In, Out, Shake It All About: January 2025 Transfer Window

[officer_dibble]

This discussion is infuriating. We were hypothising this in the summer and again after the Huddersfield farce. I remember saying it needs someone to come in and play a 433, normal football and formation for normal league one players.

Be hilarious (not my money) if the new Randall can’t fit it into the team now.

[boltonboris]

You could have a wonky 4-3-3 with the right side playing higher up the pitch, so effectively you can still have Johnston as an outside CB/LB hybrid. Schon in front of him who has enough energy to do more running to compensate - Johnston is still capable of stepping out though and with more options to play into, wouldn't be the obvious press trigger

----------------Baxter
----- Santos, Forrester, Johnston
Tutu,
-------Thomason, Morley
------------Randall ------- Schon
--Collins,
------------ McAtee

[boltonboris]

And that 4-3-3 is interchangeable to a transitional 3-5-2 / or a deeper block 5-3-2 / 5-4-1 for when it needs to defend for longer periods

[sonicthewhite]

So Dion is a gonner. So we move forward. Or should that be we move sideways with Evatt in charge?

[boltonboris]

Can we go backwards?

[Prufrock]

You could have a wonky 4-3-3 with the right side playing higher up the pitch, so effectively you can still have Johnston as an outside CB/LB hybrid. Schon in front of him who has enough energy to do more running to compensate - Johnston is still capable of stepping out though and with more options to play into, wouldn't be the obvious press trigger

----------------Baxter
----- Santos, Forrester, Johnston
Tutu,
-------Thomason, Morley
------------Randall ------- Schon
--Collins,
------------ McAtee

There was a game recently where that is basically what we did for about half an hour. Maybe Mansfield, maybe Exeter. Schon was really high, Johnstone basically left back. And ditto when Randy played in front of Jones he went and played high with Geth effectively RB. We had good spells in both those games. I'd rather simplify it, as you're asking a lot of the wingbacks and outside centre halves, but yeah. There are options!

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

Can we go backwards?

Its what we do on the pitch

[Worthy4England]

Who's he gonna bring on at minute 70 on Saturday to change it up and press? What's King Arthur up to?

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

Who's he gonna bring on at minute 70 on Saturday to change it up and press? What's King Arthur up to?

He's going to bring Dan back to keep Forino company, then be the 70th minute man for the crucial relegation run in.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

So, farewell then, Dion.

Completely understand emotional reactions; if we didn't have those we wouldn't really be 'fans' as such. Grief is the price we pay for love, and Dion was arguably the most 'heroic' player, partly because goalscorers give us the biggest endorphin rush but also because at his best he encapsulated the endless effort we all like to think we'd bring to the team if we somehow found ourselves out there on the green acres.

I also understand the cold analytics. We'll never again get this much money for him - he's 30 this year, 18 months on his contract - and he has become less effective (partly because tactics/formation/coaching). Since his (slightly fortuitous but welcome as ever) opening-day goal at Orient we've played 32 times and he's scored 7: the second in a 2-0 EFL Trophy win, a two-penalty hat-trick in that weird outlier against Reading, the 4th goal in routine wins at Northampton and Stevenage, and the opener against Mansfield's 10 men.

Of those, it could be argued that only the first and last goals were vital. Compared to happier times (for player and club) when he was our most reliable gamechanger, that's not a great return. No, he wasn't playing throughout all those 32 games (though he featured in 29 of them) but that raises its own question about his centrality and importance.

(Again, whether that's the right managerial call is another topic. If this conversation is to be of any use, it's important to note that agreeing with the sale of Dion Charles is not the same as agreeing with the continuing employment of Ian Evatt.)

It's not just this season, either. In late 2023 he was a fairly regular contributor of important goals, but after he opened the scoring in that rain-sodden Twixmas victory at Fleetwood his influence dried up. His FA Cup goal against then top-flight Luton was his only strike in 10 games (of which 9 were starts) before knee-knack sidelined him from mid-Feb to mid-Apr.

He limped back in for the fag-end of the season, going goalless for another three before scoring a penalty in the bizarre dead-rubber 3-3 at Posh. A double (one from the spot) at Barnsley in the play-off first leg gave us enough leeway to survive a home wobble and get to Wembley, where he was sacrificed after barely an hour as Evatt belatedly tried something, anything - in this case, bringing on Vic and Jerome plus Iredale to hack it long in their vague direction.

There's a very strong argument that we have been a much poorer team since we signed Aaron Collins, but it's very much up for discussion as to how much causation there is in that correlation. We were all excited by the idea of an AC/DC combo but I'm not sure it ever worked.

Then again neither did AC/VA, last season - even in Dion's injury absence: that pair started four games together (W1 D3) before Ade's hammy went. Then this season, with all its changes and troubles, they didn't start together until late October. Intriguingly when they've both started this season we've had good results - beating Posh and Mansfield at home plus Stevenage away, drawing at Wycombe and winning twice in the FLT - but again the correlation/causation is unclear, and that combo has been frequently deprioritised behind the Collins-McAtee pairing, while the eye test suggests Vic has hardly looked at his best even when he wasn't suffering a virus or a sneeze-induced back-knack.

Maybe the AC/VA combo can prosper, or maybe Vic will be sent down through same chute as Dion if anyone offers enough money. Evatt went into this window talking about change and I don't think anybody disagreed it was needed, although when he talked about "moving the needle" we assumed he didn't mean syringing himself in the eyeball.

It's a bold move to dump your 'main' striker. He's done it before, with Doyle, but by that time Dion was in the building – indeed they both played in the 'Dixon howler' game at Hartlepool, with Dion subbed for Doyler in what turned out to be Eoin's last game. We got over Eoin, but can we get past Dion?

This time Evatt doesn't have anything like the popular mandate he did then – although in the deep winter of 2021/22 plenty were saying we were would go down, and maybe they had a point considering that at the time Doyle left our recent record was LLLDLWDWLLWDWLLLLL. But then we went WWWWDWWLWWLWDLWDDDWWWW to end the season on a high. That wasn't all due to Dion - Messrs Trafford and Fossey made a big difference too, although the much-hallooed Kieran Sadlier had less of an effect.

So what's important, as it usually is in football, is what happens next. Evatt has just over two weeks to pull new rabbits out of his increasingly tatty hat, then the rest of what will surely be his last season unless we undergo a similarly eyeball-burning improvement to those in the second halves of 2020/21 and 2021/22. He's done it before, and barring near-insurrection among the Unibol customers in the next two home games, it's hard to think he won't get the rest of the season. I still think he should go, but I still can't bring myself to hope we do badly.

[GhostoftheBok]

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Terriers trolling the terrible manager.

[GhostoftheBok]

Terriers trolling the terrible manager.

You do have to wonder what would happen if they rocked up at the 'Bok and just slaughtered us 7 or 8.

Would he keep his job then?

[boltonboris]

They already have slaughtered us at the Bok

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

I doubt even a 7-0 or 8-0 defeat at the mini-Bok would end Evatt's employment, because it would be excused as a blip from a team in transition against a promotion favourite and we're all in it together.

[Worthy4England]

If I apply the "vital goals equation" to McAtee or most scorers, I suspect yoy could often spin it similar.

[GhostoftheBok]

They already have slaughtered us at the Bok

Had it in my head the next game was at home for some reason. I've got tickets for the away, so no idea why.

Head has clearly gone.

[officer_dibble]

Terriers trolling the terrible manager.

Making Evatt look the c*nt *thumbs up emoji*

[The_Gun]

Terriers trolling the terrible manager.

feck Huddersfield.

Dion couldn’t trap a bag of cement, can’t pass straight, and passed his peak years ago. They’re welcome to him.

[Worthy4England]

They already have slaughtered us at the Bok

yeah, but not by 7 or 8!