Carvalhal: We Can Stay Up Without January Signings

Three weeks into the January transfer window, and now our new manager has come out saying we can stay up without making any signings this month.

It’s gone from being close to signing a player before Monday’s game to this – that we can still avoid the drop even if we don’t sign anyone before the end of the month.

I couldn’t disagree more.

We are six points adrift of safety, with a game in hand at home against Liverpool, and we have 17 points after 23 games which means we’ll average 28 points come the end of the season – four wins adrift of the 40-point mark.

We’ve scored 14 goals this season, 3 less than the next worse team in terms of goalscoring, so forgive us Carlos if the rest of us have doubts over these recent claims.

We have improved under the new boss. We’ve played 5, including 2 cup games, and lost only once – at home against Spurs. But it’s still going to take a much bigger improvement on that to finish a minimum of 17th. And to do that, surely we need some players in, particularly an attacking midfielder.

Carvalhal said:

‘100% we can stay up without signing anyone,’

‘It is my job to push everyone. If the thing is still progressing, and we can get the injured players recovered, we can create belief and commitment and fight to the end,’ he said.

‘I saw a lot of progress in the last five games and the first 45 minutes in the FA Cup win against Wolves on Wednesday was really very good.

‘When we are refreshed and if we play at that level for 90 minutes, then it will be difficult for any opponents to beat us.

‘Our three league games – against Watford, Tottenham and Newcastle were all very balanced – and we continue to play at that level, but the signs are positive.’

Yet Carvalhal also said:

“To jump to another level, we need two or three players to solve the problems we have in the team.”

Carvalhal sounds a lot more confident about survival than when he first arrived at the club. But I suppose he was asked the question and had his players’ morale to think about when answering. However, he has to be pushing the club’s board to be bringing in signings, and this doesn’t send out the best message to our American owners, who have “prepared an extra £10m” on top of the £20m profit available – according to Wales Online, but we won’t know that for 100% certainty until it actually gets spent.

And we need to jump to another level to stay up Carlos, so these comments are confusing to say the least.

It comes across like backtracking. Deals possibly haven’t gone through as expected as Wales Online were confident that we were moving ‘closer’ to sign players but we still look to be some distance from bringing anyone in.

With deals falling through and us edging closer to deadline day, are we covering ourselves by commenting that ensuring the fans (and the players) that we can still survive without recruiting?

Carvalhal also explained the difficulties in bringing in the ‘right players’ that’ll improve the squad:

‘It is not because we don`t know exactly what we want. The problem is not all players want to come to teams who are in difficult circumstances.

“If they come and the team don`t stay in the Premier? It is not easy, it is very difficult to achieve new signings.

“But also it is because we don`t want to bring in players like the ones we have.

“Imagine a player from the Championship who has scored 10 goals. Why sign him when Tammy Abraham scored over 20 Championship goals last season?

“Why, it wouldn`t make sense, he would bring nothing to us because he is not better than Tammy.

“If we had another player in another position who we think will help it is completely different.’