Our transfer window dealings.

I thought you might be interested to read my email to Neil Doncaster on the above:-

Neil

Well done to the Board in committing the money to buy Earnshaw and getting in two loan players who in my view will strengthen the squad ( why on earth did our manager of the month for December not play them last night and why on earth did he play 4-3-3 knowing Reading`s strength in wide midfield - tactical naivity of breathtaking proportions).
However I fear that in committing all the money to Earnshaw that the club have put all their eggs in one basket without fixing the basket itself thus rendering it likely that the egg will fall out and break ( I apologise for the poor similie) .
Our problems are obvious and can be identified as follows:-
a) a chronic lack of confidence
b) a chronic lack of quality in wide midfield ( and in central midfield when sSaffri is not playing - the last time we won when Saffri is not playing is the West Brom game last season) and in defence ( Drury and Doherty being the possible exceptions)
c) a team of workhorses not even working very hard no doubt because of a lack of confidence and also I suspect a lack of confidence in our manager and his hoofball tactics tactics which in themselves are no doubt bourne out of the lack of quality in the team) resulting in a chronic lack of service to the strikers ( thus Ashton`s talents were wasted and he was lost to us) . My fear is that this lack of service will result in Earnshaw not scoing the goals his talent , with a reasonable service, is capable of.

My humble view is that the Earnshaw money should not have been spent on a striker ( with JJ, Thorne, Huckerby and Mcveigh ) which is probaby our strongest department as long as they get quality service, but on a quality right back and two quality wide midfielders. For what we spent on Earnshaw I have no doubt that we could have got Greg Halford, Kris Commons and Wright ( the latter two being speculative but examples of the quality of players that we could have got - ?1.5 m for Halford; ?1m for Commons or similiar and ?1m for a decent right back ( Wright would no doubt have been less if available.) A team say of Green, Wright, Rehmann , Docherty, Drury, Halford, Saffri, Robinson/Etuhu, Commons, JJ and Huckerby/Mcveigh playing Reading style ( ie no hoofball) would have been a much more exciting prospect than the team that we can now put out even including Earnshaw.

Nowich till I die

David Drake

Posted By: Westfields1, Feb 1, 11:21:26