Did We Miss A Trick ?

[foghornred]

Just wandering if we missed a trick by not using the loan system ?

HULL CITY - Frazier Campbell,Craig Fagan,Mark Tyler and Simon Walton.

STOKE CITY - Carlo Nash,Chris Riggott,Jay Bothroyd and Shola Ameobi.

WEST BROM - Roman Bednar,Bosjan Cesar,Michal Danek and Kim Do-Heon.

BRISTOL CITY - Tomas Vasko.

Several of the players on loan played a large part in their promotion,not least Campbell setting up Windass at Wembley.

Personally I would have pushed the boat out to get a goal poacher in(lita).

Do you think that we should have gone into the loan market and who for ?

[EmersonsKev]

I don't think so. Johnson has built the tightest dressing rooms I have ever seen at Ashton Gate. He is very sceptical on letting any new players into it hence his interviews when buying players. As for loan players the current players know they are not there for the long haul and may not take to them and would be detrimental to the unity.

I personally don't think we have missed anything this season, we can sit here now in the cold light of day disecting every little thing but we were 90mins from the promise land. No one on earth believed we could do it in August except the players and staff and they were so so close.

I now think we need to look forward and not back. Tomorrow we can effect, yesterday is history!

[walshy-shuffle-carl-shutt]

There was a good argument for bringing in loan players but i think GJ got it right and its doubtful any player we bought would have had a huge impact given the time it usally takes a player to adapt.

Besides look at Shola A he must be a candiate for the most overated player of all time( well maybe not all time but you get my drift.) Stroke also said they would buy him if they got to the prem for £6m which they are now backing away from but if they cant then they will be stuck with him and will have cut their spending power drastically from say £15m( actual fee not including wages.) to £9m which is huge. Brings a smile to my face when i think about it.

So given that yopu have to say he got just about right if not spot on.

[City1970]

I agree yesterday is history and tomorrow we can affect. I also agree that Johnson has built a solid dressing room. But the three sides who will be playing Premier League football next season used the loan system well. I believe we should have used the loan system when we were top. Top sides always strengthen even when they are top. WBA did it with Luke Moore, Stoke did it with Ameobi. One thing that is good about history is that you can learn from it.

[walshy-shuffle-carl-shutt]

I agree yesterday is history and tomorrow we can affect. I also agree that Johnson has built a solid dressing room. But the three sides who will be playing Premier League football next season used the loan system well. I believe we should have used the loan system when we were top. Top sides always strengthen even when they are top. WBA did it with Luke Moore, Stoke did it with Ameobi. One thing that is good about history is that you can learn from it.

yeah Stroke did it alot i read somewhere that they olny had two players left from the sqaud that started the season in the starting line. That is unbeleivable where does that leave them now alright there in the prem but what bout all those loans signings they will need buying or re-leasing back to parent clubs then they will have a huge problem.

As for SA Stroke don't want him and its not hard to see why he cant hit a barn door or a cows arse with a banjo £6M you are having a laugh Santa Cruz only cost £3.5m and Benni McCarthy the same.

[Nibor]

In a way yes we did miss a trick because a quick striker could have made the difference towards the end of the season - we were only a few points off automatic.

The problem with loans though is the sort of striker we needed isn't available on loan mid-season, the only reason a team lets a striker like that go is to get first team football or because they want rid in the summer. That usually means they lack match sharpness or are recovering from injury.

Rather than loans I think our missed chance may have been not shelling out cash in January to bring that second striker in. If we'd activated Ebanks-Blake's contract clause where would we be now?

The other side of the coin though is that you can't say that any signing would have definitely improved us because making too many changes does disrupt a squad - if the players we have are all working hard (and they surely were) but see many signings coming in they could lose motivation. It's easy to say we should have signed someone but GJ got the absolute maximum out of his players and we were picking up points by tiny margins all season - a slight drop in morale could have upset that fine balance.

I don't think it's really fair to GJ and the club to worry over what could have been, they beat all of our expectations by a million miles. As long as we strengthen this summer I'm happy and I think we can challenge in the top 6 again next season even in a tougher division.

[foghornred]

We only used 26 players in the whole campaign,the least in the championship,which shows that we have a tight knit team but also a very small squad that could do with a bit of strengthening.

This could have been done in January instead of this close season.

[WarksRed]

i didn't think we used as many as 26 . but ..

thinking it through we probably did, we did use 3 keepers

[edson]

In a way yes we did miss a trick because a quick striker could have made the difference towards the end of the season - we were only a few points off automatic.

The problem with loans though is the sort of striker we needed isn't available on loan mid-season, the only reason a team lets a striker like that go is to get first team football or because they want rid in the summer. That usually means they lack match sharpness or are recovering from injury.

Rather than loans I think our missed chance may have been not shelling out cash in January to bring that second striker in. If we'd activated Ebanks-Blake's contract clause where would we be now?

The other side of the coin though is that you can't say that any signing would have definitely improved us because making too many changes does disrupt a squad - if the players we have are all working hard (and they surely were) but see many signings coming in they could lose motivation. It's easy to say we should have signed someone but GJ got the absolute maximum out of his players and we were picking up points by tiny margins all season - a slight drop in morale could have upset that fine balance.

I don't think it's really fair to GJ and the club to worry over what could have been, they beat all of our expectations by a million miles. As long as we strengthen this summer I'm happy and I think we can challenge in the top 6 again next season even in a tougher division.

Trouble is, he had a court case hanging over him for assault (and still does, as far as I'm aware) for which, at the time, he was rebailed for a February 7th hearing.

£1.5m is a big lump to spend on a player who could have been behind bars within a few weeks, so I can understand why Gary wasn't in for him.

[bh_red]

Just wandering if we missed a trick by not using the loan system ?

HULL CITY - Frazier Campbell,Craig Fagan,Mark Tyler and Simon Walton.

STOKE CITY - Carlo Nash,Chris Riggott,Jay Bothroyd and Shola Ameobi.

WEST BROM - Roman Bednar,Bosjan Cesar,Michal Danek and Kim Do-Heon.

BRISTOL CITY - Tomas Vasko.

Several of the players on loan played a large part in their promotion,not least Campbell setting up Windass at Wembley.

Personally I would have pushed the boat out to get a goal poacher in(lita).

Do you think that we should have gone into the loan market and who for ?

Yesterday's news, which has been discussed endlessly,

for those 3 clubs that have made loan signings you total miss Charlton who made a number of loans signs and prior to doing so, were doing VERY WELL!

as for Lita, you clearly missed the part where we made a move to sign him, but the player turned us down to join Charlton.

personally I don't think we should have made a loan signing as based on the majority of those loan moves that were made very few actually proved succesful, Bednar and Cambell being the only decent ones made by any of the teams when alot of the players who moved did little/nothing or made the situations worse for their clubs.

Happy with our performances this season and the team.

[bh_red]

Trouble is, he had a court case hanging over him for assault (and still does, as far as I'm aware) for which, at the time, he was rebailed for a February 7th hearing.

£1.5m is a big lump to spend on a player who could have been behind bars within a few weeks, so I can understand why Gary wasn't in for him.

that was my exact view in January.

a player with a ABH charge hanging over him, isn't like to be the "type of person" that GJ was going to risk bringing in.

plus to be honest, even if we had made a move, I'd have been suprised if a player would have chosen us over wolves at the time.

[GrahamC]

We only used 26 players in the whole campaign,the least in the championship,which shows that we have a tight knit team but also a very small squad that could do with a bit of strengthening.

This could have been done in January instead of this close season.

Not only did we only use 26, 4 of them were Henderson, Betsy, Jevons and Russell and you'd be hard pressed to remember their few league appearances.

What GJ did extremely well was having a tight knit squad that give everything and more, a loan striker may have just provided the little bit extra we needed but it is just as likely that they would have contributed to us as much as Ameobi did at Stoke.

[Andy Horsman]

Additionally, in 2006/2007, Birmingham benefitted from having the likes of Bendtner on loan.If, as has been mentioned, history is there to be learned from, the examples are there. Let's not forget, too, that initially Ishmael Miller was a loanee at WBA, as was Ryan Shawcross at Stoke. Both were signed permanently in January.

GJ doesn't appear to favour short-term loans and we have had some howlers in recent years, but long-term loans can be highly beneficial, such as Campbell at Hull.

The fortune is finding available players who want to come to your club on this basis, and then being able to afford their wages.

[grubby]

We definately did miss a trick BUT I think that loanees SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED to play in any end of season playoffs! Fair enough for a loan player to help you out regular season, with injuries and suspensions and JAIL, but imo not when it comes to playoffs! This is not sour grapes, I was saying before the playoffs began!

[foghornred]

The term 'Emergency' is a joke it should only be used for goalkeepers etc. For Charlton to bring in Leroy Lita on an emergency loan is bending the rules over backwards untill they almost break.

[edson]

They aren't emergency loans.

That rule only applies in the Premier League. In the Football League, players can be signed on loan outside the transfer windows.

[edson]

GJ mentioned the emergency loans that other teams had made and there was much discussion of it on here.

There seems to be a lot of confusion regarding these loans..

Yeah, there is. But the rules are pretty clear:

• Premier League and SPL clubs have until midnight on Wednesday 31 January to sign players. English Football League clubs have the same deadline for full transfers, but not for loans. English Conference clubs are not bound by the transfer window system.
  
• After midnight on 31 January, Premier League and SPL clubs cannot sign any players, on loan or full transfers, until one minute past midnight on 1 July. This window will stay open until midnight on 31 August.
  
• Clubs in the Football League can sign players on loan outside of the transfer windows.
  

[edson]

Have you got a link to where that came from Huw ?

Yeah. It came from the BBC website's deadline day rules page.

Link

[edson]

A quick google chucked this up ;

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11668_3097616,00.html

There are dozens of other examples..

Confusing.

It sounds to me like a confusion brought about by the fact that the media is only interested in the Premier League, so assumes its rules apply to everyone else.

The rules themselves seem pretty clearcut.

[elhombrecito]

Top sides always strengthen even when they are top. WBA did it with Luke Moore, Stoke did it with Ameobi.

Yes, for a total of zero goals.

[Nibor]

It sounds to me like a confusion brought about by the fact that the media is only interested in the Premier League, so assumes its rules apply to everyone else.

The rules themselves seem pretty clearcut.

I think it's a little more complex.

I remember reading that there is a loan deadline for league clubs much later than the transfer deadline after which only emergency loans can be made. And those really are emergencies - keepers mainly.

Seems to me the confusion is that people assume anything after the transfer deadline is an emergency when actually it's anything after the loan deadline.

[SE23Red]

The phrase Emergency Loan applies to any loan outside of the FIFA transfer windows under the agreement between the Football League and FIFA.

Very rarely is it a real emergency but I guess it needed to be sold to FIFA on that basis (small squad sizes etc) for us to have loans outside of the window at all.

[edson]

I think it's a little more complex.

I remember reading that there is a loan deadline for league clubs much later than the transfer deadline after which only emergency loans can be made. And those really are emergencies - keepers mainly.

Seems to me the confusion is that people assume anything after the transfer deadline is an emergency when actually it's anything after the loan deadline.

I think the transfer window closes on January 31st and no deals can be made after this date.

However, the loan window for league clubs then reopens in early February (it was February 8th this season) and any league club can loan a player from any other English club, including Premier League clubs, from this date until the last week of March (27th this season).

This window seems to be referred to as the 'emergency loan window', even though it doesn't have to be deemed an emergency by the football league for it to go through.

Loans made in this window can be made for a maximum of 93 days.

[Nibor]

I think the transfer window closes on January 31st and no deals can be made after this date.

However, the loan window for league clubs then reopens in early February (it was February 8th this season) and any league club can loan a player from any other English club, including Premier League clubs, from this date until the last week of March (27th this season).

This window seems to be referred to as the 'emergency loan window', even though it doesn't have to be deemed an emergency by the football league for it to go through.

Loans made in this window can be made for a maximum of 93 days.

What I'm saying is, that after the loan window is closed, loans can still be made and those are the ones that have to be emergencies. People mistakenly refer to ones during the loan window as emergencies when they aren't.

[SE23Red]

What I'm saying is, that after the loan window is closed, loans can still be made and those are the ones that have to be emergencies. People mistakenly refer to ones during the loan window as emergencies when they aren't.

In the eyes of FIFA they are all emergencies...

[edson]

What I'm saying is, that after the loan window is closed, loans can still be made and those are the ones that have to be emergencies. People mistakenly refer to ones during the loan window as emergencies when they aren't.

Ah right. We agree then.... I think.

[downendcity]

Forget about emergency leasons. The issue about season long loans, and others, begs the question when is a loan not a loan?

I am sure the transfer window was introduced to prevent the clubs with the most financial clout being able to buy their way out of trouble, or reinforce promotion bids during a season where other, less wealthy clubs might not be able to afford to do.

However, I saw Newcastle fans on forums saying that stoke paid a £750000 fee to take Ameobi on loan till the end of last season. What's the differnece between that fee and a normal transfer fee in terms of the spirit of the rules?

The whole issue about loans is in danger of becoming a complete farce, as it appears that with the right advice a club can drive a coach and horses through the loan rules. In these cases, a club's geographical location becomes pretty important as if you are in and around London then there is a pool of players who wouldnt have to uproot families to take a loan spell at another club in the same general area. The same applies to clubs in the midlands, north east and north west. Down in the south West we are a bit out on a limb and I suspect will not be so competitive in the loan market.

[Nibor]

I'm not sure why the transfer windows were introduced, I can't see that they benefit any club, manager, player or fan. They seem utterly pointless to me.

I agree loans are a farce. I think only two types of loan should be allowed:

- Season long loans of players 21 or under to a club in a lower division which cannot be recalled except in case of season ending injury - maximum of 3 in and 3 out per club and only 2 allowed in the starting XI.

- Keepers when a club has no keeper over 18 fit for a match.

It's not right that the old boys network allows certain managers to bring half a dozen players on loan that the club cannot afford permanently.

[mossey]

I don't think so. Johnson has built the tightest dressing rooms I have ever seen at Ashton Gate. He is very sceptical on letting any new players into it hence his interviews when buying players. As for loan players the current players know they are not there for the long haul and may not take to them and would be detrimental to the unity.

I personally don't think we have missed anything this season, we can sit here now in the cold light of day disecting every little thing but we were 90mins from the promise land. No one on earth believed we could do it in August except the players and staff and they were so so close.

I now think we need to look forward and not back. Tomorrow we can effect, yesterday is history!

but I wonder if people are going to feel the same next season, if , heaven forbid, we are in the bottom half of the table, are the fickle fans going to look back and say that it was a great opportunity missed, and if only we had signed that goalscorer.