• Nigel Adkins has been given the Tranmere job on a permanent basis signing until the end of the 25/26 season. Continue the discussion here.

The squad 20/21

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Nugent is good at shielding and carrying the ball, assuming we can get him match fit. Apparently he could be available for Saturday.

We are light in numbers in the centre forward position, but we have used Vaughan as a lone striker for the majority of the season in any case.
 

bigmart

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Nugent should be on the bench on Saturday so gives us decent option.
 

drwhoman

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We are better off without Ferrier and the fact we got a fee for him is a bonus.
Life in Israel will not be easy for him given what is going on there. I imagine he will have to isolate initially unless he gets his Covid vaccination quickly. Their vaccine rate is the highest in the world. Will CTB follow him?
 

bigmart

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Life in Israel will not be easy for him given what is going on there. I imagine he will have to isolate initially unless he gets his Covid vaccination quickly. Their vaccine rate is the highest in the world. Will CTB follow him?
I wouldn't be surprised to see him go out on loan to the national league rather than go abroad
 

Sparky

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Life in Israel will not be easy for him given what is going on there. I imagine he will have to isolate initially unless he gets his Covid vaccination quickly. Their vaccine rate is the highest in the world. Will CTB follow him?

i was wondering about CBT. Of course he can’t leave unless he went abroad or we tore ups his contract and that won’t happen I’m sure. Maybe Morgan’s a sense may help Corey get his head down
 
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i was wondering about CBT. Of course he can’t leave unless he went abroad or we tore ups his contract and that won’t happen I’m sure. Maybe Morgan’s a sense may help Corey get his head down
Yes, I hope CBT comes to his senses for club and player. I don't think Ferrier has done himself any favours. He'll find it tough out there and I'd be amazed if he lasts a year. More likely he'll be back at Boreham Wood in the autumn. Clearly things got really bad between him and the club. I have never seen such a terse announcement for an employee in over 50 years.
 

Sparky

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Possibly just a rumour but maybe as I thought Ferrier departure may have made CBT think. We’re stronger as a group with Corey so hopefully some truth so it
 

Boz

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Think KH also mentioned both Corey and Mark Ellis in response to an interview question. The more options we have available the better and CBT on a good day offers something different.
 
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I agree but do they want to leave them to walk away in summer its a hard one if the lads keep playing well they will be in demand
 
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If we go up, I would guess the majority will want to stay anyway. We have to make sure we have actually got a club to support when the pandemic is over.
 
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If we go up, we will be able to afford a pay rise for them so they might stay. If we don't, the better players will be lured away to richer clubs. I don't think many of our stars who don't already have long deals would sign them yet.
 

Sparky

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I was never a massive fan of either Payne or Ferrier but there must surely be question marks around not replacing them with the desired quality in striking areas.

It was always a risk banking on Vaughan not getting injured. We brought in Nugent who is 36 in a couple of months and hardly played in the last 18 months. People say he needs games to get match fit but how useful can he be at that age in a forward position? Then we have Jolley who clearly isn’t ready.

That’s it for proper number 9s and anything else e.g Woolery down the middle is square pegs in round holes.

I remember when we signed Crawford I wondered did we need another midfielder when it was likely Payne and Ferrier would leave. Kirby hasn’t done enough either and is arguably a waste of a wage so far.

Vaughan to me has been our player of the season and I have a real concern about the impact on the morale of the players and our promotion chances being drastically affected. Don’t want to sound all doom and gloom and yesterday was only once game but we’ve lost one player who is arguably irreplaceable
 
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I don't think either Ferrier or Payne were good enough, but if we were going to retain one of them as a target man and potential replacement for Vaughan, I would have kept Payne. He at least stays within the width of the eighteen yard box and is reasonable with his back to goal, and his goalscoring record is actually better than Ferrier's. Ferrier did not really operate as a genuine number nine at all and spent most of his time out wide, so I don't see him as any kind of replacement for Vaughan.

If it was a choice between playing Ferrier as a number nine, or using Woolery as a false nine, I would go for Woolery every time.

Nugent is the replacement that has been brought in and Hill will ultimately be judged on the success of that signing. However, I think we have to be realistic and admit that Vaughan was indeed irreplaceable, and if we were now hoping that Ferrier was going to perform and score goals consistently, we would be in just as bad a position.

In reality, I think Hill will make some sort of tactical adjustment in the weeks ahead and change our style of play in the absence of Vaughan.
 

Ian

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It's probably unrealistic to expect a decent forward at this level to be sitting on the bench waiting for Vaughan to get injured. Whoever was going to replace Vaughan wouldn't have been as good as him. I actually think people are being a bit harsh on Nugent. He will never have the work rate that Vaughan does but this is where KH needs to make adjustments. Nugent will score goals as long as we give him the service, something that was sorely lacking yesterday.

Certainly no need to panic yet but I don't think there is a big window for KH to get this right and what we don't want to do is chuck away what we've built this season and the progress we have made. We should be looking at the top three as I think our squad is still strong enough to do that.
 

Boz

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Can see both sides of this argument. Given his previous injury history and style of play, it was almost inevitable that we'd lose Vaughan at some point in the season. It's a plus that he's got this far relatively unscathed, but a real blow that the injury is so bad.

Think Nugent was signed mainly for a supporting role, coming off the bench as he did v Carlisle and setting up the winner. I don't think, particularly with MP's involvement in recruitment, that it was envisaged he'd be the main striker and of what we've seen so far, even if he is to occupy that role from now on, then it will require significant adjustments elsewhere in the team to make best use of his attributes. I think that will prove too disruptive.

Jolley was a left-field signing, one for the future and he made little impression when coming off the bench v Stevenage in difficult circumstances. I don't know how much involvement Keith had in his signing and whether they'd initially felt he could have some game-time, but from his comments post-Crawley, doubt he'll make a starting xi this season.

So the incomings are an experienced veteran striker some way off match fitness and a rookie youngster. The departures up front were Payne, just recovered from injury and not prolific, but capable of finding the net a few times and the enigma that is Morgan Ferrier. I agree that he was never much of a goal scorer, but there we're certain aspects of his hold-up play we're now lacking up front. Ferrier left after the English transfer window had shut, don't know if this was expected by the management and it was felt the two replacements were sufficient, or he was not expected to go, but the chance to get rid of a perceived trouble-maker and pocket a small fee were too good to resist?

Given the other transfer business, I do feel that the January dealings have left us weaker up front. I'm unsure either Kirby or Cameron were really necessary, my preference would have been to see Otis Khan back as a attacking midfielder, return O'Connor to Celtic and get a right-back in, who's style mirrors Macdonald's on the left to keep the manager happy. That would have freed up a wage for another forward.

Given the position we're in, squad wise, I'd agree with RLC that the best option for now is to go with Woolery as a false 9 and see how that pans out.
 

Sparky

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Yes I agree we can’t expect to have anyone as good as Vaughan to be happy being a bench warmer. I just think having Nugent and Jolley I.e. one extreme to the other, a veteran and a youngster, it may have been better having someone with similar attributes to Vaughan in their mid/late 20s who could push him (not that he needed it), and provide suitable back up.

As RLC says Payne would have been ok as a like for like replacement albeit not at the level of Vaughan. As Boz says Vaughan had a track record of injuries so his absence isn’t really a massive shock. It is equally frustrating when the players Hill did bring in don’t seem to be up to it. That said, as Ian points out it’s still fairly early days and once Nugent had a run of games he may come good. However games are running down...
 
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