Replacing quality / Reinvestment

[AshtonRobin21]

It's time for serious questions to be asked as to how the money has been spent from those big money departures over the years. 

This is a topic many of have been aware of for some time. But today's result really drove that message home. This squad is miles off the required standard to be competitive in this league. 

Often the only positives to be said about MA's role at the club is "he gets good money when selling players".... However, I fail to see any of that money used to replace the quality lost. 

We currently find ourselves with a squad of players with minimal resale value, and a serious lack of quality. 

Over the years we have sold the following for big money:

- Kodjia

- Webster

- Flint

- Brownhill

As well as academy graduates:

- Kelly

- Bryan

- Reid

I would question how many of those players have been replaced adequately?

We have not only failed to replace those players with similar ability/potential, but have also lost the passion and spirit that many of those players displayed for the club. 

How many 'assets' do we currently have at the club? (I would define this as players who could be sold for more than their purchase price). 

Massengo, Dasilva (if he can keep himself fit), Bentley, Semenyo?

If this alone isn't frustrating enough, another area of our own failings is the list of former players who are now playing for team's above our current position:

- Bryan

- Reid

- Pack

- Flint

- Ayling

- Freeman (Sheff Utd, on loan at Forest)

- Webster

- Kelly

- Fielding

- Korey Smith

One man within the club is responsible for our decline over the past few years. 

It's time for SL to make the decision. Remove MA, and Back NP.

Give Pearson the opportunity to form the structure he has achieved previous success with. Allow him to approach the likes of Shakespeare and Walsh. Create an environment that allows Pearson to achieve something special. 

 

 

 

[Davefevs]

The expectation was to use our exemplar recruitment to buy, develop and sell whilst improving our standing.  What has happened is that as each good player has gone we haven’t quite done what we said.

I’m massively critical of recruitment (in case you hadn’t guessed)....but I do set a high bar....partly because we tell everyone how good it is.  But it actually falls well short of what’s needed.  I’d argue that we could’ve easily achieved that season on season progress on a fraction of what we spent.  I compare us to Barnsley, Preston, Wigan, Brentford, QPR, Birmingham, Blackburn etc....similar sized clubs who we never finish top of the tree against.  We might not be the worst in that group (Birmingham cough cough), but we aren’t the best, spending vast sums compared to most.  Yet we claim we are up there with Brentford

There have been some good signings, but too many “no better than what we have”.  That’s why I’m critical of recruitment.

You can bet your bottom dollar that the cost of recruiting the “no better than what we have” was more than the players they were meant to be better than.  In fact you don’t need to bet your bottom dollar, it’s all there in the published accounts.

I don’t expect every signing to be stellar, but we have lost the plot with the plethora of 30+ players in the last year / 18 months.  This came on the back of the need for the “established Champ player”.  At least Weimann was only 26 when we signed him.  That seemed sensible, but we’ve gone too far the other way.

And for all the talk of DNA and great humans, we find the new manager calling out those with no personal motivation, unprofessional, and previous head-coach unable to trust certain players, and a different set of trustees a couple of games later.

Ultimately we need a recruitment strategy tightly linked to playing identity / system....and execute it with the right people in charge of it.

[milo1111]

7 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

The expectation was to use our exemplar recruitment to buy, develop and sell whilst improving our standing.  What has happened is that as each good player has gone we haven’t quite done what we said.

I’m massively critical of recruitment (in case you hadn’t guessed)....but I do set a high bar....partly because we tell everyone how good it is.  But it actually falls well short of what’s needed.  I’d argue that we could’ve easily achieved that season on season progress on a fraction of what we spent.  I compare us to Barnsley, Preston, Wigan, Brentford, QPR, Birmingham, Blackburn etc....similar sized clubs who we never finish top of the tree against.  We might not be the worst in that group (Birmingham cough cough), but we aren’t the best, spending vast sums compared to most.  Yet we claim we are up there with Brentford

There have been some good signings, but too many “no better than what we have”.  That’s why I’m critical of recruitment.

You can bet your bottom dollar that the cost of recruiting the “no better than what we have” was more than the players they were meant to be better than.  In fact you don’t need to bet your bottom dollar, it’s all there in the published accounts.

I don’t expect every signing to be stellar, but we have lost the plot with the plethora of 30+ players in the last year / 18 months.  This came on the back of the need for the “established Champ player”.  At least Weimann was only 26 when we signed him.  That seemed sensible, but we’ve gone too far the other way.

And for all the talk of DNA and great humans, we find the new manager calling out those with no personal motivation, unprofessional, and previous head-coach unable to trust certain players, and a different set of trustees a couple of games later.

Ultimately we need a recruitment strategy tightly linked to playing identity / system....and execute it with the right people in charge of it.

The whole DNA diatribe is hilarious. How completely stupid does MA look now. 
 

This whole mess has been slowly building since cotts left. Most of our big money sales were not brought in by Ashton and whilst he got good fees for them the recruitment side of things has been largely underwhelming for all the talk of our stellar team of analysts.

Not only have our replacements been no better than what we have let go I’d say many are far inferior. Picking up on Dave’s last point I’d be amazed if that ever happens with Ashton still playing god with our incomings . 

[firstdivision]

7 hours ago, AshtonRobin21 said:

It's time for serious questions to be asked as to how the money has been spent from those big money departures over the years. 

This is a topic many of have been aware of for some time. But today's result really drove that message home. This squad is miles off the required standard to be competitive in this league. 

Often the only positives to be said about MA's role at the club is "he gets good money when selling players".... However, I fail to see any of that money used to replace the quality lost. 

We currently find ourselves with a squad of players with minimal resale value, and a serious lack of quality. 

Over the years we have sold the following for big money:

- Kodjia

- Webster

- Flint

- Brownhill

As well as academy graduates:

- Kelly

- Bryan

- Reid

I would question how many of those players have been replaced adequately?

We have not only failed to replace those players with similar ability/potential, but have also lost the passion and spirit that many of those players displayed for the club. 

How many 'assets' do we currently have at the club? (I would define this as players who could be sold for more than their purchase price). 

Massengo, Dasilva (if he can keep himself fit), Bentley, Semenyo?

If this alone isn't frustrating enough, another area of our own failings is the list of former players who are now playing for team's above our current position:

- Bryan

- Reid

- Pack

- Flint

- Ayling

- Freeman (Sheff Utd, on loan at Forest)

- Webster

- Kelly

- Fielding

- Korey Smith

One man within the club is responsible for our decline over the past few years. 

It's time for SL to make the decision. Remove MA, and Back NP.

Give Pearson the opportunity to form the structure he has achieved previous success with. Allow him to approach the likes of Shakespeare and Walsh. Create an environment that allows Pearson to achieve something special. 

 

 

 

Recruitment has been very patchy but yesterday Weimann, O’Dowda, Mawson, Dasilva, Paterson, Walsh, Williams, Baker and Martin were missing (and Hunt, Adelakun, Brunt and a few younger players like Pring and Nurse if you want to count them all).
We’ve been playing for much of the season with half a squad. It’s not surprising we are struggling.
 

When you talk about ‘this squad’, remember half of them are in the treatment room. The team/squad that was playing yesterday was a mish mash of free signings, out of contract players and youngsters who aren’t ready.

[AshtonRobin21]

3 hours ago, firstdivision said:

Recruitment has been very patchy but yesterday Weimann, O’Dowda, Mawson, Dasilva, Paterson, Walsh, Williams, Baker and Martin were missing (and Hunt, Adelakun, Brunt and a few younger players like Pring and Nurse if you want to count them all).
We’ve been playing for much of the season with half a squad. It’s not surprising we are struggling.
 

When you talk about ‘this squad’, remember half of them are in the treatment room. The team/squad that was playing yesterday was a mish mash of free signings, out of contract players and youngsters who aren’t ready.

It's a good point, however if you look at our squad as a whole (including players that are injured), the issue of 'assets' remains the same. 

The likes of Baker, Walsh, Weimann (Option), Fam, Hunt, Watkins, Adelakun (Option), Mariappa, Simpson etc are all out of contract. 

Fam should have been sold at the start of the season, at the latest. To lose our once record signing for free is a key indicator to MA's failure to negotiate new contracts with key players. 

Over the past few years we have seen Bryan, Reid, Fam and Brownhill all run their contracts down to the final year. 

You can't build a competitive squad when key players are running contracts down on a regular basis. These are the players we are supposed to be keeping and building a squad around. 

This is an area we have struggled with in recent years, and player turnover has been huge. 

Pearson needs the opportunity to build his own squad, and as LJ once said, it's going to take a number of transfer windows to do that. 

MA should not be a part of future transfer dealings. Bring in Walsh (if interested) and see what Pearson can really do with HIS choice of players. 

[CotswoldRed]

10 hours ago, milo1111 said:

The whole DNA diatribe is hilarious. How completely stupid does MA look now. 
 

This whole mess has been slowly building since cotts left. Most of our big money sales were not brought in by Ashton and whilst he got good fees for them the recruitment side of things has been largely underwhelming for all the talk of our stellar team of analysts.

Not only have our replacements been no better than what we have let go I’d say many are far inferior. Picking up on Dave’s last point I’d be amazed if that ever happens with Ashton still playing god with our incomings . 

This. 

You'd think we had a data-centre, number crunching endless stats, working out which players we needed to buy, the way MA used to bang on about it. 

Well, we now have a bunch of donkeys on the pitch with just a few exceptions. Players with very little value, on contracts they could never earn again. 

Some "system" we have. 

I'd liken it to hifi/audio equipment. There are people who buy, say, an amplifier based in its specificationa alone and never hear it before purchase. There are others who buy based on what it sounds like and care not for spec. 

In that analogy its better to trust your ears. In BCFCs case I think they've bought on specification/stats, rather than watching the player with their own eyes. 

[firstdivision]

20 minutes ago, AshtonRobin21 said:

It's a good point, however if you look at our squad as a whole (including players that are injured), the issue of 'assets' remains the same. 

The likes of Baker, Walsh, Weimann (Option), Fam, Hunt, Watkins, Adelakun (Option), Mariappa, Simpson etc are all out of contract. 

Fam should have been sold at the start of the season, at the latest. To lose our once record signing for free is a key indicator to MA's failure to negotiate new contracts with key players. 

Over the past few years we have seen Bryan, Reid, Fam and Brownhill all run their contracts down to the final year. 

You can't build a competitive squad when key players are running contracts down on a regular basis. These are the players we are supposed to be keeping and building a squad around. 

This is an area we have struggled with in recent years, and player turnover has been huge. 

Pearson needs the opportunity to build his own squad, and as LJ once said, it's going to take a number of transfer windows to do that. 

MA should not be a part of future transfer dealings. Bring in Walsh (if interested) and see what Pearson can really do with HIS choice of players. 

It's worth remembering that there will be often be a big turnover of players/out of contract players because three-year contracts are pretty standard, so you're always looking to renew/sell after two years. Players have a strong incentive NOT to re-sign. Unless you give them massive wages, which brings its own problems. And you have to be prudent over the length of a contract. Four years - and you have to be pretty certain of the player's value/ability. 

My feeling is that the squad - if fully/largely fit - is strong enough to compete in this league. The injuries have had a massive impact on this unique season. 

I think some of the signings have been poor - eg Brunt, Lansbury - but some were stop gaps because of the injury problems (Mariappa, Simpson, Lansbury). Chris Martin is an interesting one. Worthy of debate.

The Williams signing looked a good one, but it's proved very frustrating.

As for Fam - not quite sure what's gone on there.

I think it becomes a gamble a year out from the end of a contract. Will he re-sign? If he doesn't, will he still score enough goals to make letting him run down the contract worth it? Can we find someone better/as good for the much-reduced fee we would have got for him last September/this January? Those are the internal debates in the club. He's scored some vital goals this season without which the table would be looking very grim.

[Tin Soldier]

10 hours ago, milo1111 said:

The whole DNA diatribe is hilarious. How completely stupid does MA look now. 
 

This whole mess has been slowly building since cotts left. Most of our big money sales were not brought in by Ashton and whilst he got good fees for them the recruitment side of things has been largely underwhelming for all the talk of our stellar team of analysts.

Not only have our replacements been no better than what we have let go I’d say many are far inferior. Picking up on Dave’s last point I’d be amazed if that ever happens with Ashton still playing god with our incomings . 

For me it is simple.
SL historically always wanted yes me “in charge” (if you want to call it that). Steve Cottrell most certainly was not a yes man. So they got shot of him. Probably one of the best managers at City IMO. 
Along comes Ashton who quite frankly talks bollox, hides away when times are bad (at least SL fronts up and I respect him for that), then to add insult to us fans, Ashton rears his ugly head whenever there is a whiff of a good news story at AG. 

Several on here have defended Ashton and slagged me off on numerous occasions but now that you have laid your bed, you have to lie in it boys!

SL now has to fall on his sword and get rid of Ashton, which I doubt he will do. Allow NP time to unpick the mess and bring in his own back room staff because it is ain’t just the players on the pitch remember.

[AshtonRobin21]

4 minutes ago, firstdivision said:

It's worth remembering that there will be often be a big turnover of players/out of contract players because three-year contracts are pretty standard, so you're always looking to renew/sell after two years. Players have a strong incentive NOT to re-sign. Unless you give them massive wages, which brings its own problems. And you have to be prudent over the length of a contract. Four years - and you have to be pretty certain of the player's value/ability. 

My feeling is that the squad - if fully/largely fit - is strong enough to compete in this league. The injuries have had a massive impact on this unique season. 

I think some of the signings have been poor - eg Brunt, Lansbury - but some were stop gaps because of the injury problems (Mariappa, Simpson, Lansbury). Chris Martin is an interesting one. Worthy of debate.

The Williams signing looked a good one, but it's proved very frustrating.

As for Fam - not quite sure what's gone on there.

I think it becomes a gamble a year out from the end of a contract. Will he re-sign? If he doesn't, will he still score enough goals to make letting him run down the contract worth it? Can we find someone better/as good for the much-reduced fee we would have got for him last September/this January? Those are the internal debates in the club. He's scored some vital goals this season without which the table would be looking very grim.

All very good points. I agree that not all signings have been bad, Some unfortunate with injuries. The likes of Williams should be a key feature in the team next season. 

My frustration is with the likes of Wells and Nagy. Both were brought in for decent fees (£4m and £2.5m I believe). However, both are not playing to their value and haven't done for the majority of the season. Nagy is one that can be brilliant on his day, yet I still get the feeling he hasn't settled in to living here (I feel Pearson's comments about personal situations may be linked). That's £6.5m of wasted talent currently. 

It will be interesting in the summer. The free agent market is there to be worked, and is more appealing this year due to some of the names available that clubs cannot retain due to their own financial difficulties. The likes of Ash Fletcher, Nick Powell, and Kadeem Harris are individuals I would be looking at. 

Ash Fletcher may not be a regular goalscorer, but I've always been intrigued by his all round style of play.

Nick Powell will have half the division chasing his signature. Would like us to throw our hat into the ring. He has abit of everything, 12 goals from Midfield so far this season, great technical ability, and able to frustrate the opposition (as we saw first hand). 

Kadeem Harris is a player who won't get plaudits, and perhaps statistics aren't faltering, but he isn't afraid to get at the opposition. Currently Semenyo seems our only option for this currently. Wells played his best football at QPR when he had creative sparks playing alongside him who would drive forward at the opposition. If we had these types of players, I believe we would see a different version of Wells. 

 

[Nongazeuse]

12 hours ago, AshtonRobin21 said:

It's time for serious questions to be asked as to how the money has been spent from those big money departures over the years. 

This is a topic many of have been aware of for some time. But today's result really drove that message home. This squad is miles off the required standard to be competitive in this league. 

Often the only positives to be said about MA's role at the club is "he gets good money when selling players".... However, I fail to see any of that money used to replace the quality lost. 

We currently find ourselves with a squad of players with minimal resale value, and a serious lack of quality. 

Over the years we have sold the following for big money:

- Kodjia

- Webster

- Flint

- Brownhill

As well as academy graduates:

- Kelly

- Bryan

- Reid

I would question how many of those players have been replaced adequately?

We have not only failed to replace those players with similar ability/potential, but have also lost the passion and spirit that many of those players displayed for the club. 

How many 'assets' do we currently have at the club? (I would define this as players who could be sold for more than their purchase price). 

Massengo, Dasilva (if he can keep himself fit), Bentley, Semenyo?

If this alone isn't frustrating enough, another area of our own failings is the list of former players who are now playing for team's above our current position:

- Bryan

- Reid

- Pack

- Flint

- Ayling

- Freeman (Sheff Utd, on loan at Forest)

- Webster

- Kelly

- Fielding

- Korey Smith

One man within the club is responsible for our decline over the past few years. 

It's time for SL to make the decision. Remove MA, and Back NP.

Give Pearson the opportunity to form the structure he has achieved previous success with. Allow him to approach the likes of Shakespeare and Walsh. Create an environment that allows Pearson to achieve something special. 

 

 

 

But most of these are hardly pulling up trees for their new clubs - maybe excepting Ayling and Webster. Reid and Bryan are hardly ever selected for Fulham.  Kelly looks promising but not worth the fee we got.  The others are on the downward slope of their careers although I would have Flint back as we are aerially weak. 

[Davefevs]

2 hours ago, AshtonRobin21 said:

It's a good point, however if you look at our squad as a whole (including players that are injured), the issue of 'assets' remains the same. 

The likes of Baker, Walsh, Weimann (Option), Fam, Hunt, Watkins, Adelakun (Option), Mariappa, Simpson etc are all out of contract. 

Fam should have been sold at the start of the season, at the latest. To lose our once record signing for free is a key indicator to MA's failure to negotiate new contracts with key players. 

Over the past few years we have seen Bryan, Reid, Fam and Brownhill all run their contracts down to the final year. 

You can't build a competitive squad when key players are running contracts down on a regular basis. These are the players we are supposed to be keeping and building a squad around. 

This is an area we have struggled with in recent years, and player turnover has been huge. 

Pearson needs the opportunity to build his own squad, and as LJ once said, it's going to take a number of transfer windows to do that. 

MA should not be a part of future transfer dealings. Bring in Walsh (if interested) and see what Pearson can really do with HIS choice of players. 

Is a very valid point.  Brownhill didn’t quite get to final year, but a fixed fee clause at the start of his final year necessitated selling him in January.  But I get your point.

How many of the current first team squad brought in by MA / LJ have extended their contracts?

Just three.  Callum O’Dowda, Taylor Moore and Jamie Paterson.  Moore took a 50% wage cut to get an extension too.

Of the other signings, who’ve now left, who else?

Just one.  Josh Brownhill.

That’s 4 out of 52 signings (free or fee, not loans).  I’m being slightly disingenuous because the 52 do include youngsters too.  Players like Bakinson and J.Smith did too, but we are talking 4 in 40 senior players.  In 5 years!!!

In the period Ashton has been here, only Korey Smith and Marlon Pack of the existing senior players extended their contracts too.

Notwithstanding the players who we exercised options for and then then go for free, Bailey Wright, Matty Taylor. Next up Liam Walsh???

We do of course tie our Academy / youngsters in, e.g. O’Leary, Morton, etc.

The contract strategy for our first team is a complete disaster though.  Suggests we are an easy club to earn a decent wage and then walk for free.  That is not the strategy that SL lays down.  The person responsible for executing that strategy is Mark Ashton.  Bluffer extraordinaire!!!

 

[SuperRed]

1 hour ago, CotswoldRed said:

This. 

You'd think we had a data-centre, number crunching endless stats, working out which players we needed to buy, the way MA used to bang on about it. 

Well, we now have a bunch of donkeys on the pitch with just a few exceptions. Players with very little value, on contracts they could never earn again. 

Some "system" we have. 

I'd liken it to hifi/audio equipment. There are people who buy, say, an amplifier based in its specificationa alone and never hear it before purchase. There are others who buy based on what it sounds like and care not for spec. 

In that analogy its better to trust your ears. In BCFCs case I think they've bought on specification/stats, rather than watching the player with their own eyes. 

To me this is epitomised by the signing of Nagy. I bet his running stats were off the chart but 5 minutes would be enough to see he lacks the physicality for the championship. 

[AshtonRobin21]

1 hour ago, Nongazeuse said:

But most of these are hardly pulling up trees for their new clubs - maybe excepting Ayling and Webster. Reid and Bryan are hardly ever selected for Fulham.  Kelly looks promising but not worth the fee we got.  The others are on the downward slope of their careers although I would have Flint back as we are aerially weak. 

It's not about how they are doing for their new clubs. These players performed well for us and haven't been  replaced adequetly. 

The point I make about the players sold who currently play for team's above us, is that they were considered valuable assets (large money) or not good enough by the likes of Ashton and Johnson (Freeman and Ayling etc) who were sold for extremely low fees. 

 

[Davefevs]

42 minutes ago, SuperRed said:

To me this is epitomised by the signing of Nagy. I bet his running stats were off the chart but 5 minutes would be enough to see he lacks the physicality for the championship. 

Nagy’s data internationally:

in Italian / Hungarian club football:

For City:

 

The mount of passes is lower for City, and worryingly this has tailed off this season big time to around 34 p90.

[GrahamC]

1 hour ago, Nongazeuse said:

But most of these are hardly pulling up trees for their new clubs - maybe excepting Ayling and Webster. Reid and Bryan are hardly ever selected for Fulham.  Kelly looks promising but not worth the fee we got.  The others are on the downward slope of their careers although I would have Flint back as we are aerially weak. 

Reid has started 21 Prem games this season plus 5 sub appearances. 

That is by far the majority, he is integral to the way Fulham play.

Putting it another way I don’t think we currently have a player that would play so often if they were at a Prem club.