Failure to sign striker cost us


Hopefully the people that do our business can learn from the mistakes and see the potential this team has by adding some quality players and see us get full houses every week cos thats how good it could be if we carry this way on next season
 
They could have said no, but he was behind Batth, Ballard, O'Nien, Anderson, cirkin and alise for a spot at CEntre Back.

Their simply has to be a balance in the squad , you can't have players who want to play regularly, being 7th choice, with no cup games left to play

Unless you want them to be able to see into the future

Sounds like moaning just for the sake of it

Of course we would have fared better with Wright last night, but could anyone seriously say in January they thought we might get to the play off semi second leg and desperately need him ?

I take the point about balancing the squad, but given the money involved and Mowbray talking up the importance of experience in the squad, it just seems silly we let him leave.
 
His game time was definitely going to be limited mate, but he was a good leader to have around the club. Last night would have been the perfect game for him as well as he wouldn’t have to worry about pace.

At the end of the day though, he was over 30. Under the model, the loan fee which was probably very small, was deemed acceptable and he was allowed to go
He was outstanding last season especially the latter end.
Lack of signing a striker on a permanent deal for 2.5 years is extremely poor
We’ve scored loads of goals this season so don’t need strikers .
Apparently
 
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They could have said no, but he was behind Batth, Ballard, O'Nien, Anderson, cirkin and alise for a spot at CEntre Back.

Their simply has to be a balance in the squad , you can't have players who want to play regularly, being 7th choice, with no cup games left to play

Unless you want them to be able to see into the future

Sounds like moaning just for the sake of it

Of course we would have fared better with Wright last night, but could anyone seriously say in January they thought we might get to the play off semi second leg and desperately need him ?

He wasnt behind Anderson at all, Wright would have actually been selected. Nor Cirkin for centre back role in a two. Nor would he have been behind Onien had Batth been injured- he'd be a direct replacement. In fact Mowbray has even said there was thought of Anderson going straight out on loan, but they wanted to get him used to the squad before he probably goes out next season.

Really, then letting a centre half go in January like last season when you're extremely reliant on kids, just as running it fine with strikers first half of the season, we didn't learn from. I could maybe have accepted it had Ballard not been injury prone so far in his career or if Wright was leaving permanently to play regularly and we were beginning to move on those we maybe didn't think we're up to progressing, but he's got another year - so how exactly did it benefit us?

It's an error for me, albeit a small one.
 
I don't agree actually, we'd have beaten Luton over 2 legs with any defenders

We even lost Cirkin

We had to play a winger centre back and 2 attacking wingers at wing back

and they scored 3 goals, all from set pieces, that was it.
Agree with you.. That back 4 gets us through. Would've dealt with Lutons 2 corner goals

Spot on. Just the very worst fixture we could have had the away leg. as you say the 2 corner ones especially were just scrappy, the 3rd one was a bit better delivery

Its really unfortunate and the club cant be blamed, I dont even think those players are injury prone, just a freak thing.

Even being able to play Cirkin would have really helped last night

oh well
 
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Well done to our players and Tony Mowbray for working miracles with the players at his disposal.
Lot of nonsense posted about tactics or players bottling it.
The cold facts are we were unable to counter their high press because we had no option to play long.
The reason for this is the abject failure to sign a decent physical striker in January.
Those responsible have let down the players who have performed amazing the manager and the supporters.
You need the tools to do the job.

Stick to cricket, you fukking bore.
 
I am never sure if posts pointing out our 'abject failure' in the transfer market are ignorant, arogant, or both.

It isn't a game of football manager where you can pick a name off of a list of interested parties. Even if we had that list, there is a human element convincing a player to sign for Sunderland rather than one of the multitude of other clubs looking for a forward.

The worst thing we could have done would have been panic buy a strikers who doesn't fit our model. If we had panicked and overspent on a League 1 quality CF we innevitably would have overpaid on fee and wages. This would of left us in the familiar situation of having a depreciating asset we have no chance of shipping without some sort of wage contibution.
 
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Some people just don't seem able to accept that Luton are a good championship side.
The Incredibly limited, but what they do they do very well.

The football isn't my cup of tea and they won't get far in the premier league with those tactics, but promotion builds their new ground and sets them up for years
 
I take the point about balancing the squad, but given the money involved and Mowbray talking up the importance of experience in the squad, it just seems silly we let him leave.

it seems silly now, but if we'd had bathh ballard and cirkin fit for the play offs, it would have seemed like a silly move not to let him go in January - as he more than likely wouldn't have played a single minute of first team football since then
 
He wasnt behind Anderson at all, Wright would have actually been selected. Nor Cirkin for centre back role in a two. Nor would he have been behind Onien had Batth been injured- he'd be a direct replacement. In fact Mowbray has even said there was thought of Anderson going straight out on loan, but they wanted to get him used to the squad before he probably goes out next season.

Really, then letting a centre half go in January like last season when you're extremely reliant on kids, just as running it fine with strikers first half of the season, we didn't learn from. I could maybe have accepted it had Ballard not been injury prone so far in his career or if Wright was leaving permanently to play regularly and we were beginning to move on those we maybe didn't think we're up to progressing, but he's got another year - so how exactly did it benefit us?

It's an error for me, albeit a small one.

in hindsight it is an error, because Batth, Ballard, Cirkin and Alese have missed big chunks of the second half of the season, but for me you have to look at it through the eyes of where the club was in January

Was there a single comment on here that thought it was a bad move letting him go at the time? i very much doubt it

if we'd had batth and ballard fit, Wright would have been nowhere near the match day squad never mind getting a game
 
Well done to our players and Tony Mowbray for working miracles with the players at his disposal.
Lot of nonsense posted about tactics or players bottling it.
The cold facts are we were unable to counter their high press because we had no option to play long.
The reason for this is the abject failure to sign a decent physical striker in January.
Those responsible have let down the players who have performed amazing the manager and the supporters.
You need the tools to do the job.
Agree with this.
Watching last night's play off game, it was noticeable that for all Middlesbrough's possession and pressing they were always vulnerable to Cov's long ball up to the absolute unit of a centre forward.

That's exactly how the goal came about, the centre forward ran onto the long ball and held it up for Hamer who beat the defender and scored.

That's an option that we've missed all season. I'm not saying we should play the long ball, but against Luton we could of turned them and got up the pitch a lot more, and faster than we did.
 

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