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At least we can all agree he's an upgrade on McCarthy and he is the alternative now. (Personally, I also think he's probably better than Bazunu, but, although it's unfortunate for Stoke, we're lucky Bazunu's injury occurred there and not here, which would have meant McCarthy would still have been our only alternative).
We can but hope that Larin is an upgrade on Damion Downs.
Neither of those teams has been in any of the last 4 League Cup finals; Newcastle and Chelsea have both been in 2 of the last 4. It's been 33 years since Arsenal won a League Cup final.
In every country the big clubs are going to win most of the trophies. It would be strange if they didn't. But, at least in this country, we've got 8 or more big clubs; in most other countries it's just 1 or 2.
About your original point, Hedge End, I agree. Even if you leave one player on the halfway line when defending a corner, the opposition won't risk 1 on 1 so they'll leave 2 defenders back. Any team defending a corner that doesn't do that is then missing out on the man advantage it would give them in the penalty area.
Let's face it, if a defender gets the ball from a corner, it would mean his team would very likely score if they have a man advantage on the halfway line. Haven't we conceded 1 or 2 like that from our corners?
Pelle had scored 50 goals in 57 games for Feyenoord when he came here. How many goals has Larin scored for Feyenoord?
Pelle was in the form of his life when we signed him; Larin isn't. In fact if you look at how his form has declined and the goals have dried up, there is obviously something wrong. Apart from the Sport Republic recruitment team, anyone would notice these red flags:
Did Evans look as unhealthy as Larin does when he arrived? There are obvious signs of 'lifestyle issues' with this one, which would explain why his career has nosedived.
Even in his DUI arrest video he looked a lot healthier than he does now.
"Sport Republic have signed 45 players for the Southampton first-team –– none have scored double figures & joint-top scorer among them is centre-back Taylor Harwood-Bellis (9)."
I guess the way it works is this: Eckert says, "I need a centre forward". Ankersen tells Spors, just find the cheapest option out there so we can say we've done it. Spors asks, "Does it matter if he's any good?" Ankersen: "No, not really."
Archer is one of those players, like McCarthy, who it's hard to believe any other club would ever take. The talk of Rangers interest was inevitably doomed to failure. They've found someone better now in the German Third Division, which is about National League level.
On the bright side, at least we didn't get stuck with Cyle Larin, who's possibly even worse.
In a mad moment of naive optimism, I wrote "Transfer Deadline Day" in my diary. What on earth was I thinking?
Including getting 3 Premier League players on loan, as both Coventry (Rushworth, Esse, Min-hyeok Yang) and Middlesbrough (Targett, Sarmiento, Nypan) have done. Man City are taking Nypan back now, so Boro will be looking for another one.
If you don't take advantage of those Premier League loanees, your chances of promotion are severely reduced.
Every time we think, oh great we're finally getting rid of a poor player, Sport Republic replace him with someone who's even worse. Perhaps Larin would have been as good as Archer a few years ago, but injuries and lifestyle issues have clearly caught up with him. We're getting rid of players who were OK a few years ago, like Aribo, so we don't want more of them.
1teem, I admire your positivity about all of our new managers and players, and sometimes I agree with you. I really hope you're right this time and can see more than the rest of us can because we need a good centre forward now, more than ever.
Other teams manage to get good youngsters on loan from Premier League clubs. Coventry, for example, have got Romain Esse from Palace. I wonder how many goals Spurs' Will Lankshear would score if he were on loan here rather than Oxford United?