Jonah, Vaughany and Defenders in January

Last updated : 01 January 2006 By Will Holyoak
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These 3 factors, I believe, will determine whether or not we stay up.

Jonah's pace and movement cause most teams problems, especially those who play a relatively high line. However, as we all know his finishing has been abysmal this season. If we were to sell him in January we'd get £200k at most and with the money we already have in the bank, this is unlikely to have any consequence on how much we spend in January. If Jonah rediscovered his confidence he'd make a massive difference to us so perhaps it would be best to leave him out of the side and play him in some reserve games in order to help him try to regain that finishing touch in front of goal, albeit in a non-competitive game. I would much rather we got Rossi on loan as he is a pacey striker with excellent movement and he most certainly can finish, though I don't imagine we'd be able to get him on loan unfortunately. So, is it best to sell Jonah in January? I think not as the money is unlikely to make a difference to how much we can spend on players (whether we will or not is a different matter) so it's better to hope that he regains his confidence in my opinion.

This January could be a timely reminder for Vaughany that he needs to play well for Crewe if he is to get the move he wants to the Premiership. If Vaughany does manage to come to this realisation, we would be a much better side with his craft and ability to score from distance. Having said that, if we did get an offer of over £1.5m in January I'd sell him and play Lunty back out on the right again, Gary Roberts on the left with Billy partnered in the middle by one of O'Connor, Bell and Cochrane.

Finally, and probably most importantly, it is paramount to our survival that we sign a defender in January. I don't think Crewe fans will tolerate Dario not signing a defender as he has failed to rectify our defensive problem with the side having conceded 103 goals in competitive games in 2005.

It's unlikely that the above 3 things will change sufficiently, though it's probably equally unlikely that none of the above will happen. I think Vaughany will stay until the summer and I can't help but think he'll rediscover his form though I remain optimistic as to whether Jonah will find his scoring touch again for us. It defies belief that DG won't sign a defender in January though his transfer activity regarding defenders in the last 18 months or so isn't encouraging. However, there will of course be many, many other factors which influence our fate this season.