CarryOnVilla Posted January 31, 2022 Share Posted January 31, 2022 This deadline days is like getting frisky with CarryOnWife… “maybe in the summer” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted January 31, 2022 Share Posted January 31, 2022 2 hours ago, KMitch said: Because he's moving from a team chasing promotion in League 2 to a team chasing the title in League 1? Why not bother just loaning him to a championship club then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted January 31, 2022 Share Posted January 31, 2022 Successful window i say but a poor mistake letting targett go on loan. That move makes no sense to me unless they have agreed a 30m+ obligation to buy in the summer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aston_Villan4 Posted January 31, 2022 Share Posted January 31, 2022 (edited) Not a whole lot on us but Sky Sports were very complimentary of our window. Edited January 31, 2022 by Aston_Villan4 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HKP90 Posted January 31, 2022 VT Supporter Share Posted January 31, 2022 2 hours ago, allani said: With the best will in the world - trying to get the ball to a front three of AEG, Watkins and Trez is a lot harder than getting it to a front three of Coutinho, Buendia and Watkins simply because the latter make themselves available in better positions and are less likely to immediately lose the ball. Also there is no point winning the ball back if your front 3 are not capable of holding onto the ball when you get it. I think we have seen two issues recently that have summed up our challenge in the middle of the park. The second half of the Everton match showed that we won the ball back plenty of times but then failed to keep hold of it, kept giving the ball back to the opposition and inviting them back onto us. The first 30 minutes of the Man Utd game showed that when teams are dominating possession we can struggle to get the ball back off them. I think the signing of Coutinho and Digne will help address both of these issues because for the first half of the Everton game and second half of the Man Utd game we dominated possession and consequently also found it easier to win the ball back because the opposition were having to play longer balls that Luiz was better able to read and intercept (he was actually brilliant in the second half of that match rather than OK) and JJ / McGinn / Sansom were able to harrass their opposite numbers into making mistakes without necessarily having to tackle them. I am coming around to the idea that we don't need an upgrade on Marv (i.e. a good tackler but who can then hold onto the ball or pass it more effectively) but that a version of McGinn or Luiz who is more comfortable playing slightly deeper than they are. Dominating possession is our "strategy" rather than winning possession back. The more you dominate possession the easier it is to win the ball back because your opponents are fooled into trying to play too quickly when they do get the ball (exactly what we did against Everton second half). We do need that extra player but I think we have definitely more than half-solved the problem this window. So in short I think we are somewhere between the optimistic 10/10 window view and your opinion that we haven't addressed the midfield issue at all. I think our midfield 3 is stronger than it was before the start of the window - even though we haven't signed anyone in that position because Digne and Coutinho will make it easier for the midfield 3 to retain possession. A new deeper midfielder (as opposed to necessarily a defensive midfielder) would make the window pretty much perfect but it has still been the best window I can remember for many a year. Yeah I don't disagree about the standard of our signings. It's been an otherwise excellent window, but I do think that you may be clutching at straws a little bit in terms of the Coutinho argument, simply because this was an issue even before we lost Jack, and Jack was the epitome of ball retention. And unfortunately there are a fair few teams, who as you suggested was the case in the Man Utd game, can dominate possession. In those cases we struggle to win balls back. Luiz does a good job of intercepting the ball, but that's really only half of the job of a 6. We are kind of reliant on the opposition playing to our midfield strengths. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
useless Posted January 31, 2022 Share Posted January 31, 2022 I think the club will tweet some news around 6pm, only because that's what normally happens when the U23 teams are due to be announced, and then U23s team announcement gets delayed, presumably as they want to keep the news story as the top story for a while. It actually happens quite often, they must like releasing stories at that time for some reason. Although of course it's not usually a big story, and if it happens today will probably be just confiration of one of the youngsters going out loan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HalfTimePost Posted January 31, 2022 Share Posted January 31, 2022 A fantastic window all things considered, I'd say 8/10. DM would make it 9/10 and new contracts for Dougie, McGinn and Carney would make it a perfect 10/10. -1 if we boost Newcastle with Targett without a replacement lined up. Very happy regardless, superb window and much improved XI and squad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HalfTimePost Posted January 31, 2022 Share Posted January 31, 2022 Although would say I said at the end of the summer we had a habit of being done one player too soon and the same is true again. Same position too, but a fantastic window and very happy with our business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lexicon Posted January 31, 2022 Share Posted January 31, 2022 1 minute ago, HalfTimePost said: A fantastic window all things considered, I'd say 8/10. DM would make it 9/10 and new contracts for Dougie, McGinn and Carney would make it a perfect 10/10. -1 if we boost Newcastle with Targett without a replacement lined up. Very happy regardless, superb window and much improved XI and squad Why do we need 3 left backs? We have Young. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thunderball Posted January 31, 2022 Share Posted January 31, 2022 Just now, HalfTimePost said: A fantastic window all things considered, I'd say 8/10. DM would make it 9/10 and new contracts for Dougie, McGinn and Carney would make it a perfect 10/10. -1 if we boost Newcastle with Targett without a replacement lined up. Very happy regardless, superb window and much improved XI and squad They dont go home at 5pm, we have 6 hours yet this yet.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HalfTimePost Posted January 31, 2022 Share Posted January 31, 2022 Just now, lexicon said: Why do we need 3 left backs? We have Young. Incredible way to ignore the point of the post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HKP90 Posted January 31, 2022 VT Supporter Share Posted January 31, 2022 As it stands I would probably go for a 7 or 8 for this window. Our signings are a 10, but the jigsaw has just one piece missing. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thunderball Posted January 31, 2022 Share Posted January 31, 2022 I refuse to give up, I wont beleive we are done until 11:30pm, and even then if we don't hear anything I think the deal is stuck in the fax machine awaiting ratification from the FA in the morning 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allani Posted January 31, 2022 Share Posted January 31, 2022 1 minute ago, HKP90 said: Yeah I don't disagree about the standard of our signings. It's been an otherwise excellent window, but I do think that you may be clutching at straws a little bit in terms of the Coutinho argument, simply because this was an issue even before we lost Jack, and Jack was the epitome of ball retention. And unfortunately there are a fair few teams, who as you suggested was the case in the Man Utd game, can dominate possession. In those cases we struggle to win balls back. Luiz does a good job of intercepting the ball, but that's really only half of the job of a 6. We are kind of reliant on the opposition playing to our midfield strengths. Except with Jack in the team we only had 1 out. Much easier to stop the ball getting to Jack than it is to cut off Coutinho and Buendia. And even with Jack, the opposition answer (and often Jack's main intention) was to just foul him and get everyone back behind the ball. In that respect our most creative player probably inhibited more attacks than not. I think we looked much better going forward against Man Utd because we had people running at them from all directions. I agree though that the challenge with a strategy of trying to dominate possession (assuming it is the case!) is what do you do if the opposition are better at it than you? However, I think the first job is to make sure that when we are struggling for possession that we don't just give it away when we do get it back and as the Everton game showed we are guilty of that and a good tackler doesn't address that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lexicon Posted January 31, 2022 Share Posted January 31, 2022 9 minutes ago, HalfTimePost said: Incredible way to ignore the point of the post. Doesn't answer my question. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Posted January 31, 2022 Share Posted January 31, 2022 17 minutes ago, Demitri_C said: Successful window i say but a poor mistake letting targett go on loan. That move makes no sense to me unless they have agreed a 30m+ obligation to buy in the summer Agreed, I suppose Newcastle wanted us to do a loan for Matty so they could buy all the rest of the players they have or are looking to sign during this window. Can't be anything to do with FFP as it seems they must have carte blanche to ignore it. I just can't see why we have done them this favour, I can't remember them doing us one and they don't seem to like us too much either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post JAMAICAN-VILLAN Posted January 31, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted January 31, 2022 (edited) People need to make up their minds. How can you both think " Targett is shite " but at the same time that " we're doing them a favour " ? Edited January 31, 2022 by JAMAICAN-VILLAN 2 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HalfTimePost Posted January 31, 2022 Share Posted January 31, 2022 3 minutes ago, lexicon said: Doesn't answer my question. Because in the event of Digne getting injured we shouldn't need to rely on a 36yr old Ashley Young (who can play well there but not 90 mins regularly at this level, he's not a left back even if he can do it) when we have an alleged £20m backup left back in the squad. Whatever way we look at it, it weakens us. We came into the window saying we wanted to increase competition at Leftback to get the most out of Targett or a worthwhile option if he needed to be dropped. We were opportunistic with Digne but whilst he is a big upgrade it doesn't improve our competition if we sell the backup. It is short sighted Vs bringing in a younger backup who can improve our squad for the foreseeable (or even if we tried to bring through Chrisene, but no Cup games means that's unlikely). All of that and all I said was it would be -1 on a fantastic window.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post HalfTimePost Posted January 31, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted January 31, 2022 As close to 'we're done" as we'll get 11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bose Posted January 31, 2022 Share Posted January 31, 2022 Yeah thats us done then Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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