Polarboy

The unfortunate fact is that regardless of money and what we can pay in fees and wages, getting a striker in that costs 50 to 70m, or rather is actually worth that much, is not happening for us in this January window. If we manage to stay up it will be difficult even in the summer market. I think we need to target a player like a Dzeko, as in someone with undoubted quality but who's at a point in their career where they would conceivably join us. Dzeko it would appear isn't moving of course, at least according to the Inter owner. We should also target a young up and coming striker like a Nketiah, but I think we could perhaps do better if looked outside the league, given his record isn't stellar at least in the PL. I know his record in the cups is decent. The only point he would have going for him is experience playing in the premier.

I don't think Cantwell is an answer to our problems in the short term, very decent squad player of course as long we bring in other starting eleven targets, but, and I could be wrong, I would assume Cantwell's refusal to sign a contract has something to do with him being frozen out.

I will say in fairness though, that it's perhaps not through want of trying and money that we aren't attracting the type of player we want in terms of quality. That's likely especially the case in the attacking areas. The aforementioned of course is dependent on these links to Cantwell and Wood being based on fact. I suppose maybe it's a good thing that there seemingly aren't a plethora of quality mercenary players, who will go to a club if you bung them an extra 100 grand a week, over their choice that was made mostly on the basis of football.

Cantwell and Wood? Well we'll be favourites for the Championship next season I suppose.

I was going by transfermarkt, and it seems to be ten, but maybe they differentiate between players that were in the squad at one point, and youth players, under 21's etc.

Yeah Chelsea's way of doing things is pretty insane, in a good way for them at least. They currently have about ten players out on loan.

It's probably down to more than one thing. Maybe it has to do with PL clubs being less inclined to sell to us, but it could also be that other leagues are more desperate for money, and there's players with a lot of quality in said leagues if you have the money.

I see we're being pretty strongly linked to Issa Diop, perhaps as an alternative to Carlos. At 10M, if that is the actual fee, that would be pretty decent business. Zouma had come in and replaced him until he got injured, but I don't recall Diop being mistake prone, always seemed very decent. Can you imagine the two absolute units of Botman and Diop at centre back for us, both 6'4, 6'5 ish.

Yeah of course, but that's not saying much when all he has to do is be better than Jeff Hendrick as sammy was saying. If we weren't fighting relegation I'd say it was a slight gamble that could pay off big time in the long run, as is we are fighting relegation and we need players who are as close to sure things as possible. Of course it could be the case that we are just buying Cantwell for the future and are also looking at other midfield targets who will hit the ground running.

I 100% want Botman in, but I do worry if someone so young will take time to adapt to the league, time we obviously don't have. Even some experienced players can take time to do so. Then again if he's as unflappable as some make out, perhaps I'm worrying over nothing. He certainly can't be any worse than what we have at present. As for this Cantwell link I can't say I'm massively enthused. I do remember him being very decent for Norwich the last time they were up, and he's still only 23. Again potential is all very well, but we need to hit the ground running yesterday.

The defensive mid could be Bruno Guimaraes the Lyon player. We along with Arsenal and one or two other teams have been linked to him. He's supposedly a long term target of Arsenal's. so it would be amusing if we gazump them late doors.

Digne is a great player, but do we want someone if we're at least their third choice. Of course maybe Downie is talking shite and he has no idea what Digne's preference is, especially seeing as he had to correct himself. Stating the obvious, but as I've said, can you imagine the delivery from either side of the pitch if we get Digne on top of Trippier 😍 Then all we'd need is a fit striker to bang them in, oh and at least one centre back, a defensive midfielder, and maybe an attacking mid to top it off 😂

So just to be clear, you don't think it's related to racism?😂😉👍

FIFA don't have much of leg to stand on either anymore of course, given the venue and timing the of the next WC. Plus the fact that they want a WC every two years. Or at least they seem in favour of Wenger's plan.

Ian Wright won't be happy. He already thinks the footballing world at large doesn't take AFCON seriously, and maybe he has a point.

Given that Wilson's injury isn't looking as serious as first feared he may only miss a couple of games, given the postponements 😁 A couple of games we can hopefully give to whatever forward we buy in the window to allow him to bed in. I was just saying to a mate, can you imagine Trippier and Digne on the freekicks. Right foot and left foot respectively, both absolute wands. Fingers crossed on both of them obviously. Seems as if Trippier is a bit more likely than Digne given respective ages, and the fact that Trippier has worked under Howe before. Chelsea are also supposedly sniffing around Digne as cover for Chilwell, but would only want him on loan while we supposedly would pay the 25 million up front.

Ranieri is trying to stop Dennis going despite him being called up for the squad. Regardless their squad will still be significantly weakened even if Dennis doesn't go. I mean I would assume that Watford don't have the cash to cover that many absences from a January window.

So potentially we could have 18 days between the Man U game and our next fixture. Obviously Wilson could be out for another 4 to 8 weeks on top of that depending on how bad the tear is, but if we're lucky ASM could be back, and Lewis, Dummett, Ritchie and Fraser should be fully fit. A good transfer window where we move quickly and we could be in decent shape to attack the second half of the season. It might actually be an idea to set up some sort of training match if at all possible. We don't want to come back as rusty as Man U looked, albeit they've been pretty shit regardless this season.

Sky sports are saying that we're planning a move for the Zenit St. Petersburg striker Sardar Azmoun. Given that he's Iranian, and the star of their national team, it could be an interesting geopolitical move if nothing else 😂

Rumours of Ighalo and supposedly some people aren't that impressed on twitter if indeed it holds any water. Personally I think he'd be a very useful short term back up to Wilson. He was a beast at Watford, and showed a fair bit of quality at Man U when he got the chance.

With regards to Deli Ali I wouldn't say he blows hot and cold, it's that his form has fallen off a cliff since Poch left the club for whatever reason.

😂 That's definitely something they'd come up with. They'd of course dress it up as only being fair to the teams down the bottom, as opposed to carrying water once again for the "top six".

Yeah, most likely. On the other hand I'd rather take the approach that we should aim to take at least a point from every game we play from now until the end of the season, given the atrocious start we've had. Obviously if we were to make some smart signings and had a bit of time to bed them in, the chances of getting said points against the top teams goes up, if perhaps not enough in the end to matter.

I haven't seen any mention it, but surely it could on balance be a very good thing for the club if the next few matches over Christmas are called off because of omicron, regardless of how reasonable or unreasonable that is, and we enter the new year, and the transfer market, not being that far behind in the table. Perhaps and obvious thing to say, but again I haven't seen anyone mention it yet.

Well that's the catch 22 situation we find ourselves in. We need a major injection of quality, but players of that quality either won't be available in January, or won't want to come given the position in the league we'll likely be in. It's going to take some peak moneyball like signings for us to get what we need, and at the minute we don't even seem capable of hiring a DOF.