First up, Graeme Murty is a fairly decent player, on paper, to come in considering the circumstances, although one hopes his injury hasn’t finished him like Primus’ clearly had.
But the deal itself is unsatisfactory and Parkinson, at this early stage, seems to be making the same mistakes as his predecessor.
As others have said, what happens if we get a few results, get some momentum, look more solid at the back and then Coppell recalls him for the Reading promotion push? I personally believe a good loan is a real boost for a cash-strapped club but where we are now, we have to have a steady side until May - injuries permitting. We cannot afford any slip-ups with regard to loans either not working or not staying for the duration.
I said, the other day, Parkinson needs to be working on nailing our loan deals until the end of the season as it would be dreadful to lose McEveley or Bouazza, especially if they had become part of a settled side, halfway through February or early March for example.
In signing Murty, we now have a third player in the same situation. I’m forgetting about Waghorn for now as I guess he would seem to be the least important of the outstanding loans.
I just hope Parkinson’s reference to a ‘breathing space’ created by Murty’s arrival means he is looking at securing a right-back until the end of the season at the very least.
Parkinson’s comment ‘Obviously, he joins initially for a month and that gives him a chance to get some games under his belt’ will look ridiculous if all we do is get him fit for Reading and then we revert to normal service.
Clearly, Moo2 is not up to the defensive side of the task, hence the fact at least four different players (Mills, Halford, Cranie, Semedo) have been used in his position since he joined 18 months ago. We are going to need a fair few clean sheets to have any chance of escaping this situation and I'm just not convinced Yassin is solid enough if he is the only recognised right full-back once again come the middle of next month.
Out of interest, some stats as we are now linked to various players:-
James Scowcroft has played 118 league games (16 of these as a sub) since July 2005 when he left Leicester for Coventry and then Palace, scoring 17 goals. His record for Leicester (from 2001) was about one goal every five games. He will be 34 later this year.
Carl Fletcher has made three sub appearances this season for Palace and in 2007-8 he started 17 games. He was on loan at Forest earlier this season, going straight into their team, although he finished his loan on the bench.
However, Neil Warnock has supposedly distanced himself from these deals...
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I don't think either Scowcroft or Fletcher are, to quote the great Curbs, better than what we've got....
I would like to see Bryan Hughes back to be quite honest. Wont come because he is on premier wages.
I find this hard to believe. Surely they are all sitting around with their feet up as I'm not seeing many rumours in the papers. Pull your finger out Waggott : - )
It was and is now even more clear Parkinson doesn't rate Moutaouakil as anything more than 2nd choice right back.
By getting Murty in early, he'll be hoping we'll either extend his loan another months, or make a loan until the end of the season. If not he'll look for another right back before the window closes.
Not keen on us apparently !
99% of the time i would agree with that, but i think the steady side thing is irrelevent at the moment. We simply have to put a side out that is going to get results in the next three games (Forest and Palace at home, Sheff W away). After that there are two tricky away games at Burnley and Bristol C, which would both look less daunting if we have wins behind us.
Our momentum is all about the next couple of games. If it starts to come in 6 weeks - 2 months time, i may well prove too late.
I would love to see him here but those days are gone
In the very first sentence, I said I had no truck with the 'quality' of the player, assuming he is over his injury. In fact, I am surprised we have got him unless Parky has suggested a player-coach gig somewhere down the line.
I also, unlike many of here, have no real problems with loans, per say, as long as there is an element of control in the deal. Of course the club that 'owns' the player will always have the bigger say. But if the deal isn't right, then don't do it.
So, my point is this - we are several points adrift at the bottom of the table. Even if we win three games on the spin, we'll probably even then be neck and neck with the teams around us. But we'd have momentum, we'd be the team in form, we'd have players with belief...
..and then Reading and Derby recall our full-back pairing...
That's my point. Hopefully this is a little clearer. Nothing to do with 'who' we are signing as such.
and to think we beat them 4-2 this season!
If Parky then replaces him on Feb 2nd when the window closes as he is going back to Reading, then fine, but we cannot afford to see any momentum we DO build up in the next 4-6 weeks undone by key players leaving.
This is simple - mid March comes and we have to field Moo2 and Youga/Basey at full-back. It could happen. I'm not saying it will but I will watch to see what Parkinson does to protect our weakest positions.
Yes, and I know there are plenty of weak positions.
But open-ended loans for a team in the last chance saloon are nerve-wracking...
Waggys been looking at the porn again....
Even if that was the case tails would be up Moutakill / Basey would be coming back into a confident side, cannot see a real downside to this, well apart from the obvious he gets injured 20 minutes into debut & never plays for us a game scenario :-)
;-)
waste of a signing when we could play moo2 - yeah ok he hasn't shone defensively - waiti until you see this cart horse you;ll be begging for Moo2oo back.
Which to me proves it all comes down to management (Pards was up for that one) and confidence - we have the players who can perform on their day.
But look what has happened to, for example, Weaver, Hudson and Bailey since...
I agree, problem is Pardew signed too many players who are good on their day, and potentially good players. Not enough of them are reliable and consistent.
As for the Reading game, just like Norwich in the first half on Saturday, they pushed high up the pitch.
Every single time our opponents have done that, we've played well going forward. Though the Reading game was a rare game in which the other team did it for the whole match, and we took our chances.
With Sam, Bouazza, Shelvey, Varney against Reading, we're good on the counter against teams that push up. We use the space well.
Soon as we come up against a more defensive team, which is most home games, we struggle to break them down. Sam and Bouazza can't just attack with pace, and the team have to get the crosses and passes a lot more accurate due our opponents crowding us out.
They then score on the counter, crowd get frustrated and the players feel the pressure. It's happened far too often.