Loan deals last year & Etuhu

Last year we'd clearly been trying to bring Etuhu in for some months before he signed on loan/properly.

What do you reckon, have we been tapping up targets quietly behind the scenes with a view to doing similar deals in a few months time (maybe January)?

The sort of player we'd be interested in (and likely to land) is going to be on the fringes of a premiership squad. My guess is that at the start of the season most players would prefer to sit tight, see if they can work their way into the starting 11 of their current team.

In a few months time, bored of playing on the fringes, they might fancy a move down a division to play more often & must bear in mind the teams that have been courting them earlier.

Just a thought.

On the Cotteril point I reckon that the management just got into an ebaying frenzy. . . must not get outbid. . . but I would have been amazed if we'd shelled out 2 Million quid on the lad. Looks a massive gamble (& not like Ashton who'd been performing consistently well for longer). But I can't agree with any of the posters further down the board who say "we should have KNOWN that a premiership club would come in and offer more money and beat us to him", I'd have thought that a million quid was steep, to think that someone else would come in for double that is very surprising.

& why did we put all our eggs in one basket? Probably because the management team & board thought it was worth going hell for leather for that player (who until yesterday we looked favourites to get).

& why didn't we have a backup plan? Probably because we couldn't have afforded the backups AND 2Mil on the bristol lad. Trying to push backup deals through from a standing start in a single day is never an option (unless you're willing to throw LOTS of money around - like Wigan).

Which brings us back to the loan point - do you reckon we'll be tapping up the backup players we're after to try and arrange Etuhu like deals?

Looks to me like we'll be using Jarvis, McVeigh, Henderson & Flem to cover injuries and bringing in Loans to trial out possibles or to bring in genuine targets outside the window.

Posted By: Cardiff Canary, Sep 1, 09:02:17