joey_big_nose

Yeah whats weird is there are a lot of alternatives to Morton, four or five in the squad but he starts every week despite being very average for a long time (last time he was consistently good was back in October/early November I think) and recently turning into a bit of a liability. Agree thats no different to quite a few others. Difference is he has started 27 of 28 games I think. We know its feasible for loaning clubs to put stipulations in. Seems it must be happening to me.

Morton was a decent signing for me, nothing against him, played a significant role in getting us into the top six. But we should be able to drop him when hes off form. Thats the issue for me. It must be a financial penalty thing.

Thought we were overall the better team and should have comfortably won. We created a lot of chances and played some really decent stuff. But... we made lots and lots of mistakes. Both the Birmingham goals came from multiple errors on our side, ans we never looked at all convincing defensively. I can kind of see what JDTs trying to do. But we definitely need a better technical centreforward to do it. Also like others have said we have to drop Morton. He really needs a rest. JRC was excellent btw. Wonder if him drifting past players was a one off or something we will see more of. For a guy who was a liability two months ago the turnaround has been extra ordinary. On the other hand Scott Wharton who was absolutely superb last season is now an accident waiting to happen. And that accident did for the Birmingham equaliser....

Well at least we have created quite a few chances and its been quite an entertaining game, neither of which I expected. We are committing a lot of players forward all the time. Sometimes five strung along the Birmingham back line. Our passing is shaky though, brought a lot of danger onto ourselves including the goal, and defence does not look assured.

Much as I hate to say it there is a lot of truth to this, at least for anything outside the agreed budget.

Yeah not really sure how that will work. BBD is not a lone central striker. Wants to run facing goal.

God dammit I really want Jaoa to happen now... but we haven't been linked to him at all in any way so probably should dampen my hopes. He's a big lad but also good with his feet so would get a lot out of our wide players crossing, and build up play through the middle.

Had a look on the forums. Seems Paul Ince is not playing him (I mean Ince forced out Brad Friedel so if he's pushing you out maybe that's an endorsement?) Plus they've got a couple of big name big salary target men - Andy Carroll, Shane Long - so can see why Joao's being let go... No hint on the forums about attitude or anything. Seems perfect to me.

EFL player of the month Feb 22, scored 33 Championship goals in 77 starts in last 2.5 seasons.... pretty good? I will read the Reading Forums in interest.

Strikes me as the sort of player who could play well into his 30s... not particularly about pace. More strength, technique and movement. Like Graham could see him being a very good number nine up to 35ish. Danny Graham played for us from ages 31 to 35. If there is a realistic chance to sign him, and he passes medical, I'd say we should do everything to get him. But I suspect the Parachute teams will all be having a close look so not sure if realistic at all for us.

https://the72.co.uk/2023/01/27/reading-bracing-for-late-interest-in-29-year-old-says-journalist/

I liked him a lot. Is this a comment in terms of him being available or any news coming from sources at the club? Would be very happy with him. Good in the air, on the floor, strong, worries defences, achieved a 1 in 2 goal ratio in the Championship over a couple of seasons. Hard to think of many better options.

Are we still at 105% though after we lost a lot of senior players (Johnson, Lenihan, Rothwell etc)? What accounting period was the wage turnover for?

Of course its possible. Weve played over half the season and we're fourth....!

I suspect Sorba Thomas

Bugger - are we looking at other strikers? E.g. Arron Collins or Colby Bishop mentioned on here before?

Ah I see what you mean! I suppose the counter argument is if 442 is viable why does virtually no one play it?

Not sure if you misread my post - I was saying 442 is very rare. I was not saying we don't play 4231 - it's our favorite formation, and probably most favored formation in world football imo.

Front two does happen quite a lot in the modern game in 352. Indeed we've played three or four games in that structure this season. 442 is dead due to the lack of number in the centre of the pitch but 352 get's round that.

Yes - this exactly.... for Gally, BBD and Vale a combination of not being able to win a contested ball and being poor at finding space in the box (or even getting in the box at all) leads to no opportunity for crosses whatsoever. It seems a very straight forward solution for our ills to find someone whose reason for living is to get in the penalty box and beat a centreback to a cross or a through ball. Why are we not looking for that player? In fact we could really do with two.

I guess my problem with it is that where we struggle is not really so much on the transition... we have players who can break and run with the ball. Obviously getting a player who is (hopefully) better at doing that is good. But it doesn't really solve the major problem which is having the right players in the box to finish off. We had a quality crosser for half a season in Giles but got very little out of him as we had no one to get on the crosses. This could be very similar. So I'm hoping this Sorba is the Conway to an as yet unnamed Gestede who will turn up imminently.

Or how about the last Hibbee we missed out on - John McGinn... We can't compete with Watford financially due to parachute payments. Not a lot we can do about it.

Um didn't Chris Wood sign for Forest a couple of days ago??? And he's on loan from Newcastle anyway...

Why are we signing a winger on loan?? I get it if its someone whose become available who is decent for the long term and we sign perm even if we don't need them right now. But why sign a player in a position we are well covered for half a season. Especially when we desperately need central strikers? Looking forward to eating my words if he turns out a good un. But seems strange.

So odd... in the "wide forward" role we have BBD, Dolan, Hedges, Markanday all fighting for two spots. Plus Szmodics and Gallagher fill in there. I guess it's a case of him being good and available so we've gone for him even though it's not an immediate need.