As the Transfer Window Shuts…
Feb 1st, 2010 | By KevB8ll | Category: Blues News, Kev's Ramblings, Players…expect there to be annoyed fans!
Looking around, there are a number of people who are pretty annoyed that we haven’t signed at least one striker, and possibly a winger and left back. Actually I’ll go further, people think the club have failed us by not bringing one of the afore mentioned players during January.
So what is the reality?
Well firstly, I have to say that I am a little disappointed that we didn’t bring in a striker, because I think that by doing that, we would have given the squad a lift to push on. BUT, it ISN’T the end of the world.
The thing is, none of us know what has happened behind the scenes. We could have gone after 25 players, but if 25 clubs didn’t want to sell unless we paid double – then it is utter madness to say that we didn’t try to buy someone.
Alex clearly had a number of players he was chasing, particularly Roman Pavlyuchenko. Spurs clearly didn’t want to sell him, or rather, saw an opportunity to rip another club off. As far as I’m concerned, well done Blues for not being pushed around. January is notorious for inflated prices, and one of my concerns was that we ended up buying a player 25% or more above his normal valuation. We didn’t, and that’s good. If Alex HAD done that, he would have got stick for that! Also, we could have also bought in a player just for the sake of it, and it being a disaster.
The thing is, we are 2 wins from safety, and even with the squad we have now – I believe we will get more than 10 points the rest of the season. So it’s not like we had to buy a player to help us achieve safety.
We can now plan to add to the squad in the simmer, when prices are more realistic, have a longer time to bed new players in – and take a balanced view over who we REALLY need and where – and who can go.
One minor criticism, is by allowing Tiny, DJ, McSheff and Bent go – obvious standbys – we are a bit light up front and in defence if we get an injury or two. BUT as I said, we are virtually safe.We bought in two decent midfielders, which could allow Fads to play up front if we need him to. Maybe young Jervis will be given an opportunity to shine.
So, we have just under half the season to go – instead of criticising the club, let’s get behind the team and give them our full support. I still think we’ll finish around mid-table.
Kev
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Totally agree, disappointed we didn’t sign a striker but not annoyed or angry like a lot of fans. It’s important to look at the bigger picture and i’m looking forward to some good deals in the summer.
We’re a bit light now but the deadwood in the squad needed clearing out so I totally back the management if they believe that we are good enough for the rest of the season.
i agree, not the end of the world, but if we would have paid just 2m extra, then pavylchenko was ours. Surely with the 20m+ we have to spend we can pay an extra 2m to just secure the deal?
Too right it isn’t the end of the world. I caught Radio WM before and the amount of Blues fans complaining that we hadn’t signed anybody beggars belief. Not only that, but it was “unbelievable” we didn’t bring in cover for Stephen Carr because “he got skinned a few times” over the last two games. Oh how football is such a fickle sport! Have all of these fans already forgotten our 15 game unbeaten run – or the fact that we have fielded the same 1st XI for 11 Premier League games in a row???
Big Eck now has more time to evaluate where cover is needed and see if the performances of the many rumoured signings go up or down. And heck – now that we have Birmingham China – lets bring in a couple of fringe Chinese players. We’ll soon have Birmingham City number 11 shirts flying of the shelves of the 6,000 Xtep stores in China – meaning Big Eck probably won’t have 40 million to spend… but 400 million to spend! Okay… I got carried away a bit on that last sentence… but you get the idea
And anybody who says signing Chinese internationals is a “commercial signing” is right! Football nowadays is a commercial business! Remember when Everton got their Kejian shirt sponsor and Li Tie and Lei Wei Fend (sp?)? They had a billion viewers every week! Kerrrr-ching!
With a few of our players 30 year old plus and a loan keeper we are going to need at least 7 to 8 players in summer average players 4-5 million the next level players 10-15 million.
This means 20-40 million is not enough or only enough to maintain mediocrity.Had we spent 30 million on 2 players we could we’ll havel pushed us on to europe and perhaps another 40 million from proceeds.
Our best position of all time and success could have been the result.
Very disappointed. OK so not the end of the world, but we bought 2 midfielders who cant get a game, if we put them in now we would lose one of our top goalscorers (Bowyer). Jerome needs 10 chances to score 1 and we don’t create that many. Benitez just doesn’t look a natural finisher. McFadden couldn’t hit a cows arse with a shovel. O’Connor out for the season, Phillips (our most gifted finisher) can’t get a game. We need help up front we can’t just rely on keeping clean sheets as that puts extra pressure on the defence. As prize money goes up depending on where you finish we could easily lose 5 or 6 places and therefore prize money. Don’t get me wrong we are doing really well and better that we thought we would. Moses 2.5 million to Wigan, surely we could have got him, that’s hardly a risk is it?
Ok, I am very disappointed that we haven’t brought in a striker not that I wanted to see the club overpaying for players however with Bent shipped out to QPR and Phillips still recovering from an injury (2-3 weeks min), we have no cover up front. Fair enough we have had a terrific season so far and the possibility of relegation is looking very unlikely, however as fans can we not expect our club to want to push onto bigger and better achievments than just simply finishing 17th and saying “well that was a good season, lets try for 12th next season”?
I wactched Sky Sports news all day waiting, no expecting our “trophy signing” and seeing that Sky had a reporter based outside our training grounds all day I’m guessing that I’m not the only person who expected it. However the big story coming from the West Midlands today was Wolves £5 Million bid for Kevin Hunt, while at St. Andrews we off loaded 2 fringe players!
I do trust Ecks decisions and have buckets of respect for the man as he has built Blues into a force to be reckoned with in The Premiership, however I am very worried about his position now as our new owners, who want success sooner rather than later, may use this as an catalyst to offload McLeish. At the end of the day a successful team with household names is what will sell merchandise, can we honestly say that even 100 Chinese people will want to buy a Birmingham strip with Jerome, Bowyer or Larsson on it? I think not!
Don’t get me wrong, I know who these guys are but in China people don’t care who these guys are, they are only interested in the Beckham’s, the Ronaldino’s, the Messi’s and the Rooney’s. Simply put if we want to start seeing money coming into the club we need 1 of 2 things to happen come the summer, 1). Qualification for the Europa League and 2). Big name signings so that we can start appealing to the fickle Asian supporters.
Little bit annoyed at first but full confidence in big ecks judgement hes worked miracles so far Rather be in our position than wolves 2 quality midfielders who want 2 play 4 Blues and werent made 2 come 2 make their club a tidy profit Also takes pressure of current strikers who can relax and start hitting the back of the net as well as giving 150% every game KRO
Does anybody at the club ask themselves the question, what if?
1. What if, benitez and jerome pick up injuries. With Phillips and O’Connor already injured we woul then play with makeshift strikers. blues would then stuggle to pick up point and finish a couple of places above the relegation zone.
Do you think the likes or Pavlyuchenko, babel or anybody else of that calibre would want to join us then?
i agree that we should not pay over the top for players but we definately need an attacker. A loan signing until the summer for dindane, mido or any other attacker just to bolster the squad would have satisfied me.
i would like to add that Mcleish and the players have been absolutely fantastic this season and i just hope that we do not get any injuries in key positions because i do not want the season to turn into a damp squid.
Rumour has it we were very close to getting Janko. He’d have been the pick of the strikers we were linked with and apparently he was keen… what happened?
Not too worried though. I trust Eck and I think Mchel and Gardener are both excellent signings.
A couple more games and I can see Philips coming back in playing off Chucho.
Just because we have an owner who has flushed the club with some cash doesnt mean this owner wants his cash thrown down the drain thats not how you become a succesful businessman. I want to see this cflub do well, but signing another striker at an inflated price, while it gives us slim shot at a Europa spot, could dampen our chances at becoming a stable fixture in the premier league. Like people above me have addressed this club has a lot of gaps to fill, and more depth that needs to be added. I would rather see teh club address those issues in the summer at what should be reasonable rates. (Transfer fees shall continue to drop as clubs have lost revenue streams and are on verge of going under). Wait for the fire sales. I admit I am new to being a fan of the EPL, but BCFC is my club and my club for life. I want it to succeed on a longterm basis.
yeah i’m disapointed we didnt bring in a striker, after all we were linked with janko,pav and boyd for long enough, but surely its better to wait for the summer than being in any old tom dick and harry just to bolster the attack
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