We know it’s difficult for a club like ours to do business early in a window - but we’ve known since august we were desperate at centre back. We are nearly half way through the window and have signed nobody. Today, due to what I presume is an injury to McCart, we end up playing Jack Shepherd, who with no disrespect at all is not league one quality and was fitting kitchens for a living under a year ago. A loan to the national league or if anyone wants him league two would benefit him hugely. We also have Jon Russell in the team for Connell, who has a knock. The net result is we are a heck of a lot weaker now than we were, say, in December. Two knocks and the team looks quite worrying on paper - and it was - defensively speaking - worrying before. This has been allowed to happen, and my point about priorities - they’ve bought new pitch side sponsor boards. They’re about six inches taller maybe - slightly bigger anyway. But they haven’t bought enough to cover all the ponty and north stand ends - so yes they work unlike the pixelated ones in front of the ponty last match - but it looks tinpot. Probably cost a bomb aswell. Tens of thousands at least. Why was that a priority? The cost could have funded the wages of a loan for six months probably. The bottom panel of the scoreboard is fixed too as well. Great. It needed doing. But surely it is negligent to not have had at least one body through the door so far?
We've signed a CB today? Shepherd has looked really comfortable in my eyes, though the less said about Russell the better...!
Yeah Pines was announced after I made the post. Although I will point out he needs a visa and clearance before he can play - that could take the rest of the window with our record on paperwork! Does look a good signing on paper though. Big unit, strong in the air and pretty quick from what I’ve seen. They’re all a punt but this looks a well researched and sound signing to me. They’ve fixed the boards again as well, maybe they had a whip-round for the leccy meter…
To be honest i think shepherd is better than Williams in that role. The lad will come good but won't hold my breath with Russell worst player i have seen in barnsley red
The reason they haven't bought enough boards isn't that they haven't bought enough but that they know they're too big and because of the slope if they did go all the way to the end of the stand the boards would literally be higher than the front rows heads
Agreed. It was obvious at the start of the season as well. Williams should have been playing right back as soon as Shepherd was put into the first team. A back five of Cadden, McCart, De Gevigney, Shepherd and Williams is stronger than what it is now, despite O’Keefe being decent today and Cotter being more than capable. Williams is a top full back outside Premier League level and needs to be there. He’s crap at centre half.
To suggest we’ve prioritised the ad boards over signing a centre back is a bit odd to be honest. I can’t see that getting the boards bought and installed has eaten into Bobby Hassell’s time or budget.
Pines was at our last home game, suggesting we've been trying to sign him since the start of the window. These things take time. I'm sure the club would love to go out and sign 5 players the day the window opened and have done with it, but the reality is, it isn't that simple. Take Pines for example, he allegedly had other options, I'm sure he'll have spoken to other clubs in the meantime, he'll have had to make sure that he wants to uproot and come here, and said that part of the reason for his first visit was to work out whether he'd be happy living here. He's spoken to Daryl Dike too. Then there's agreeing his contract, sorting out the international clearance (which is still ongoing by all accounts). I don't even know whether there's some extra hoop to jump through with him signing from the MLS, as I believe it's a bit different over there (though I know he was out of contract). There will be irons in the fire, we'll have others on our radar, who we've enquired about, but if the selling club isn't ready to let them go just yet, I don't know what we can do in all honesty.
Shepherd is a natural left footer so that may hinder him playing RCB.. surely someone at the club would have had this idea in training and said nar..
