The Strikers

He certainly had a bit of energy about him and got stuck in to what was asked of him, happy to see more of him...

 

We've all seen games like Saturday, when chance after chance is fluffed. If Vernam had scored, and we'd ended up winning 2-1, I don't think there'd have been this reaction.

We're Fourth Division and prolific strikers are out of our reach financially. We're playing reasonably well, creating chances and, hopefully, the abnornally high failure rate of Saturday, won't be a regular feature.

 

Robinson came on in the 89th minute with five minutes of injury time. If you haven’t a bit of energy on your debut with 20 sets of tired legs on the pitch it’s a poor show. Let’s wait until we’ve seen more than a couple of touches and a shot into the Kop eh?

 

You wasn’t saying this when we had Wells.

It’s simple we lack quality and due to that we will be drawing more games that we should win until we address the issue and unfortunately if we don’t it could cost us many ways.

 

Players like Nakhi Wells, at our level, don't come around too often.

Of course, we lack quality, we're a fourth division outfit.

I've never criticised Rupp because it's easy to sit back and tell someone else to spend their money. We're cutting our cloth and, if that means we stay in business, but lack quality, I can accept that.

 

Where do you draw the line? You could maybe cut half a million off the budget and stay mid table league two? Cut a million off and live happily mid table conference.
Football should be sustainable, the Championship clubs losing millions each month are mad, but what is Rupp’s vision for City? Eco club like Dale Vince at FGR? Community club that is there for future generations like Andy Holt at Accy? Or a passive hope of some day one day getting his money back?

I’m not buying the happy to have a kind benevolent owner like Stefan line so we can be grateful to get served an horse shit pie and some dodgy ale to go with our cheap season ticket. We’re Bradford City, let’s know our station in life eh? Fact is you’ve got to run to stand still, how many former league clubs are pissing about in the Conference or worse? How many former non league clubs, proper non league clubs like Salford, Harrogate and Sutton are overtaking us?

But eh, let’s not ask a wealthy man to invest £200k to secure promotion because we might be the next Bury or Macclesfield. Bullshit. That squad with a clinical striker is going up. But let’s just be happy with have a team eh?

 

Players like Nakhi Wells, at our level, don't come around too often

Of course, we lack quality, we're a fourth division outfit.

I've never criticised Rupp because it's easy to sit back and tell someone else to spend their money. We're cutting our cloth and, if that means we stay in business, but lack quality, I can accept that

But we all know Rupp has no interest in football. Until someone with more ambition and willing to fund it, comes along, this is our level. Of course, throwing money at it doesn't guarantee success anyway. We paid fees for Alex Jones, McCartan, Reeves and Poleon, in fairly quick succession. Where did that get us? We paid big wages to strikers Doyle and Vaughan. That went well didn't it?

Rupp will keep us ticking over. He'll be desperately trying to find a buyer. The problem is we've no assets and, therefore, there won't be too many interested.

Therefore, @Mike Hunt, unless you're willing to loan the club, the £200k to invest, in order to sign the striker you think will "secure" promotion, methinks you'll have a long wait. If finding the £200k might prove you a problem, identifying this mythical striker might prove harder still.

As I said, it's easy to sit back and tell someone else to spend money.

As the saying goes "put up or shut up".

 

I don’t have to put up or shut up. If I stay at a hotel and the duvet is crap, should I bring my own? No, I expect the owner to fund proper facilities. It’s not up to the customer to identify the alternatives or to finance them other than through buying services or goods.

As fans we have ‘put up’, we’ve bought more season tickets at increased prices, and rightly increased too, we’ve bought 1903 club membership, businesses have increased sponsorship, supported refurbishment of the stadium and facilities.

Fans and local businesses have put up, Derek and Ryan have done so great work, it’s up to the ownership to support them. As fans and local businesses we don’t need to shut up.

 

Just clap harder and stop moaning until you get so fed up and disillusioned you stop buying season tickets and find something else to do on a Saturday.

 

I've asked before - and not got a response - let's say Rupp did put 200k into the transfer fund, which striker do you think we should go for? As highlighted, there doesn't seem to be much quality about this season in terms of strikers. I don't know where we'd get one from.

 

Maybe I'm naive, but if we're in the hunt for top 3 come January and look to be missing just 1 key player, I think we'll find the cash needed to sign that player.

 

Tom Barkhuizen he's a forward but Preston aren't using him in their forward line lately apparently they've got a big squad and he's in the final year of his deal

I'm not sure I'd spend a transfer fee but a loan could suit everyone he would be something different to what we have already and has good quality

Something tells me that between Adams and the head scout we don't really have any contacts further up the football pyramid though

 

Isn't that Lee Turnbulls job?

 

Is he still in the building?

 

Agree, I’m more than certain that there is still leeway in the annual budget for Jan incomings. I believe Sparks said as much in one of his interviews.

If the right person was available last week then I’m pretty sure it would have been spent then, but as Adams said we couldn’t get our target., it does not mean the same one isn’t available in Jan with 6 months contract left at his existing club. Then it’s a buyers market!

 

That’s Turnbull’s job, but an early loanee might have been better than being forced in to a last minute signing, I don’t mean that as a criticism of Robinson either. The kid Archer at Villa who got a hat trick against Barrow, he was on loan at Solihull last year, so there is talent around and Turnbull is there to make sure we get an Archer and not a Samuels.

 

Turnbull came with a big fanfare, and was pretty vocal at first. Now we don't hear from him, and it seems that targets are based on what Adams wants rather than Turnbull. I get the impression he was brought in to help our rookie management team, and now we've got DA, he's no longer the influence he was signed up for.

 

We should have a recruitment system that’s largely independent of the first team manager so that when he leaves the squad isn’t ripped up and the cycle started again. Even though he couldn’t implement it properly, Edin had the right idea for me, younger players with a possible resale value mixed with experienced players. Adams should be saying get me a hard tackling midfielder and Turnbull is checking his records and calling his contacts, not just signing players that will leave with Adams.

 

Yes, but he's a reluctant owner, Mike. He was duped. We have to realise he doesn't want to throw good money after bad. He wants out but, at this moment in time, can"t see an exit route. Meanwhile, we're treading water so any ambitious hopes of paying a big transfer fee, and big wages that go with it, will have to be put on hold. As recent history at City has shown, splashing the cash on players is no guarantee of finding the successful formula.

Indeed, at this moment in time, if the window was still open, I'd struggle to identify a realistic target, for your £200k, who'd be willing to come. So it's all a bit hypothetical anyway.

 

Reading between the lines the reaction to the signing of Robinson went just as described Adams wanted a striker Turnbull got Robinson Adams wasn't overly impressed but understands the market is difficult right now