Columnist Karl Fuller on Gareth McAuley's likely exit and Roy Keane's transfer business in general.
News today that Gareth McAuley has been told that he can leave the club adds another curious dimension to the long-term Roy Keane plan. There is without a doubt divided opinion on what exactly McAuley brings to the team but somewhere within the man, there is a capability to perform at Championship level.
After all, he is an international player and was coveted by Jim Magilton for many months before he finally secured his signature on the back of Leicester City's relegation in May 2008. If the Foxes had stayed up, then it is very doubtful as to whether McAuley would have even made it to Portman Road.
But McAuley’s seemingly imminent departure is not the first to raise the eyebrows of a number of Town fans and probably won’t be the last. The question nagging away in the back of my mind though, is will there be a better replacement this time around?
Having yet to see Leadbitter, Edwards or Rosenior, I cannot comment on what they might bring to the party. But I remain both disappointed and confused by some other exchanges of personnel that I really do not believe have been for the better of the team (but then who am I compared to Roy Keane?).
For example, take any one of Dan Harding, Matt Richards or Ben Thatcher. Is Damien Delaney any better? Should a Macedonian international with more than 50 caps really have been sold only to be replaced with a player approaching 30 years of age and playing in the League of Ireland? Has Lee Martin proved to be worth the fee of around £1.7 million that we reportedly paid for him?
At least with the sale of Jordan Rhodes, in the middle of the disappointment of it all, we really did get good money for someone that had made only a handful of appearances.
It is all very well having scouting/coaches reports on potential new signings, but I believe you gauge a better picture of supporters from the selling/releasing club involved of the player concerned and I did not enjoy what the Queen’s Park Rangers supporters were saying when it was known that Delaney was going to be on his way to us. No manager, of course, would go on such comments when thinking about potential deals, but if anyone knows how well a certain player plays on a week-in, week-out basis, then surely the fans have a more consistent knowledge than anyone else.
I really hope that things do work out for Keane and I am fully behind him, but can't help thinking that we are a club waiting to fall with a bang simply because of the hype that surrounded the manager's appointment, which in itself is nobody's fault other than the media.
It certainly is none of our fault and it is depressing when work colleagues are quick to remind me when we have not won again that they knew/hoped Keane would fail so that they can laugh at me like the days of administration.
The new Rosenior-Edwards partnership on the right was well received on Tuesday night and I believe that partnerships all over the field need to be quickly developed to form the basis of a winning side. Older fans will reminisce and say that we have not had a centre-back pairing since the days of Beattie and Hunter and then Butcher and Osman.
As special as those pairings were, it is safe to say that we have struggled for years now in the centre-back area and really do need to find two that can play well together consistently.
In midfield, have we really replaced the Magilton-Holland partnership? And as for up front, we are still waiting for a partnership of the Darren Bent-Kuqi mould.
But down the left, we are weaker than ever before in my opinion. Certainly since the days of Taricco and Mason. We do still have Civelli to return and he showed a glimpse of why Magilton paid as much as he did for him last season. But I would like to think that we have resolved many of our problems long before he has returned to the side.
Leadbitter looks to be a good signing and I guess we might have to wait until Norris is back to get something going in the middle of the park of note. It's a pity Garvan has not developed as much as his early form promised and he like McAuley and others before him no doubt will soon be shown the exit door and it will remain to be seen if the long-term plan comes to fruition and what RK is really trying to do works out or not.