Wouldn’t mind taking over Peterborough’s loan of Jason Cummings from Forest. They want to terminate it, but he has turned down approaches from Lincoln and the Dongs, as he doesn’t want to drop to League Two. Reckon he would be a good foil for Cookie.
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Seems to me then that he doesnt rate one of the other two, I’d guess Ferrier. I get the feeling he’s a little bit disruptive in the dressing room too - just a feeling. Planning for a summer exit perhaps.
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I think keates has run out of patience with Gordon
He’s a bit of an headless chicken and lacks control in his challenges this can be a liability as was shown the other night when a needless clumsy challenge gave a free kick leading to their goal. He eventually got the yellow card.
Puts needless pressure on defence
This is what keates is on about when he says players are not learning and that he will find replacements
I
The fact that he’s going out and signing another striker when we already have 3 strikers he’s signed is very interesting. It suggests that the board are backing him in a big way. We’re going to be close to the point where we have two players for every position, something we were certainly a long way from with the previous manager, especially in attack.
I’m going to speculate and give keates some credit here because, whereas I think Whitney just accepted he’d get little or no money to deal with and made the best of a bad job, I suspect keates is putting his demands quite clearly and probably did so from the moment he was interviewed for the position.
Whether it’s that or not, it is good news that we are putting some funds into the playing side just now. It’s up to keates to make sure there are more hits than misses with his signings. I really like some of the players he’s signed but it’s a little worrying that some here are already writing off 2 out of 3 strikers he’s signed and suggesting he’s doing the same.
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I don’t think its a case of writing players off. Keates has signed 3 strikers whose varying pedigree was earned in non-league football. When you do that you can’t realistically expect a 100% strike rate in the first 6 months, or indeed at all. Many people for a long time have been banging on about us taking a more “Peteboroughesque” approach to signings, and to some extent we’ve done that under Keates and I personally like that approach with strikers, to me if players know how to score goals and have done so consistently at a lower level there is always an argument that a club like Walsall should be the next logical step up. However, only one of our forward signings HAS consistently scored shed loads at a lower level, and that bloke is Cookie. Ferrier has never been prolific, and Gordon was taken by Leicester at a young age when he would have been better stepping up to National league or League Two. They should be allowed to develop at their own speed within reason to see if they can make the grade, and if they don’t, fair play to Walsall for giving them that opportunity I say. But right now, we need to avoid relegation, that’s DK’s immediate task and I’m glad he has realised we will stand a better chance of that with two strikers that are capable of scoring goals at this level right now.
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Good post…people are expecting too much from Ferrier and Gordon. They were given longer deals because DK wanted to give them a chance to develop to their full potential. They may not but I think like you that this is good departure from past practice which I applaud.We certainly need another striker this season to help Cook and lets hope DK can pick up a good’un.
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On the whole I think deano is being backed . Would like to see 1 good quality striker brought in before the end of the window though. And then back deano again in the summer . Time will tell.
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Junior morais???
I would give at least one season to see, if player will find his level in a league, that is few levels higher to league where he played before. So far it’s ok, all strikers accommodated, maybe some not completely, but it is ok. They need time. Recently there were injury, maybe rehab is not going according to plans, that’s why new striker could be signed. I only wonder, Darren Bent (or someone else as player-coach), or young, rather unproven, striker from higher leagues. Time will tell.
Seems like it will be a local ‘non league gem’ according to DK’s comments in the E&S
It’s the only option left really,we already have 3 strikers,you can’t keep getting experienced players in on our budget.
You’re not including Candlin or Parker then?
If Mitch is good enough for Blackburn to have a look at him (even if they don’t think he’s good enough for the Championship at the moment) then shouldn’t we be giving him a few outings to see how good he is compared to our other options? Ferrier looked promising early on in the season but hasn’t lived up to that (at least not consistently), and Gordon is still pretty raw so why not give “one of our own” a go?
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I said 3 strikers Andy,mainly because Keates hasn’t given any of the youngsters an extended run in the team,so it is unlikely that Keates himself has enough confidence to give them a game and risk upsetting the 3 “relatively” experienced strikers.
Jeez that’s a name I haven’t read in years…him and Tony Bedeau were good striker partnership at Torquay! Obviously one of those made it to Walsall and wasn’t a great success…
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Most teams at this level had four out and out strikers. You’ve got Sunderland whining they’ve got no decent strikers after losing Josh Maja and they’ve got Charlie Wyke and Jerome Sinclair on their books!
Just three is very risky if Cook picks up an injury after window closes. Gordon is more a hardworking, second striker to me and not a natural in the box on account of some of his misses in last few months.
Still think there’s potential with Ferrier but obviously don’t know what he’s like around the club.