Last Saturday saw us gain a valuable point at a resurgent Middlesbrough. After a very abject first half, we regrouped well in the second half to play some nice football.
Prior to kick off many fans, myself included though were questioning the team selection of Philip Cocu. Now I am a member of the jury that is till out on whether he will be a good manager for us. The time to make a sound judgement will be a few games after the summer transfer window, unless of course we went into freefall and was staring relegation in the face.
We have thus far signed no one in this window whilst Keiran Dowell and Jamie Paterson have returned to their parent clubs. Dowell has since been ;loaned out to Wigan.
We all want to see 2/3 new faces, but it is important that any such signings are in positions of need. We have many talented youngsters within the club now, but there is a feeling that Centre Half is a position in desperate need of strengthening.
Curtis Davies and Matt Clarke are our current central defenders and though are both capable and experienced, we would be in trouble should one of them get injured. Clarke has recently returned from injury.
With Krystian Bielik coming the latest member of the Derby ACL club and looking like being out for up to a year, the situation has become rather desperate! Craig Forsyth has filled in but his primary role is Left Back.
Filip Benkovic of Leicester City continues to be linked, but a loan is reliant on Leicester being able to recruit themselves.
It's likely that 2/3 is the maximum number of new faces that we can expect to see before the end of the month. Well that's what is being indicated.
I think with the influence Wayne Rooney is having on the team that 2/3 may just be enough to see us climb into the top half of the table. Although we are only eight points away from the play off places, it is still a task order for us to make the end of season knock out for a Premier League place. To do this we would have to go on a run better than what Aston Villa accomplished last season.
Getting back to team selection for the trip to the Riverside stadium I was very surprised to see Jayden Bogle selected ahead of Andre Wisdom. It was understandable for the cup game at Crystal Palace as we made nine changes, but I thought that Wisdom had earned his place in the starting line up!
Another surprise was the omission of youngster Louie Sibley from the eighteen, yet we had two left backs on the bench. Sibley would have started had it been me picking the team. Tom Lawrence though got the nod after returning form suspension.
Lawrence cost us a significant fee, but is still to show us any kind of consistency! I am in the camp who have completely run out of patience with him. I feel that he has now had enough chances and perhaps it's time to cut our losses on him.
There no doubting he has the ability, but for me he goes missing far too much.
It's a Thursday morning as I write this and our next home game is in two days time at home to Hull. There's no sign of any new faces and therefore I think Cocu will have to field his best eleven on form players this weekend.
Hopefully we can collect three points and extend our unbeaten run.
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