What do we really need for promotion next season?

[lemonjelly]

See your point mate. Fair enough.

Agree re McLean by the way. Over-rated imo. Wouldn't want him here myself.

 

[malta mick]

Who would have thought that at the start of the season Bournmouth with 10k crowds would be in their current position compared to ourselves with greater financial clout and appeal and with nigh on 27k crowds.
Where, if any, does the fault lie with ?

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Bournemouth's owner is minted tbf. More so than Morgan and more willing to pour cash in (Morgan has always been open about the fact that other than his initial investment he wanted Wolves to be self-financing as far as possible).

They're currently picking up the £36k a week tab for Kenwyne Jones, we wouldn't ever do that in this division (legacies such as Johnson/Doyle where we had no choice excepted).

 

[lemonjelly]

As has been mentioned, there are a few ridiculous anomalies relating to Bournemouth that have gone in their favour. They've had 15 red cards awarded against them. That's double the highest in the PL IIRC, and I'd suspect twice as high as the next highest in our division too.
Those red cards, together with their swarming round the ref a lot have skewed their results imo.

 

[Norman Deeley]

Actually don’t think Lemonjelly is being that controversial – a few times lately I’ve thought we need to upgrade KMac. If we’re to go up next year it’ll be playing a high tempo game using the pace and power of our forwards. Too often I think KMac slows things down too much. So top of the list for me are two new midfielders – am I right in thinking that KM and JP have one goal between them? That simply isn’t anywhere near good enough. We’ll be giving up some lovely passes from KM, but we either want to go up or we don’t.
Ditto for a CB – I think Batth and Stearman are good, but not quite good enough. And clearly another left winger: I really like Bristol City’s left winger (scored a couple last night) but we won’t get him now – and I don’t see any of our existing players as good enough. Assume we’ll be linked with Jed Wallace again?
Exit door for Rowe, Saville, Cassidy and McAlinden, so that means at least one more striker. This is a crucial summer for us – we’re now free of the old guard millstone, so we need to make a real push for promotion next year.

 

[malta mick]

I accept what you say Dan, but wages alone aren't the answer - look at the high earners we had, and where it got us. I didn't think they'd bought many expensive players, so is their scouting dept that found better than ours ?

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

They've done well transfer wise - we knew about Wilson and could have gone in for him, £3m was a gamble though on someone who only had one good season in L1 behind him and absolutely nothing else. Given that they sold Grabban for £3m and also had a £6m windfall from the Lallana transfer they were in a better position than us to make that gamble. As it is I'd much rather have Afobe - but obviously we brought him in when half the season had gone and the die was to a large extent already cast.

Ritchie is an excellent player, the kind of profile we go for as well - however he moved in January 2013 and we'd decided to appoint an idiot who targeted the likes of Marlon fucking King rather than exciting players from the league below.

 

[lemonjelly]

I'll add to the controversy then, by suggesting we upgrade Henry, or find a better position for him or Jacobs.
I really like Henry, cultured player. But he is also too slow imo. When he runs, I can see he's working really hard to run fast. But he just isn't quick enough I'm afraid.

 

[sycophantia]

I would stick with our defenders for the beginning of next season and maybe give either Hause or EEL some games. At least one central midfielder for when we play 4-4-2. An attacking number 10, one striker alhough difficult to get anyone decent to come and sit on the bench, assuming Sako goes, a proper left sided replacement, no square peg/round holes. I'd like to have a look at Graham in Sako's role, dunno if he's ready yet.

 

[Premier Quality]

As has been mentioned, there are a few ridiculous anomalies relating to Bournemouth that have gone in their favour. They've had 15 red cards awarded against them. That's double the highest in the PL IIRC, and I'd suspect twice as high as the next highest in our division too.
Those red cards, together with their swarming round the ref a lot have skewed their results imo.

They dive a LOT do Bournemouth. Any game of theirs you watch, they hit the deck at any opportunity.

 

[lemonjelly]

That's from march. They've benefitted from a few since then. It's a massive anomaly imo.

 

[Aikiwolf]

I'll add to the controversy then, by suggesting we upgrade Henry, or find a better position for him or Jacobs.
I really like Henry, cultured player. But he is also too slow imo. When he runs, I can see he's working really hard to run fast. But he just isn't quick enough I'm afraid.

Not sure this is controversial either! If Henry and VLP could be combined the we'd have a fantastic player!!!

With kmac - my problem is his lack of fight, when teams pressure him he really struggles to stay in the game.

We also need to stop taking EVERY free kick short, mix it up a little more as it becomes easy to defend against!