Summer 2022 transfer rumours (Gilbey loan confirmed p513, a signing falls through last minute p541)

Garrymanilow said:

Southbank said:

Garrymanilow said:

Southbank said:

balham red said:

Southbank said:

balham red said:

mendonca said:

DubaiCAFC said:

soapboxsam said:

DubaiCAFC said:

carly burn said:

Think Kanu might well get an opportunity early on this season and by the looks of him I reckon he'll grab it with both hands.

Our problem might be keeping hold of him after Christmas!

He hasn’t developed physically yet, he is a good goal scorer, needs to work on other sides of his game, he will be in the u23s for now!

Mason Burstow hadn't developed physically but he still played and scored early doors despite being bullied by CB. The irony was he never looked like scoring after his move to Chelsea which took me by surprise on D day.

We actually had no other choice at that point 

The same will happen again if we don't get 2 forwards in to replace the 2 who have left.

As someone wiser said earlier in the thread, if you are worrying about the 3 strikers we have not being enough for the 1 striker spot, surely the 3 wide players we have for 2 spots would be more of a concern?

That being said, now Davison has gone I'm quite sure we'll get a loanee in that can be 3rd choice striker. And assumedly a loanee wide player and a loanee defender.

We need a first choice striker who can start and play 90 minutes with Stockley. Aneke is our 3rd choice striker as he will only be on the pitch for 30m per game.

What formation are you expecting us to play? Obviously we will have 3 CMs that is a given. So I assume you think we will be playing 3-5-2? Which would make Kirk, DJ and CBT defunct.

Nah, we are clearly playing a 4-3-3. So where does this first choice striker fit?

If you mean to replace Stockley, I'd be fine with that but it's not going to happen, and if we got rid of Stockley there would be a lot of mouths frothing about Sandgaard. Stockley won't be anything but first choice and Chuks would be a waste as not the main sub of him.

Assuming his first choice is close to Sutton, there are not enough goals in that line-up, even with Payne instead of JFC. We struggled to score enough goals last season with Stockley AND Washington on the pitch at the same time, and Aneke on the bench. There is nobody in the squad with a goal scoring record anywhere near as good as Washington's. So where are the goals coming from?

As it happnes, DJ and CBT both operated reasonably as wing backs and Egbo, Clare and Sessegnon can all play there.. But Kirk would be redundant that is true,. Given he is still pretty unproven that is no great loss.

I would play 3-5-2 with this squad because of the lack of goals in any of the possible  4-4-2 or 4-3-3 line-ups. We have 4 decent centre backs, 4 decent wing backs and 4 decent centre mids, ie plenty of choice for rotation (excluding JFC if he leaves). We just need one good extra starting striker.

Oh good god no. The whole point of this summer has been that we aren't going to spend weeks and weeks playing players out of position again. Some players who did 'reasonably well' as wing backs? Be still my beating heart. The issue isn't that there's not enough goals in Stockley or others, it's that the team had absolutely no idea of how to supply each other. Part of that was because we had wingers as wingbacks, full backs as centre backs, midfielders as defenders and sometimes midfielders as strikers. There will be more goals in players like CBT and Kirk if they actually play in their natural positions and if there's a plan for how to play football, which we sadly seemed to lack under Jackson. The goals come from an effective system, not just crowbarring players into random positions to get more strikers on the pitch, as Jackson learned to his cost.

CBT and Kirk have scored 34 goals between them in 280 league games. If they were that good this season they would score 11 goals this season, as two out of our front three. Even if Stockley has a great season and scores 20 that would be nowhere near enough to be successful.

Is that what you want? There are simply not enough goals in a side with them and Stockley as the front three. We need another goalscorer on the pitch.

Yeah, like Payne (13 goals last season) and Fraser (14 goals for MK Dons when played in a system that suited him). I am hopeful we'll sign another winger focused more on goalscoring, but this idea that 'need more goals = must have more strikers on the pitch' is daft. If our system works and is effective we should be getting goals from all over the pitch, not just from the front three. Swindon had 15 different goalscorers last season, six of them getting 5 or more, with Payne getting the second most. We also should be pulling more goals out of players like Kirk and CBT who didn't previously have great goal records by playing them in a system that encourages goals from players in those positions. McKirdy was Swindon's top scorer with 19 goals. His previous maximum was 5 and his career total was 10. He played on the wing as well as up front. Holding midfielders, wingbacks, centre backs and Jonny bloody Williams chipped in with goals for them and they ended up the league's top scorers. The alternative plan, of playing lots of players out of position just so we get to have two strikers on the pitch is exactly what we tried last season. I know we had injuries but we got 13 and 11 goals out of our strikers and the next highest goalscorer had 4. It was Ben Purrington. The midfield contributed absolutely nothing in terms of goals and that's what did so much damage to us. We finished 13th. The system - if it works - will generate the goals from multiple areas rather than relying on just one extra goals man.