nobbyshrimp wrote:It’s a tough balancing act with wages. Houghton has been brill with AFC and will be snapped up but I’m not sure I would be paying that because football is such a gamble. You pay it, you bring him in, everyone’s on an high but then he gets nobbled and out for 6mths……you’re fooked! We’ve seen it many many times, more than a lot of clubs have and Dereks no fool, he knows this.
I agree, we seem to have been plagued by long term injuries over the past few years. We'd not have been relegated if we'd had Angol fit and playing regularly for the first half of the season. We've lost Ray for virtually the entire season. Then more latterly, we've lost McAdam and Hendry. In prior seasons, we've suffered the same. Remember that first season in L1 when Robinson brought in two expensive strikers who both went down with long term injuries in their first couple of weeks. As a poor club, we just can't afford an expensive striker as we can't afford a big squad to duplicate/triplicate positions in case of injuries. Derek has rightly gone for quantity over quality but even then, he could barely get to his preferred team of "22". If he'd paid for a marque striker, we may have been down to only 18 or 19 players and could well have found we couldn't even fill the bench with injuries/suspensions, etc. on numerous occasions. An "older" striker is a ridiculous gamble if they cost the same as 2/3/4 other players and are clearly at greater risk of injury or poor performance due to their age.
Posted: Sun May 04, 2025 1:13 pm