By Sean Whetstone
With just one week left in the winter transfer window remaining the big question is whether David Moes stick or twist in the remaining days?
We know he has made at least three formal bids for strikers which have all failed, one of which he admitted was the Sevilla forward Youssef En-Nesyri who scored a hat trick yesterday.
The manager now seems resigned to the fact that it will not be possible to sign his priority permanent targets in the winter and perhaps he can afford to wait until the summer. He has been reviewing the overseas loan market in recent days but there are no guarantees there either and he has publicly stated he refuses to panic and just sign just anyone to make up the numbers. It insists any incoming player must be an improvement on what he already had available to him.
Despite the daily reports of new names linked with West Ham, there seems a real growing possibility that he will stick with the squad he has.
Yesterday, he tried Andriy Yarmolenko upfront as he rested Michail Antonio for the FA Cup and 23-year-old Dapo Afolayan made his debut scoring in the process.
Academy youngster Mipo Odubeko will also be match fit again soon after missing training this week after a false positive test.
He also has the option of using Manuel Lanzini and Said Benrhama in a more forward position.
As it stands today with no signing close there is more chance in Moyes sticking than twisting in my personal opinion.
Absolutely sticking. I could understand the clamour and urgency to replace Haller with another couple of expensive world class players recognised as centre-forwards and guaranteed to score goals every game if we were languishing at the bottom of PL with no hope in sight. However, whatever Moyes is doing seems to be working pretty well at the moment. Spending loads of money and upsetting what we have just doesn’t make any sense right now.
Obviously if we finish the season in the top 5 we would need to replace David and the backroom staff with proper management who will be able to attract the best players from Liverpool, Manchester United and City, Chelsea, PSG, Inter, AC Milan, Barca and Madrid. I think that will be allowed under any League financial restraints – anyway we just pay the fines and move on to World domination. Just a case of prioritising which competitions we would like to win. No need for U23 or Academy. It cannot possibly fail because nobody else has thought of doing it this way.
Simple.
FA Cup – Really hoping we don’t play in that dull, uninspiring, no identity, bland evening wear of a wholly black kit in the next round. Get the boys out there wearing some proper kit. Allow them to see each other without having to stop and look up. Catching a glimpse of your team mates colours out of the corner of your eye can be vital in playing with speed and confidence. Extra playing help at no extra cost. Take any advantage we can.
COYI
I’m astounded that people think we can get by with the squad we have …chance of the best season in a long long time..and we want to gamble like this ..
It is alright playing these inexperienced young Players against Doncaster, but Man U or Liverpool, no way. We need experienced Professionals and we need them now if we stand a chance of Europe. Buy the treasure Dawson and loan us a good forward. Antonio cannot be expected to carry all the weight and the others on their own, have proved they are no where near as good.
If we get a couple of injuries up front, who is going to be scoring the goals between now and May?
It does look as if nobody was doing any long term planning when the decision to sell Haller first came up. The idea that Moyes can both do his job and be up to date on who is who out there in the transfer market is, well, plain silly. Everybody who knew the market could tell you Youssef En-Nesyri had stated many times he did not want to move from Sevilla.
I hope we do get another player like Antonio up front but as we’ve seen today we could spend 220 million and be worse off! COYI ⚒