Clement: Vultures circling?

24 September 2001

So, with "Deadly" Doug Ellis sitting next to Paul Thompson in the Directors' Box yesterday, and John Gregory supposedly there as well, can we put wo and two together as to what they were there for, particularly with Blackburn claiming to have bid for an unnamed, left-sided defender?

The Clement contract situation doesn't really make much difference in the grand scheme of things. Clement has been offered a new four year deal on a higher salary to bring him in line with some of the better paid players, but has not yet signed it. Regardless of whether he has a contract or not, *if* someone comes in for him and *if* he decides he wants to go then he'll go; all that would matter in that eventuality is how much we could get for him, so the extra year on the contract is really the only thing of any significance at all from Albion's perspective. He still has the best part of 3 seasons to run on his current contract, so any would-be buyers aren't going to be able to steal him on the cheap.

Whilst replacing Clem wouldn't be at all easy (if not impossible), if we did get something like £3.5m+ for him it would be great business on a solely financial basis and would give us the financial clout to sign the players who could really make the difference to our promotion challenge. Hopefully we'd have the nous to make some of those signings *before* any deal for Clement was announced.

It's clear after yesterday's game against Wimbledon that we can't sit around waiting for Dichio and Roberts to be fit again - we have to bring a striker in now. Roberts is still months away from playing, whilst it could still be 6 weeks or more before Dichio starts a game for us again, and what guarantees are there that we'll be able to sign him permanently anyway once he's fit again? His staying at the club to recuperate is a good sign, but is advantage being taken of his time on the sidelines to discuss personal terms, or is it being left until he's fit again? It's clear that we need another striker now, as a run of games without scoring will put pressure on Scott Dobie, which is unfair on him, and Bob Taylor, whilst being unlucky on a few occasions not to open his account for the season, doesn't have the legs to play the full 90 minutes any more in my opinion.

Whether the two foreign forwards we're looking at might fit the bill remains to be seen. Ricardo Fuller won't have done his chances of being offered a contract to the end of the season, maybe, with his 2 goals on his debut for the reserves. Would such a deal be of interest to him, though? Vakouftsis couldn't get clearance to play for the reserves, so GM told him not to bother coming over if he can't actually play for us. Apparently, we're now going to be looking at him in the forthcoming U-21 game v England, but that just means more delay.

In many ways, we've reached the crossroads in our season. Taking the right decisions now could see us pushing for the top 3 before Christmas. Hanging back or dithering on bringing new players in whilst waiting for others to get fit or become cheaper could still see us languishing in mid-table come January and having our work cut out to make the play-offs at all. Hopefully our failings yesterday will reinforce the view that we need new players now and not later.

The only silver lining to the cloud hanging over Clement staying at the club is that his departure would allow us to have our pick of 4 or 5 good quality players who would sort out our problem positions and allow us to make a real push for promotion - assuming we could agree personal terms, that is......

 - Spooky

Previous Stories:

  22 September 2001:  Birmingham game postponed

  21 September 2001:  WBA vs Wimbledon: Team News

  20 September 2001:  Wimbledon VIP Ticket Auction - CLOSED

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