No Green, no Upson, no Tomkins, no Behrami, no Ilunga, no Parker, no Noble, no Derr Hammer, no Faubert, no Cole, no Dyer so the side that drew with Southend tonight were very much the reserves.
True Piquionne and Barerra started, but they are behind the rest in preparation and anyway the ex Pompey man is an understudy for Cole. Stech, Edgar and Spector started and hopefully that won't happen too often next season! The substitutes used confirm that this was a run out for the understudies and the understudies' understudies, with Spence, Fry, Nouble, Montano, Sears and Lee coming on from the bench. We were 1-0 up regardless until Da Costa was withdrawn after 62 minutes.
Needless to say, Spector had a hand in Southend's goal, committing the foul on the edge of the box that resulted in the free kick from which the Shrimpers scored. Nothing changes, except Grant won't be foolish enough to use him as often as Zola did presumably!
I still think the first team has played 5 and won 5 personally. If we ever field this team in the Prem then God help us!
One question, where was Big Benni? Well, the fish and chips are very good in Southend I hear!
Piquionne has picked up where he left off...missing sitters! They should hire Zola as finishing coach (Kidding HF. How's the ticker?)
ReplyDeleteThis fixture wasn't on the originally planned schedule and probably was hastily convened for Grant to have a look at some of the other players in our growing squad, so a draw is not so bad I suppose. Although their manager did say that some of his players didn't even know each other's names!
Back to my earlier point on our large squad; when are we going to sell someone?
Stani, I pondered in some other post the same question. I wonder if the plan is to buy now and sell in the inflated January window. More than likely teams will be desperate with an injury or what have you and all of a sudden Kovac and Diamanti look like Maicon and Kaka. What do you think? What does anybody think?
ReplyDeleteThere is usually a flurry of signings in the last two weeks of the window which are rapidly approaching. Maybe management are still not sure of exactly who could still be coming in. Surely some of our unwanted squad player's must be of interest to a few of the lower clubs, but I don't suppose any of them would go to Blackpool!
ReplyDeleteI agree the most productive time to offload would be in January, but then you have to take into account the wage bill to that point.
Spector is a useless prick awful player. I went last nite the game was boring but the hammers fans quality as usual. Away end packed out and loads more hammers in the home end.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree Stani. This one sounded like it would be a reserve runout from the moment it was announced. To have 3 first team friendlies in 8 days, less than 2 weeks before the big kick off would have been suicide. I think the idea was to bring Piquionne and Barerra up to simmer before Deportivo, and if any of the others shined, that would have been a bonus.
ReplyDeleteAs for Spector, he can cost us goals in friendlies all day long in my opinion. I would much rather him do it now than when it matters. Hopefully he wont now get the chance.
What I still don't understand is how they contemplate including Spector in the 25 man squad! Surely we should be giving someone in the Academy a chance rather keeping an "accident waiting to happen" in the roster of the team.
ReplyDelete21 year olds and under don't count in the 25 mate. You can have a squad of 50 if 25 of the players are aged 22 and above and 25 are aged 21 and below.
ReplyDeleteDave,
ReplyDeleteThat's a fair point and I wouldn't put it past them to think of such a thing but I think it will be high risk. Plus, there's the point John has made of continuing to pay the wages of these players up until Jan. How many weeks is that? Say it's 25 weeks; considering some of our players get 30k and more a week, it works out to quite a sum. I think they may even sell on the cheap or loan out nearer the end of this transfer window just to get them off the books.
You are right, people get desperate in Jan, but clubs also do a lot of loan deals instead of permanent ones so that they can find a temporary solution and then re-group in the following summer without committing to a fee.
Chunky,
Yep, as long as Grant realises about Spector now, then it's better. But I suppose it is a guys job so Grant has to be careful and be sure whether he wants him or not so is getting as much of a look as he can at Specs. Either that or he keeps seeing 'Manchester UTD' on Spector's cv and is thinking there must be something good about this guy!