What a season that was. Every time we stumbled in the league we made sure that we got a result or two back as quickly as possible to stop any kind of rot setting in. Curbs was a master at building teams that never let themselves get into a funk that could derail a season. Well, until the clocks went back, but by then we were always safe anyway and you could almost feel the players letting it go after a season of intense game to game focus. Loved that team. I wonder if that's our best ever transfer window; Holland, Hreidarsson, Di Canio, Cole, Perry and Thomas, all for a combined total of about £1,000,000.
Also, I know we let Svensson go quite early in that season, but at the start of it we had seven strikers. Seven! Somewhere in Belgium Roland just broke out in a cold sweat thinking about all those extra resources. I loved that Curbs way of working though. We could never afford a proper 20 a season striker (until Bent came in off a penniless Ipswich) but we always managed with a rotating array of strikers who would pop up with enough goals to get us through. The highest scorer out of our strikers was Euell with 10. Then Bartlett with 5 and the rest with 4 each. Taken as individuals those aren't great tallies for strikers, but that's 31 goals amongst a rotating frontline, and that was a pretty good return for us.
Wasn't really one transfer window. Hreidarsson signed late on in 02/03 and couldn't play until 03/04. Perry signed on loan after the season had started and became permanent a few months later. Thomas signed in the January window in 2004 but didn't really play until 04/05.
Can't imagine ever having seven first team strikers again.
True, I didn't mean transfer window, I meant season. So many of those players signed that season went on to be central to our squad for years. Compare that to Dowie's disasterpiece where some of his signings didn't even last a full season. God it's depressing to think that was only a few years later
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