Wednesday's Breakfast Debate - How many more signings ?

[mav]

I'm struggling to understand Orta/TC's thoughts on the CB situation

3 specialists, a youth player and two full backs that can fill in.

[gessa]

3 specialists, a youth player and two full backs that can fill in.

But only one of them a consistant performer there.

[1964white]

3 specialists, a youth player and two full backs that can fill in.

Very risky if we lose Pontus to injury although Pennington is due back after the international break.
Shaughnessy is raw & needs time. Ayling has proved he isn't good enough to play CB. Don't know about Borthwick-Jackson as I've never seen him play in that position

[1964white]

But only one of them a consistant performer there.

Class CB even though incredibly some Leeds fans don't rate him

[Cjay]

Helender is apparently being looked at by Newcastle with Leeds not interested at all now, Deans gone to Birmingham, cb worries me more then striker. Cooper has had good games before and gone back to being poop, Jansson great but he still is likely to pick up a suspension and he has had injury worries to before he came to us. The young lad is talented but raw and unproven and a converted midfielder. Pennington is highly rated but also inexperienced, Ayling and BJ both largely inexperienced at cb and would be risky if forced to play there week in and out. We needed to replace Bartley and decent performences early on from unproven, unreliable players doesnt change that for me

[weasel]

Haidara is a really strange one. He wasn't brought in by the current team - he has been here for nearly two years, but he hardly ever gets a start for the U23's, always comes on as a sub.

I think he was brought over as a companion for Sacko who was probably nervous about moving to a new country and not knowing anyone etc. Man Utd did it when they initially had Pogba as they paid for his cousin to be with him even though his cousin was only playing at Sunday League level and wasn't part of their plans. Played against him and we man marked him out of the game as he had been getting rave reviews so was probably better than Sunday League level but nowhere near good enough to play professionally at the top level.

[Oscar]

2 more needed for me: centre back and striker

Cooper has started the season incredibly well, however, one month of good form doesn't stop me having doubts about Cooper being good enough. Cooper has done this before particularly the last two seasons where he started the season really well but quickly lost form after a couple of games. Plus, the defence hasn't had much to do at all with how well we are controlling games inevitably there will be games where this will not be the case. Pennington has looked good to me but that was only against Oxford (pre season) and Bolton, it doesn't tell us loads about his ability plus how long is he injured for? And will he get back up to full speed quickly after the injury?
One injury/suspension/individuals losing form and we will start conceding goals again I fear.

The striker situation really worries me, I think the loss of Wood has been massively underestimated because of our excellent wins against Sunderland and Forest.

Lassoga, i'm unconvinced with we have essentially lost the best striker in the league and replaced him with someone who has scored 13 goals in his last 3 seasons who according to whoscored (a player database) doesn't seem to have the attributes to play the lone striker role the way we need him to. A 10% shot conversion rate over his last 3 seasons is worrying as well, we are more creative than last season but Lassoga is going to have to improve on that.

Then we have Roofe, who seems to have adapted to the role well but it's too early to say that he is capable of being Wood's replacement.

Grot looked good against Forest but I think he has been signed now more for his game-changing attributes (strength and pace) rather than his goalscoring ability plus at 19 is mainly going to be an option from the bench for this season.

Ekuban is apparently going to be injured for a while and didn't particularly impress me before his injuries.

Strikers are so important at this level particularly in the games you can't dominate, how many times did Wood turn 1 into 3 last season with his goals?, very very few teams have got promoted automatically out of this league without a 20 goal a season striker in the squad. I don't think we have that (would love to be proved wrong) with out current options.

[1964white]

Wouldn't be surprised if we bring in the Swedish striker/winger Pawel Cibicki

Centre-back has to be a priority surely ??

As I expected looking like Cibicki has signed today