1-2-3 when in possession.  And it worked an absolute treat!! 

 

 

 

 

 

If this was what Carlos was all about, then I wanted to see more of it!

 

 

 

Hutchinson , Lee and Bannan revelled that night. Hutchinson prowling infront of the back four snapping into challenges and Lee and Bannan were freed from the shackles to move freely around midfield, Lee moving the ball quickly and sharply and Bannan driving on and supporting and getting his range of passing going.   Wallace too was superb in the more advanced position dipping in and out causing no end of problems and a fantastic night at Hillsborough.

 

 

 

I looked at that line up and thought “Here is a man with a plan!” . Looking at that team  I was excited. For it wasn’t too much to think that with Fernando in for Helan and giving a roaming role to find the space he likes to exploit weaving in an out , and that if we could get in the all round battering ram  forward but mobile forward to carry out the lone striker role in place of Joao  then we would start smashing teams (below)

 

 

I so thoroughly enjoyed that performance and the way things were shaping. We just needed that forward to play that role.

 

 

 

The final piece of the jigsaw striker?

 

A month after this game we signed Gary Hooper on loan with a move to a permanent deal.  I’d wanted Wickham or Wood, who I thought would be perfect  Young, strong mobile and with a goals record…. But I was happy that we got Hooper. A player with a good goalscoring record and who had made a name for himself.

 

 

 

Excitedly I phoned my friend Big Al, an East Anglian farmer (no jokes please) and season ticket holder at Carrow Road for 15 years. 

“Alan,” I said to him with fervent excitement “this boy Hooper. I think he’s the final piece in this chap Carlos’ jigsaw.” 

I went on to explain his history and how we had put Arsenal to the sword with this system. 

 

“I know, “ said he “I watched it. But you’re wrong if you think that Hooper is the answer”

 

Suspecting that he might just be upset that the chap Hooper  was leaving I said joshingly  “Now, now, don’t be a bad sport, he’s coming to a bigger club!”

 

“No, genuinely, Hoopers a fine player. But he can’t play the lone role. He hasn’t the lungs. Besides  , he likes to drop off into deeper pockets of space rather than lead the line. You’d have been better with Jerome for that role, despite his woeful goals record”.

 

 

 

I took it with a pinch of salt, suspecting that he had the hump . But it proved only too true. Hooper wasn’t the lone striker.  And more to the point - to play him at all meant that we couldn’t play the very system which I was convinced Carlos had designed to get the best out of our best three players - Hutchinson, Bannan and Lee!

 

 

 

Hooper needed a partner, my old friend Alan was right, and against Charlton we started with Hooper and Fernando up front.  They dropped into the same areas.  We had no focal point and worst of all, to accommodate our three best midfielders and ensure Hooper had a partner Bannan was shifted to the left wing and Wallace given a more defensive duty having to tuck in and help Hutchinson and Lee in midfield where we were outnumbered.

 

 

 

After a run of poor games in which Fernando and Joao were tried with the new-man, in the end - amazingly - it was the divisive Nuhiu who ended up being the player that brought the best from Hooper, whilst never being any form of goal threat himself.  A team is more than the sum of the parts. The big lump kept defenders busy in leading the line and being little more than a nuisance.  But it worked, Hooper enjoying his best spell since his arrival. 

 

From showing seeds at the beginning of the year we were now having to play a foil for the £3m pound striker that most fans accepted and expected wouldn’t be needed in this bright new dawn.

 

 

 

Come the play-offs against Brighton and Hull though and Carlos changed the side trying to engineer all the big names into the team, at, I think to the cost of the whole.  Hooper made little impact and was almost anonymous in the final against Hull . Lumpish centre halves Dawson and Davies had too easy a time against the diminutive Wednesday strike pair , meanwhile in midfield Hutchinson and Lee, though desperately trying were simply picked off by the triumvirate of Huddlestone, Livermore and the rangy Diame.

 

Nuhui is no world beater, at times I’m not sure what he is, and I have no doubt wouldn’t have scored a goal in that game.  But he might have given the two brutes at the back something to think about and created space for Hooper. 

Fernando would have had more space to exploit in the wide areas and Lee and Hutchinson, being run ragged by Hulls midfield trio could have benefitted from the extra body of Bannan who was wasted out wide in a role that ended up being little more than auxiliary full back.

 

 

 

I remain convinced that what cost is that day was two things.

 

• 1.       Shoehorning names.

   

• 2.       Carlos not being Carlos enough and not using his favoured 4-3-3 system.

   

 

 

This season

 

Many people thought major surgery was required. I wasn’t sure.  I believed that with the spirit in the camp, and the quality already in the camp that a simple back to basics round pegs in round holes would see us challenge again.   I thought we could do with a new centre half and some competition at full back, and Carlos alluded to as much but he and DC had apparently balked at the prices quoted for average central defensive players.

 

 

 

The arrival of Reach and Fletcher made me convinced that Carlos had learnt from the 4-4-2 overrun midfield debacle and would return to his midfield dominating roots.  Hooper, the man who likes to drop in the hole I thought would either play behind Fletcher in a 4-2-3-1 or be moved on and put down as an expensive gamble.   With speculation about Fernandos future all summer I thought Reach might be expecting to play wide of the attacking midfield.   The arrival of Abdi only strengthened my belief that Carlos was going to go back to a flooded and attack minded system.  Abdi I thought would come in and provide competition with Hooper in that area behind the targetman.

 

It might mean one of Hutchinson , Lee or Bannan being dropped, but so be it if that’s what he thought was best to get the most from Hooper and Fletcher.

 

As it is, Abdi has barely kicked a ball in anger and Fernando, despite the “strike” blip stayed.  

 

As it was, that decision over Hutch, Lee Bannan never had to be made early on as Loovens injury hangover from last season and our unwillingness (rightly) to spend well over the odds at centre half meant Hutchinson was dropped back there and the decision would be left for another day.

 

 

 

However as soon as the question was there to be asked the shoe horn came out, and it stuck out like a sore thumb.   We dug in still, and got some niggly results, but it was obvious that the names would be in. Square pegs, in this seasons round hole 4-4-2.

 

 

 

Best summed up by our starting eleven in the game against Huddersfield.  Ok, so Wallace barely kicked a ball…but nevertheless , apart from Fletcher for Hooper it was last years team in last years play off formation.

 

 

 

Opposition tactics

 

On top of the issues of the system and last year’s issues coming back to bite, there is  also the thinking of the opposition  who this season have shown us respect and waited on us to break them down.

 

I think the 4-3-3 would have been even more vital this season because of the fact that so many teams have now got a grasp on us. (or “they’ve worked us out” in OT speak)  The onus has been on us this year to break teams down.

You can do that by dominating midfield, or being direct and getting the ball into the box plenty.

 

We have played the poopydoo son of both of those tactics by playing with wide men in Reach and Wallace ….........but still trying pass through the middle!   

 

 

 

 

 

Do I ultimately think Carlos should stay? 

 

Well, to be honest I like the fellow , I wouldn’t mind him staying at all…but I’d  want him to be.. “a bit more Carlos” …  play the system he truly believes in…with the players in their best roles…..

 

that though is ever more unlikely  as with Winnall and Rhodes signing on….(at vast expense for the championship)  ….we have two more strikers  joining the ranks of our attacking department who cannot play the lone striking role.   

 

We now have 7 strikers…..all of whom work best at part of a partnership…. In that sense Carlos has backed himself into a corner…the scattergun approach to strikers has forced his hand….. and if he does leave, the hand of anyone who might take over…into playing a system with two up front… to get the best out of the resources up top.  You can’t buy a £10m striker and then play a system that doesn’t suit him. The Chairman won’t stand for it. 

 

 

 

Our transfer policy has created  a playing system which only suits the top end of the team … simply our signings have caged us into a way of playing which doesn’t get the best out of 33% of the team.

 

Will Chansiri let him spend more if he stays? …..perhaps not… given what he’s already given him.  Another season of these players in a 4-4-2 though will only end in a similar placed finish though unless we sign two box to box, tackling passing cruiserweights. But that would mean the end surely for some of the chaps who have done so much for us.

 

Our striker obsession could end up being the death knell for three of the best midfield players we’ve had down in S6 in the last 20 years. 

 

Can we keep Hutch, Lee, Bannan AND play two up front without them being compromised or shown the door?

 

 

 

The only way he could really do something different without Chansiri allowing him to tear the squad up and start again would be to play a 3-5-2 which would give us the strength in midfield which we so sadly lack with only two in there and play a striker partnership…which all of our strikers need to prosper. 

 

That would take time on the training ground though and would be a move away from the pivot back four which he so loves. 

 

 

 

In the most simple terms I think Carlos’ transfer signings and his favoured method have clashed badly and created an impasse. 

 

 

 

I think Carlos was two pieces from completing the jigsaw....and instead of looking for them....the club just spent £25m on some random pieces from another box.

 

 -----------------------------------------------------------

And that’s it for me.  I haven't said half of what I want to here!  Though I doubt anyone has read this far down.

 I may still be drunk but I simply can't type the rest.... or maybe it’s a migraine , my head is spinning now.

My heart is still not so much broken as lying tattered and trampled in the gutter,   So I won’t ever finish this thing here I have started writing….

 

 

 

….But I’ll be here next year.  Hoping we can do it.  Being a clapper from September to May and saving my grumbles for when it’s all over!

 

 

 That is the life of the Wednesday man.   Of the supporter.

 

 

 

Try and enjoy your summer fellow Owls.

 

We'l get there!

 

 

Chin chin

 

 

 

LS

 

A great piece Lord Snooty with finger pointing minimalized, but you got there in the end 3-5-2 or even 3-5-1-1.

[Lord Snooty]

Seven Strikers.

Seven strikers who it's not too hard to believe will be the top earners at the club.

I still want to know who is doing the buying?

 

 

[nevthelodgemoorowl]

3 minutes ago, Lord Snooty said:

Seven Strikers.

Seven strikers who it's not too hard to believe will be the top earners at the club.

I still want to know who is doing the buying?

 

 

And Joao and baby Hirst to be added to the reckoning ! But hey, strikers are still the most prized asset so moving some on shouldn't prove too difficult !

Edited May 19, 2017 by nevthelodgemoorowl
ommision

[Lord Snooty]

4 minutes ago, nevthelodgemoorowl said:

And Joao and baby Hirst to be added to the reckoning ! But hey, strikers are still the most prized asset so moving some on shouldn't prove too difficult !

 

Very true. Top end of the pitch is wehre the big money is spent and recieved.

But this is one of the things that intrigues me though, Nev.  To be moving any of them out to make room for other players, free up wages and recoup money would surely be seen as admitting a bit of a wee wee tail up in signing them in the first place by either the manager , Chairman, or whoever makes these decisions wouldn't it.

Do you think pride might stop such a thing happening? I'd like to think not.  But the outlays on fees and wages have been substantial. To start trying to shift them would be to own up to error in the very pride and ego driven environment of football.

 

Signing an entiely new midfield to try and feed these many , many striking options would be to admit to the unbalancing at a much more subtle level.

 

[OwlsMan1961]

Yep 7 strikers and we go to Huddersfield and defend like a non league side playing at Arsenal in the cup ..... I like Carlos but there are questions !

[nevthelodgemoorowl]

11 minutes ago, OwlsMan1961 said:

Yep 7 strikers and we go to Huddersfield and defend like a non league side playing at Arsenal in the cup ..... I like Carlos but there are questions !

You are missing the essence of what his Lordship is saying.

 

Without being too disparaging the issue was slightly confused. DC arrived, Oh the excitement, internal and external. Special advisors, then the diminishing committee, We can only imagine the agents swarming like flies around a honey pot. Trust has finally been established DC & CC understand some of the mistakes that his Lordship alluded to.

 

So now having an understanding they can move on with neither DC or CC having to cow tow to the media or the fan base. It could spell a parting of the ways but I hope not we can all benefit from the trust and mutual understanding that has developed during these first two years where they can reveal more of their inner selves.    

[nevthelodgemoorowl]

1 hour ago, Lord Snooty said:

 

Well not so much a new one as the one which hit Arsenal to such devastating effect and which, Carlos was tyring to ease through the teething stages last season .

It was my belief then , and still is, that it (the team) was only a Wickham type in for Joao away from being a side which would properly dominate the division. 

Giving us an equal footing in midfield with any teams who wanted to try and clog.  Giving greater freedom and less defensive responsibility to Fernando and Wallace so they could use their talents higher up the pitch and also to let us go toe to toe with teams who wanted to make it a scrap.

 

As for 4-4-2. I have absolutley no problem with it.

Indeed, I wish everyone played it and games were more open like they used to be (in my rose tinted youth and middle years)!!

If I ever become Chairman of FIFA I may bring it in as a ruling All teams will play two strikers. Consisting of a "Bigman/littleman partnership"

 

I just find a great uncomfortbleness in watching us prodding the ball about, outnumbered. Four our 4-4-2 isn't the type I like. I like a 4-4-2 of flying wingers. Of streams of crosses flying into the box and our forwards piling in like looters in a blackout.

There never seems to be a real conviction.  I understand that the game evolves and that Counter-attacking seems to have over taken keepy ball etc.

 

+ IMO there are two foremost reasons for 5 across the middle. The foremost being our tendency to be a little too vulnerable from set pieces and maybe not as offensive as we should be when we get them.Three CB's could help here. Secondly, we have four of the top ten midfielders in the entire division, which on the evidence, can not be said of our forwards. This in itself raises the question of adjustments in our wide positions.  

[Lord Snooty]

4 minutes ago, nevthelodgemoorowl said:

we have four of the top ten midfielders in the entire division, which on the evidence, can not be said of our forwards.

 

I agree wholeheartedly. Played correctly I think our midfield players can more than match anyone in the division.

The strikers , as you say are the ones who need to show their worth. 

 

Though that in itself is a catch22 situation. Part of the conundrum...

  For if we utilised our creative midfield players better......then we might have seen more from our strikers! 

Edited May 19, 2017 by Lord Snooty

[nevthelodgemoorowl]

2 minutes ago, Lord Snooty said:

 

I agree wholeheartedly. Played correctly I think our midfield players can more than match anyone in the division.

The strikers , as you say are the ones who need to show their worth. 

 

Though that in itself is a catch22 situation. Part of the conundrum...

  For if we utilised our creative midfield players better......then we might have seen more from our strikers! 

I have the answer to the conundrum 5-5-5 too true on your point though !

Edited May 19, 2017 by nevthelodgemoorowl

[Lord Snooty]

1 minute ago, nevthelodgemoorowl said:

I have the answer to the conundrum 5-5-5

 

By jove, that just might do it!

[gurujuan]

We may be missing the point here a bit with the strikers. It's an oversimplification to say the best strikers are the ones that know where the net is. The game is full of strikers who can individually knock up 20 goals or more, but if those goals don't contribute towards what the team is trying to achieve, what's the point. I could be. 20 consolation goal striker. It's better if the player leading the line helps the team function as a unit. As someone who was against the signing of Rhodes, I'll hold my hands up and say, when he's played, he's put a shift in and done the job he's been asked to do. My argument was, if that's what Carlos wanted from a striker, there were better options out there for that sort of money. Maybe not with the goals record of Rhodes, but someone with better all round attributes that would galvanise our attack.

[September65]

Seriously, I have to say the quality of debate and people's contributions on Owlstalk has been excellent over the last 48 hours.  There have been times when it's all got a bit silly but this is high quality stuff.  Well done all.