Speakman



There’s just a touch of Tory cabinet minister doing the tele and radio rounds about the interview. It’s quite self congratulatory and no acknowledgment of shortcoming in any respect. That has been a common theme throughout his tenure here. It’s like everything that happens here is by his design. Whether it be stumbling upon the Alex Neil appointment, the Defoe debacle or ending up with a striker crisis twice, there’s just very little acknowledgement that anything has ever gone slightly wrong
 
Mowbray wanted 3. Regardless of Stewart’s injury we would have ended with 2

We didn’t learn from the mistake of the August window

Our recruitment has been very good, im happy with the direction. However it’s not heresy to say the club failed again with the strikers

100% bang on imo. They have rightly been lauded so aren't above a bit of criticism either.
Mowbray said on the eve of the Fulham game he wanted 1 or 2 strikers. That turned into 2 or 3 in the aftermath. He got 1.
 
My opinion hasn’t really changed since the window closed…

It was a cock up and I dare say that behind the scenes, the recruitment team know it. You simply can’t leave a team without a recognised, established striker with 18 or so games to go.

Our recruitment has been great in recent windows, but this time they needed to find a short-term fix and they instead insisted on adhering strictly to the model they have adopted and that has left us badly short.

No one is saying we should have panicked and pissed up the wall £10m on any striker to just get them through the door; but they should have been able to locate a short-term fix that wouldn’t have cost too much money, and would have done a job for 6 months (same goes for CM).

Sometimes even with the best management model, you need to show some flexibility - we didn’t this time.

Hopefully the lads can continue to pick up points and push for the play offs, but our failure to land a striker, has made it much harder. I also feel it’s drained a little bit of the positivity around the club, which is frustrating.
 
My opinion hasn’t really changed since the window closed…

It was a cock up and I dare say that behind the scenes, the recruitment team know it. You simply can’t leave a team without a recognised, established striker with 18 or so games to go.

Our recruitment has been great in recent windows, but this time they needed to find a short-term fix and they instead insisted on adhering strictly to the model they have adopted and that has left us badly short.

No one is saying we should have panicked and pissed up the wall £10m on any striker to just get them through the door; but they should have been able to locate a short-term fix that wouldn’t have cost too much money, and would have done a job for 6 months (same goes for CM).

Sometimes even with the best management model, you need to show some flexibility - we didn’t this time.

Hopefully the lads can continue to pick up points and push for the play offs, but our failure to land a striker, has made it much harder. I also feel it’s drained a little bit of the positivity around the club, which is frustrating.

Absolutely spot-on for me. Mowbray is expected to have to be ridiculously flexible for the remainder, it would have been nice if they'd afforded him the same (providing they didn't).
Not to worry though, we are where we are and will still play good stuff.
 
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My opinion hasn’t really changed since the window closed…

It was a cock up and I dare say that behind the scenes, the recruitment team know it. You simply can’t leave a team without a recognised, established striker with 18 or so games to go.

Our recruitment has been great in recent windows, but this time they needed to find a short-term fix and they instead insisted on adhering strictly to the model they have adopted and that has left us badly short.

No one is saying we should have panicked and pissed up the wall £10m on any striker to just get them through the door; but they should have been able to locate a short-term fix that wouldn’t have cost too much money, and would have done a job for 6 months (same goes for CM).

Sometimes even with the best management model, you need to show some flexibility - we didn’t this time.

Hopefully the lads can continue to pick up points and push for the play offs, but our failure to land a striker, has made it much harder. I also feel it’s drained a little bit of the positivity around the club, which is frustrating.
Well said that man
 
Out of curiosity, who would people have went for that would’ve come in & hit the ground running ? For me replacing Stewart is a very difficult task .

Good strikers are hard to come by especially in the January window .

If we had been down the bottom I think we’d have taken more of a risk & maybe brought the lad in from Hibs ( Nisbett ) maybe they just thought the potential benefits weren’t worth bringing someone in who wasn’t part of the long term plans .
 
Out of curiosity, who would people have went for that would’ve come in & hit the ground running ? For me replacing Stewart is a very difficult task .

Good strikers are hard to come by especially in the January window .

If we had been down the bottom I think we’d have taken more of a risk & maybe brought the lad in from Hibs ( Nisbett ) maybe they just thought the potential benefits weren’t worth bringing someone in who wasn’t part of the long term plans .
I wanted and still would like Simms back, right age to improve, scored goals at this level
 
My opinion hasn’t really changed since the window closed…

It was a cock up and I dare say that behind the scenes, the recruitment team know it. You simply can’t leave a team without a recognised, established striker with 18 or so games to go.

Our recruitment has been great in recent windows, but this time they needed to find a short-term fix and they instead insisted on adhering strictly to the model they have adopted and that has left us badly short.

No one is saying we should have panicked and pissed up the wall £10m on any striker to just get them through the door; but they should have been able to locate a short-term fix that wouldn’t have cost too much money, and would have done a job for 6 months (same goes for CM).

Sometimes even with the best management model, you need to show some flexibility - we didn’t this time.

Hopefully the lads can continue to pick up points and push for the play offs, but our failure to land a striker, has made it much harder. I also feel it’s drained a little bit of the positivity around the club, which is frustrating.

The kind of football we're aiming for and that we've seen in the last couple of weeks won't work with a Charlie Wyke character up top. Just as City and Liverpool have been doing for years, the front six need to be able to hold, pass and shoot.
Lewis Grabban / Kyle Lafferty in for Stewart just wouldn't work.
 

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