David Moyes is looking increasingly unlikely to get the striker he really wants this winter.
He has already revealed he has put bids in for two or three with no luck and the hope is now that we will be able to find a back up to Michail Antonio with a foreign loan striker.
It’s never a good idea to give up all hope and there always remains a chance he will get a permanent arrival.
But with a loan option looking more likely one can’t be too confident we will get the quality we need for the remainder of the season.
Remember Simone Zaza, Jonathan Calleri and winger Gokhan Tore – three disasters who eventually had to be offloaded. As a matter of interest, the South American has had four loan clubs since he left us.
There are several reasons why January is a poor month to buy and it has absolutely nothing to do with fees offered and refused.
Unless a club has neither promotion nor relegation issues on their agenda where strikers could hardly be more important they are not going to sell.
Loan players are allowed out for a reason – normally because they haven’t hacked it at their current club and god old Mr Agent is looking for a commission.
Yes, should the club offer – let’s say £40 – £50 million for a supposed top player they would probably get him just as they did Seb Haller!!!
However, there’s even a problem there as players considered worth that money normally hold on to where they are and look for a Champions League club in the summer.
I accept that we shouldn’t be in a position where only one striker is available and you can blame whoever you want for that despite it making not a scrap of difference.
Nothing’s easy at this time of the year and we live in hope that Moyes will pull another rabbit out of the hat as was the case with Bowen, Soucek and Coufal.
He doesn’t however, look or sound like a man who is set to rush out and get whoever he can.
Once again I would say leave it up to DM. He knows what he wants and if that’s not available then he won’t buy rubbish just for the sake of it. As long as everyone else doesn’t get involved (no names, no pack drill).
We have way too often bought in a panic and ended up with embarrassment.
Mikey is fine at the moment; we have the U-23 kid, who deserves a chance; Fornals, Lanzini, Bowen, Soucek can all score goals.
Buy if the right striker is out there, wait until the summer if he’s not, in my opinion.
If that is the option imho just stick with the kid from the u23’s, we have had what ever it is 50 odd strikers since GSB joined none of them have been hits, maybe it could be argued we are overdue a lucky break there but our two best strikers during that have been converted wingers in Arnautovic and Antonio… stop throwing money down the drain for second choices, maybe Moyes is better to find another physical aggressive pacey winger and convert them if we are going to spend money ?
So why did we sell Haller (and indeed Snodgrass) before buying replacements?
We have a threadbare squad and if we lose Cresswell, Antonio, Sucek, or Rice who comes in?
exactly! we had ONE out and out striker, we need to replace in the same window (even a 6 month loan) if we want to keep momentum going.