In my preview for this season, I wrote that our fortunes for
the year depended on what happened in the remaining month or so of the transfer
window. What followed was a relatively busy month.
We saw the loss of last year’s star performer and top scorer
Shane Long in a relatively expected move and in through the door came a man
with way too many ‘S’s in his name (Kaspars Gorkss), Southampton’s third choice
left-back (Joseph Mills) and the man with the most northern sounding name ever
(Glenville Adam J. le Fondre).
I wrote at the start of the season that if we lost Shane Long
then we would be in for a long hard season and, despite the arrival of le
Fondre, I stand by that.
Le Fondre may bang in the goals at this level and his record
elsewhere certainly shows he knows where the goal is but, increasingly in the
Championship , being a goalscorer isn’t always enough. If a team plays two up
front, one of the pair must be prepared to work the channels and work his socks
off for the team. Matthieu Manset has shown glimpses of this but he is the only
striker we have with the combination of pace and power to do it.
The signing of Gorkss should add a certain degree of
fearless insanity that all backlines should have and one we have lacked since
the loss of Andre Bikey. However, a distinct lack of pace is still in evidence
in the defence as a whole and at centre back in particular, an issue that
Gorkss, for all his positives as a very good centre half at this level, will
not alleviate.
Mills looks like he is one for the medium to long term
unless Ian Harte puts in some terrible performances over the next few weeks and
Mills is required to step up.
Overall, the transfer window has not been unkind to us. Only
losing Matt Mills and Long (as well as the releasing of the likes of Ivar
Ingimarsson and Zurab Khisaishvili going back to his parent club) is not too
bad when, quite conceivably, we could have also lost Adam Federici, Jimmy Kebe
and Jem Karacan too.
Furthermore, each loss has had a like-for-like replacement
brought in more or less as two centre halves have replaced the three that have
left (with Sean Morrison being, rightly, expected to step up) and le Fondre
replacing Long.
However, the issue that remains is one of faith of the fans.
Money has been spent with the summer spending coming in at an estimated £1.5
million but faith comes into the equation when one asks if the replacements are
good enough to plug the holes left by Mills and Long.
I do not believe the quality of the ins are as good as the
outs though I would love to be proven wrong on this matter. However, that said,
they are good acquisitions at this level and a top half finish with a possible
play-off push is a distinct possibility should the team gel together.
We are notoriously slow-starters in this division these days
but there is enough quality in the squad to pose a challenge to most sides in
this league. The disappointment of course comes when one looks at the financial
aspect of the ins and outs but that is another story and another can of worms.
