Very informative Willo, thank you

In a word yes, and Willo will testify to, mentioned in a previous thread, his best work is in the box.

Dazza

So on that basis is the suggestion that Zaha is going?

The consensus I’ve seen elsewhere from trusted sources (e.g. Carl and Clapham Grand) is that it’s highly unlikely for Wilf to leave this window. In fact, they seem to generally think that Wilf signing a new and more lucrative contract is the likelier scenario. Of course, there could still be a late bid for him, but there have been absolutely no indications of it happening so far.

I still would’ve expected us to sign a striker this window regardless of Wilf, though. Neither Wilf or Ayew are proper strikers, so beginning a new season with no improvement in that area seems foolish, even if we’ve strengthened elsewhere.

Edited by AdaSirin (31 Aug 2020 7.08pm)

Sure, I mostly agree with that. I'm really happy that we signed Eze and I think he brings an attacking threat and level of creativity in the midfield that we've been sorely lacking. If we can manage to sign Fraser too (which is looking possible, but I'm not all that confident we'll get him in the end) or Bright Osayi-Samuel then we'd definitely be looking more threatening than in recent seasons. Progress is being made, and I've really liked the general approach of this transfer window so far.

But the elephant in the room still remains: we don't have a dedicated, specialist striker. We have a striker who's been morbidly out of form for multiple seasons now (Benteke), another who's perpetually injured (Wickham), and then two wide players who do their best as strikers when called upon but who are actually better suited to different roles (Zaha and Ayew). We've managed to scrape by for multiple seasons now without a specialist striker, but each new season we attempt to do so is a big gamble. And now it looks like we're going to roll the dice yet again...

I really have been of the mind that this is a transformative transfer window for us. After consecutive seasons of doing our best with an ageing squad and no reliable goalscorer, things have finally been catching up with us and it's finally time to act. In some ways we have acted (Eze and Ferguson both seem like great signings in positions we desperately needed), but going into yet another season with Wilf (hopefully) and Ayew doing their best as strikers doesn't fill me with very much confidence. I really expected this to be the window where we finally addressed the striker issue in a meaningful way.

Edited by AdaSirin (31 Aug 2020 8.08pm)