The Strikers

If it was that easy to find a striker, clubs like Salford would have one banging them in. The fact is £200k will get you an interview with the player and his agent, but it won’t guarantee they’re coming for the right reason. Players in the championship who can’t get in the squad, will more times than not look to move to league one or the SPL. We’ve been down the relative superstar route and wasted ‘000s on wages and transfers. In all my time supporting City I can only really remember one side with Mills, Blake and Beagrie where we scored 3 & 4 goals regularly.

The best we can hope for is to turn a misfiring striker into a 10-15 goal star and hope others chip in from other areas.

 

Spend that 200k on Kieran Agards wages.

Job done.

 

I get that, he doesn’t want to be here, but he’s not getting his money back unless the club is back to where he found it or higher. His only exit strategies are selling for a big loss or getting the club in to contention for the championship, if not actually in it.

For the first time in his tenure he has probably got the right manager, probably got the right CEO, for a small backing he could right a lot of the wrongs of his five years involvement in Bradford City.

The 200k was a made up figure, but it would pay somebody’s wages for a season. If Cook is injured and the form tails off, 200k is ten thousand pay on the day punters, easily lost in the second half of the season, over 10 home games, getting to the FA Cup third round is 56k.

I’m not saying Stefan should throw good money after bad, he shouldn’t, but some targeted sensible spending could be beneficial.

 

JUST THINK OF THE DEFICIT MAN.

 

Scunthorpe must have someone else available we can bring in?!

 

Why did you have to bring Julian into it?

 

As do I but that’s a big risk. Why wait?

 

Mike, can you come up with a name, because I can't? That old chestnut, Kieran Agard, keeps cropping up! In recent seasons we've tried established strikers (Doyle, Donaldson and Vaughan) and young loanees from higher placed clubs, (Samuels and the lad from Middlesboro).

We obviously need a pacy, effective striker and , several years ago, I could have come up with several realistic candidates but, currently, I'm stumped.

 

I can’t, but that’s not my job, I don’t have databases and scouting systems at my fingertips. There are the usual suspects like Agard, Robson Kanu (as if he’d slum it in L2) but the list of 17-21 year olds in PL or Championship reserves is enormous, many of them too expensive and many of them not up to standard. Watching their games is where Turnbull earns his money or Adams uses his contacts in Scotland.

Even the usually optimistic Width of a Post has brought up that the team is overly reliant on goals.

Samuels looked raw from the first moment you saw him and whatever McCall says I can’t believe he wasn’t signed on the back of the goal in the JPT game. We never saw Burrell which was a very odd signing.

I hope at least one or two of Lavery, Angol and Robinson come good or bring the best out of others, but I can’t help feeling we’re a man short.

 

If only we employed someone who's experienced in the recruitment field.

 

It’s always a gamble taking any player, especially a youngster. Adams has already stated he wants players that are ready and not youngsters because we / he doesn’t have time to develop them if the aim is promotion, so we can forget 17-21 year olds with no experience. Any half decent young striker will be around their first team or out on loan in the leagues above. Of the older players, we can’t be the only club needing a striker so you’ve got to ask yourself why are they still unattached?

The striker or “10” should’ve been sorted in the summer but let’s see how Robinson gets on before we bring in anyone else.

 

Imagine Doyle in today’s side? Now that would be 20 goals a season easy peasy playing just behind Cook?

 

Isn't agard injured ? He's played 19 games since the start of 19/20 and was a regular before that. Seems to have played only in one jackmeoffcup match last season.

 

Strikers help get you promotion, defenders help stop relegation

 

In that case let's sell all our defenders lol

 

On D Macs podcast yesterday he mentioned he’d recommend splashing a bit of cash to Ryan on non league player who he thought would cost £100k-£200k but would probably get 20 goals and be worth 10x that in year.
Didn’t name names obviously so not sure who and clearly we didn’t sign him. Running the business sustainably is all well and good but would have thought with DA in charge and savings on big wages from last year we could afford a gamble.
Or maybe he thought about it and he wasn’t a DA style player

 

Here's the answer. Just been reading up on that Russian team which was created by a billionaire ten years ago. This fella was signed for them, and now he's a free agent at 31 years old. 82 goals in 260 games. That's what we want. Also massively tall - perfect for getting onto all those crosses we swing into the box. Probably doesn't want paying much, and would love living in Bradford.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacina_Traor%C3%A9

 

been playing at a high level. The argument could be made some wage is better than no wage but think he’d be a mid championship level and probably wanting £10k+ pw

 

It was more of a tongue in cheek post really. Just highlighting how many players used to command big transfer fees, and are now on the scrapheap after plying their trade in obscure countries. His last club was in the Romanian top league. I can't imagine that they pay much. I wonder if playing for Transylvania FC has made him shy away from crosses? Bit of a bugger that when you're 6'8 tall.

But at the same time - come on Turnbull! Pull your finger out!


INTERESTING FACT: After I posted this, I wondered if there are any football clubs based in Transylvania, and Google told me there is. The first one that pops up on a search, is CFR Cluj, managed by a certain Dan Petrescu!

 

Is that where his ventrinarian clinic is too?