Kristjaan Speakman has spoken about the difficulties in finding the appropriate 'number nine' in January, and explained that any striker coming in will have to accept that Wilson Isidor will remain the main man up front. He's also defended the decision to sign Jayden Danns despite his medical highlighting an unforseen back injury which will keep him out of action for an unknown period of time...
COMPETING WITH ISIDOR AND MAYENDA
“Players have to have the physical, technical and tactical qualities to fit into the way we play. Then for players that are available in January, what they are seeking first and foremost, most of the time, is game time. We have a nine who is performing really, really well (Isidor) and another nine in Eliezer who has played in some different positions and also has an incredible record with goal contributions this season. Finding someone comfortable coming into that setting isn't easy, because I can understand that they know they won't be the number one choice from day one. And I don't think there is any doubt that Wilson deserves to be the number one choice.”
DANNS TIME SCALE
“It’s difficult to say when we’ll be seeing him at this moment. Jayden was a player we really wanted to sign, and it was just really unfortunate that, at the very end, we uncovered something. He was fully training and playing, but now he's going to have to rest for a period of time."
LAST MINUTE DECISIONS
“When it comes at a very late hour, it becomes very difficult for us to find an alternative. We had a really good discussion with Liverpool about the way forward, and he can hopefully come and join us at some stage. For us, it wasn't just about adding numbers to the group, it was about quality and personality. Jayden met both of those criteria. Unfortunately, there are a lot of decisions made in the last segment of the transfer window, and that doesn't leave you with a lot of room to manoeuvre when you discover some information that you didn't previously know."
INVOLVED EVENTUALLY
"Ultimately, the player has to come and contribute, and they've got to fit in. To find all of that is difficult when we have two really good centre-forwards. We felt that we'd added what was the ideal player in Jayden, so there’s obvious disappointment that he is going to be unavailable initially. But that's sometimes how it goes in a transfer window. That's why you have the tests, to pick up these things.”
