Talent ID - The Comings & Goings - The Long List

[DaveInSA]

16 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Since Keith Burt left in March 2016, the Recruitment Department / Talent ID Team under Mark Ashton has presided over 63 transfers to the club (16 Loans, 12 Frees and 35 Fees).  Therefore you won't see Bobby Reid, Aden Flint, etc in this list.

Based on info gleaned from multiple sources, those 35 Fees have cost £59.45m.  There is also signing-on fees, loan fees, agent fees to be included but there is no reliable source for this.

Of the 47 players signed permanently (35 Fees plus 12 Free), 22 have been sold for £36.95m (-£22.5m deficit).  If you take into account most of this has been in an inflationary market where our strategy is predominantly to buy younger players, develop and sell them for a profit, that's not that great

Of those 47 players signed, 25 remain, but 10 are out of contract this summer.

I have given every player a simple rating based on their playing value for City, their Financial value (if no longer here) or their Current Value (if still here).  Loan players have no Financial value rating.

As it stands only two players brought to the club in the last 4 seasons and subsequently sold get a green blob for both elements:

- Josh Brownhill

- Adam Webster

Only two players in the current squad if sold today would get two green blobs:

- Tyreeq Bakinson

- Dan Bentley

There are some where you may argue differently, but Jay Dasilva has played well for us (green blob) but would we recoup / improve on the £2.5m ovulated based on his worrying shin issues (amber blob)?

Joe Williams gets a red blob for performance with City, but would probably make us a profit (green blob).

Happy to take feedback on individuals (or if I've missed someone), but I've erred on the generous side for the likes of Afobe and Mawson, even though over a season or half-season you'd assess differently.

So, is this a class-leading recruitment team?  Id say its one that's benefitted a lot from previous Recruitment teams, and the trend is towards ending up with a repeat of where we were when SOD took over.

I know its an age-old topic on OTIB, but I thought it would be good to pull together one single list of players once and fall all with fees, etc.

 

I'm not gonna argue with your blobs @Davefevs, I don't go to enough games nor watch enough to merit any opinion!

However, it would be useful to capture a "fee received" against a projected value in the market, otherwise you're not really comparing apples with apples.

It seems to me, even with the £33.15 added in, we're only 10.65m up on these players. Take out Webster, and Brownhill and then you see what a sorry state this is.

The Ashton experiment has failed. Let's get rid of him and get in someone who knows football and who is a football strategist as CEO. Support them with the right recruitment team, the right head coach and the right mindset. Otherwise we'll continue to stay static.

[pongo88]

10 hours ago, johnwilkinson said:

Freddie Hinds ?

I’m not surprised he was missed. There have been so many comings and goings I’ve completely lost track of the signings and transfers. Looking at the list it seems to be a bit of a scatter gun approach with the plan that if City take a punt on sufficient players some must pay off. No club gets every transfer right but if Steve Lansdown wants the club to be sustainable things need to improve. If I was a teacher giving Mark Ashton and end of year report I’d give him a C+ with the comment “is good at self projection and tries  hard but is easily distracted and needs to concentrate more”

[Alessandro]

29 minutes ago, RalphMilnesLeftFoot said:

Answered BIB

Of course the situation is nuanced which leaves it open to opinion and bias, conscious or otherwise. In my opinion, I’m looking at the data and interpreting it, same as you are, but to different outcomes. Perhaps your bias is to defend the club and hence your interpretation of the data.

For me, COVID is of course now a massive factor in the market. However, it’s clear we have enough pre-COVID data to show trends and ask questions. That’s all I’m doing. 
 

We can talk all day about COVID markets and amortisation etc etc - but as I’ve said already, who in our squad would sell for that £10m plus, say next summer, that we need to be looking for under this strategy? For me, we’re talking very options, if none at the moment. Bentley. 

You can argue COVID, but the premier league is still spending plenty of money - Aston Villa bought Brentford’s Watkins for £28m during the COVID pandemic.......

But OK fine...I’ll move away from the debate of transfers out - we can talk about our current squad in terms of playing:

As a team BCFC sit 10th in the league and heading for a well off target finish, with no players lighting up the league charts on any front.

[Oh Louie louie]

Now you read, that, if it was true what hughton, said about the whole squad, needing clearing out, its quite hard to argue.

 

[robin_unreliant]

3 minutes ago, RalphMilnesLeftFoot said:

 No doubt people will compare to other clubs, however we are not other clubs and is something that is a continual theme on here. 

 

Yep it's funny how everyone wants to compare us to Brentford while ignoring the likes of Sheff Wed, Derby or Forest. 

[Davefevs]

28 minutes ago, DaveInSA said:

I'm not gonna argue with your blobs @Davefevs, I don't go to enough games nor watch enough to merit any opinion!

However, it would be useful to capture a "fee received" against a projected value in the market, otherwise you're not really comparing apples with apples.

It seems to me, even with the £33.15 added in, we're only 10.65m up on these players. Take out Webster, and Brownhill and then you see what a sorry state this is.

The Ashton experiment has failed. Let's get rid of him and get in someone who knows football and who is a football strategist as CEO. Support them with the right recruitment team, the right head coach and the right mindset. Otherwise we'll continue to stay static.

That’s a good idea....just difficult to do.  I wanted a simple view to create a debate....it looks like I achieved that.

6 minutes ago, Alessandro said:

Of course the situation is nuanced which leaves it open to opinion and bias, conscious or otherwise. In my opinion, I’m looking at the data and interpreting it, same as you are, but to different outcomes. Perhaps your bias is to defend the club and hence your interpretation of the data.

For me, COVID is of course now a massive factor in the market. However, it’s clear we have enough pre-COVID data to show trends and ask questions. That’s all I’m doing. 
 

We can talk all day about COVID markets and amortisation etc etc - but as I’ve said already, who in our squad would sell for that £10m plus, say next summer, that we need to be looking for under this strategy? For me, we’re talking very options, if none at the moment. Bentley. 

You can argue COVID, but the premier league is still spending plenty of money - Aston Villa bought Brentford’s Watkins for £28m during the COVID pandemic.......

But OK fine...I’ll move away from the debate of transfers out - we can talk about our current squad in terms of playing:

As a team BCFC sit 10th in the league and heading for a well off target finish, with no players lighting up the league charts on any front.

thanks for your last two replies....covered pretty much what I’d say.

@RalphMilnesLeftFoot back to a couple of your replies.  It’s not a sly dig at MA, it’s an open criticism on my opinion of the way we’ve brought players in over his tenure and head up of the Talent ID team.  In various responses I don’t hold him totally responsible, I cover off LJ, I also cover off SL and JL.  In the hierarchy between head-coach and owner there has been poor performance against an expectation of reaching the play-offs imho.

As a question to you, do you think Bristol City have done as well with the revenues generated and the costs outlaid since 2016.  To jog your memory, and include the cost of amortisation (I’m well versed in the difference between net spend and transfer profit) i include the following table showing the rise in income and costs and the increasing gap between them, mitigated by transfer profit.  For info, I track each signing from a net spend and a transfer profit perspective.

I could’ve used a more detailed model and taken several million off the fees gained from Brownhill and Webster in terms of sell-on fees to Ipswich and Preston respectively.

Where in 2016 we had a differential of £12.5m between income (exc transfer profit), that has more than doubled as we await 19/20s accounts.  That puts pressure on the club to sell their most valuable assets.  In a Covid-world that pressure is greater.  Perhaps a strategy that relied on selling your best player(s) each season was flawed?

Have we utilised the great revenues we’ve increased through Commercial activities, or have we wasted it on wages and amortisation of players who haven’t got us to the play-offs.

I haven’t said our players are rubbish, my starting point was whether they are top half Championship level.  I think that is a fairly good bar to set for a club with play-off ambitions.

Re Academy, it’s just as well we have done well in recent years, Kelly, Reid and Bryan generating £30m of revenue (a third of our revenue in the last 4 years).

The focus of this piece is inbound recruitment.  I think it’s underperforming against the expectation of bringing in players to achieve the aim of play-offs.  I think it’s been bailed out to some extent by MA’s abilities to get good fees (he will be tested in Covid-markets to repeat), the Academy and players recruited under previous regimes.

Sat a few days into the window we are at a point where a £5.3m record signing (at the time) might leave for £0 on a pre-contract.  As it currently stands he's valued in the books at £660k.  If Ashton sells him for £1m, is £340k transfer profit good business?  Albeit we will save probably a similar amount in wages.  The strategy for Diedhiou was for him to fire us to the Premier League or City be a stepping stone in his career where we’d have to accept a large fee as he moved on.  On that basis, that recruit hasn’t worked out.  You may not agree, happy to hear your counter-argument.

[Davefevs]

18 minutes ago, robin_unreliant said:

Yep it's funny how everyone wants to compare us to Brentford while ignoring the likes of Sheff Wed, Derby or Forest. 

We shouldn’t strive to compare ourselves to poorly performing teams, both in terms of results on the pitch and finances.

[Alessandro]

20 minutes ago, RalphMilnesLeftFoot said:

I'm not actually looking to 'defend' anything. That bias  thing as mentioned comes to the fore. Simply asked questions about a statistical set that , alas do not scrutinise well, because of the reasons mentioned. You also cant pedestal a 10million pound player because team xyz does it and thus despite being a different player for a different team then apply it to us, it's false equivalence.

At a time when clubs are struggling to pay players, much lower income streams and the rest then trying to go 'my thing is we need a 10 mill plus sale to otherwise justify this policy' may as well be making hypotheses out of hypotheses and takes no account of market, teams, identification, Covid etc ete call of the variables not covered in these stats and beyond.

We're 10th seasons in progress, it could be suspended again because Covid, given the insane amount of injuries. 10th is actually pretty good, also given the current situation. No doubt people will compare to other clubs, however we are not other clubs and is something that is a continual theme on here. 

 

Firstly, the reference to Brentford and Watkins was to disprove your point about transfers in the COVID market. Some clubs may be struggling to pay players, many are still making multiple million pound signings.

Secondly, I’ve not mentioned comparisons to other teams. My posts in this thread are about BCFC not anyone else, so those comments are not relevant to this debate.

The clubs stated aim is the top 6. That’s not me saying that, that’s the club. So everything I’ve said in this thread is in reference to that guide-line. Their guideline.

The fact remains, as I’ve already said, we can talk all the nauances we like, but at our club, within the structure of sustainability and self-reliance that is well publicised and spoken about, by the owner:

MA has, in 60 odd signings and 4 years, 0 players he has identified, signed and sold for a multiple million pound profit.

Is that acceptable? 

There is enough evidence in the charts from Dave pre-COVID to be asking the questions this thread is asking. About our club and how it’s run and who are in the positions of power.

Add to that, what we see on the pitch and where we are in the league, (we can argue along with the recruitment strategy), which is to make a squad for the top 6 (SL’s words) is also currently off target. Injuries aside, as I’m sure you’d say yourself, where we’d be with or without certain other players right now is speculation. 

As always, I appreciate it’s all opinions!

[The Bard]

As an ongoing strategy I think this has now gone.   The trickle down will slow down to an occasional drip when the financial repercussions of Covid start to hit home.  It's no coincidence that moves towards a european super league are accelerating - the big clubs are circling their wagons.  

We didn't carry out the strategy very well - Comparing us to Brentford says it all.  We collect players (clubs in the bag) with little clear purpose whereas they target individuals they know will fit in to their clearly defined way of playing.  Toney is a prime example. No one was surprised he's done very well.  We'd probably have him playing right wing so we Martin can play up front...

 

[Sheltons Army]

Posted this on the Brunt,  thread but more relevant to this thread

 

Missed Opportunities IMHO - My biggest frustration,  and one of the biggest of my decades supporting

The slim but talented squad , full of character , that SC left , was a golden opportunity to build on , with real momentum - IMHO the MA / LJ double act completely wasted that opportunity

We still had a chance in January 19 to build either with , or off the back of sales of the remnants of that side but again wasted the opportunity

We are atm looking a mess 

[exAtyeoMax]

24 minutes ago, Sheltons Army said:

Posted this on the Brunt,  thread but more relevant to this thread

 

Missed Opportunities IMHO - My biggest frustration,  and one of the biggest of my decades supporting

The slim but talented squad , full of character , that SC left , was a golden opportunity to build on , with real momentum - IMHO the MA / LJ double act completely wasted that opportunity

We still had a chance in January 19 to build either with , or off the back of sales of the remnants of that side but again wasted the opportunity

We are atm looking a mess 

IMO, SL took his eye off the ball and focussed his attention on getting rid of SC and installing LJ as coach. A shame, that moment/momentum was lost. They've created the mess, they can't blame the fans for that…

[Mr Popodopolous]

1 hour ago, Oh Louie louie said:

Now you read, that, if it was true what hughton, said about the whole squad, needing clearing out, its quite hard to argue.

 

I wouldn't go that far.

Bentley, Kalas, DaSilva 3 inherited. In recent months Nagy has been quite good. Certainly showed more of what he can do anyway. Baker when fit is a capable player, dunno about in a high line though.

Hunt and Rowe. Not saying stellar but reasonably reliable.

Weimann was reliable with a goal or assist about every 3 games on average, as well as tactical intelligence, energy and versatility. 

Paterson when he was good could provide some much needed end product from midfield. Diedhiou averaged 12-13 per season, Wells is a 1 in 3 man at this level, or was!

Don't think the squad as bad as all that, just not its optimum. Sort of midrange Championship level. However to push onto that next step, it needs to be at optimum, and development needs to improve too.

Might also add, Vyner, early in the season Moore, Bakinson, Semenyo. All young, all shown signs of promise. Massengo however, has sadly regressed. Albeit first 4 weren't playing last season for us, Moore first half of season aside.

There was also hope that Morrell and Walsh would return and show what they could do after successful loan spells. Moore as well?

[Olé]

This is probably why Mark Ashton does all his interviews and photo opportunities in the minutes after he signs a bunch of players, rather than down the line when there is anything worth answering for or he can be measured against.

His salary at AG is unprecedented but accountability doesn't seem to grow proportionately. People will say that's typical of all Chief Executives but not so, most report to shareholders (or privately, investors) and are expected to be transparent and report on and account routinely for progress against objectives and the financial return that has achieved. 

MA reports just to SL and SL alone, who seems to be in his spell. You have to wonder what analysis MA pulls together that tells SL a fundamentally different story on this key objective than @Davefevs, even if you allow for minor variations in his ratings of signings. To be honest he's clinging onto his reputation only by selling academy talent at top dollar.

Oh, and while I'm giving him his annual appraisal, whether or not Dean Holden works out or not, he only has his role at City because MA desperately needs (another) bloody big firewall to keep getting away with this whole charade.

[Oh Louie louie]

Mr pop, you freely admit, its a mid table squad at best.

And we are talking the squad.

[Simon bristol]

Just been thinking about all this. The brunt deal is the tip of the iceberg with the crap that the club continues to come out with.

we spent 6 million on williams and palmer. Dasilva has been injured as much as he has been fit, so many poor signings, no plan apart from trying to generate transfer fees in, why ashton is allowed to continue this joke on his salary ive no idea.

[MATT BCFC]

19 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Since Keith Burt left in March 2016, the Recruitment Department / Talent ID Team under Mark Ashton has presided over 63 transfers to the club (16 Loans, 12 Frees and 35 Fees).  Therefore you won't see Bobby Reid, Aden Flint, etc in this list.

Based on info gleaned from multiple sources, those 35 Fees have cost £59.45m.  There is also signing-on fees, loan fees, agent fees to be included but there is no reliable source for this.

Of the 47 players signed permanently (35 Fees plus 12 Free), 22 have been sold for £36.95m (-£22.5m deficit).  If you take into account most of this has been in an inflationary market where our strategy is predominantly to buy younger players, develop and sell them for a profit, that's not that great

Of those 47 players signed, 25 remain, but 10 are out of contract this summer.

I have given every player a simple rating based on their playing value for City, their Financial value (if no longer here) or their Current Value (if still here).  Loan players have no Financial value rating.

As it stands only two players brought to the club in the last 4 seasons and subsequently sold get a green blob for both elements:

- Josh Brownhill

- Adam Webster

Only two players in the current squad if sold today would get two green blobs:

- Tyreeq Bakinson

- Dan Bentley

There are some where you may argue differently, but Jay Dasilva has played well for us (green blob) but would we recoup / improve on the £2.5m ovulated based on his worrying shin issues (amber blob)?

Joe Williams gets a red blob for performance with City, but would probably make us a profit (green blob).

Happy to take feedback on individuals (or if I've missed someone), but I've erred on the generous side for the likes of Afobe and Mawson, even though over a season or half-season you'd assess differently.

So, is this a class-leading recruitment team?  Id say its one that's benefitted a lot from previous Recruitment teams, and the trend is towards ending up with a repeat of where we were when SOD took over.

I know its an age-old topic on OTIB, but I thought it would be good to pull together one single list of players once and fall all with fees, etc.

 

Great post this!

Would be interested to see how our spending compares to Brentford, Swansea, Norwich and Leeds (before promotions).

 

[Hxj]

19 hours ago, Davefevs said:

I’m a Hunt fan, but has he been better than a top half RB?

I think that this sums up one of the problems with the analysis.  For the vast majority of his time at the club he has been playing, as have all the other players in a top half team.  Has the quality of the coaching meant that the team is playing well above the quality of individual members? (no I don't exepct any sensible responses to that question!)

Whether or not the recruitment is good, average or bad is also a relative one.  I'd suggest that there are a lot of clubs out there with a performance which is far worse.

[steviestevieneville]

3 minutes ago, Hxj said:

I think that this sums up one of the problems with the analysis.  For the vast majority of his time at the club he has been playing, as have all the other players in a top half team.  Has the quality of the coaching meant that the team is playing well above the quality of individual members? (no I don't exepct any sensible responses to that question!)

Whether or not the recruitment is good, average or bad is also a relative one.  I'd suggest that there are a lot of clubs out there with a performance which is far worse.

But we shouldn’t be comparing ourselves with other clubs underachieving. Lansdown supposedly wants  prem football which means we have to perform at another level entirely . Not just on the pitch but off it as well. 

[Hxj]

Just now, steviestevieneville said:

But we shouldn’t be comparing ourselves with other clubs underachieving. Lansdown supposedly wants  prem football which means we have to perform at another level entirely . Not just on the pitch but off it as well. 

So where is your evidence that we are not performing off the field in the top six of the championship?  I'm not saying that we are, just that there is no evidence.

[Sheltons Army]

3 minutes ago, steviestevieneville said:

But we shouldn’t be comparing ourselves with other clubs underachieving. Lansdown supposedly wants  prem football which means we have to perform at another level entirely . Not just on the pitch but off it as well. 

Spot on

Get fed up with the ‘Oh well look at Sheff Weds , Derby <Insert underperforming club of the day> ‘ mentality

Epitomises the Clubs ambition

Instead of looking up and at what other Clubs are actually achieving ,....... let’s console ourselves with the ‘other clubs are doing worse ,  mentality’

[Sheltons Army]

1 hour ago, exAtyeoMax said:

IMO, SL took his eye off the ball and focussed his attention on getting rid of SC and installing LJ as coach. A shame, that moment/momentum was lost. They've created the mess, they can't blame the fans for that…

Agree Max

Became a ‘personal project / hobby’ ,  rather than a focused ambitious approach / plan 

[Davefevs]

58 minutes ago, RalphMilnesLeftFoot said:

Thanks for taking time out to respond.

Likewise

What counter would you like to a discourse you've set up, framed amd then funnelled to be a certain way?

How would you rate our recruitment performance, and across what lenses?

Surely you're looking for things that fit, followed from your proof, your figures and ultimately your driven narrative, which in this case, despite protestations to the other is to label the players as being shit based on sell on worth because you've made them a statistical model based on worth.

how many players did I rate as shit in terms of performance, I.e. on the pitch?  Or Red in my red, amber, green?  My model considers both performance and worth.  Perhaps you should take a second look?

from a playing performance perspective:

28 Red, 22 Amber, 14 Green, where amber is a view on being top half Championship performance wise.  I’d be fine if you argued that it’s 36/64 that met or exceeded the expectation.  I might counter that with, don’t we want better that met expectations?  But the one thing I haven’t done is base it on value.  That’s a separate column.

It's maddening, truly that that is how some are conditioned to see and read the game. I do lots of stats in one of my jobs, but prefer living data because it actually provides a better metric and isn't just spun through Tableau or whatever else. dont get me started on meta data which is so easily skewed by outliers.

what do you think I’m conditioned to see and read?  I’m intrigued?

Going on transfers. 

We're doing better than we have and that change takes time, we do things our way and have to learn. Last 3 or so seasons we have both in terms of skill, technicality, worth, international experience and playing ability and potential, amongst other things, perhaps our best ever squads and that includes this season. The caveat is it's always, always compared against others rather than our own past.

one might argue that the squad has got worse, as the players brought in under previous regimes have left the club?  My thread didn’t compare us to other clubs, just our recruitment over 4 years.

Alas what we get instead is a statistical comparison starting in the basis that because we're not in the Prem we must be shit, or must have failed and wrote it off as that because hey We can prove that players are worthless, so by insinuation must be useless or we'd be in the Prem or have millions of positive sales.

no, read again....it uses two main points, 1) are the players top half championship and 2) should we have grown the squad to a playoff place.  In no way are the players rated at Premier level...otherwise there might not be any greens!!

Football hasnt worked like that as a rule. Based on your model for example Ronaldo's transfer to Juve would be a disaster as his value would be no where near what was paid and he'd have no worth and thus would be useless.

one column would be green (playing), the other wouldn’t.  The narrative would be “was it the right strategy?”

Doesn't stack up does it? And that's the major issue with reducing everything to stats only, it forgets the human element as well as that stats are a snap shot in time and continue to live on from when published. Thus trying to openly undermine the team, the squad, the board, and everything else just results in negativity and going back to the opening post, whether you'd admit or not, the outlook is to look for and find failure as that's exactly what people are looking for.

the question is “has our recruitment been good enough over the past 4 years?”

As mentioned in the other thread it's toxic and promotes toxicity and that you've not amortised players and then go well this and that, could, have happened further exposes the weakness in trying to throw that discourse out as if its truth. It's not, its guesswork based on your recordings and what you want to find.

why is it toxic?

where have I said it’s the truth?  It’s an opinion based on 64 transfers.  I’d like to think the right people at the club have at least done a review...and in a more sophisticated way.

if you want to use amortisation, please explain how you would like me to use it.  I have player amortisation for every player that was here from 2018, going back to the oldest bought player of that period, which was Frank Fielding and Marlon Pack, so go back to summer 2013.  What do you want to see?

I dont know when 'support' changed to be toxic, but continued hauling over coals isnt love, it is hate. Love suggests nurture and great fulness and communication. What we have here instead is basically another elongated statistical way of saying you hate the thing you're meant to love

just as Lee Johnson said he picked the team like his daughters life depended on it, I’d like to think our recruitment take care if every £ that they spend.

Where's the threads showing statistical love for players who've improved over time etc?

Need to open your eyes, plenty of threads mentioning your Webster’s, Brownhill’s etc 

Ask questions and seek answers for sure, but I'm not playing the game whereby shit on the club you're supposed to love first, and then continue to do so.

I’m not shitting on the club, I’m raising a genuine concern of mine that I don’t think our recruitment has been good enough.  I highlight the good, bad and indifferent signings based on the method I chose.  In your statistical world, ever had a hypothesis that your data / analysis / measuring process backed up.  Did you say “ah, it’s my own bias, I’ll toss it in the bin”?

I hope that answers your points. 

It answers some.  To be it seems like your love is blind and should not allow scrutiny.  Probably just what some people at the club are hoping for

[Simon bristol]

Read this through, excellent stuff from davefevs. 
its not really been mentioned much, but MA can point to transfer values received as being a success. Im not privvy to discussions, but if we are selling say joe bryan,,,, 6 million or so wouldnt be that hard to negotiate with a bigger club if we have someone vaguely competent doing the negotiations, in a pre covid environment. Lloyd kelly was big money, but was a once in a generation england under 21 talent with us, clearly he would warrant a big fee.... i really dont see someone at the club taking 500k for him if MA wasnt there?

[mozo]

1 hour ago, RalphMilnesLeftFoot said:

I dont know when 'support' changed to be toxic, but continued hauling over coals isnt love, it is hate.

 

You don't even know me and yet here you are talking on a forum about my marriage...

[steviestevieneville]

1 hour ago, Hxj said:

So where is your evidence that we are not performing off the field in the top six of the championship?  I'm not saying that we are, just that there is no evidence.

The evidence is this thread mate. 

[Mr Popodopolous]

I still query in varied cases how much it is the individual players and how much they are/have been developed managed to say nothing of injuries.

I'm quite confident especially in terms of foreign players that had we and Brentford swapped, they still would have got more out of them, developing them to hit greater heights.

Both in a footballing and a financial sense. Eg Nagy and Massengo vs Jensen and Norgaard.

Is there a huge ability difference at point of signing.

Granted there's a mix of for the future and here and now but I doubt there's a huge ability difference when signing occurs.

Financial angle a different debate but they are better at that too, on balance yet I'm not as I say that convinced the ability difference on signing is huge.

[Mr Popodopolous]

To add to that point 

Had Massengo ended up at Brentford, I doubt he stagnates or regresses as per here.

Both on the pitch and valuation wise.

[Davefevs]

18 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

I still query in varied cases how much it is the individual players and how much they are/have been developed managed to say nothing of injuries.

I'm quite confident especially in terms of foreign players that had we and Brentford swapped, they still would have got more out of them, developing them to hit greater heights.

Both in a footballing and a financial sense. Eg Nagy and Massengo vs Jens end, Norgaard.

Is there a huge ability difference at point of signing.

Granted there's a mix of for the future and here and now but I doubt there's a huge ability difference when signing occurs.

Financial angle a different debate but they are better at that too, on balance yet I'm not as I say that convinced the ability difference on signing is huge.

You are more than welcome to add different lenses to this.  I just wanted a simplistic model.  I tried not to be biased.  I thought Cauley Woodrow was a great signing, I really rated him (still do).  And although some seem to think I’m having a sly dig at Mark Ashton, I’m not, because in this case and I was Mark Ashton I’d be asking my head-coach why he didn’t play him.

And playing the role of Mark Ashton, the next time my head-coach asked me for a player I’d be putting up a challenge along the lines of....why do you want another striker, you’ve already got one on loan?  In this situation it was LJ coming to MA and getting Lois Diony having not played Woodrow (even with Diedhiou injured!).

You might be generous and accept West Brom had recalled Leko so allow LJ to bring in Ryan Kent.  But you might again re-challenge him when paying Liverpool the penalty clauses re lack of game time at the end of the season.

If you were LJ you might challenge back the other way and say “stop giving me players who aren’t good enough”!

If you were SL, might you be asking MA why we keep getting in players and not playing them.

So collective responsibility focused around the Talent ID Dept / process.

Btw if you want my xls, DM me your email.

 

34 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

To add to that point 

Had Massengo ended up at Brentford, I doubt he stagnates or regresses as per here.

Both on the pitch and valuation wise.

He might still be learning the Brentford system in their B team model

[Sheltons Army]

39 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

You are more than welcome to add different lenses to this.  I just wanted a simplistic model.  I tried not to be biased.  I thought Cauley Woodrow was a great signing, I really rated him (still do).  And although some seem to think I’m having a sly dig at Mark Ashton, I’m not, because in this case and I was Mark Ashton I’d be asking my head-coach why he didn’t play him.

And playing the role of Mark Ashton, the next time my head-coach asked me for a player I’d be putting up a challenge along the lines of....why do you want another striker, you’ve already got one on loan?  In this situation it was LJ coming to MA and getting Lois Diony having not played Woodrow (even with Diedhiou injured!).

You might be generous and accept West Brom had recalled Leko so allow LJ to bring in Ryan Kent.  But you might again re-challenge him when paying Liverpool the penalty clauses re lack of game time at the end of the season.

If you were LJ you might challenge back the other way and say “stop giving me players who aren’t good enough”!

If you were SL, might you be asking MA why we keep getting in players and not playing them.

So collective responsibility focused around the Talent ID Dept / process.

Btw if you want my xls, DM me your email.

 

He might still be learning the Brentford system in their B team model

This this this Dave

MAs biggest failure IMHO (Managing LJ)

Especially for four 1/2 years - You May be a bit more accommodating to start with and give some leeway but at what point do you ask ‘Why’ , or ‘You will need to make a good business case’

Pato , Smodizcs , Palmer another fine example ( And the one we were happy to ship out proves to be the only one who benefits us ) 

[Roger Red Hat]

30 minutes ago, Sheltons Army said:

You May be a bit more accommodating to start with and give some leeway

I see what you did there!