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Recruitment


ChippenhamRed

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Is it now time to acknowledge that our recruitment is actually now pretty successful on the whole?

During the transfer window I still saw regular accusations that LJ had bought poorly, signed loads of players and still hadn’t got his team right. I’ve never really bought that argument, as to my mind a team is constantly evolving and being improved - especially when the club is on an upward spiral with increasing ambition.

Having been at a wedding yesterday I saw nothing of yesterday’s game. But having logged on this morning, I’m seeing rave reviews for Nagy, Massengo, Afobe, Baker and (to a lesser extent), Palmer. And the money for them came at least in part from a player - Webster - we sold for huge profit after just one season. That sounds to me like a recruitment policy working very well, and a club both buying and selling at the right time.

After five seasons of consecutive improvement, it appears to me that we are getting our recruitment a lot more right than wrong.

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Agreed. Our recruitment strategy has led to many players leaving for huge fees, year-on-year improvement, and many of the players bought for their potential starting to show their value. Can’t ask for much more really.

People have used it as something to criticise LJ for but to me obviously he was always going to have to recruit lots of players. Recruitment is continuous and if we want to progress as a club that’ll inevitably happen as the club evolves.

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Buying any player always carries some risk and you have to accept that not every player we buy is going to work out, but the 'hit rate' has been really good with LJ/MA. The head coach and scouting team clearly have an eye for a player and I don't think we've ever had such quality through the squad. The failure to replace Webster was not (I presume) for lack of trying, though you do wonder if we got complacent regarding AW leaving approaching the end of the window. Similarly, we got complacent regarding signing Nketiah, but Afobe sounds like he's going to be at least as good an alternative.

My only knock on LJ and recruitment is that he's brought in A LOT of players during his tenure and it still feels like he probably wants more if he can get them. Perhaps he's owed a quality centre half but really he probably needs to deliver with this squad now

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Bear one thing in mind, OTIB has always gone overboard in hyping new signings. It needs about 10 games before you can really judge, seeing how they cope with the intensity of the Championship, the times when you are playing 3 games in a week, and once opposition coaches have devised ways to negate them.

Having said that, initial signs are very promising, and if both Nagy and Messengo are with us next season, and stay fit, we could have a formidable midfield.

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The way I look at it is that LJ ‘earned’ the right to strengthen the squad having made progress over the last two seasons working within SLs ‘sustainability’ criteria despite having to sell the likes of Reid, Bryan, Flint, Kelly, Webster and Pack. 

Much of the revenue generated by those sales has been reinvested this last window and LJ has now been able to assemble a very different but very promising bunch of new players as we saw yesterday.

Sure there are positional vacancies at LB and CB particularly but those type were obviously not available for whatever reason.

I really do see this as a serious opportunity for us to become serious contenders  this season.

 

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I think also that there’s no doubt Johnson and the recruitment team can identify good players and ones with significant potential.

I’m a fan of Johnson and it’ll be interesting to see whether he can get the new arrivals to gel into a coherent and competitive squad. 

Managers like Chris Wilder and Neil Warnock have demonstrated how to assemble a squad that may contain a few unglamorous players - but get them out of this league.

Not knocking Johnson at all, but in the previous two seasons we’ve fallen away after Christmas post good starts in the league. Will be interesting to see whether he can get past that this year.

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6 minutes ago, Bar BS3 said:

When Leicester & Chelsea are asking us how we’ve discovered players - I think that speaks volumes for our scouting. 

No club will ever get a 100% success rate with recruitment. I think ours is doing very well now. 

They didn’t ask how we discovered Massengo. They already knew about him. They asked how we managed to sign him. 

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1 minute ago, RedDave said:

I dont understand this. Watkins was very good at Barnsley. Had one bad season at Norwich. For the fee it was worth the risk.  Unless we can’t sign someone off of one bad season....Bentley for example. 

I wouldn’t be that surprised if he gets a few games this season. He’s the sort of player that could fill in at wing-back and if anything happens to Rowe before January it could easily happen.

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41 minutes ago, RedDave said:

I dont understand this. Watkins was very good at Barnsley. Had one bad season at Norwich. For the fee it was worth the risk.  Unless we can’t sign someone off of one bad season....Bentley for example. 

Or alternatively,  he has had one decent season in his career , and was regarded by Norwich fans as one of their worst ever signings 

And we are the only club to have ever paid a fee for him

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36 minutes ago, RedDave said:

I dont understand this. Watkins was very good at Barnsley. Had one bad season at Norwich. For the fee it was worth the risk.  Unless we can’t sign someone off of one bad season....Bentley for example. 

We got him for £1m last summer having been quoted £3m in the January.  So we timed it well financially. 

Same with Bentley. Rumours certainly seem to point more at the £2m end of the £2-4m range I saw in the summer. 

Same with Afobe. 

Both experienced players at good ages.

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