Transfer Strategies, Does It Pay To Be Open & Honest?

Unlike a lot of clubs and managers, Palace have made no bones about what they are trying to achieve this January.
Rather than keeping our cards held completely against our chest, Neil Warnock ( and co-owner Steve Parish) has been remarkably open about the areas of the team which he feels need the most drastic attention; not that it would take a great deal of footballing knowledge to see it for yourself from week to week.

Although Parish and co. are right to play down the possibility of major spending during the window, there is little doubt that between £6-10 million at a minimum is likely to be spent on the left side of defence, centre of midfield and at the head of the team, where you could argue, we are in the greatest need of a change for the games that lie ahead.
Parish said:

“We are looking to bring in one or two targets but you have got to find a club willing to sell.
“Not every player is available. I know fans think every player is available – but they are not.
“There are a couple of areas we are looking to strengthen. But we are now at a point where we have got a good squad and we have got to bring in people that are definitely, definitely, definitely going to complement us.
“We’ve got some really established Premier League players – they’ve either played there before or come in and made themselves Premier League players.
“So anyone we bring in can’t be also-rans. It is going to be difficult trying to buy quality that is worthy of the squad we’ve got. That isn’t that easy.”
“We sort of made the mistake last year of having two season-long loans. “We converted Punch [Jason Puncheon] to a permanent in the January window. We didn’t want to make the same mistake again.”

With a squad already in place that finished 11th last term, there is obviously not a huge need for major alterations to be made, but instead, a relative strengthening of the group in some pivotal areas. The need is for selective improvements rather than wholesale changes, having clearly learnt from the mistakes made in the summer of 2013.