Everybody's Talkin' - 4/Feb/10
Your Letters
Dear tf,
For the first time in ages NUFC have finished a transfer window with a stronger squad, if not necessarily a better starting eleven. Only Routledge really represents an improvement in first choice terms and he has it all to prove after a much hyped start to his career. What really concerns me is not who we brought in but who we failed to land – it seems that as soon as there’s any competition for a player's signature NUFC drop out the running. With players like Moses, Killgallon and Beckford we’re not talking about administration inducing transfer fees, just a lack of ambition. A failure to understand that in football you have to speculate to accumulate, that a small number of ‘quality’ signings can bring the best out of the players around them and lift the team to the next level. Buying them cheap and stacking them high might provide the sort of temporary euphoria enjoyed by people who camp outside John Lewis before the January Sales, but the important question remains unanswered – are NUFC building for the future are just muddling through?
The lads we’ve brought in should help us ride out any injury crisis during our twenty game run in, and they have to be judged on how they perform. But no matter what level a team plays at it has to be prepared to compete in the transfer market if it wants to make real progress, and there’s been little if any competition for the players we’ve brought in. Quite where NUFC are heading in the long term remains a mystery.
Matt Flynn
For the first time in ages NUFC have finished a transfer window with a stronger squad, if not necessarily a better starting eleven. Only Routledge really represents an improvement in first choice terms and he has it all to prove after a much hyped start to his career. What really concerns me is not who we brought in but who we failed to land – it seems that as soon as there’s any competition for a player's signature NUFC drop out the running. With players like Moses, Killgallon and Beckford we’re not talking about administration inducing transfer fees, just a lack of ambition. A failure to understand that in football you have to speculate to accumulate, that a small number of ‘quality’ signings can bring the best out of the players around them and lift the team to the next level. Buying them cheap and stacking them high might provide the sort of temporary euphoria enjoyed by people who camp outside John Lewis before the January Sales, but the important question remains unanswered – are NUFC building for the future are just muddling through?
The lads we’ve brought in should help us ride out any injury crisis during our twenty game run in, and they have to be judged on how they perform. But no matter what level a team plays at it has to be prepared to compete in the transfer market if it wants to make real progress, and there’s been little if any competition for the players we’ve brought in. Quite where NUFC are heading in the long term remains a mystery.
Matt Flynn