front rower brought in with Pitts moving to back row where he's been much better this season?

Welcome Jordan.

I'm pretty sure Thompson's a backrower, are you thinking of Jonathan Walker who we've also been linked with?

Sick of signing players with 'potential' - we need players that are ready to go and push us to the top 4

This has got me rushing with excitement to renew my pass! Underwhelmed is about as kind a word I can use.

Wiki have him down as FB by choice but can also fill in at Wing / Centre

Exactly!

How much potential has actually turned into talent that Gentle has recruited so far? I would argue non of them have.

Arundel - Awful season with injuries and form.
Crookes - Average season with limited game time, terrible under high ball.
Pitts - Not shown any improvement since he played for Leeds for me.
Watts - Form has gone backwards at FC.
Johnson - Average at best, does not make any hard meters.

Sick and tired of these poor signings.

Don't really know anything about him or seen him play so I'll wait until next season to judge him. Welcome Jordan.

So I am, oops

Arundel was playing very well when he came back from his initial injury.

Pitts has also been veryu good in games this season, does an awful lot of work.

Not seen enough of Johnson this year to really form an opinion, though he was fantastic at saints early in the season.

Watts really needs to pull his finger out.

Crookes is a poor signing, feels like a panic buy.

Will reserve judgement on him til i see him play but good luck mate...your going to need it...if you havent got 100 caps for England,Aus or Kiwis then your totally crap and we shouldnt sign players from team below us...Hmmm..wonder who else do that..oh yeah,all the clubs ABOVE us.

Just cannot see the ambition in a signing like this. I really don't know who's convincing Pearson that players like Thompson will get us into the top 4.

Oh well there goes my theory. not sure what to make of that one really. Not sure wether Bomber's avin laugh at our expense.

Hope he proves us wrong.

How much is the likely to improve? As mentioned in Sheldons earlier post, he has made made nearly a 100 appearances.

I think it's a really poor signing, shows no sign of ambition at all from the club. A few will disagree but most will agree on that point.

I don't think that's the point, though. It's not where we sign players from, but which players we sign. If we'd picked Myler and Ratchford up from Salford, for example, or Dobson from Rovers, few would be complaining.

I think JT does fall into the 'unproven' category (like a few of our recent signings) and it's not unreasonable to express the view that a few more players who are the 'finished article' might be beneficial.

I'm shocked.

No, really...

Wow. We are the worst fans in the league. Some proper proper knobs on here.
Kids 22. But hey ho. Get him ripped to bits now, try destroy him ala sharp, seymour n even Arundel at one point, then coach might not pick him n people can be happy then.
Covers a number of positions n will in time make a great 2nd row I think personally. Worth the relative in expense he's gonna cost!

Maybe the club should have showed real ambition and tried to sign Netherton

McDonnell, Miller, Holdsworth, Paea and 'Massive Polynesian', assuming the last isn't Paea and wasn't here in 2008, would be your 5 non-fed, yeah?
That said, Salford appear to have signed 6 non-fed and there's a rumour that we might have found a way to keep Mika. Maybe the limit is going up?

Oh - and for the record...

I honestly don't recall Thompson at all from the games I've seen this season. Which leads me to believe that he's been average TBH. Bit of a 'meh' signing really. Still young though so has plenty of time to impress.

So fans have to be happy with every signing their club makes, or they're c***s? What an odd world you must inhabit.

Exactly the point I made in another thread. There is nothing inherently wrong with signings from the bottom half of SL (or even top end of the championship), but you should be aiming for them to be the better players in those teams.

So far:

O'Meley - Paea (not a bad replacement, probably better tbh)
Galea - Thompson (i guess just as good on this seasons form - but both poor signings)

Was you also shocked when I have mentioned Paea will be a cracking signing for you?

Can't say I am enthused at all by the signing of Thompson and it seems another Joe Average signing of which we seem to make too many.

Nothing more than a squad filler and hardly going to set the pulses racing of the fans and if I'm honest hardly a signing thats shows genuine ambition.

Unless the club really pull 3 or 4 rabbits out the hat then I feel we will have fallen even further behind the pack than we are presently.

Maybe after the recent slump in any kind of form/performances I'm a little pessimistic.

"much coveted by other top Super League clubs."

Not quite convinced by that claim.