Almost sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it?
Probably because it’s not.
It was only 2-3 weeks ago we were nailed on to sign Gravenburch Mount & Timber, just going round and round in circles.
What did Gerrard do?
I remember Hodgson deciding to test Danny’s ‘wesolve’ by putting him through and arduous training session with England, in direct opposition to the detained training plan we sent him with. And putting him out for six months.
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Publicly commented on Sturridge needing to mentally toughen up, suggesting his physical limitations weren’t real.
This coming from the guy who suffered through his own physical ailments earlier in his career, and only got through them because those ailments were taken seriously (at one point Gerrard was on a strict limit of not playing more than once per 7 days). A different manager who had his attitude to injuries and demanded he just fight through it might have derailed his career before it even started.
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You are probably right in that three might be too much to hope for.
The Germany based players make sense for Big Jorg to scoop up for us.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
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Whilst obviously wikipedia can be a bit off the mark, looking through this list, Babbel is the only other Premier League player to have been diagnosed with it, and the total number of professional footballers that have been diagnosed is around 5, so could it be a case that the West Ham medical staff didn’t diagnose it as they simply didn’t know enough about this condition to know what they were dealing with?
Probably what I meant. I’d like to give Moyes the benefit of the doubt. What he’s said is no doubt not correct but Its rather to do with the medical staff not diagnosing the problem.
It probably is difficult to diagnose (a work colleague of mine was I think was only diagnosed after collapsing and being taken to hospital). But the club can and probably should refer to others if the player is still saying something is wrong.
That is true, but if you don’t know what is wrong, how do you know what specialist to send them to?
Without knowing anything about the case myself, for all I know they could have been sending the kid to different specialists but them being the wrong specialists - my guess is only those within the club would be able to answer that question with any certainty.
I’m pretty sure doctors either know or can find out which specialists to refer to starting with the information on symptoms and blood tests etc. It appears the player managed to find someone who correctly diagnosed him, so I can’t see why the club couldnt.
The club did eventually find someone who diagnosed him. Sullivan did do that. Did Moyes jump the gun in being premature? Yes.
But was he speaking with what info his medical team provided him ? Quite likely
Yes I think from reading the story it appears Baptiste was undiagnosed at the time of Moyes’ comments and it was the personal interest of David Sullivan that eventually got to the bottom of it. I’m sure Moyes would take back those comments if he could.
Probably should think twice about publically digging out a 19 year old reserve team player in the first place, to be honest.
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Once in 7 days as opposed to once in 7 weeks or months. Maybe Sturridge did need to toughen mentally, maybe he didn’t. Nobody really knows do they?
We’ve currently got 14 non-homegrown players in the squad meaning we can add a maximum of three more as things stands.
Looks like Mac Allister may be one, leaving us room for two more. If we want a CB that surely means Matip has to go rather than Gomez but I’m not really seeing many other places we can free up a spot. Maybe Thiago or Fabinho? Tsimikas possibly? Strange then that it looks like Adrian 8s getting another year instead of trying to find a homegrown number 2/3.
Luke Thomas at Leicester could be worth a look if we moved on Tsimikas. He’s not had a good season, but then who has, but it’s only a year or so ago there was suggestions of a possible England call up.
He’s not really going to displace Robertson but given how infrequently Tsimikas has played we’re not going to be looking at him playing 50 games a season.
Solid defensively and attack minded having played as more of a wingback at times. Definite room to grow but ahead of where our academy kids are. Likely not nearly as expensive as he would have been had Leicester stayed up.
Other than that we’d probably be looking at Matip, Thiago or Fabinho having to be sold if we wanted to bring more than three non-homegrown options this summer.
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I think you make a great point, If the club were serious about signing Mount, I wonder if this is one of the key reasons behind that interest?
I would be worried though that selling Tsimikas simply because he is not english could create a sense of instability within the squad.
He hasn’t impressed me at all. I thought he was the worst player on the pitch against us.
I guess then that Adrian was re-signed because the club thinks its likely that Kelleher will leave and we don’t have any homegrown/U21 player who we want to throw in as 2nd choice keeper.
And if we are signing at least one first team-ish defender, then it would make sense to let go of Matip as it then becomes very less likely he’ll play for any length of time (also considering his injury prone nature).
If we sell Tsimikas I think we are more likely to slide Gomez over as a backup LB and then see how Chambers develops over the next couple of seasons.
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I don’t really see what the issue is. If we sign two non homegrown midfielders and one non homegrown defender then we have the opportunity to do that.
That should be enough for the squad, but if we do want to sign anyone else (another midfielder, cb or lb) then we sell Thiago/Fab, Matip or Tsimikas.
I’m not seeing any problem or headache here.
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