Who opened the door? My money is on Janus! 2024 January transfer thread.

[BWFC_Insane]

We still feel light on goals from forwards, to me, in the event Dion got pranged. Obviously, 113 goals in a a year looks great, but Dion probably has nearly 50% of them. As has been previously discussed, losing your main scorer is going to leave a hole in a L1 team - get that. But after Dion, I start to worry about the quality we can bring to bear. Vic is doing OK as a "second" scorer, but then we'd be into Bod/Cameron, who have forgot where the L1 net resides - think they're both on nil in the League.

CMG might be a possibility, but he's not shown much yet...

Yes to all that. But the thing I’d ask is in January are we very likely to fix that? Other than maybe Taylor coming in and developing as a loan and banging some in? I doubt we will be signing a proven and established striker who will bang them in day one in this window.

We signed Adeboyejo last year in Jan and how many league goals did he add? 2? Can’t remember but it wasn’t loads. And he’d been going well before that.

But I suspect the sort of player we’d need to adequately ‘replace’ Charles if he were injured would be the likes of Mullin at Wrexham etc…expensive - probably well beyond our grasp.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Dion scored 27 out of the 113. But 23.8% would still be a loss. It's now over a year since Bod scored a league goal. Jerome hasn't scored any goals at all since March 2022.

[GhostoftheBok]

Dion scored 27 out of the 113. But 23.8% would still be a loss. It's now over a year since Bod scored a league goal. Jerome hasn't scored any goals at all since March 2022.

But other than that we're fine?

[Worthy4England]

Dion scored 27 out of the 113. But 23.8% would still be a loss. It's now over a year since Bod scored a league goal. Jerome hasn't scored any goals at all since March 2022.

Bit surprised Dion's conrtribs aren't higher - the figure is somewhat befuddled by EFL Trophy etc. - as we've landed 32 goals in cups, many of which Dion gets a rest in. So for the League he's nearer 30% of our goal-scoring output...The next nearest, in the league is probably Vic on around 10, which is around 10%...

It feels like we need a bit extra between Vic and Dion, Or get Bod back to his 10 goal in 3 months best (or whatever it was when he joined us) - this year's Baka (10 goal off the bench variety)...

[GhostoftheBok]

We signed Adeboyejo last year in Jan and how many league goals did he add? 2? Can’t remember but it wasn’t loads. And he’d been going well before that.

3, if memory serves. At a rate of about 1 every 300 minutes.

When Dion arrived he put them in at a rate of 1 every 220 minutes.

It seems like most forwards (most players, actually) need quite a bit of time to adapt to how we play. Both Vic and Dion are now ticking along at about 1/3 better a rate than prior - if that sentence isn't too much like a walk-on character from Miss Marple. Though obviously Dion has penalties in that mix and I can't remember how many of those he put in in that first 6 months.

The player who really hit the ground running was Bod, who was absolutely smashing them in in terms of MPG (something daft like 1 every 130 minutes); but whose injuries seem to have returned him to "cows arse with a banjo" mode for the moment. You'd probably expect the most experienced striker to have the best start, but it was a hell of a click.

The positive thing about Bod is he's getting chances and he put some away in the cup. So there will be goals there eventually.

[GhostoftheBok]

Bit surprised Dion's conrtribs aren't higher

Can't say I am. Least season he only bagged 11 from open play in 40 starts. He was scoring at about the same "per minute" rate as Adeboyejo in his first 6 months here, if you take away his penalties - but from vastly more efforts on goal.

This is the first season where Dion's really looked dangerous and more likely to score a good chance than miss and we were not creating particularly good chances for him anyway. We started to play for clean sheets and the strikers suffered.

There's better balance this season and we've figured out how to get Dion the ball in positions that favour him, as we now need to with Vic. He has a higher non-pen XG in the first half of this season than in the whole of last. People can like or dislike XG, but even opponents must admit it gives a rough idea of how many chances someone gets. Dion is getting a lot of chances and it may be that that's helped calm him down in front of goal.

So Dion has improved his finishing and that's coincided with us finding him more. That's equalled as many open play goals in the first 23 games of this season as all of last. 11 in 22 starts vs 11 in 40.

Yay us.

[Worthy4England]

It's pretty tight at the top. The problem for me is if we picked up another forward injury, we have to start Bod, then there's only Cameron (or Dan depending on how long he takes) neither of the three are currently filling me with confidence on the goal front. And it could be fine margins at the end...

[GhostoftheBok]

It's pretty tight at the top. The problem for me is if we picked up another forward injury, we have to start Bod, then there's only Cameron (or Dan depending on how long he takes) neither of the three are currently filling me with confidence on the goal front. And it could be fine margins at the end...

If everything stayed the same as now (in terms of returns) and we got an injury to Dion we'd be fecked as regards top 2.

You can't excise the top scorer from the team and be fine.

We'd also be in pretty major bother if we lost Vic and might miss out on top 2 there as well.

2 "cotton wool" jobs in the same compartment won't fly, so yeah we probably need a striker in. That or Bod and Cam need to turn back the clock. Bod to 2022 and Cam to about 1512.

[BWFC_Insane]

We signed Adeboyejo last year in Jan and how many league goals did he add? 2? Can’t remember but it wasn’t loads. And he’d been going well before that.

3, if memory serves. At a rate of about 1 every 300 minutes.

When Dion arrived he put them in at a rate of 1 every 220 minutes.

It seems like most forwards (most players, actually) need quite a bit of time to adapt to how we play. Both Vic and Dion are now ticking along at about 1/3 better a rate than prior - if that sentence isn't too much like a walk-on character from Miss Marple. Though obviously Dion has penalties in that mix and I can't remember how many of those he put in in that first 6 months.

The player who really hit the ground running was Bod, who was absolutely smashing them in in terms of MPG (something daft like 1 every 130 minutes); but whose injuries seem to have returned him to "cows arse with a banjo" mode for the moment. You'd probably expect the most experienced striker to have the best start, but it was a hell of a click.

The positive thing about Bod is he's getting chances and he put some away in the cup. So there will be goals there eventually.

Bod hasn’t exactly been missing a lot. Smashed one off the post. One or two across the box he maybe didn’t react to. But generally I’d say he’s a little slower than he was and that might be the issue. His feet and ability to score as we saw in the cup game are still there.


But yes it seems to take strikers a while to adapt. And whatever you think or don’t of Victor he was at £500k a large outlay for a striker who was at the time scoring some goals at this level. And didn’t hit the ground running here. One imagines we haven’t got £500K to spend this time round so I think it’s unlikely we will find another Charles. And even if we sold Charles and had some money how likely in January are you to get a ready made replacement to slot in and hit the ground running? If we could get a striker from the league up still close to their prime ala Bod then there is a chance maybe but again I’m imagining that’s not in the plans.

I think the whole season is contingent on Dion staying, and staying fit. I don’t think we will make it without him either way.

[GhostoftheBok]

Bod hasn’t exactly been missing a lot. Smashed one off the post. One or two across the box he maybe didn’t react to. But generally I’d say he’s a little slower than he was and that might be the issue. His feet and ability to score as we saw in the cup game are still there.


But yes it seems to take strikers a while to adapt. And whatever you think or don’t of Victor he was at £500k a large outlay for a striker who was at the time scoring some goals at this level. And didn’t hit the ground running here. One imagines we haven’t got £500K to spend this time round so I think it’s unlikely we will find another Charles. And even if we sold Charles and had some money how likely in January are you to get a ready made replacement to slot in and hit the ground running? If we could get a striker from the league up still close to their prime ala Bod then there is a chance maybe but again I’m imagining that’s not in the plans.

I think the whole season is contingent on Dion staying, and staying fit. I don’t think we will make it without him either way.

I don't really have much of an issue with that, though I'd say Bod has missed quite a few. Not getting down on the guy, he's just had half a dozen where I'd expect at least a couple to have gone in. It'll come for him, I'm sure. Also fairly sure that once one goes in a couple more will soon after.

One assumption that's probably wrong is that if Dion were gone (transfer or injury) we'd just keep doing the same stuff we do now, but with a Dion-shaped hole in the mix. I'd say all prior experience of Evatt says that's not the case.

Evatt changes stuff to suit personnel. Different systems and formations - but with the same unpinning philosophy.

Quite what that would look like we can't say at the minute (possibly more 4-3-3 on display with Vic as a lone striker), but we'd not just try and shoehorn Bod or Cam into "The Dion Role" as it clearly has now become.

I think Evatt is probably robust enough a manager to still have us punching if he loses Dion from the mix, though obviously it would make his life vastly more difficult.

I suspect "Lone Striker Vic" would actually massively suit Evatt, but not with the current raft of personnel. It'd be a bodge with the squad we have now, but could work in some fixtures.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Aye, worth remembering Evatt used to have Scott Quigley up top. Then Doyler as lone front-runner. He'll certainly adapt to the available resources.

But yeah - I don't think there's many Wanderers fans anywhere who'd think we're absolutely fine up top. It's very nice to have a high-scoring striker but others need to step up. It will help within games as well as if Dion should be absent, for whatever reason.

[BWFC_Insane]

Bod hasn’t exactly been missing a lot. Smashed one off the post. One or two across the box he maybe didn’t react to. But generally I’d say he’s a little slower than he was and that might be the issue. His feet and ability to score as we saw in the cup game are still there.


But yes it seems to take strikers a while to adapt. And whatever you think or don’t of Victor he was at £500k a large outlay for a striker who was at the time scoring some goals at this level. And didn’t hit the ground running here. One imagines we haven’t got £500K to spend this time round so I think it’s unlikely we will find another Charles. And even if we sold Charles and had some money how likely in January are you to get a ready made replacement to slot in and hit the ground running? If we could get a striker from the league up still close to their prime ala Bod then there is a chance maybe but again I’m imagining that’s not in the plans.

I think the whole season is contingent on Dion staying, and staying fit. I don’t think we will make it without him either way.

I don't really have much of an issue with that, though I'd say Bod has missed quite a few. Not getting down on the guy, he's just had half a dozen where I'd expect at least a couple to have gone in. It'll come for him, I'm sure. Also fairly sure that once one goes in a couple more will soon after.

One assumption that's probably wrong is that if Dion were gone (transfer or injury) we'd just keep doing the same stuff we do now, but with a Dion-shaped hole in the mix. I'd say all prior experience of Evatt says that's not the case.

Evatt changes stuff to suit personnel. Different systems and formations - but with the same unpinning philosophy.

Quite what that would look like we can't say at the minute (possibly more 4-3-3 on display with Vic as a lone striker), but we'd not just try and shoehorn Bod or Cam into "The Dion Role" as it clearly has now become.

I think Evatt is probably robust enough a manager to still have us punching if he loses Dion from the mix, though obviously it would make his life vastly more difficult.

I suspect "Lone Striker Vic" would actually massively suit Evatt, but not with the current raft of personnel. It'd be a bodge with the squad we have now, but could work in some fixtures.

Sure but we’re far off a 433 that would be enough to finish top two this season imho.

And I just don’t see Victor banging in goals at the rate Dion does regardless of how we play to him at least in the immediate scenario.

We have an issue that Santos only really works in this system too.

Anyway it’s for another day that. I doubt that Dion will go anywhere and pray he stays fit.

[GhostoftheBok]

Anyway it’s for another day that. I doubt that Dion will go anywhere and pray he stays fit.

Yup. We'll see where we stand at the end of the month.

Luton is the immediate concern. Funds from a cup run might even change the maths slightly this window.

[The_Gun]

On Dion, does anyone really think there's much chance of him leaving this window?

To me it would seem very likely that there's a misalignment between what struggling Championship teams would be willing to pay for him and what he's worth to us and our promotion chances.

I might be way off here, but I'd think we'd be looking for £3m+ to sell during this window, and is any club really going to shell that out for a 28 year old who is unproven above the third tier?

It just doesn't seem like a situation we really need to be concerned about.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

On Dion, does anyone really think there's much chance of him leaving this window?

To me it would seem very likely that there's a misalignment between what struggling Championship teams would be willing to pay for him and what he's worth to us and our promotion chances.

I might be way off here, but I'd think we'd be looking for £3m+ to sell during this window, and is any club really going to shell that out for a 28 year old who is unproven above the third tier?

It just doesn't seem like a situation we really need to be concerned about.

Slightly weirdly, one of his most sellable assets might not be his goals but his pressing. Any manager that wants his team to lead from the front would be interested in Dion's workrate and tenacity.

Supposed suitors Swansea look like securing Luke Williams as their next manager, and he's a somewhat Evattian manager – but his current Notts County side are in the bottom third of L2's pressing stats. (While I'm there, Accy are second, so they may target Toal in the Sherpa Van.)

Similarly, Hull have been linked but they're bottom-third in the Champo for pressing. Swansea are mid-table.

I wonder if scouts from the level above would worry about his goalscoring ability transferring to the higher level. This is where we need Bruce Rioja to tell the one about Andy Walker being similarly adjudged unsuitable.

[The_Gun]

I'm quite confident that scouts would indeed worry about his goalscoring transferring to the level above, and whilst his pressing is certainly an asset, I can't see that being enough to convince clubs to part with millions of pounds.

Again, I'm relatively ignorant on the business of transfers, and if someone like Ghost wants to tell me I'm wrong here I'll hold my hands up, but from my perspective it seems a very unlikely one.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

I'm quite confident that scouts would indeed worry about his goalscoring transferring to the level above, and whilst his pressing is certainly an asset, I can't see that being enough to convince clubs to part with millions of pounds.

Again, I'm relatively ignorant on the business of transfers, and if someone like Ghost wants to tell me I'm wrong here I'll hold my hands up, but from my perspective it seems a very unlikely one.

Champo's a weird division with some weird gambles taken. If a club think a transfer will help them finish above a line - promotion, playoffs, relegation - they might be tempted to.

I do genuinely wonder whether he'd go to, say, Hull. On the bag-packing side, it might be his last chance to play at a higher level than he has before (he was an unused second-tier sub for Blackpool, a decade and a lifetime ago); and of course he would expect a pay bump, and he's worked his way up the ladder with previous moves. On the other hand, I suspect he really likes our manager/club/players/fans, and may stick for those reasons.

[BWFC_Insane]

I'm quite confident that scouts would indeed worry about his goalscoring transferring to the level above, and whilst his pressing is certainly an asset, I can't see that being enough to convince clubs to part with millions of pounds.

Again, I'm relatively ignorant on the business of transfers, and if someone like Ghost wants to tell me I'm wrong here I'll hold my hands up, but from my perspective it seems a very unlikely one.

I dunno, lads talented. Really talented. It’s hard to discuss Charles without it sounding like he’s not that good, because he is that good. But the flaws in his game - touch, and vision/decision making could be more problematic a level up. On the other side he’s getting better all the time - though I’d argue is beyond the point where he’s likely to massively improve upon those areas of weakness.

Any striker scoring goals at the rate he is and having done so consistently will attract higher attention and it’s hardly surprising. He’s probably the hottest striking property down here or close to it.

[The_Gun]

It's his age, though.

I think we're now past the era of widespread reckless spending in the Championship, and in the vast majority of cases when clubs are taking risks on players in lower divisions it's lads who are 23 and under and have scope to significantly improve.

Thomason, as we've already seen, has much more the profile that clubs up the pyramid will be looking at.

[BWFC_Insane]

It's his age, though.

I think we're now past the era of widespread reckless spending in the Championship, and in the vast majority of cases when clubs are taking risks on players in lower divisions it's lads who are 23 and under and have scope to significantly improve.

Thomason, as we've already seen, has much more the profile that clubs up the pyramid will be looking at.

Yeah I agree. Entirely. Age is a factor and it’s why I think the money we spent on the two strikers we did still wasn’t where I’d have put my poker chips. But whilst you are right that the crazy money days may be fading there are still clubs in there desperate enough to gamble I think.

I don’t see it…certainly not at the £5M range, but could I see someone offering £1.5-3M ish with maybe some performance related bonuses on top? Maybe…and that could start to get interesting.

We are well protected to extract value and I guess that it would take the upper end of that range to persuade us to let him go but you just never do know.

I’d see it as unlikely.

I think it’s more an issue in the summer if we don’t go up, but I think if we don’t go up then a major, major rebuild would be due anyway.