Views from the Sieve

I have spoken to him twice the last two home games and he has said two weeks on boxing day and three weeks on Saturday until he is ready to come back. I heard something about him being out for the season not sure how true that is but without him or us signing another striker can anyone see anything other than an uphill battle to survive?

I reckon we’ll be seeing a few signings in the next couple of weeks. No way do the yanks want us to go down. Couple of decent goal scorers is a must.

Indeed, reckon we need at least a couple of forwards to come in - irrespective of when (or if) Balanta ever comes back..

Gaffer says 7-10 working days for Balanta, doing running work now. Hopefully back for Barnet, pretty please!

We gotta stop relying so much on the return of Balanta, he is a very good player, but not a prolific goalscorer.

Of course he massively improves us overall, but he can't do it on his own, and to think he will instantly start scoring, is pretty optimistic, after 3 months out.

We need 2 new strikers thru the door, who are at least semi proven, at this level.

And we need them NOW, or we could easily go down.

Dag82 wrote: Thu Jan 09, 2020 6:38 pm We gotta stop relying so much on the return of Balanta, he is a very good player, but not a prolific goalscorer.

Of course he massively improves us overall, but he can't do it on his own, and to think he will instantly start scoring, is pretty optimistic, after 3 months out.

We need 2 new strikers thru the door, who are at least semi proven, at this level.

And we need them NOW, or we could easily go down.

To be fair, Balanta got 7 goals from 17 games, an average of 0.46 a game, which over a 46-game season would get him 19 goals. Might not be considered a finisher, nor a main striker, but that's certainly not too shabby.

Bloody long fortnight

SUSSEX DAGGER wrote: Wed Jan 29, 2020 12:14 am Bloody long fortnight

Its called the Dagenham fortnight lol

Also known as the "Dr Shipman Fortnight"

One more for the passenger list .

Had another set back, starting to think the rumours about him being out for the season aren’t rumours.

He got injured against Wrexham on the 26th October for what was initially regarded as a relatively minor injury for which he'd be out for just a couple of weeks. The player himself repeated this two week diagnosis to several supporters including myself at the Barrow game three days later.

The scheduled couple of weeks then passed and Peter Taylor confirmed that Balanta was now out ''slightly longer term.'' Before the Aldershot game, Peter Taylor said it was going to be another month.

So a month passes and Taylor says that he hopes to have two or three back for Boxing Day including Balanta. Despite that game being less than a week after the interview, he's nowhere to be seen and there's little mention of it for a whole four weeks. Then, last week McMahon declared that he should be back for Wrexham, only for him to now have another minor setback.

I'll definitely be taking any predicted return dates with a pinch of salt from now on. I'm still unsure on the type of injury he's sustained as I don't think there's been much coverage on the specifics of it. Also, there has to be something fundamentally wrong when the same player suffers so many setbacks/delays to his return.

I was told that on top of his injury he had a hernia operation