SE23Red

22 minutes ago, spudski said:

We look a lot weaker next season if we continue with our aging experienced players and loss of star players. 

Replacing them with hungry league 1 players doesn't give us that experience needed. 

The balance of youth and experienced quality players is being stretched imo. 

I agree. A lot of people have focussed on the 3-4 players quote from Tins but I was far more interested in the young, hungry 200 appearances ‘profile’ he identified. At best I think it’s unwise for us as a club to narrow the market down in this way. Shouldn’t it be as simple as who is the best player we can recruit for the positions we need to improve?

If I’m looking at player of the season candidates this season they have mostly come from the academy, but the two that haven’t are Wells and James. Atkinson is probably the pick of those recruited from lower leagues but wouldn’t be in my top 5.

I hope the recruitment team play a blinder and identify players who can come in at the top of the team from the lower leagues. But my fear is I’ve heard this plan before. In 2018 Ipswich appointed Paul Hurst from Shrewsbury with the plan of using his knowledge of the best of League 1 to build a new, younger, hungrier Championship team. He didn’t last until Christmas and Ipswich finished 24th.

3 minutes ago, Robbored said:

No…….who was he playing for?

Brazil

7 minutes ago, spudski said:

I said...'could'...not 'would'

I just get sick to death of watching our best players being sold on.

It does my head in.

It's all well and good selling...but you have to replace with players that will make you better. Then they have to develop and settle in...so another season gone. It's continual catch up. 

As a team in this league with no parachute payments, imo, the only way of being near promotion is if we develop and keep our assets together for a season minimum. What's the point otherwise.

We buy players, or develop through academy, and during that time we become an average team. As soon as we become good/better...we sell our best players. 

To continue selling we will never go up. No chance. 

It's just continual one step forward, 2 steps back. 

It's the hope that kills you.

 

But isn't our recruitment over the last three months exactly aligned to what you wish for? 

Given the media circus that is deadline day it's noticeable our latest deal for a first team player was way back in mid-July. As a club we basically took control of our own destiny, executed a recruitment plan early and then got to work on building a playing identity.

21 minutes ago, MarcusX said:

This is the biggest thing for me, it's not that we kept hold of everyone as such it's that we don't seem to have the disruption of players wanting out at the whiff of a big move. Rumoured interest in Antoine doesn't appear to have turned his head and I'm sure we've already heard Scott say he's happy to stay here and get regular football?

Whatever we're doing in the academy, we're doing it right. These kids have good heads and advice around them it seems. Now extend your contracts, have a good season and secure us a big deal next summer if that's what you wish to do.

I can't believe how much more enjoyable we are to watch. I'll take the frustrations of a last minute equaliser for the fact that 85 minutes on Saturday were the most fun I've had watching City in years.

I actually think a big part of this is an obvious change in culture at he club. If you have a CEO consistently delivering the message that all players are tradable, all players have a price, and all players will have their heads turned then it becomes self fulfilling.

Instead we now have the manager front and centre delivering a positive message about their talents and how determined we are to keep and develop them.

It won't stop our best talents leaving, but it must help them believe that staying is an appealing option!

23 hours ago, chinapig said:

You make a good case, though I would suggest that at Championship level an average 10 goals each for your front 3 is pretty good. Mitrovic is very much an outlier and history shows that sides get promoted without having a striker scoring 20 goals or more.

Of course the target for Liverpool's front 3 would have been much higher simply by virtue of the fact that they are some of the best players in one of the best teams in the world.

As to needing more, that might come from within perhaps through Semenyo having a full season and delivering more goals. But at the current rate we are among the higher scorers in the Championship so we don't actually need more goals imo.

We are unlikely to be able to afford strikers better than those we have anyway so for me the key to progress is to concede far fewer goals. Which seems to be Nigel's priority.

Doesn't matter if the target is too low at 30 if they get 40 between them

They've set their own target for next season now!

52 minutes ago, chinapig said:

What happens if you rely on a single striker for goals and he gets a bad injury or simply loses form? Mo Salah has had a bit of a bad scoring run by his standards but it's not a problem for Liverpool because their other forwards are scoring. Better to spread the goals around then.

And that one striker at Fulham is reported to be on £100k+ a week. 30 goals a season strikers are vanishingly rare and way beyond our reach.

Sure, not saying it's the direction we should go in, more pointing out that the 124% figure needs to be put in the context of the number of times our starting XI has included three of the 'strikers'. Of course their collective goal output is going to increase if they're all on the pitch.

The Liverpool example is a really good one because they also play with three up front. Do you think the target for Salah, Mane & Jota combined was only 30 goals? This is why the 124% stat is meaningless, the target of 30 goals is too low for a three, a stretch for a two, and outstanding for a one.

My real point is if our recruitment in the summer is going to be based on thinking the attacking unit is overachieving we're going to fail. Because for a three they're doing fine, but to progress we'll need more.

3 hours ago, GrahamC said:

Re the midfield maybe, but what’s realistic there?

None of James, HNM or Williams who are the 3 most regular picks in centre mid, are players with a track record of goal scoring, indeed one of them has never scored a single goal in senior football.

Completely get the target setting but if we expected these 3 to be the main picks (& the other obvious choice here, Andy King, clearly isn’t the goal threat that he was at his peak) then realistically James could maybe have 3 or 4, Williams possibly 1 but that’s about it.

Agreed. What stands out is we've played 3 from the strikers 'unit' for most of the season, so the picks in midfield will need to compensate for that and will be more defensive in their outlook.

It's why I'm less optimistic than some who say we're good up front but just need to sort out what's behind them. 30 goal output from a single striker would be outstanding. Needing three on the pitch to get that same output is probably no more than average.

To put it another way...Fulham have matched our three strikers' output with one player, giving them two extra players to deploy all season.

IMHO if we continue with three strikers on the pitch next season they need to be contributing 40+ goals between them for us to finish top half.

35 minutes ago, BTRFTG said:

As has amply been demonstrated by those who write about such matters FFP has NOTHING to do with protecting football clubs and their finances and is a wholly driven initiative to ring-fence elite European clubs from being threatened by nascent upstarts with rich backers. Always was, always will be.

Look at clubs finances since FFP was introduced and there are more on the brink now than ever (and that's nothing to do with the pandemic.)

If you don't believe me look no further than our own club, net liabilities approaching £130m, about to drop accounts reporting record losses, a wage bill recently significantly higher than turnover, with no realistic means of paying the owner back his 'loans' (sic).

Fair point, and I'd definitely be open to a scheme where owners were obliged to underwrite debt and projected losses more robustly. E.g. depositing funds with EFL or trusted third party. I wasn't arguing in favour of the current rules, just that it takes some balls to run your club in breach of them every year and then blame everyone else when it turns out this is unsustainable.

14 hours ago, BTRFTG said:

Interesting info but not sure if matters  aren't conflated between legal obligation to file at Companies House and the farce that is FFP.

This is key.

Loads of excellent analysis has been done on the paper money tricks MM has employed, but usually from the angle that Derby gained a sporting/competitive advantage from accounting differently to other clubs.

Administration is a different ballgame.

MM has spent years playing the rich man, bending rules to allow him to put as much of his money into the club as he could, as quickly as he could to chase the dream.

What I find amazing is, even having taken the club into Admin, he still doesn't appear to comprehend that FFP is there to protect clubs against people exactly like him. Of course a club operating outside of FFP rules is going to be hit worst by Covid. That doesn't make it Covid's fault!

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

So MA has gone into a club with 27 youngsters deemed good enough for a pro contract and has seen the need to pack the first team squad with senior players who won't even make the bench.

I'm so glad his ideas of what a healthy football club looks like are long gone.

10 hours ago, Davefevs said:

He’s done another media interview today with the local East Anglian press.

Both the press guys blowing smoke up his arse….about the hours he works, how many calls he took in a day, etc.

Having said that, if you didn’t know his previous form you might think it was all fantastic.

It seems like the majority of their fans are going with a very simplistic view that he"s done an amazing job in the transfer window and all the pressure is on Cook to deliver the promotion they believe this squad deserves.

So the quality of the recruitment won't get the scrutiny it deserves. I can't see this changing for at least a couple of years.

2 hours ago, mozo said:

Nice one Fevs. I just had a read.

One comment that resonated is "perhaps 19 signings was a bit excessive..."

Yes! How many of those signings were recruited because they fit very specific requirements? Is it possible that a load of them will soon become surplus to requirements and have fans scratching their heads wondering why they signed them, even if they were good players on paper? Will it be a squad or a team? We shall see...

Watching MA's post-window interview two things stood out:

When he addressed the suggestion high wages were being paid he replied "Let me be very clear" and then went on to say "A number of players have taken a pay cut". With Covid's impact on finances this is likely to be true, especially for the free agents. 'A number of' could be anything though, and it'll be the minority of the 19 for sure, because if it were the majority he wouldn't have missed the chance to say so.

When asked about Cook wanting a smaller squad he went into a monologue about how competition for places is a good thing and how he has delivered the additional staff to deal with all the additional players. The question was about what the manager thinks...the answer was all about what MA thinks...and what MA has delivered.

So enough clues are there that he's not changed. It will just take some time for their fans to apply the MA interview BS filter...starting by understanding what "let me be very clear" means!

48 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

Indeed. Successful is subjective in some cases. I have no love for Ashton but the hit rate is nowhere near as bad as that chart is suggesting.

It may be better worked with some “jury out” colouring but it’s also harsh to say Massengo, Williams (Ashley - on the basis of a free and did a solid job), Taylor (see price paid vs contribution), Weimann, Paterson etc aren’t successes based on overall club contribution. I’d also not say Ty is an unqualified success.

To look at “success” from another angle here, take Szmodics. Didn’t look good enough to me but we made a profit on him. Not a signing I’d make (and I think it was an Ashton signing to try and appreciate value), but do we argue it’s not a success when it’s made cash?

Theres plenty to hang Ashton on without going into something so subjective

Agreed. There are two different ways to analyse the chart. Row by row, trying to establish if a deal was good or bad misses the point IMO.

What is most telling to me is the length of it. Nobody will ever convince me we needed to do that much business during his tenure.

Especially considering when he joined us we had a close-knit squad of players with recent success, though at the level below. Now he has left we find ourselves rebuilding a squad identity he and LJ destroyed with the revolving door 'strategy'.

If he were as good as he thinks he is he'd have had the success without the volume.

Whats the verdict on Millen? We have all said our piece on Tins but could it be that he is less to blame than his number 2? After all, they are supposed to be working together but all i see from Millen is folded armed nonchalence. what say you all???

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It depends what Tinnion wants from him on a matchday. Last night he spent the first half in the directors box watching from there.

I don't have a problem with having only one animated figure on the bench. It must be easier for the players to be taking instructions from only one person. In fact I don't have a problem with no animation from the bench, it is all for show or stress relief and does little or no good.

I'm also a believer that if you have enough leaders on the pitch the manager and no2 need not do too much from the side. If the team is well prepared they should be able to do it themselves. As many a manager has said once they have crossed the white line it is down to the players. At the moment it seems that we don't have CB and CM pairings that can make any decisions for themselves or the team.

Millen should be judged by his performance on the training ground not on the touchline. If he is responsible for our defending at set pieces then I am getting concerned!