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Opinion: Why Forest chasing after 34 y/o free agent isn’t completely out of the question

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Meet the new player, same as the old player?

News came out yesterday that former Forest man, 34-year-old James Perch will not be offered a new club by his current club Scunthorpe United and will become a free agent at the end of the season.

Now whilst this fan on social media seemed to be putting two and two together from NottinghamshireLive covering the news, I think it’s worth looking at whether or not we should look at bringing him in.

And long story short, I think we should certainly be in the market for him.

Whilst it might seem a little bit extreme to bring in someone who is, how can I put this gently, in the advanced stage of his career, it wouldn’t exactly be a major leap to think that he could have a role to play in the team.

For the first instance, you just need to look at the current squad, and the role that Ben Watson has played in defensive midfield despite being 34 himself, completing 90 minutes in all bar two of our league games so far this season, so it’s not as if Sabri Lamouchi is going to care about his age so long as he can perform.

Should we be looking at bringing back James Perch?

Yes

Yes

No

No

And if you take a look at where Perch has played throughout his career, you can see that he’s a very versatile player, playing anywhere along, and indeed in front of the back four, and even dabbling in some more attack-minded roles as well. Would I expect him to play every game like Watson has done? It would be nice, but given that he’s getting on, we can’t expect or demand for him to do so.

But if we can just get the odd game out of him, bring him in on a ‘pay as you play’ deal, and let him be rotated in during the odd cup game or whenever senior players need some rest in the league, then I think it’s an avenue that we need to look at pursuing.

What do you think? Would Perch be a good player for us to bring in?

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