Hob Nob Anyone?

Brogue wrote:Shambles of a window, 25 midfielders 1 attacker

We've somehow turned into retirement home reject fc

Couldn't be less underwhelming to see scott dann and drinkwater if I tried. Reminds me of keown and Ferdinand

Nameless wrote:

Zip wrote:

blythspartan wrote:We can’t even sign free agents unless we offload another player, so I assume we can’t sign anyone now until next January. I can’t believe we signed Drinkwater knowing this.

Best we can hope for is 0-0 in every game between now and Christmas. I wonder what the lowest number of Championship points is. At this rate we might end up with both records.

I gather you are correct. So that is it until January. We will find out tomorrow why Drinkwater was signed in the knowledge that we couldn’t just go out and get a striker with one day to go without moving one of our own on.
We just have to hope Pauno can sort out a formation that offers our forward/s a better service than they have received thus far.

It doesn’t mean we can’t sign anyone until January, and how you can draw that conclusion I have no idea.
The EFL sanctions change constantly. There will be all sorts of things we can do to get the restrictions relaxed yet again and once we have made more movement the EFL will respond.

Reading are under an embargo and apparently as part of that the FL will not let affected clubs sign free agents unless the club concerned has less than 14 outfield players (according to the EP at the link below). Reading have 20 so their apparent “all eggs in one basket” attempt to get a striker in yesterday has really backfired on them. It’ll now be January before the club can do anything.

So look forward to 4 months or so of Puscas struggling to fit into the system (and what’s the betting he gets injured before long anyway?).

https://www.getreading.co.uk/sport/foot ... y-21450938

My heart says 'at least try 3-5-2, with George supported by another creative player....'

My mind says 'VP will stubbornly continue with his 4-2-3-1 and Puscas will continue to look like a fish that has been asked to climb a tree'....

Hoping I'm wrong and the 'we will learn from these defeats' rhetoric actually means something'...

Cant be disappointed to be honest. I would rather have no striker than a player who doesn't want to be here. We would have offered everyone available our terms. You cant force players to join. So if Carroll etc wasn't up for it then so be it.

All in all not the window i was expecting. We got 6 players in which did not look likely given our circumstances,
Some experienced heads have come in - Dann will be a asset in the team. Drinkwater i am not so sure about, its another body in the door suppose.
Now we have plenty of midfielders, wouldn't mind seeing Swift much further up the pitch now, as a false 10. He will get fouled a lot but at least it would be in a good area.

Simmops wrote:

Brogue wrote:Shambles of a window, 25 midfielders 1 attacker

We've somehow turned into retirement home reject fc

Couldn't be less underwhelming to see scott dann and drinkwater if I tried. Reminds me of keown and Ferdinand

I agree…it’s not good scouting, it smacks of desperation to me.

Hoilett, Rahman & Halilovic I can understand…needed bodies in those positions.

But we’ve focused on strengthening our strongest position on the field…where’s the sense in that?!

We now have 7 central mids…Drinkwater, TDB, Laurent, Rino, Tetek, Swift & Ejaria.

So we’ve reverted back to the issue we had before we trimmed the squad last season.

And we’ve strengthened a slow central deFence, with an even older, slower defender.

Plus we haven’t resolved the biggest issue in the lack of goals.

Long season ahead

Well guess we’ll get to see what Puscas is really made of now - no excuses

Still reckon we’ll bring a free agent in. Carroll, HRK or the like though

Notts Royal wrote:

Simmops wrote:

Brogue wrote:Shambles of a window, 25 midfielders 1 attacker

We've somehow turned into retirement home reject fc

Couldn't be less underwhelming to see scott dann and drinkwater if I tried. Reminds me of keown and Ferdinand

I agree…it’s not good scouting, it smacks of desperation to me.

Hoilett, Rahman & Halilovic I can understand…needed bodies in those positions.

But we’ve focused on strengthening our strongest position on the field…where’s the sense in that?!

We now have 7 central mids…Drinkwater, TDB, Laurent, Rino, Tetek, Swift & Ejaria.

So we’ve reverted back to the issue we had before we trimmed the squad last season.

And we’ve strengthened a slow central deFence, with an even older, slower defender.

Plus we haven’t resolved the biggest issue in the lack of goals.

Long season ahead

2 of those don't play in CM and 1 probably was only going to be getting a handful of minutes off the bench anyway and might be better suited to a loan this season to get some meaningful game time. I'd rather have bodies in than rely in Laurent and Rino playing nearly every minute for 2x seasons in a row.

Notts Royal wrote:

Simmops wrote:

Brogue wrote:Shambles of a window, 25 midfielders 1 attacker

We've somehow turned into retirement home reject fc

Couldn't be less underwhelming to see scott dann and drinkwater if I tried. Reminds me of keown and Ferdinand

I agree…it’s not good scouting, it smacks of desperation to me.

Hoilett, Rahman & Halilovic I can understand…needed bodies in those positions.

But we’ve focused on strengthening our strongest position on the field…where’s the sense in that?!

We now have 7 central mids…Drinkwater, TDB, Laurent, Rino, Tetek, Swift & Ejaria.

So we’ve reverted back to the issue we had before we trimmed the squad last season.

And we’ve strengthened a slow central deFence, with an even older, slower defender.

Plus we haven’t resolved the biggest issue in the lack of goals.

Long season ahead

Your probably forgot Halilovic as well.

We don't really play with wingers - we tend to play with 2 more "holding" players and 3 who sit behind a lone striker - we may even shift to a 3-5-2 or 3-5-1-1 - we need talented midfielders so that we aren't relying on the same bodies week in week out.

So now (as opposed to a few weeks ago, or even last year) we can start with say a midfield consisting of:

Rino, Laurent, Swift, Ejaria, Halilovic and if it's not working (or to help see out games) bring on Drinkwater, TDB or Tetek - not forgetting we have Hoilett to stretch the play if we want to change formation.

At the back, the edition of Dann allows us to add him to a back 3 (with 2 of Holmes/Morro/Moore currently) - allowing both Yiadom and Rahman to push forward a bit more when we have the ball without being caught out.

We even have options to play with a false 9 at times.

Now it's likely we'll stick with the 4-2-3-1 that VP seems to love but these signings improve that option, we just need to play more to the 3 that going straight up to the 1 as often as we do. Having said that, first half on Saturday Puscas did a pretty decent job, was causing the centre backs some headaches and beat his man a couple of times, notably setting up Hoilett for a chance.

A striker is needed but I don't think it is the end of the world some would have it be.

Hound wrote:Well guess we’ll get to see what Puscas is really made of now - no excuses

Still reckon we’ll bring a free agent in. Carroll, HRK or the like though

Well under current rules the EFL will not allow us to bring in a free agent as we cannot sign anyone outside of the transfer window whilst under an embargo unless we have less than 16 senior players.

When you take into account our injured players we have a very competitive squad. It’s just that we are so depleted in goalscoring threats with Joao, Meite and Azeez all out

Zip wrote:

Hound wrote:Well guess we’ll get to see what Puscas is really made of now - no excuses

Still reckon we’ll bring a free agent in. Carroll, HRK or the like though

Well under current rules the EFL will not allow us to bring in a free agent as we cannot sign anyone outside of the transfer window whilst under an embargo unless we have less than 16 senior players.

Is this 100% true or one of those things that gets stretched to be the truth?

I would find it very hard to see how that could be enforced - say we agree a deal with Carroll this week but the EFL won't allow us to sign him - possibly a legal argument for constraint of trade of the player as the EFL are essentially saying he must remain unemployed.

BTW what is the definition of a senior player here?

Stranded wrote:

Zip wrote:

Hound wrote:Well guess we’ll get to see what Puscas is really made of now - no excuses

Still reckon we’ll bring a free agent in. Carroll, HRK or the like though

Well under current rules the EFL will not allow us to bring in a free agent as we cannot sign anyone outside of the transfer window whilst under an embargo unless we have less than 16 senior players.

Is this 100% true or one of those things that gets stretched to be the truth?

I would find it very hard to see how that could be enforced - say we agree a deal with Carroll this week but the EFL won't allow us to sign him - possibly a legal argument for constraint of trade of the player as the EFL are essentially saying he must remain unemployed.

BTW what is the definition of a senior player here?

There have been various interpretations of what a senior player is defined as but let’s put it this way we have comfortably more than 16 players who have played a good number of League games.
I guess time will tell over the EFL interpretation especially if Puscas is injured

Hendo wrote:

Notts Royal wrote:

Simmops wrote:
We've somehow turned into retirement home reject fc

Couldn't be less underwhelming to see scott dann and drinkwater if I tried. Reminds me of keown and Ferdinand

I agree…it’s not good scouting, it smacks of desperation to me.

Hoilett, Rahman & Halilovic I can understand…needed bodies in those positions.

But we’ve focused on strengthening our strongest position on the field…where’s the sense in that?!

We now have 7 central mids…Drinkwater, TDB, Laurent, Rino, Tetek, Swift & Ejaria.

So we’ve reverted back to the issue we had before we trimmed the squad last season.

And we’ve strengthened a slow central deFence, with an even older, slower defender.

Plus we haven’t resolved the biggest issue in the lack of goals.

Long season ahead

2 of those don't play in CM and 1 probably was only going to be getting a handful of minutes off the bench anyway and might be better suited to a loan this season to get some meaningful game time. I'd rather have bodies in than rely in Laurent and Rino playing nearly every minute for 2x seasons in a row.

Chuck in everybody saying Swift will get an injury and then suddenly we have no midfielders. Cant win.
Just be grateful we signed the players we did. Because we could have just not signed anyone.

Coppells Lost Coat wrote:

Hendo wrote:

Notts Royal wrote:
I agree…it’s not good scouting, it smacks of desperation to me.

Hoilett, Rahman & Halilovic I can understand…needed bodies in those positions.

But we’ve focused on strengthening our strongest position on the field…where’s the sense in that?!

We now have 7 central mids…Drinkwater, TDB, Laurent, Rino, Tetek, Swift & Ejaria.

So we’ve reverted back to the issue we had before we trimmed the squad last season.

And we’ve strengthened a slow central deFence, with an even older, slower defender.

Plus we haven’t resolved the biggest issue in the lack of goals.

Long season ahead

2 of those don't play in CM and 1 probably was only going to be getting a handful of minutes off the bench anyway and might be better suited to a loan this season to get some meaningful game time. I'd rather have bodies in than rely in Laurent and Rino playing nearly every minute for 2x seasons in a row.

Chuck in everybody saying Swift will get an injury and then suddenly we have no midfielders. Cant win.
Just be grateful we signed the players we did. Because we could have just not signed anyone.

Well quite.

Zip wrote:

Stranded wrote:

Zip wrote:
Well under current rules the EFL will not allow us to bring in a free agent as we cannot sign anyone outside of the transfer window whilst under an embargo unless we have less than 16 senior players.

Is this 100% true or one of those things that gets stretched to be the truth?

I would find it very hard to see how that could be enforced - say we agree a deal with Carroll this week but the EFL won't allow us to sign him - possibly a legal argument for constraint of trade of the player as the EFL are essentially saying he must remain unemployed.

BTW what is the definition of a senior player here?

There have been various interpretations of what a senior player is defined as but let’s put it this way we have comfortably more than 16 players who have played a good number of League games.
I guess time will tell over the EFL interpretation especially if Puscas is injured

Reading the EFL site, the 16 man rule doesn't apply to us - as ours is a P&S embargo - those rules apply to the likes of Derby.

Under the terms of our embargo, we are allowed to have a maximum of 24 established players. If I am reading it correctly, link to follow, an established player is a player who has:

Played in a minimum of 5 games at Championship level or higher
Must have been 21 on the 30th June 2021 i.e. Tetek, Bristow & Azeez do not count towards that tally regardless of apps.

If we get to 24 players, then it is a one in/one out situation - this is allegedly where we are.

Would be great to get a breakdown of who are established players are - I think under those rules, we only have 22 but that was just from a quick view of the squad on Transfermarkt (squad list down on club website). Rules do state that the EFL have the final say on each deal, so it may well be that they have taken the view that we have enough given the u21 year old players we've been using and won't sanction any more deals - this is where the conversation with them may be to allow one more free agent in.

Link: https://www.efl.com/-more/governance/em ... goes-faqs/

An excellent window, some real quality, experience and players with a point to prove. They pretty much all need to play. Previous has not delivered and now needs a freshen up. Excited for the home game now. URZ.

paultheroyal wrote:An excellent window, some real quality, experience and players with a point to prove. They pretty much all need to play. Previous has not delivered and now needs a freshen up. Excited for the home game now. URZ.

Not quite excellent.Still need that striker.

got to be happy with the additions, given our situation.
obvs striker issue is an issue, but other than that, im happier than i was. which is nice

Did better then Barcelona I suppose

Another positive is that we didn't lose anyone on deadline day. I assume we can now look at extending the contracts of those players who's deals are up next summer but keeping within the 8.5k limit? Not sure we'll get many takers