Sidwell - Now the dust begins to settle...

[Stranded]

I could be wrong, but I think Moanrinho (despite being a twat!) knows more about football than those Reading fans who think that Sidwell isn't worth £25K a week; he has judged Sidwells' worth to the double Premiership champions as twice that sum..........

............but maybe those people have, in fact, mananged teams that have won the European Cup, and won the Premiership.



One other thing; it truly beggars belief that ANYONE could think we would have performed better this season with a central midfield of Oster & Gunnarsson!

Clueless.

He wouldn't of signed him for £5m, but as a free transfer I think it's a low risk signing for Chelsea, to have a decent player just to play in the Carling Cup and when the African Nations cup is on.

I'm surpised Sidwell has gone there on those terms.

To answer your question, I actually believe we would of performed better away from home with Gunnarsson and Sidwell in the middle.

Reports suggest the move may fall through now as Sidwell wants to sign for two years not the four Chelsea have offered.

[working class hero]

This just goes to show you can never have too many threads about Steve Sidwell.. What are we going to do next season?

I suspect we will have threads about 'How much better would we be if Sidwell had stayed?'.

He is part of our history now - albeit an important part. Fair play for his performances this season - and good luck to him.

I hope Brynn now gets his chance....

[PieEater]

I wonder is Jose's arrest this morning may delay the signing ceremony

[Royalwaster]

I think Gunnar and Sidders are very different players - G is more of the holding midfield player, whereas S sees himself as an AM (not sure whether I do) in the mold of Paul Scholes. I think both a strength and weakness of our midfield this season was that Harper and Sidwell performed quite similar roles - not particularly creative going forward but doing a lot of work breaking up play and trying to put the ball out onto the flanks. I think when Gunnar plays with Harper, G takes on more of a holding role and H has more freedom to go forward. Not sure how that would work out for us in the Prem, but I remember last season when Sidders got injured and I thought 'Oh, shit' there goes our season and G came in and we probably played our best football. So, who knows?

[Hoop Blah]

Reports suggest the move may fall through now as Sidwell wants to sign for two years not the four Chelsea have offered.

Sounds like he might've got a taste for the the attention, freedom, and extra negotiating power of being available on a bosman then.

[Woodcote Royal]

There's no way we can get through a season with Gunnarrson in the middle of the park. No way. That's not criticism, just realism.

Exactly. In a lot of ways he's a better player technically than Sidwell but one of the mainstays of our consistent success in recent times is that both Harper & Sidwell can put in a shift for a whole 90 minutes virtually every week over a long season. I just don't see 31 year old Gunnar being able to do so and I'm pretty positive that Coppell has no intention of putting it to the test.

I've yet to see one post suggesting that Sidwell will not be replaced

N ot that i said there was but there are several who still want to make direct comnparisons between the 2 players which is what myself and others were replying to.. Including this one

Imho, we will not get a player of Sidwell's calibre in replacement for a lower wage than that anyway.

Imho we have one already.........Gunnarsson

and this one

Imho, we will not get a player of Sidwell's calibre in replacement for a lower wage than that anyway.

Imho we have one already.........Gunnarsson

spot on

Oh and of course the next 4 paragrapghs where you directly compare the 2. Again.

However, rather than panicing at the prospect of us relying on Gunnarsson as a regular in our midfield, you and the rest of Sidwell's fan club should use his performances to gauge just how average dear Siddie is at this level.

I didn't go to Blackburn but if Gunnarsson scored at the away end, I'm sure most of our fans realised that Sidwell would have threatened the corner flag rather than the net, had the same opportunity come his way.

Yes, Gunnarsson's 31 and may well struggle to play every game next season, but you bet he's technically superior to Sidwell

I've seen plenty of games this season when Sidwell and Harper have not controlled the midfield and I've seen nothing in the last few games, with Coppell perming 2 from 3 in the centre, that made it weaker with Gunnarsson or stronger with Sidwell.

At 8k a week, I guess 4 goals for the season isn't too bad a return but thank God he turned down 25

I remain convinced that we have every chance of replacing him without breaking the bank but would love this to be where we really push the boat out this summer.

I'll be mildly interested to know where Sidwell ends up but delighted when those who are pining for a player who clearly decided to leave a long time ago, finally turn their attention to the remainder of our squad who still want to play for this club

No-ones panicking at replacing Sidwell as such it's just that some of us believe his influence on this side is greater than others and that part of that influence is the fact that he can perform consistently for 90 minutes of a game throughout the course of the season.

Of course the positive thing is that it all allows the scope for your wonderfully sarcastic posts and ever increasing use of the rolling eyes emoticon which you love so much.

Oh dear.

My point is that everyone knows we will buy another central midfielder and the chances are we will be looking to sign the best we can afford, so, it should be painfully obvious that Coppell will not be risking Gunnarsson lasting the whole season, just like he won't be risking the fitness of similarly aged (but because they, too, are East stand heroes, no one talks about it ) Murty and Little........................which, I think, was your point, wasn't it?

So Sidwell's main attribute is that he can last 90 minutes .......................we agree

That's what we said about Andy Hughes and that's because Sidwell is little better in the Prem than Hughes was in the Championship................a decent enough performer but far from irreplaceable.

My view (for what its worth) is that there were times when playing one up front and a genuine defensive midfielder in Gunnar playing behind the central midfield pairing would have been the conservative approach; however, Coppell saw it differently and we finshed 8th.

Thats the point, isnt it - Coppell judges his squad and stuck pretty religeously to a Sidwell/Harper central midfield pairing.

I seem to remember he picked Nicky Forster pretty religiously until the day he left, and look how we've suffered since................

[Vision]

Oh dear.

My point is that everyone knows we will buy another central midfielder and the chances are we will be looking to sign the best we can afford, so, it should be painfully obvious that Coppell will not be risking Gunnarsson's lasting the whole season, just like he won't be risking the fitness of similarly aged (but because they, too, are East stand heroes, no one talks about it ) Murty and Little........................which, I think, was your point, wasn't it?

So Sidwell's main attribute is that he can last 90 minutes .......................we agree

That's what we said about Andy Hughes and that's because Sidwell is little better in the Prem than Hughes was in the Championship................a decent enough performer but far from irreplaceable.
................

If its "painfully obvious that Coppell won't risk using Gunnarsson for the whole season" then why do you constantly use Gunnarsson as an example when saying that Sidwell won't be missed. It's not just this thread, you've been doing it for months.

As for comparing Hughes influence on this team compared to Sidwell's. You don't honestly believe that do you?

Sidwell's moved on now so i'm not going to waste anymore bandwidth on discussing him. I'll just await todays signing with interest.

[Woodcote Royal]

Gunnarsson performances have shown that Sidwell is more than replaceable.

This doesn't make Sidwell cr@p (and I didn't think Hughes was cr@p either) but it does mean I have every faith in Coppell finding a replacement and won't be surprised if Gunnar plays a more significant role next season.

[Vision]

Gunnarsson performances have shown that Sidwell is more than replaceable.

So Gunnarsson's performances have shown that Sidwell is more than replaceable.......but not by Gunnar himself.

This doesn't make Sidwell cr@p (and I didn't think Hughes was cr@p either) but it does mean I have every faith in Coppell finding a replacement and won't be surprised if Gunnar plays a more significant role next season.

And finally, thankfully something i can agree with.

I'm now gonna quit while the goings good

[noise]

BOOOOOOOOO

[el_presidente]

No news from Stamford Bridge - maybe he failed the medical

[rabidbee]

In many ways 'transfer' fees are crazy, they don't happen in other professions and why they should happen in football I don;t really understand.

Think of it less as buying a player so much as buying out the remainder of a player's contract - compensation, I guess.

[Heart and Seol]

Gunnarson is quality. End of.