I know I cannot be the only one who was worried by Paul Clement's suggestion today that we will not be bringing in a new centre back in the transfer window despite Kyle Bartley being ruled out for up to eight weeks with a knee injury.

This leaves just Mike Van Der Horn as cover to Alfie and Fede should either one of them get an injury and just like many of our fringe players, the Dutchman for me is simply not up to Premier League football.

Clement was talking about Bartley's injury this afternoon when he said "We will have to wait and see, but it does not affect our transfer plans. Even with Kyle out we have still got three central defenders.

"We also know we can call on Joe Rodon, a player at Under-23 level, if necessary. So it's more than likely we'll stay as we are."

The position of centre half has caused us endless problems for the past twelve months or more and it is brilliant to see that under Clement we have gained stability with Mawson and Fernandez and long may that continue. But the reality is we are going into the next two months with a youngster and someone not good enough as cover and that has to be a worry should the worst happen.

Don't get me wrong here I would not want us to go and spend millions to bring in a player but we should be looking at some level of cover that goes beyond what we have at the moment.

The club statement also suggests that Bartley will see a knee specialist next week and we have to think about what the position would be should that specialist say the absence could be longer. The reality is it already is anyway given his time needed to get back to fitness once the eight weeks are up.

This seems a short sighted decision and one that we have to hope does not come back to bite us on the arse at some point in the near future.

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