Tuesday 10 January 2012

Yannick Sagbo, Ryoichi Maeda, George John...

...we will be renamed West Ham All Stars before you know it! How good are these players? Well worryingly Allardyce has no idea. As he admitted on Radio 5, he doesn't bother to check out players personally, he trusts to his scouts. Whereas Stoke's Tony Pulis insists on seeing a player perform live before he offers for him, Doctor Evil is happy to trust to reports and video tapes.

All those that claim you can only judge a team's performance by attending a game should note that Allardyce thinks it is perfectly possible to decide on whether to invest millions on a player purely on the basis of a scout's report and seeing him on TV or YouTube.

It looks to me as if he is signing a motley crew on the cheap with little or no idea as to their ability to perform in the Championship, never mind the Premier League should we be promoted. And despite being linked with an assortment of Done Nothings, none offer width or creativity, the key ingredients lacking at present.

Worrying times.

12 comments:

JMan43 said...

I've read quite a few of your posts and although you have an interesting take on things at UP, your dislike of SA shines through and clouds everything you write. Sagbo will not be coming here, Maeda is only coming for a trial, so how does that fit with your statement that SA doesn't have a look at a player himself? George John is a pretty decent defender, I have seen him a few times in the MLS and he will equip himself well in The Championship. SA has already stated he will only bring in players he thinks will be an improvement in what we have and I will give him that chance to prove it. This is a tremendously difficult time of year to try and bring in anyone as most clubs are unwilling to sell those that others want. I can still see us ending up with Rhodes but I also think Maynard could be a good acquisition, but we need more quality to our strikers, we are missing Taylor's contribution, and that is where I see us struggling to get anyone new in to fill. We will get automatic promotion and it is what we do in the summer that will clarify SUGO's intent for the club.

Anonymous said...

Dave said

Particularly agree with jman43 that it'll only be if we go up that we'll find out what SUGO's aspirations are. Til then, one or two sensible signings should give us a better than evens chance of going up, given that it's a poor league.

Regarding the names HF mentions, I won't pretend to know any of them. What links them is that they'd be relatively cheap. Does that mean we've got naf all to spend or are they saving the money for an impressive signing, or two?

We'll see but whatever, I just can't see us getting Rhodes - too many Premiership sides apparently interested for us to get a real look in.

el martillo said...

Dib, dib, dib; dob, dob, dob, big fad Sam is a lazy slob. Trusting the scouts! Have you ever had your car washed by one of those boys?.

If we're going down the "bob-a-job" road, how about Powell at Baden-Baden, he's a pretty disciplined defender. And what about Arkayla if we need a striker? Goes down a bit easily, but he'd be cheap at the price!

the headmaster said...

No one has been signed yet so this thread is just idle speculation.

el martillo said...

Headmaster; idle speculation is the meat and drink of the internet chatrooms. Not to mention your teacher's commonroom!

Lord Canning said...

Idle speculation or no, these are the players being linked with WHU. Apparently BFS has 20 odd targets, so to me this speaks volumes of his assessment of the current squad. Promotion? Not with the boys in situ and January is not the the market for long term fixes, just short term gambles. Mediocre players going for huge sums - nah leave it alone.

Sav said...

headmaster makes a good point!

Anonymous said...

20:24 oh god who rattled your cage? prat.

Anonymous said...

Maeda is one of the hottest properties in the J-League having twice won the Golden Boot award and has scored 115 goals in 260 appearances for his club, Jubilo Iwata.

Anonymous said...

20:45 hahahaha - quality!

USA Dave said...

Had anybody ever heard of Demba Ba before we got him? Maybe there is more to some of these players than we know.

Thats hope speaking, by the way.

Anonymous said...

22:55 careful USA Dave - you know how HF doesn't like anyone getting all positive. Of course you are absolutely right. Well done sir!