And good afternoon.
Word coming in is that Sgt Wilson has agreed personal terms with Stoke City. This is a sad day of sorts. When the old Sarge arrived he was precisely what we were looking for. A bulldog in the midfield. Just what the doctor ordered. Tragic personal issues got on top of him and he was never really the same player again.
Pulis is assembling an army at Stoke. What a pity we aren’t.
BIOYC!
How short our memories are. Remember the comments when Sarge described us as a “stepping stone”. Hardly a step up in this case.
To be honest his dip in form came before his tragic personal loss. His debut (I think) against the Arse was by far his best game. I hope it is the first of many peripheral departures.
i didn’t get to see any yesterday,don’t even get itv 4 down here,my new computer is ready tuesday,Huzzah,hopefully i’m all geared up for a shit stream on saturday
so from what i understand 1 up front no goals,2 upfront goals,if we ain’t got a drogba or torrres i think harry is going to have to show who’s boss and go 2 upfront,especially with sandro down,i’m surprised wilson is off before j**** and peanut is going to have to show us what he is all about
there is bound to be a couple of ins and a few outs,maybe a surprise,where was vdv i hope he is going to be around for the battle
i see the firm is in good shape and ready for the season,i hope harry and the lads are,i’d make benny the captain just for the fuck of it and see what happens
good luck everybody we are all counting on you
442 at home, 4231 away, I reckon…
VDV’s injured & hoping to be back for the big kick-off…
its a plan,i just hope vdv strengths are used in the middle of the park as and when and not stuck out wide just to fit him in
VdV out wide, square peg, round hole and all that.
defo,i do wonder why they do it
It’d be a shame to see Wilson go. He really did help turn things around for us and I’m certain he’ll always get a warm welcome for that. The strange thing about what happened with his brother was that, at first, it didn’t seem to affect him. It seemed to be the World Cup that bought it home to him and it was after that that his form dropped – Almost like that was the first time it had sunk in.
He still had a couple of great games after but it always seemed like he was playing the game from the week before… His timing off and his reading of the play out the window.
If it is Stoke that get him, they’re getting a great player. Good luck to them both, there are worst outfits out there and Pulis (God love him and his baseball cap) is an honest sort of bloke.
great signing for stoke if its happening and if they are super lucky and woodgate plays they will be giving us a run for our money,personally i like stoke,they have a plan and a good crowd
Personally I don’t care that much for Stoke. I respect their money, so consider them a threat.
Plus, my Dad’s wife is a Stoke supporter (mildly speaking). So he needs to keep a hold of the domestic bragging rights.
I liked the sarge straight away: hard not to really! He was a Freund, a Treacle, a Roberts…… even if not a MacKay.
As for buying him and the others, I think some (and I guess I’m looking at you here MS) are speaking from a vantage point that was not there when the decisions were made. We were neck deep in crap, our prospects looked decidedly poor, we had a manager as yet unproved in a “senior club” and we had two Hopes in attracting players…..and one of them was Bing Crosby!
We brought back PSB, because we could. His move had screwed up and we could get him! Likewise Defoe……. Bent was not playing well and he came back and did a job. The giraffe was a suprise but he’s not been an out and out disaster, even if not what we wanted when we asked (whilst looking at Defoe) for someone taller. Chimbonda was the same, he and Bassong were bought to try to shore up a defence that had Woodgate unable to play with Dawson and Ledley unable to playe twice running.
The players brought in were to stop the rot, which they did! Once that was done, then we looked to build around what we had and the season turned out to be one which we salvaged: the definition of “not salvaged” being relegation!
We are stuck with a legacy of players who we have outgrown, but be fair guys, we needed men to bale the water out of the boat, we then needed men to fix the holes, we now need men to row the boat and navigate and skipper the ship……several different stages in the re-establishment of the boat’s seaworthiness.
Think also about the timeframe we’ve done this in; this is another reason we have these players still, they are on contract and we really need another side to be desperate enough to take them, as we did….when we were desperate!
Hindsight is one thing and I’m not accusing MS or anyone else of Monday Quarterbacking, but equally you have to remember the context of the decisions when they were taken, the choices available and the consequences at the time, of immobility.
Results are we stayed up and the following term we kicked some arse, then we went on a European foray which we learned from. I posted a few times about the reasonable expectations of Feb/March this year….. Harry has a few things that he has to learn too and sometimes when he opens his gob it embarrassing. But I think we need to keep the criticms grounded in what’s real and what’s not!
I agree Finn, Wilsons’s early performances cemented his standing with the fans – and were exactly what we needed at the time. Roberts maybe, but comparison’s with Freund and Treacle are unflattering.
In fact, I find myself agreeing with most of your comment and would add, don’t forget, a major factor in PSB, Defoe and others’ return to Spurs was Liverpool and Portsmouths’ inability to pay – the BinDippers, it later emerged, were extremely close to administration at the time – a fact which they and the PL were keen to conceal, hence the PL waiving their rule concerning players returning to a club within 12-months.
Maybe unflattering, but I liked both Treacle and Freund and found that the fullness of their hearts when they pulled on the shirt had more value than the half heartedness of the so called ‘more talented’ players.
Finn,
I don’t deny I am looking back at this (but to be fair – it’s the only way you can), but I don’t entirely agree with your assessment.
A fair number of the players Harry signed were signed in transfer windows other than the January 2009 one. The relegation threat argument you make is a bit of a red herring/distraction from the point I made, because I was simply talking about players transfer values depreciating under Harry (players he bought), and there’s more than one reason as to why that may be the case – hindsighting or not.
The Defoe/Keane signings were driven by our circumstances, and Defoe’s broken foot resulted in us re-signing Keane on deadline day. Wilson too, was signed during our crisis – and he was very needed, no argument there. Chimbonda was so needed he played was it 3 games? Needed him though I suppose.
Bassong was a summer signing, us paying £8 million for a defender who cost Newcastle £500k the year before. And I don’t deny he was decent for us in his first season. We were not desperate or in a desperate situation as you suggest. His confidence looks shot to pieces now, and it leaves us with no hope of recouping that fee.
When you talk about the context of the decisions as they were made at the time, I have not forgotten any of them Finn.
From the signings he made, to the abolition of the reserve team. How is loaning out surplus players instead of selling them working out for us? Good for the kids to gain experience, maybe so. Good for Robbie Keane? Good for us to loan out players we so obviously want rid of, such as the clearly unwanted Bentley, say?
You think it’s good for the player kicking around in the remaining squad but getting few opportunities to not have a reserve team to play in?
I am looking at the whole picture, not just plucking out the stories of the few players signed when we were in desperate times, “under threat of relegation”, and I’m certainly not including players signed when the threat wasn’t even there (Bassong) to back up my remarks :daumen: