Pilgrimfather":2xl9y5ce said:
League 2 Swindon have just signed Kaiyne Woolery for £350k. The only striker we have bought in the last six years or so is Nathan Blissett for £15k. Surely a decent striker is worth a decent investment? Goals and wins puts 'bums on seats' and last season could have been so much better with a proper striker up front - we may not have fallen short on goal difference on the final day.
I'm just getting more and more frustrated at the seemingly lack of ambition at Argyle and our bargain basement approach to key player positions.
A decent striker should get a cash return if it doesn't work out. No need to invest beyond our means, but let's have someone to light up our season up front.
We also need to learn how to consolidate for more than 2-3 minutes in a match.
oldage":2xl9y5ce said:
Agreed.We have been crying out for a decent striker for years.I cannot understand how we seem to be unable to find anybody willing to sign for an "ambitious" league 1 club anywhere In the UK or Europe.We have made 4 offers but with a little over 3 weeks til the transfer deadline, time is running out. Although nobody wants us to overstretch our finances surely a proven goal poacher is essential and would hopefully increase attendances.
And now on BBC2 we go to the 'Loosen the purse strings- Watch' with Kate Humble and Chris Packham...
Not so long ago, in a Galaxy in exactly the same place, Plymouth Argyle started to spend more than it could afford. A little at first but then it grew. It grew because the supporters demanded it, they moaned, whinged and stamped their feet pushing for (quote) decent investment (unquote) to (quote) arrest a perceived lack of ambition (unquote).
Since those days a rebel alliance formed on the ice planet of Hoth. Their mission?, never to forget how the near destruction of Argyle's galaxy started and to ensure at the first sign of history repeating itself they were in place to remind those concerned to look at the bigger picture and reign back on making demands that lead to Argyle writing cheques their finances can't deliver.
Those two consecutive posts have set off an alarm bell in Hoth. Sentences like "No need to invest beyond our means, but..." and " Although nobody wants us to overstretch our finances surely a proven goal poacher is essential and would hopefully increase attendances" shows a disturbingly familiar trait for playing fast and loose with money.
What if to do so DOES cause us to invest beyond our means? You say a 'decent striker puts bums on seats', well so too does a crowd favorite goal scoring and goal creating #10. I don't know Argyle's current balance sheet any more than you do but on top of the new signings in a higher league (thus higher wages) it's entirely possible that in pushing the boat out to secure Graham Carey any contingencies and surpluses have been used up. It was a great bit of business to keep hold of GC10, he does put bums on seats. Are you saying we should've let him go elsewhere just so we could get a 'decent striker'?...because those are the juggling acts I strongly believe Argyle are having to make.
And then there's putting the cart before the horse again, 'spend and hopefully the attendances will rise'...sounds an awful lot like the oft quoted line from those days of "build it and they will come". Well they did build it... and they didn't come. Perhaps the exponents of this consequence free spending policy think we should've spent EVEN more of what we didn't have back then. In a parallel universe £17,000,000 debt rises to £27,000,000 or even £37,000,000. Argyle in those parallel universes has been wiped from existence, no doubt about it.
If we've sent out four contract offers they have to be four contracts we can afford. If they are not then they shouldn't have been made. If we have to make do with Nathan Blissett and Jake Jervis up there for the interim then so be it. Better that than igniting the fuse on another powder keg of debt.
Those two posts have far too many 'buzz words' in them for my liking. Here on the ice planet of Hoth that is concerning, we cannot allow ourselves to fall into the same trap as we did before. 'Just one more player' is a tempting premise to the weak of knee, but where do you stop?, there's always 'just one more player' on the horizon. I'm sure in the Premiership right now after spending £75,000,000 on Lukaku there are United fans imploring them to push the boat out for 'just one more player'. It's a road you only go down if you've got more money than sense. I trust and hope to god Argyle in 2017 has more sense than to go there, because it certainly doesn't have enough money in the scheme of things.
So you be as frustrated as it needs Pilgrimfather, suck it up. I want a new striker or two too but I only want one or two that Argyle can afford, not a single magic bean from the magic money tree more.