' Transfer Speculation Thread '

[SW4Baggie]

I hope wherever Jed goes he does well. He’s never shirked or hidden and always gives his best, it’s just not worked out this year and he’s probably never reached the heights we hoped, but not for a lack of effort.

I thought Swansea was his best game but he’s sadly not the same player. Done a good job though and will be remembered fondly.

Unless ……. Wicky can get the old Wallace / Swift partnership firing again.

You're bang on there and that really reflects how badly he's fallen. He's still quick but it's as if his legs can't translate what his brain wants him to do. He's become like an Olly Burke unfortunately. It's like the reverse of Rickie Lambert who still had a fantastic touch and range of passing when we signed him but basically could barely move at all. Jed can run but nothing comes of it.

This isn't really the thread for such discussion but I've chatted with others and floated the idea that maybe there are other personal, off the field issues with Wallace which maybe have affected him. I can't think of a player of his age, without injuries, who has basically completely lost it in such a short space of time. Sometimes we don't know always know what is going on in people's lives, no matter what profession, which can badly affect them.

I like the guy and echo other comments. I would wish him all the best if he does leave. It would good for the club if he does move on particularly considering he's on a big contract which we can no longer afford for a squad player. He's effectively the new Adam Reach.

Wallace is a far better player than Adam Reach, he should be insulted to be mentioned in the same breath!

If ever a player sums up our poor recruitment it is Adam Reach, we give a three year contract to a 27 year old player who had spent his entire career in the mid table Championship and Leage One. He is so good that when we release him nobody signs him and he is still only 31

Before coming to us Adam Reach had 12 goals and 18 assists in 2 championship seasons before recurring injuries, he had one of the best assist records in the Champ over the past few seasons before us signing and had spent his entire senior career as a Championship regular, not league one. Unfortunately he failed mainly after struggling to come back from his injury but also because we didn't have a consistent role for him to play in the first 11 (rightly, because he wasn't as good as some of our other options).

However, he never did anything wrong while here, and people had just decided he was shit before he came and that stuck. You need squad players, not everyones gonna be a first teamer. Nothing wrong with Adam Reach.

As ever I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Reach was indeed a very capable Championship player and had a couple of outstanding seasons for Boro and Sheff Wed, hence his big money move to the latter.

However, he’d failed to show that form for some time prior to signing for us and had been plagued with injuries. For me, he was the perfect example of our flawed and lazy recruitment under Gourlay and co. We signed him because Ron was prioritising players he either knew or his agent network represented, and we didn’t really give any thought to the value of our spending beyond the next 6 months. 

We handed Reach a lucrative contract despite there not being a role for him in the side warranting such a deal, and despite his recent record suggesting he’d struggle to be more than a bit part player. He must have been pinching himself when we put a 3 year deal on those terms on the table.

He did his job but we really never should have signed him, it was the kind of lazy and ill thought out waste of our money that’s led to being where we are now. Was he a steady squad option, yes, but did we get £3-4M’s worth of value from him? Did we fuck.