Theo Robinson - Signing Confirmed

And I suppose if we try hard enough we can help fuel that conflict and drive Adams out of the club.

 

do they need to? Realistic within what parameters - money, availability, desire to Come here. factors none of us are privvy to.

Its down to the club to pull together a list of targets and go out and make it happen.

Are we that short of options there was only one other realistic alternative in the football league, is that what youre suggesting?

On the face of it, Its a meh signing but maybe the parameters only put us into the meh category and we we going for champagne targets on lemonade money.

and of course Lee Angol was a meh signing for many.

He is a bcfc player now so he gets our backing and can easily silence the doubters, were allowed to feel a tad underwhelmed though getting a port vale cast off

 

As I say almost everyone

 

That's what it's all about scoring the important goals when we knick the 3 points by the odd goal.

 

He is a city player now so let's see what he can do. The thing that bothers me about this signing is how the narrative changed so quickly from the start of last week. At that point Adams was going on about being confident of getting his business done well before the deadline and of getting in one really good signing and the possibility of another. A couple of days ago that changed to only one coming in, that it would likely go down to the wire, and that he wasn't able to bring in who he wanted due to finances. That's a significant change and suggests the goal posts have been moved somewhat in terms of what Adams thought was possible. I hope Robinson turns out to be a cracking signing I really do, but if Adams is not being backed in the way he thought he was going to be backed, we may have a problem brewing. (Before anyone says he was brought in because of his ability to work with a limited budget, I am well aware of that, but he will have known what that budget was and will have targeted players accordingly, so for him to suddenly be told the money isn't there is slightly worrying imo).

 

Yes they do have to. Either put up or shut up in my opinion. If people slag off a signing but then can’t put forward any realistic alternatives when asked then they should keep quiet. Otherwise it’s all waffle.

 

Let's hope the anticlimax with regards the Robinson signing is partly down to last nights result, IMO it's far to early to start dissecting our season so far.

 

How would they know who was realistic? Surely thats just speculation so also fits into your waffle category, or is that alright?

 

I suspect it might have more to do with other deals higher up the food chain not coming off, leaving clubs unwilling to part with the player(s) concerned. Leaving us with who was available.
Let's hope Theo replicates his Southend and Colchester form or at least makes a good contribution.

 

It feels like the economics in the footy world have changed over the last 18 months. We can't really afford to have lists of 3/4 players for key/tricky positions to recruit for like strikers and keepers maybe. We need to really push hard and at a maximum level for players in those positions because the market just seems to be so hard.

 

The single biggest factor in the disappointment, is that we've signed a player who was deregistered in order to make way for Kurtis Guthrie - one of the worst players we've seen for several years, coupled with the fairly unanimous sense of delight that he's gone amongst the Vale fans. Now, neither of those points automatically make him a poor signing, but its not exactly a ringing endorsement.

Personally, I'm surprised and disappointed that we haven't used the loan market. I've said it before, but the fact that we can provide a high pressure environment in front of 13-15k fans who expect home wins every other week, should be a good selling point for what we can offer by way of a development platform for young players who need exposure to first team football. That, plus our geographical location and proximity to 5 or 6 of the biggest clubs in the country, should mean we have a head start on other clubs at this level and could/should mean we can attract loan players who ordinarily wouldn't be available to league 2 clubs. I can't fathom it.

 

Yes I agree, Sparks and Rupp may have brought him in because he could work miracles on small budgets but I doubt Adams dropped down a division to a much bigger club to have to replicate it. He most likely joined as he felt we were the most realistic chance for him to manage in the championship longer term, to do that he’ll need backing however. I have no doubt Sparks and Adams are desperate for promotion, but is that reflected by the top man who controls the budget?

 

I have listened and read his interviews and I can’t find anything where it says the difficulty was about finance it was more about availability

 

Your first comment never crossed my mind I don't know enough of the circumstances why Port Vale did that, balancing the books ?.
Adams looks like he's not a big favourite of loans, and to be fair who was the last loan who made a difference to our squad Cullen.
Let's give the guy and his squad time before we start questioning him, we've lost one league game improved game on game up until the poor Orient performance, I believe we'll be back to winning ways come 5pm Saturday.

 

I don't think our treatment of loanees over the last few years has done our reputation much good.

 

It couldn't have been a book balancing exercise because he was still contracted. He wasn't released, he was deregistered to allow Guthrie to take a squad place on their registered list. I don't know the specifics either but based on what little I've read, it seems to have been on the basis that Vale thought Guthrie would offer more. Which is a worry.

 

You're probably right. Certainly our reputation as a shambles club over the last 3 or 4 years won't have helped.

 

In all honesty, when it comes to strikers at this level, some work and some don't. We've had plenty arrive with lots of fanfare and they've turned out to be awful and plenty arrive with little fanfare who have turned out to be good signings.

If, as Robinson says, his game is based around work rate and bringing other players into the game then we missed that type of player at Leyton Orient. His record at L2 level prior to his move to Port Vale wasn't too bad either. Lets see what Adams can get out of him.

 

Agree up to a point, we can generate extra income from none football sources which Ryan has quoted, although help as and when from your owner is always a nice back up.
It will be interesting to see if come the January transfer window Stefan is happy to give more financial help to guarentee an auto place or as Ryan has quoted we have a budget agreed with Stefan we work with.

 

It's hard to disagree on your loans point but I also feel @bantam2708 has a good point.

I read a bit last night and some of the fans were asking why he wasn't being given a chance instead of some other chap that they reckoned was hopeless. His record clearly isn't great but it may be down to not having a great relationship with the manager there as well. Perhaps they thought deregistering might make him leave?