January Transfer Window

[leeslover]

Big fat lump who scores goals or clever hardworking footballer who scores goals? Not much of a dilemma for me.

[brad]

Looks like Leon Clarke won't be coming he's training with coventry with view to loan. He will be top scorer this season

[the_mighty_bosh]

Baxter. Athletic want him to stay — but may ultimately be unable to match terms offered by watching higher-division clubs, as the waiting game continues.

 

“I am in talks now and hopefully I can stay and play,” said the striker, who came close to signing for Crystal Palace in the summer.

 

“If I do go, hopefully I will go to a team where I can play games. That is all I want to do, play football.”

 

Might be a bit controversial, but unless...

 

We sign Baxter to a long term deal, making him an asset to sell in the future (unlikely due to long term financial commitment).

We sign a striker in the mould of Derbyshire until the end of season to compliment Baxter (unlikely to be able to fit into our budget).

He signs a contract that isn't the maximum that we can offer (unlikely as the offers from Championship clubs are likely to dwarf our best offer anyway).

 

...then I would consider Baxter a luxury player for the rest of the season.

 

He's undoubtedly a fantastic player at this level and he has been the main reason that we are not in the relegation zone, but while he has chipped in with goals so far he's not a player who plays in a position where you can rely on him scoring. He and Derbyshire worked so well because they would stretch defences in different ways, giving each other opportunities to add to their tallies. Pity the service from the rest of the team hasn't been consistent.

 

If we find a player to go alongside him then we are likely to be a good competitive team for the rest of the season, but I have strong doubts that he can form an effective partnership with Smith (hopefully the next 3 games will prove me wrong) or Simpson and Taylor can't be relied on to be a 1st teamer at present.

 

I'm certain that there's a striker that we can bring in to play alongside Smith, Simpson or Baxter to make us very functional in attack but by just keeping the 3 of them I don't believe that we'll score enough to stay up, no matter how well Baxter plays. So if it's a choice between Baxter or a Derbyshire-type of player I'd want us to choose the latter.