Cartilage op for Aaron Lennon - Defour out again, JBG has a chance

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Defour replacement is a must.Hes far too injury prone to be considered for regular selection

Lennon out, JBG recovering, Brady still getting back up to speed. You'd assume he'll go with JBG and Brady if he possibly can, but you'd imagine at least one of them would struggle to play all game. It'd be good to see Dwight McNeil properly involved.

DavePTClaret wrote:It'd be good to see Dwight McNeil properly involved.

He's been out injured too but did come back and play in the U23s this week

Ah, I missed that. Ash the Bash doing a job on the left again, then!

What do we do to our players in training? We'll be turning out our reserves soon.

Give McNeil another chance ffs

Vegas Claret wrote:Give McNeil another chance ffs

See above.

Hendrick has played very successfully for Ireland on the right.

Actually I have to admit when I saw the post title I thought, 'Wasn't he killed years ago? It's a bit late for surgery.'

A winger and a centre mid must be the top priority in January surely? And I mean first team quality players as well. Injuries have hampered us all season so replacing Marney and Arfield must be our number one aim?

jlup1980 wrote:A winger and a centre mid must be the top priority in January surely? And I mean first team quality players as well. Injuries have hampered us all season so replacing Marney and Arfield must be our number one aim?

I don't understand the comment about Marney. He hasn't played for us since 22nd Jan 2017.

Obviously we would have finished higher than 7th had he been available last season.

Spijed wrote:I don't understand the comment about Marney. He hasn't played for us since 22nd Jan 2017.

Obviously we would have finished higher than 7th had he been available last season.

I don't get the Marney one - we've signed both Westwood & Cork since he last played.

We never did replace John Deary.

DavePTClaret wrote:We never did replace John Deary.

And certainly not Brian O'Neil

That'd be you showing your age again, Tony!

We never replaced Joey Barton, a ball winner who could pick a pass.Why Sean cant see that our lack of pace out wide and steel in the cm is costing us in games.
We are far too soft with our non tackling players in midfield and urgent replacements are needed

DavePTClaret wrote:That'd be you showing your age again, Tony!

Absolutely but I never miss the opportunity to mention the little genius.

I hope the Board have realised what a big mistakes they made in the last 2 windows. Defour, brady, JBG and lennon all all notorious for injuries and yet no strengthening.

So we face a heavy fixture load with 12 points and several myst win games in jan. Any bets that whatever little comes in will be too late.

we've extended Hendrick’s contract you know its like having a new signing

Could always try Vydra wide? They all usually play CAM anyway
Also agree with definitely signing another CM as can't rely on defour anymore

summitclaret wrote:I hope the Board have realised what a big mistakes they made in the last 2 windows. Defour, brady, JBG and lennon all all notorious for injuries and yet no strengthening.

So we face a heavy fixture load with 12 points and several myst win games in jan. Any bets that whatever little comes in will be too late.

JBG does get his fair share, Defour has always had injuries but not sure we could have expected Brady to get an injury that kept him out for a year and I'm not sure Lennon has had too many injuries in his career. I think we all know the last window was a bad one but I would suggest that was the first disappointing window since Jan 2015.

Like most people I'm a Defour fan, but his constant injuries mean he has little impact where it matters these days and I pretty much forget he's around most of the time. We need to seriously target a replacement asap and start to move on.

We were exceptionally well placed in the last 2 windows
to strengthen. Not now though. They knew Brady was out for ages during both those windows. So we went with 2 fit wingers. Injury prone JBG and a player with significant confidence issues at least.

I hope I am wrong, but I fear, like with Marney, it has been too big a cock up to put right in season.

I have to agree with summitclaret. The summer transfer window we were lackluster and far, far too smug to say the least in our pursuit of the targets we wanted. By the end of September it was clear that we'd been far too complacent and anything we do in January will be sheer panic and a clear case of shutting the stable door!

summitclaret wrote:We were exceptionally well placed in the last 2 windows
to strengthen. Not now though. They knew Brady was out for ages during both those windows. So we went with 2 fit wingers. Injury prone JBG and a player with significant confidence issues at least.

I hope I am wrong, but I fear, like with Marney, it has been too big a cock up to put right in season.

Tbf, with regards to Marney, once he'd got injured we were left with just Arfield and Jones. That was it.

At least we do have a few alternatives this time with Cork, Westwood, Hendrick, Defour, JBG, Brady, McNeil etc.

Quite a number of posters seeing JBG as injury prone yet I was castigated and dispatched to the fires of hell for merely suggesting it on another post a few days back. Infamy, infamy, they've all got it infamy!

Silkyskills1 wrote:Quite a number of posters seeing JBG as injury prone yet I was castigated and dispatched to the fires of hell for merely suggesting it on another post a few days back. Infamy, infamy, they've all got it infamy!

Injury prone?

Played 35 games last season out of 38, 14 this out of 17.

Not that injury prone is it?

What gets me us thay we can afford to mitigate the risk. It's like we haven't realised that we have over 100m a year.

When the accounts come out it will be embarrassing how much profit we made. Hope they have the sense this time not to brag or we will be a laughing stock. I bet there are some on the Board still saying don't pay what club's want on 1st jan it's a rip off.

12 points ffs.

If we are going to play a back 5 we don't need wingers as such. Better pushing someone up to support the lone striker, in my opinion.

Fair enough. Then we should have some proper wing backs. Whichever way you look at it we have we have cocked up big style.

Also we can play 2 strikers if we play 352.

summitclaret wrote:Fair enough. Then we should have some proper wing backs. Whichever way you look at it we have we have cocked up big style.

Taylor is a wing-back (or at least I thought he was), Although the system vs Spurs looked better in terms of organisation we hardly pushed on, in my opinion Bardsley looked a bit lost, he's a genuine right full back, but no wing-back.

Spijed wrote:I don't understand the comment about Marney. He hasn't played for us since 22nd Jan 2017.

Obviously we would have finished higher than 7th had he been available last season.

We haven't missed Marney as such, we've missed having a 5th centre mid due to Defour's lack of availability and Sean's stubbornness with Hendrick. We've pretty much only had Cork and Westwood available this season. We needed another body in the squad, especially if Hendrick isn't seen as a genuine CM option.

summitclaret wrote:What gets me us thay we can afford to mitigate the risk. It's like we haven't realised that we have over 100m a year.

When the accounts come out it will be embarrassing how much profit we made. Hope they have the sense this time not to brag or we will be a laughing stock. I bet there are some on the Board still saying don't pay what club's want on 1st jan it's a rip off.

12 points ffs.

Whatever January brings we'd better not be dicking about for weeks chasing Jay Rod and Dawson,while other teams in the bottom 7 are strengthening,last year we could be more relaxed given our lofty placing,this luxury doesn't exist now.

Sadly the Burnley board are risk averse so don't build your hopes up sc.

Spijed wrote:Injury prone?

Played 35 games last season out of 38, 14 this out of 17.

Not that injury prone is it?

It isn't but he does seem prone to injury.

Looking at his stats he’s played for us 82 times.

Been here two and a half years, reckon we’ve played about 110 games in that time.
No idea how many times he’s been an unused sub.

Silkyskills1 wrote:Quite a number of posters seeing JBG as injury prone yet I was castigated and dispatched to the fires of hell for merely suggesting it on another post a few days back. Infamy, infamy, they've all got it infamy!

I think you will find it's because the opposition target him as he is our only positive outlay going forward

summitclaret wrote:What gets me us thay we can afford to mitigate the risk. It's like we haven't realised that we have over 100m a year.

When the accounts come out it will be embarrassing how much profit we made. Hope they have the sense this time not to brag or we will be a laughing stock. I bet there are some on the Board still saying don't pay what club's want on 1st jan it's a rip off.

12 points ffs.

Trouble is everyone gets £100million, so If you've got a rich backer we'll always get outspend and be last at the table.
At least half goes on wages of the players we already have; 30-40k per week x52 xSquad = £50million +

We never have and never will have £100million to spend on signing fees alone.

I didn't say that. However we shouldn't be on 12 points and probably about to announce a profit of around £40m.

summitclaret wrote:I didn't say that. However we shouldn't be on 12 points and probably about to announce a profit of around £40m.

We should have spent like Fulham then we would have had 20 points but nothing in the bank.

ClaretTony wrote:JBG does get his fair share, Defour has always had injuries but not sure we could have expected Brady to get an injury that kept him out for a year and I'm not sure Lennon has had too many injuries in his career. I think we all know the last window was a bad one but I would suggest that was the first disappointing window since Jan 2015.

In fairness, any player can get a serious injury at any time. We wanted Lennon in the summer of 2016, and didn't get him - we went into 16.17 short of where Dyche wanted to be in terms of numbers both out wide and most obviously at centre back. We finally got Lennon mid-season, but by then Brady was injured and once he'd got a long-term injury, it was almost inevitable he'd suffer further niggles this season (we've seen repeatedly it's part and parcel of players coming back from long term injuries) and of course our strength in depth was eroded further by Arfield's departure (which we suspected last winter). So whilst last summer was the glaringly bad window, it was exacerbated by the fact that previous windows were "just about" OK.

In part, we've been undermined by the fact that in each window our overwhelming focus has been on first team ready players - we've got quite a big first team squad, but we haven't really signed anyone with an eye on the future who provides short-term back up (contrast the number of players Brighton have out on loan in the Championship with us). When you focus solely on the first team, but don't then land those first team targets, then that lack of medium term targets becomes a bigger problem.

I'm not expecting us to bring in more than 2, or possibly 3 players in this window - but we do need to execute on our key targets, and we need to do some business early - if plan B is to use Hendrick (or even Defour) on one wing, then fine, but that requires more quality and depth in the centre of midfield. Whichever way round we order our priorities, we need one of those players earlier rather than later in the window - I know it's easier said than done, but it can be done and other clubs have demonstrated it can be done.

NL Claret wrote:We should have spent like Fulham then we would have had 20 points but nothing in the bank.

Why do people have to go to the extremes? Why can't there be a happy medium? Fulham when daft and tried to change too much in 1 go. All we needed to do was get a winger and a central midfielder or proper nr 10. It was obvious to nearly every fan and if we go down it will most likely be the reason and totally avoidable.

Summit, I think the problem was and is persuading players who are good enough to improve the team to come to Burnley. It really is a very small pool and in most cases players of that calibre are reluctant to join us, often preferring one of the bigger teams in the Championship. We might look abroad but that means taking a risk and players who have not played in England before usually take time to adapt to the game here. So when you say 'entirely avoidable' I don't really think that is the case.

I think these arguments inevitably get polarised.

Our recruitment strategy for the first team has generally worked pretty well. We've built a harmonious, pretty coherent squad of players that has enabled us to outperform our natural station, if we are honest about it. The basic strategy - don't take too many risks, be selective about our signings, etc. has been shrewd and the stewardship of the club as a whole at all levels good.

But, for all that, we've clearly taken it to a bit of an extreme at times, and our apparent desire to both minimise risk, and get "value" has meant that we've been trying to sharpen the pencil at both ends. We've effectively swapped in the risk of not carrying enough players in the squad because of our determination to get players through the door who we know should fit like a glove, without paying the premium for that assurance. And I think that the fact we've not really signed any "ones for the future" has exacerbated the problem because it has left us without a ready made plan B. So when we've ended up with injuries in key positions, we don't have anyone behind the front line who is ready to be thrown in.

A classic example would be someone like Stuart Armstrong. We were heavily linked with him 4 years ago at the end of a transfer window. We didn't sign him and he went to Celtic (which may have been pre-ordained; I'm not necessarily saying we missed out on him because we wouldn't pay the price tag). He moved to Celtic for £2 million and we know we can compete with Celtic for wages, so the risk on signing someone like Armstrong would have been pretty modest. He's now earning plaudits as one of Southampton's bright sparks having moved for £7 million plus by all accounts a hefty wage bin the summer. As well as prioritising the first team in the summer, we could have been searching for the next Stuart Armstrong, and had we done so our squad would look a bit healthier right now - we might have a viable stop gap for Lennon whilst JBG is also getting over injury, who is a bit more experienced and game-ready than someone like McNeil.

Erasmus wrote:Summit, I think the problem was and is persuading players who are good enough to improve the team to come to Burnley. It really is a very small pool and in most cases players of that calibre are reluctant to join us, often preferring one of the bigger teams in the Championship. We might look abroad but that means taking a risk and players who have not played in England before usually take time to adapt to the game here. So when you say 'entirely avoidable' I don't really think that is the case.

Your not wrong about attracting players and now it is too late for what we need. I think wr had a chance in the last 2 windows and wr blew it. E.g.Jay through ******* about over a couple of million and then a panic buy again in the injured Vydra.

We also spent weeks chasing the injured Clucus only for him apparently to fail a medical very late on the window.