I think everything he's writing at the moment

is a way to have a beware of peter cullum bearing gifts type of message.

What happened with Thorne was to me mostly the fault of the management and coaching staff at the time - we bought him in haste when he didn't even know he was up for sale, never performed - did anyone ask if he really wanted to be here - and tbh probably carried injuries because so many of our signings seem to. With Chadwick being another case in point. The shoulder injury he was very aware of long before joining us, he had other niggles and yet we still brought him in (and as you say his main reason was because we were relatively local. A lad I know was at school with him and he'd been looking to move back to this area long before he joined us so we must have seemed like bread from heaven). It seems that we've just too much of a history of hasty signings where if anyone dug even slightly under the surface there'd be more than a few question marks. Cureton - bought to appease fans rather than his scoring record - because one season doesn't make a striker. etc etc

Roeder seems to have a different attitude - he's gone for some 'odd' picks because he knows what he's looking for, rather than buying for the sake of it (he's said as much about the striker search) and to keep him popular. I certainly wouldn't have had any idea about say Clingan - but he's slotted in so smoothly. Stefanovic - so excellent it's unbelievable but was he one of the many CBs we were all discussing at the end of last season.

I know there are loads of counter examples (Worthington getting Hucks/Crouch etc) but it does seem like there's a distinct strategy to our signings now. And probably because they're kept fairly quiet it winds up the Waghorns of this world.

Posted By: camcan, Sep 8, 18:54:42