Thetownend.com

not long left now till the start of the season and i think we need atleast 3 strikers so do you thinkdw will sign  berlin nlone-ndebe for a year or should he carry on his search. hes obviously having alook at this hot property but what if he aint up to standards?

 For footballing reasons I'd say no...for comedy reasons maybe.  Whilst no Onion Bhaji, Berlin does have some potential.

i dont see the harm in signing him up for 6months just so we know that we have atleast 2 strikers in our team

I think he's worth a go. He's clearly prepared to get stuck in and certainly seems to have a good head on his shoulders.

How long did he play for last night? Could give him a run out tonight and judge from there.

Surely just signing players to make up the numbers is wrong....we've still a month to get some forwards in for the majority of the season.  I hope we can see the benefit of having an experienced manager, and he doesn't panic.

I would imagine the hot property guy is up to standard,It's more than likely down to whether he feels he can fit in here or like it here.Danny's mentioned he's been looking at him for a long time now,so i would imagine he know's exactly what he's like hence the MI5 stuff,as for berlin i've not seen him so cant comment.

for the possibility of cult status yes, but based on abillity, no

Well… as a striker, NO. his falling on his arse when trying to kick the ball was just cringeworthy.

I think he could maybe do a job as a winger though, that said, he would be a similar player to Marshall and Macca in terms of speed, stamina and his crossing was not great. Everything he did well has been when he is running down the flanks, He is no better than what we have on the wings and would just be taking up wages. He didn’t ever look like scoring and therefore is not going to be our solution to the lack of goals up front.

So if we didn’t have Marshall, Macca, JPM or O’Brien then he may be worth a short term or a one year deal, as it stands, I can’t see him slotting into the first team and fail to see what he currently adds to the first team. So Pass.

He could "take our breath away..."

my feelings exactly

Got to be a no.

He can't offer anything better than Macklin, so why bring him in?

He is not going to be offered a contract - it's official.

Glad to see DW isn't making signings for the sake of it....

Yep, on the official site that he's not coming in. Lots of failed trials this summer, which shows our standards I suppose.

Not for long if he keeps trying to kick it off himself !

Send him away in a van - Berlingo you might say.

Have we not held triallist games? We're running out of pre-season friendlies and it appears we're getting a bit desperate.

Selling Cox could be a big mistake unless we get someone decent in (not a Crawley reject). I still think there is a pleasant surprise around the corner and the focus is on signing such a player. These triallists have to be a 'just in case' or backup measure. Don't they?

not signing

http://www.thisisswindontownfc.co.uk/news/4518128.BREAKING_NEWS__Berlin_s_time_at_Town_is_up/

I don't think we should sign him :D

 
Well.... if you dont look at a player you dont know what the can offer. For example Ndembe-Nlome or whatever, was signed by Pompey so someone must have seen something, they waited 6 weeks for his work permit. It was zero risk really. Didnt cost us anything and if he turns out ok, fair enough. I am not sure these trialists are a "just in case measure" because DW has always said he was looking for players for the first team, Quality not Quantity.

Well that's shit then

one of the worst footballers i've ever seen.


but then what do i know?

Now we've got a 20 year old in on trial from Olympiakos.....apparently we was interested before but he had to do his National service

Excellent - about time we had more trained killers in our attack (NB Moses doesn't count, for one he was more of a stabber/slasher than an actual killer and second he wasn't pro trained, just a gifted amateur enthusiast)

How much time is being wasted listening to agents bullshit, or are these triallists coming from our scouting network? Either way it has been a huge waste of time.

There must be someone semi-decent we can get, we seem to have done alright transfer wise in other areas of the team.

Don't see that - unless you think they're delaying the search for a main striker "just in case" one of the triallists comes good which I very much doubt. Otherwise, this is just a question of having a look at players during pre-season and seeing if they're any good. Every club does it every summer, how is it wasting time?

im starting to think we shudnt have got rid of ben joyce out of the 3 we let go he was the most promising barry corr was injury prone and i never thought much of sturrock. i would of atleast gave ben joyce a year longer to see if there was anything there, he didnt really get his chance

Because every one we've seen has been shit. There's 10 days until the start of the season and we haven't signed a single striker.

I am all for the patient approach but it's not working. I still think we'll get one 'wow' player in, but we need another two realistically.

I don't mind being so forthright because I am now becoming genuinlly concerned.

He was probably worth a short term deal based on the fact he was ok and we only have Billy Paynter as a striker who will not do a decent job as a loan striker. He isnt lazy and selfish enough

I will be pretty worried if we havent signed someone before next Monday as they will need a week at least to get used to our plan of play and to get to know his team mates.

Yes I know parking only arrived a couple of days before the start of the season but we need to be realistic and get someone as soon as we can.

I understand that we are waiting replies from several loan players as their owner clubs are waiting until nearer the season starts to see if they are needed to stay at their clubs or to see what sort of a deal they can get from all bidding parties, are I am sure we are all aware that not all loans are free and actually cost a loan fee...especially season long loans.

i didn't go last night but my lad said he was shit.and the new winger was fast but shit.
i'll judge when the proper football starts in a couple of weeks

Didn't Parkin have a few games pre-season also?

I'm more worried we won't get enough players in before the big kick off than them having time to settle in.

You sometimes get a gem though. I remember seeing Hassan Kachloul on trial for us and thought he looked a fantastic prospect. Unfortunately, Steve McMahon didnt think so.

Don't fret we can go with Macklin and Marshall up front...with McManatee and O'Brien, they could double up as the GB 4 x100m relay squad....if O"Brien wasn't Irish.

And Bernard Tchoutang a Cameroon international who looked fantastic but Kingy didn't offer him a contract either, shame really he would have been class, a great little striker.

I seem to remember Bernard Tchoutang...a Loony Roon, who McMahon rejected because he had no boots.  Tchoutang signed for JC Roda in Holland and did OK, made it into a couple of Roon WC squads, but I don't think he played.

Roger Boli...bro of Basile was another, he did a job at Walsall I believe.

I don't disagree that we could get that gem, but 10 days to find one with a few friendlies left it is unlikely to happen. Kachloul didn't really score that many goals, he would hardly be a gem in my view.

Maybe we need to start thinking about some solid league one types who could do a decent job and not prone to injury. Then we can hope to land a decent loan striker if needs be.

Whilst I can understand why you would be a bit nervous etc about getting new faces in, on the plus side, We are one or 2 (for the premier league) weeeks away from the season starting, Squads will start to be trimmed, managers will know which players they are willing to sell or go out on loan so I would expect some movement this week. After our last 2 results I feel a bit more comfortable and am not hitting the panic button yet.

Beat you by 1 minute on the reminiscing! ;) I think it was Andy King that got rid of him though but you could well be right that it was muckmarn, I remember whoever it was as manager stating that he didn't think he could compete with stronger English players on a wet Wednesday away at Barnsley or something.

Another good striker we had on trial was a huge french/african that went to Tranmere and did well also, can't remember his name though.

I had forgot about Basille Boli, he was not bad, short and chubby.

Freddy Eastwood was on trial herre and he was good.. although we didnt sign him

Eugene Dadi....that was him....came in under Todd but Todd not rating him and let him go, I watched him in a friendly away at Dorchester in about 2001-2002ish and he was outstanding but not good enough.

Eastwood had a game for our reserves...scored a hattrick....and we couldnt afford to match his non-league+normal job wages that he was on at the time...and he would have had to relocate his caravan :D so he chose Sarfend as preference as his horse didn't want to move!

Looks like we're not the only League One club struggling for strikers: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/c/carlisle_united/8173911.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/c/carlisle_united/8173911.stm).

Dean Bowditch looks like he's signing for Yeovil.

What gets me about all these strikers that we have on trial is that every time we don't offer them a contract Wilson says its because "we don't feel he is better than what we already have at the club".

Bearing in mind we only have one striker, exactly what is Wilson saying we've got which is better?

Thin air?

Or a 15 year old school boy?

I think Wilson is including Macklin in the strikers and what he said was these guys are no better than him.

Macklin and Marshall....if you want to make up the numbers then either of these would do.

maybe we have deals for loans lined up but we are looking at trialists in case they turn out to be ok.

Macklin I'd agree with, the couple of times I've seen him he looked more like a striker than a midfielder anyway.

But not Marshall, McNamee or any of the other midfielders - they have never scored enough goals.

So I think my point stands, when you've only got 2 strikers and need 4 (or 3 at a push) how can a trialist be better than nothing? Fine if Wilson says they are shit, but saying they aren't better than what we've got is bollocks.

Dont be fucking daft jonny.we could have 100 strikers and one coming in could be worse

or they are not better than paynter?

yeah.the numbers are irrelivant.

this is what i suspect as well.

i'm glad wilson isn't panic buying or offering contracts to anyone half decent - look what we ended up with last year... we're short of strikers but i'd rather we were patient and found the right man than wasted wages on another casal

Quite right SY. I think we're looking for one permanent signing and a season-long loan to provide competition up front and like DRS said, I don't think the trialists are being looked at for either of those slots, more as a fourth back-up once we do have Paynter + two as the three main strikers. And in that context, it's pointless making a panic signing for the sake of it, if they're not much better than Macklin or Marshall.

I'm not panicking yet and won't be even if we start the season without the +two, although I'll probably be prepared to confess to some tremblings if we go into the last week of August without them.

But we've only got one recognised striker. What if Paynter gets injured or suspended?

Unless Wilson is saying that Berlin is worse than Marshall / McNamee / WhoEver playing out of position, and worse than the youth team players we've got. I didn't see Berlin play but is he really that shit.

Again my main point stands, saying a striker isn't better than not having a striker is just bollocks.

As is signing someone who you don't think is good enough because you're flapping about the season starting in a couple of weeks

I don't think we should sign anyone in panic but maybe it's time to re-think our strategy.

There's quite a few games to win in August and it will be difficult with someone who isn't a recognised striker up front.

I guess my general feeling is that people have been saying the same thing for weeks (give it time) and I include myself in that group, however we need to learn a lesson from the Malpas/appointing a new manager saga.

See what you're saying and part of me agrees but the new manager saga cuts both ways doesn't it? As that dragged on, there was increasing pressure to just get anyone in (some even advocated Martin Allen!) but the club waited and got the right man.

I'm sure McMahon wanted Bernard Tchoutang to sign, but the player was an Cameroon International and wanted huge wages at the time.

I think we can pull a good striker out of the bag on deadline day, when clubs are more tempted by the £££. 

Need to start pestering the top clubs for a Jimmy Davis loan type though.

Last night Wilson was quoted as saying Berlin did ok and that he will have another look and will let him know by the weekend. By lunchtime he has released him. Am i reading too much into it by thinking we have made progress with another target for him to change his mind in 12 hours

Either that or he did a Gurney.

Well he let him know by the weekend  :)  think it's difficult to read anything much into this...could have been the agent playing silly buggers etc etc.

Like that's fucking likely

what you on about you cunt

just being a cunt.

That's the end of that then.

yep.