Paul Jewell reckons he’s in no rush to sign a replacement for Nathan Ellington, but you have to wonder. With 12 days to go until the transfer window slams shut in his face and the club’s reputation for dragging dealings out for as long as possible, you have to wonder how much truth there is in that.
The thing is there are no obvious targets. The two links since the duke went have hardly been encouraging. Wenger’s ‘fox in the box’ has hardly set the world on fire at any of his clubs since leaving Everton and it’s not clear that, even if we could get Norwich interested in a bid for Dean Ashton, the rules don’t allow a player to sign for another club within the first 12 months of a contract.
The same would apply to any bid for Earnshaw, who Robson has said is going nowhere, and, no matter how much you question his ambition in preferring Villa over Lyon, there’s as much chance of Baros signing for us as there is Michael Owen. Nugent’s another that’s been mentioned but at, a reported 2 million is surely too much of a risk.
Can we do without another striker? I would say not. I’m yet to be convinced that McCulloch would give us anything up-front in the Prem, Gary Teale might have played there before but the less said the better and Andreas Johansson might be decent in an advanced midfield position but after his finishing last week he’s no striker.
So with Camara reportedly injured for tomorrow, we’re at plan B. As much as Jewell prefers a 4-4-2, he can’t do it with only one fit striker. Assuming that by the time I get back home we’ve not signed someone or Alex Cribley has finally managed to get someone fixed quickly we’re a bit stuck and I guess it’ll have to be a 4-5-1.
If injuries are affecting us so early in the season, it’s going to a long hard haul without, at least, one back up for Roberts and Camara. Jewell might not be prepared to sign a player for the sake of it, but he’d better be putting lots of effort into finding someone.
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