[WakeyTerrier]

Every player has his price and a combination of a few quid, an agent, championship football and probably decent wages means we would be happy to sell him but only if we invest in replacing him because going forward we don’t have the youngest centre backs

[Lord Snooty]

If we get promoted, Pearson and Lees will have to be replaced, so letting Helik go doesn't make sense. Get him a new contract with us.

[Baggiebob(BBB)]

I'd hazard a guess that Brum or Wrexham came in earlier in the season waving Danegeld or a large bag of Roman coinage they found with a metal detector under his and Town's noses. Quite rightly we told them to do one. If he wants to get involved in another relegation fight rather than try and get a promotion on his CV, that's his choice. If they are willing to say double his pay and keep paying him the same amount if they go down, well, you never know when the next tackle will end your career do you? If he ends up in League One on the same wage as he's got now at Town, what's the point for a few months?

Oxford have a good record against clubs currently below them and just above them, generally beat those around you and you should be OK, but they've only got 7 more games to play against those teams whilst they have to play all of the top half (top 13 actually) teams again and they've only had one win and two draws against those clubs so far. A run of defeats could see them lose confidence and drop like a stone.

 I don't know how you posted that league sheet THEO, but its clever.

[jjamez]

If we get promoted, Pearson and Lees will have to be replaced, so letting Helik go doesn't make sense. Get him a new contract with us.

I'd tend to agree snoots, but personally I'd be replacing all three of them. Eventually. All are far too slow and error prone on the ball for my liking, especially when defenders seem to have a lot of the ball in our system.

The thing is, lees is virtually worthless now at his age, Pearson is coming to the same stage and helik is the only one that we could get some money out of. Arguably, in my opinion, Pearson is the best out of the three as the central option. I've never really got the hype around helik ever since he joined and for me, for his height he doesn't always seem that good in the air in general play. I also don't always see why he's the captain, I've felt that Pearson and nicholls should be higher up that list, even above lees, who I think is more of an example and solid pro than leader.

So really we probably are better getting a decent ish fee for him and funding a new, younger, improvement on him. We've got our money's worth out of him and I don't think helik is the be all and end all to our promotion push, not will his departure really damage the teams morale. He's scored twice for us and once against, I'd says he's not been this titan at the back this season and has had his fair share of being caught out. Arching back to my point about the three old heads, lees and Pearson can play at the side of the central option if needs be, helik, I don't think you could put him anywhere but. I will admit we could be putting eggs into the balker staying fit basket if we don't get a replacement.

Lonwijk makes errors on the ball or when it comes to passing, but he tries to advance the game. The other three fire a rocket pass into the chest of a player five yards away and expect them to control it, hell tom lees puts a five yard pass ten yards wide of the man sometimes. I think you can possibly get away with one limited defender in the middle of the three as long as there's pace and/or on ball confidence around him.

I can't help but think, that this could also be a move that sort of signposts the way for Spencer to come to the fore, as a centre half rather than wingback. It happens a lot, young full back gets adapted to centre half, carragher did it at Liverpool, stones was right back at Barnsley, Pearson was a full back at Barnsley too, midfielder at Halifax. There's quite a few more that keep springing to mind.

But having spoken about a replacement, duff named dropped mads Andersen, a Dane he had at Barnsley, been injured a while, but back and not featuring for Luton, they paid a lot of money for him a few year ago, but could be one we look at. I've had a look at the rest of our league for potential options. Roughan and O'Connor at Lincoln, roughan is young and naturally left sided and covers full back too, but I think he's possibly a bit short, O'Connor is arguably just a bit younger and similar to what we have. Cameron Humphreys at Rotherham, entering the last six months I believe, came through at man city, Tyler bindon at reading, young and apparently highly talented, could be worth testing their financial resolve on that one. Low at Wycombe, wanted by some championship clubs, but this would weaken a rival, but wealthy owner, would they need or want to sell. Pines at Barnsley, think duff brought him in there so knows him, injuries are his issue though, he got sent off against us in the paint pot trophy in what was his first game in a long while. Santos at Bolton, think he's an all round unit but prone to major lapses on the ball, age wise not much younger than what we have and then crama that was on loan at Exeter but recalled by Brentford, Millwall apparently snooping but sometimes you gotta speculate to accumulate

[theo_luddite]

I don't know how you posted that league sheet THEO, but its clever.

Same as most other images BBB.

Copy it with the Snipping Tool from the Form website I use, save it, post it on Imgur, then get the BBCode from the Share Options and paste it into the post. Voila. Of course now I've told you the secret we'll have to send the boys round.

FYI here's how The Baggies are doing

[Lord Snooty]

All clever stuff, ar kid.

[theo_luddite]

I guess we'll have to wait a while for Haaland to become available.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/202...ct-to-2034

[theo_luddite]

Helik has left the building

[Lord Snooty]

Hull City in talks to sign Sorba Thomas.

[theo_luddite]

They just signed Blackpool's leading scorer Joseph. A few on their forum were prediciting it before we played them. Nantes apparently don't want to end Sorba's loan. How does that all work? https://x.com/HullCityStats/status/18816...gr%5Etweet