Transfer Deadline Day

By: Daryl | February 18th, 2009

It’s transfer deadline day 2011, and after The Pog’s horrific injury (his calf muscle looks like sliced bacon) I’m one striker short, with not much money to spend and just one FM09 day to decide.

FA Cup 4th Rnd vs Middlesbrough (home) W 3-1

- – - – - – - – Given – - – - – - -
Taylor – Coloccini – Rusol – Enrqiue
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - –
- – - Skjelbred – - Camacho – - – -
Jonas – - – - Diego – - – - Arshavin
- – - – - Lewandowski – - – - – -

4-2-3-1, lots of width, short passing, slow tempo; offside trap, high defensive line.

Another FA Cup game, another North-East derby. And somehow Gareth Southgate is still employed at Middlesbrough, despite insisting on a 4-1-4-1 formation with an elderly Andriy Shevchenko as lone striker.

Marquinhos was looking a bit tired, so Diego got his first start. He wasn’t spectacular, but he was steady. A 7.2 and 38/42 completed passes. In fact, with Diego, Skjelbred and Camacho I now have the perfect midfield trio for my short passing game. The three combined completed 115/129 passes as we dominated this game.

Arshavin and Skjelbred got our first two goals but Lewandowski had another off day (rating 5.6). B.A.C. (Big Andy Carroll) came off the bench and scored a tap-in to make it safe, but a little concerned about my striking options.

It’s Jan 31st 2011 right now, which means there’s just one day left in the transfer window. I have £4.3m to spend after getting rid of Tomas Kadar, with possibly another £3m on the way if I manage to sell Danny Guthrie (had bids from Hull and Birmingham accepted).

I’ve done some searching around, and my options boil down to this:

1. Nicklas Bendtner – £3.6m

2. Roman Pavlyuchenko – £3.5m

3. Franco di Santo – £4.2m

I’m not too fond of Di Santo’s stats, and don’t see him doing much for me to be honest. So he’s my least favourite. Bendtner and Pavlyuchenko are actually very similar stats wise, with Bendtner having the slight height advantage but Pavlyucenho being a more rounded and experienced player.

Bigger problem is that the long term plan is still to eventually sign Salvatore Foti as my target man. So anyone I sign here is ultimately a stop-gap with no long term future. Part of me thinks it would be smarter to keep the £4m or so and spend it on someone I really want in the summer (ie: Foti).

Maybe I can get through the season with just Lewandowski, B.A.C. and Marquinhos.

So, poll time again: