Davefevs

My MOTM Too. Bodes well for next season. I turned on the radio just as he (Ian) had his called “politely ended” by the BBCRB guy. Carthorses? Klose is a ageing thoroughbred. Atkinson has a strange running gait, but Rennie confirmed he’s one of the quickest at the club. Cundy did pretty well again tonight. The two up top for Sheffield were bloody sharp first half, little one-two’s, dummies and spins, etc. I thought the three coped incredibly well.

He was fouled in the initial challenge, but stayed up, didn’t get it.

Can Peterborough or Barnsley catch Reading too? Unlikely, but would be good if the other team with deducted points went down.

Pring and Vyner doing shuttles, suggests they aren’t in the 18??? Idehen??? Tanner???

I’ve mentioned before, recruitment is strong. Will be interesting to see how much their wage bill has grown this season. Rhodes won’t have come cheap wage-wise (free transfer), plus Lees, Pearson, etc, plus the likes of Colwill on loan. But you reap what you sew. They bit the bullet first season down, getting rid of the high earners, for good fees, e.g. Karlan Grant, etc…basically laid the foundations for Corberan to come in and set the next part of the plan. Still getting PPs helps too. They didn’t panic last season, but we all saw the positive signs, even if you only watched the two games against us…they lost both, but they were all over us for 60-70% of both games.

Moore, to his credit, went on a “mentality” course a couple of close seasons ago (might’ve been during covid layoff), but not sure it has paid off. At least he has tried to better himself.

Don’t know. Looks like he’s played CB from his Eng u17 days.

For me, part of his problem is that he’s got a bit “top heavy”, a bulky, and lost a bit of agility. I know bodies change over time, but he had a nice athletic build when he came here. He looks very different nowadays. Shame,mad he can pass the ball pretty well from the back, had a bit of pace too. But alas, his time looks over here.

So, does that mean - Lg1 with minus 15….plus penalties for any future indiscretions?

Certainly none on sale currently.

Still agents to deal with. Still a cut to be taken!!!

A few agents, but for a man who talked about fishing in big ponds, he used bait that only caught certain fish!

Even so, I don’t reckon the remaining players recoup £28m though. Do you?

They signed Alex Sabella instead!!! One for you oldies. Sharp would be a good test for Cundy and Atkinson today. McBurnie was great for Swansea a few seasons back, but Gibbs-White is the key-man, been v.good this season. Today might suit Massengo putting pressure on an increasingly slowing-down Hourihane. Got to say George Baldock has impressed me over the past couple of seasons. Thought he would live in his brothers shadow, but he’s probably one of the best RWBs in the champ. Hope we play with some confidence. Nige hinted at a couple of changes (Williams being one of them). Wonder if Martin gets a rest too? Wells or Conway? Personally I’d like to see Weimann play with Semenyo and Benarous come into a genuine MF3.

Kodjia said as much too.

At least it’s in their own hands. If they can win, then suddenly they have a great chance. Agreed, would be good to have a good Away trip…I don’t do many, but that would be one I’d try to get tickets for.

I think the original quiz question was “how many have been successes”, rather than the financial outcome. The answer is very few. From a purely financial aspect….Ashton’s Modus Operandi….it’s just Webster, that’s one single player of those we paid £1m or more for. There are some more borderline successes financially, Magnússon, Eliasson, even Eisa if you look at fees alone. Of those players yet to be sold, who might turn in a sizeable transfer profit? A few might turn a couple of million, but that’s it. If you add “success on the pitch” you get a more blurred view, more that push towards “okay” / “meh”….but when you push the mantra of world class recruitment like MA did, it’s clear the results are far from world class. We’ve seen his “grifting” at Ipswich already. At least at City he got to sell other people’s players, e.g. Kodjia, otherwise god knows what shit we’d be in. (caveat - I added Atkinson, even though he was post-Ashton) This made me laugh this morning!

One of the things I started to put together a while ago was a bit of a “recruitment family tree”, e.g. who signed when and who were they meant to replace / cover, the logic behind each. I always look back at the strikers and can rightly see the Abraham in then Kodjia going, but quite how a combo of Gustav Engvall, Matty Taylor, Jamie Paterson (secondary striker), Milan Djuric, Famara Diedhiou, Cauley Woodrow, and Louis Diony all came in within 18 months of each other, and were all registered at the same time….yet Bobby Reid transpired to be the best of the lot!!! Only Engvall wasn’t available as he’d gone on loan. That really was kid in a sweet shop.

£57.800m spent (22 players) £29.000m recouped (10 players) - minus sell-ons, e.g. Webster’s sell-on to Ipswich reduces this amount. (filtered on players £1m+) Can have a right royal debate on how many are / were a success. Guess, two main lenses: - on the pitch - financial (inc wages etc) ??? (For info, I’ve recently realigned some fees by going back to the club accounts, so they are in a reasonable ball-park).

I have a list! ?

I do too….as I say, it’s rarely black and white. Having said that, the carefree spending over a period of 3/4/5 years is a big reason we are where we are now. Who you want to attribute that to (or combination of people) and how much is more difficult. There is lots of talk about Pearson not coaching what he has or likes to delegate, but I would say what we have seen is that he will adapt….he’s on the training ground quite a lot by the looks of it, he’s happy to try the younger players, when perhaps in previous years the problem was solved by getting a new player in. That was the frustrating things for me as someone who’s watched the finances closely over a number of years and saw trouble brewing. I wanted Lee to call-out Ashton. Looks like at Sunderland the Defoe signing was against his wishes and perhaps he learned from his time here, even if it cost him his job. His next job will be interesting. I therefore think it was more the combo of LJ and MA and the period of time that created the negative side of things. Nige has frustrated me too, but I do put a lot of stock on the job he’s done on remedying the finances. For me that was priority one whilst keeping us in this division. I’m happy to sacrifice some of our form being a bit crap this season….probably next season too. But what I’m really interested in though is this summer. Want to really see creative recruitment lead to a solid team next season. We will start to move beyond “LJ’s time” over the next 12 months.

Always “allegedly” or “I’m guessing” when it comes to wages…as @Spoonsonce asked me “have you seen the contract”. We have a pretty hefty wage bill, the Chairman said we pay more than a club of our size should…so lots of 2+2!!! ?

Yawn (seems like posts are being deleted)

Allegedly, Morris was using drones to keep tabs on Nige, wasn’t it?

I suspect Moore is on a lot more than Vyner too. The latest contract he signed was after the one he signed which brought his halved wages back up to full levels. Would not surprise me if Moore on £8-10k p.w. Allegedly Hearts are contributing £7k p.w. for his loan! My guess for Vyner is half of that.