Recruitment recruitment recruitment

[GrahamC]

16 hours ago, chinapig said:

Even in the 70s Alan Dicks had Tony Collins as what these days we would call head of recruitment. His scouting network led to us finding the likes of Gow and Ritchie as youngsters as well as more experienced stalwarts of the promotion side.

Here we are 50 years later with nothing comparable. Passive or what?

In the interim it has been better than at present though.

I posted yesterday that for all the stick Uncle Pete Johnson got, who found Basso on the subs bench at Woking? Knew Jamie McCombe had a clause that made him available for £5k!!! Marvin Elliott £100k?

If you are the type who cannot credit GJ for anything (& there’s definitely a few on here), what about Keith Burt’s golden June in Cotts title winning season? Korey, Ayling, Freeman, Wade Elliott & Mark Little signed in the same fortnight l mean that almost seems like recruiting to a plan, doesn’t it?

Edited April 11, 2022 by GrahamC

[SecretSam]

18 hours ago, Davefevs said:

...I don’t think the likes of Wallace and Lawrence will come here over other clubs, regardless of how much we are willing to pay them.

We are in for a tough summer, even if we generate funds, because we are not attractive currently to other Champ players.

I think we might be attractive to those good up and coming Lg1/2 players, where smaller fee and wages might well be less financially burdening than a free transfer on big wages.  I sense Pearson thinks that type of player is already here / covered with the Academy boys and the signings of Tanner / Atkinson, and he’d like a few established Champ players…but that’s only my guess.

Absolutely. We aren't going to attract quality Championship players, we're too constrained wages-wise and we're not that attractive as a club. But signing like Atkinson and Tanner are entirely possible. But we have to accept that they are very rough diamonds, they will need time to settle, and will make mistakes. That's where having experienced players around them helps.

As for departures...I know everyone's talking about the obvious HNM, Scott and Semenyo possibilities, but we should also consider if Kalas, Bentley might also go. 

[SecretSam]

4 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

In the interim it has been better than at present though.

I posted yesterday that for all the stick Uncle Pete Johnson got, who found Basso on the subs bench at Woking? Knew Jamie McCombe had a clause that made him available for £5k!!! Marvin Elliott £100k?

If you are the type who cannot credit GJ for anything (& there’s definitely a few on here), what about Keith Burt’s golden June in Cotts title winning season? Korey, Ayling, Freeman, Wade Elliott & Mark Little signed in the same fortnight l mean that almost seems like recruiting to a plan, doesn’t it?

To be fair, Uncle Pete got quite a few wrong...

As for Burt's golden June - absolutely, spot on. But everyone admitted that we identified a whole series of players as targets that summer, and basically got the lot! That happens very infrequently, as does the fact that ALL of them performed at an astonishing level.

[KegCity]

I'm still yet to see anything from Williams aside from some individual good passes that he's a top end player. Guessing I'm missing something but don't get where his plaudits are coming from. We were a much better side when he and James were on the treatment table.

[GrahamC]

3 minutes ago, SecretSam said:

To be fair, Uncle Pete got quite a few wrong...

As for Burt's golden June - absolutely, spot on. But everyone admitted that we identified a whole series of players as targets that summer, and basically got the lot! That happens very infrequently, as does the fact that ALL of them performed at an astonishing level.

Pete Johnson certainly did & towards the end of GJ’s reign you could sense the desperation.

Doesn’t alter that we got back on track thanks to some absolutely inspired signings he found, such as the 3 I mentioned previously.

[chinapig]

12 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

In the interim it has been better than at present though.

I posted yesterday that for all the stick Uncle Pete Johnson got, who found Basso on the subs bench at Woking? Knew Jamie McCombe had a clause that made him available for £5k!!! Marvin Elliott £100k?

If you are the type who cannot credit GJ for anything (& there’s definitely a few on here), what about Keith Burt’s golden June in Cotts title winning season? Korey, Ayling, Freeman, Wade Elliott & Mark Little signed in the same fortnight l mean that almost seems like recruiting to a plan, doesn’t it?

Agreed but my point was that currently our set up doesn't even match up to 50 years ago.

[The Dolman Pragmatist]

21 hours ago, 1960maaan said:

It's always about recruitment, but you then need to get the best out of what you have. I'm not sure Pearson has done, though we have moved in the right direction. This is my thoughts on the team....

Keeper
Bentley: Good Championship keeper, has faults but could possibly play higher.

Defence
Kalas : Current International, though not always shown that.
Klose : With his experience should be easily good enough for solid mid table Championship
Atkinson : Shown some real promise, time will tell long term but I think he could be good.
DaSilva : Current form easily good enough for higher end of Champs.
Pring : I'm a fan, I think good enough for top end of Champs.
Tanner : Hopeful, but too early to tell.

Midfield
Williams : Should be nailed on good enough for the top of Champs, but we need to see his long term fitness.
Massengo : So much promise, I think he needs to nail down his position and if he does, who knows how high he can go.
Scott : Not been on it lately, but I think the team & formation or positions haven't helped. Will play higher.
Benarous : Too early, but hopeful
James : Could be the glue we need, should be easily good enough for mid table Champs.

Forwards 
Martin : I'm not a fan, but should be good enough to do a job.
Weimann : If he gets a chance to play up front, I can see another good year and good enough for upper Champs
Semenyo : I still see him being a bit in & out. Potentially Prem standard, on his day unstoppable .

Obviously this is my take on what should be the basis of our squad next year. Now looking at it , it does look like a squad that should be producing much better than it is. That Pearson isn't a hands on coach worries me a little, I do understand it can work, but I do wonder if it might lead to a struggle getting his ideas over. There definitely seems a disconnect between coach and team. 
This is why I wonder if the powers that be are considering the future.
Pearson has had plenty of time to affect all aspects of the team. There were/are major problems, but I would have hoped to see more direction shown. We will never know (until the book comes out) how much he has done behind the scenes, and there has been small improvements on the field. Whether there have been enough to give the Lansdown's confidence in him for the future , who knows. 
I'm not even sure where I stand, I wanted Paul Cook and still think he ticks all the boxes needed for a rebuild. I'd give him a Mulligan for Ipswich , for obvious reasons, but would he/we ?
Is there another stand out man for the Job ? Is there a stand out man that would take the job?

We are clearly not good enough. IMO the squad is good enough to be better. With no DoF or head of recruitment the rebuild will be put on the shoulders of a man that doesn't really do that. All feels a little Football Manager*.

 

 

* currently I've managed to take this squad though 6 games without a win , sooooooo ......

I think you’ve given quite a few players the benefit of the doubt.  Where you might think ‘should be good enough’ I feel ‘probably not good enough’.  The fact is that I think we could do better at this level in probably at least half of the players above, and I’m not talking about spending mega-bucks.  As said elsewhere, we need to go back to picking up gems that won’t cost us a fortune, as we did in 2014.

[GrahamC]

7 minutes ago, chinapig said:

Agreed but my point was that currently our set up doesn't even match up to 50 years ago.

Completely agree.

[Major Isewater]

22 minutes ago, SecretSam said:

To be fair, Uncle Pete got quite a few wrong...

As for Burt's golden June - absolutely, spot on. But everyone admitted that we identified a whole series of players as targets that summer, and basically got the lot! That happens very infrequently, as does the fact that ALL of them performed at an astonishing level.

We are much more attractive to certain players as a big club vying for promotion in the third division than a club without a history of success in the second division where the competition is fiercer. Putting our own love of the club aside , given a choice of clubs to join in our current division how many of you would have City in your top six ? Top ten? Twelve even? 
The same exercise in the third division and I would say most would put us in the top six or top ten at the very least. 

Edited April 11, 2022 by Major Isewater

[SecretSam]

39 minutes ago, Major Isewater said:

We are much more attractive to certain players as a big club vying for promotion in the third division than a club without a history of success in the second division where the competition is fiercer. Putting our own love of the club aside , given a choice of clubs to join in our current division how many of you would have City in your top six ? Top ten? Twelve even? 
The same exercise in the third division and I would say most would put us in the top six or top ten at the very least. 

Spot on, a big issue being that we don't have parachute payments and can't offer the same sort of wages as those clubs who do.

[Major Isewater]

17 minutes ago, SecretSam said:

Spot on, a big issue being that we don't have parachute payments and can't offer the same sort of wages as those clubs who do.

In our glory days of the First division we were amongst the highest payers , presumably the only way to attract the quality players to move here. We all know how  that ended up. 
We need to be smarter in our recruitment, the academy is starting to catch up with the level we’re at , which is a massive boost for us but we are still a way off signing consistently good players from outside.

 

[1960maaan]

1 hour ago, The Dolman Pragmatist said:

I think you’ve given quite a few players the benefit of the doubt.  Where you might think ‘should be good enough’ I feel ‘probably not good enough’.  The fact is that I think we could do better at this level in probably at least half of the players above, and I’m not talking about spending mega-bucks.  As said elsewhere, we need to go back to picking up gems that won’t cost us a fortune, as we did in 2014.

I said I may be being kind to some. 
The problem with finding those gems, I think it will be even harder now as a few will be shopping in the same area.  Plus, we are at a higher level now. That in itself makes it harder to find those gems that are ready to go.

1 hour ago, SecretSam said:

To be fair, Uncle Pete got quite a few wrong...

As for Burt's golden June - absolutely, spot on. But everyone admitted that we identified a whole series of players as targets that summer, and basically got the lot! That happens very infrequently, as does the fact that ALL of them performed at an astonishing level.

That summer we had a back room team in place to work with a plan, and a manager that had a clear idea of how he wanted to play. We recruited with a firm idea what we wanted. That was the last time for an age we had a real direction. Holden spotted problems, was was only able to paper over cracks.