wellfan

If we can afford a load of wages on a bunch of risks as well as on the subsequent last-minute signings to replace said risks, I am sure we could afford and attract 1 or 2 players in key positions who aren't the equivalent of retired Blackpool Beach donkeys. Let's not forget that Kettlewell said he'd learned his lesson after Obika-gate. He hasn't. He's taken a punt again on more than one injury prone player and now he's got himself and the club in a deep financial hole of shite.

I genuinely can't believe there are people on here openly suggesting that they believe we only signed injury prone players because there were no other players available to sign due to competition from other teams. The reality, that some seem unwilling to concede or even entertain the possibility, is that we seem to have an issue with our signing policy, and it's not just this window. It can't all be bad luck.

I like Robinson and I think he'll come good for us. He appears to have what it takes to hold up the ball and bring others into play, but we don't have those others yet. He's also likely to improve once/if he gets his first goal. I hope. On the other hand, I'm not completely sold on Moses, but he has his goals already and appears to be a penalty box chaos striker. Along with Ferrie, they'll all do as 2/3/4 choice strikers, but we need Stamatelopoulos to get fit and live up to his billed expectation of being our first choice goalscoring striker. However, if Stama is out for the foreseeable, Kettlewell should be on his last warning.

You'd like to think the CEO trusts the manager's judgement on signings, because that's the manager's job and the CEO's job is to deal with the mechanics of completing signings along with the CFO/FD, but you could also imagine that the CEO may begin to second-guess the manager's judgement once the club ends up with a significant proportion of its wage budget attributed to crocked signings. In this scenario, it would only be natural for the CEO to raise questions because the pot of cash is limited and being wasteful is not in either of their job descriptions.

Yes, because he made fewer mistakes than most of the others on the park.

We love to gift a team in need of a win.

I’d like to see how Killie do against St J today and Tromsoe on Thursday before I consider our chances, but Killie will be expecting to at least beat both St J and us.

We're going to need all the additional revenue we can get as we're going to have to blow our budget on signing additional players to cover the numerous longterm injured players as well as the unfilled gaps in the squad.

Are these players and others unable to play due to injury or not? If so, they are the dictionary definition of crocked. Some were signed with a history of being crocked and some have become crocked for whatever reason (e.g bad luck, poor player management, chocolate legs, etc.). Calling them crocks does not mean they've been written off, as you say, it simply means they're currently unable to play and so are useless to us right now. Unfortunately for us, we have a lot of crocks in our squad, which is a great concern given we're only 2 games deep into the season.

Oxborough and Miller, but went for the latter for being the most composed on the ball.

That's what happens when the most important players have either not been replaced or have been replaced with crocks. Seventeen more strikers could be signed, but they would continue to struggle to score without a Spittal or a Gent supplying them.

True, but my point was that I wouldn't trust him to spend it wisely, so we could end up there anyway.

But with what budget? Kettlewell has already blown his load on a bunch of crocks. The club could double down here and end up with a bloated squad, a massive wage bill beyond our budget, and the cost of sacking the manger come mid-season when it all inevitably continues to go to shite after he's thrown more good money at more crocks. But I guess the club has no option but to back him further and hope it works.

Much better second half performance, but fundamentally nowhere near good enough and Kettlewell does not have the players available or the brains required to change it for the upcoming games. It’s going to be a long August.

No. It was a good finish by Cerny after he was allowed to ghost past our sleeping players.

As pointed out on P&B, this is no longer a bad luck story, this is negligence.

That looks like another muscle injury. We’re either extremely unlucky or something is very wrong with our signing policy and/or our training and medical regimes.

Although we’re losing, I’d say that the one positive is Oxborough.

Seddon and Halliday letting Cerny dance through them there. It was a good finish but we’re making it far too easy for them.

Sensational OG. Well done to Seddon for getting the ball in the box and forcing the mistake.

Instead of having a dig at me, as is customary for you, why not consider that it’s fair for someone to query why a player who signed almost exactly 2 months ago still isn’t fit or good enough to start the season. It’s a concern.

If Balmer isn’t injured, serious questions must now be asked as to why he was signed if he isn’t deemed good enough to start even when the squad is totally fucked.

Starting young Wells - who I think is an excellent talent and prospect - in a depleted team and against the rangers has the potential to have him hung out to dry. I understand that Kettlewell may not have a choice tomorrow, but I'd prefer to see him come off the bench to help us change things up as the game progresses.

Free pies and pints would see me sign up to this.

@Lobey_Dosser pretty much nailed the situation above, so I'll try not to repeat it. Kettlewell can't preach poverty at the same time as having to hurriedly expand the squad beyond what was budgeted for in order to address the massive and partly avoidable injury list. He either starts to learn from his mistakes and spend wisely in terms of transfers or he should not get a fourth transfer window. However, this is always with the caveat that some injuries are just pure bad luck, but not all seem to be this time. Some of them appear to be down to taking a risk on older players with an injury history in key positions, again! Furthermore, him preaching the benefit of getting business done early to allow a settled squad to go to the summer camp and be blooded during the League Cup seems to have actually been of no benefit, as echoed above. Time will tell on some of the signings, but it's generally been a poor and predictable window, and it's not in the least bit surprising. I expect some rabbits to be pulled out of the hat in the coming weeks, which will unfortunately eat into the Bair money and increase the wage bill in the long run, but it has to be done.