I had never heard of Fredrik Ulvestad until his name came up yesterday alongside many others in Russell Slade’s efforts to bring in another much needed central midfielder. Slade added: “He’ll add a different dimension to us. He’s different to what we have got,” which hopefully means he is mobile, can pass the ball forward and can take a player on.
With free agent Chicksen added the day before but only replacing Tareiq Holmes-Dennis, just Ulvestad was added to Slade’s squad when he had been saying he needed three or four more since the beginning of August. And with Alou Diarra going today, it is another man down, and in my mind when suspensions and injuries come a knocking, I worry that we have a squad that can be in contention at the top half of the table.
The fact is that once again Meire and Duchatelet have left it too late. They had the pick of Ajose, Novak and Holmes early in the summer, which was good work, but once again we are left fishing in murky shallow waters on the afternoon of deadline day after more players had left. Who knows how far Ulvestad was down Slade’s list. Yet the Norwegian will be expected to carry a lot of our creative play along with Holmes.
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