Recruitment - is ours really as good as we think?

[mozo]

4 minutes ago, italian dave said:

Good players, yes. Top 6 Championship players….not so sure.

I think the issue is that Mehmeti, Knight and Roberts have potential to be top 6 Champ players but that could take time, so in the here and now we might need to adjust the expectations. The same applied to other young players like Bell, Tanner and Sykes.

I don't think anything is stopping Dickie being part of a successful side.

[Davefevs]

8 minutes ago, italian dave said:

To what extent though do you think covid screwed our adherence to the buy cheap sell high model? I get what you’re saying about the risks that are inherent in it, and take the point that there are no guarantees. But, in practical terms we’d been successfully selling an asset right up to the point where covid came along.

I know you asked Harry, but I think we’d run out of assets to sell when Covid hit….so all Covid did was impact our other revenue streams.

The buy cheap / sell high model wasn’t being adhered to.

We might’ve sold a few players high, but we’d stopped buying cheap, and we bought multiple players too.  Hence why I bleat about net spend being an inaccurate way of comparing managers.  Sell one, buy 6, costs you 6 players wages too, not just the fees.

I’ve said it before, covid just sped up the awful financial situation we were heading for.  The trend of our financials was worrying before covid.

[Oh Louie louie]

19 minutes ago, italian dave said:

Good players, yes. Top 6 Championship players….not so sure.

Dave its August they haven't even played five games, both have the potential to be that level, thats the aim this year after all

[Oh Louie louie]

Im glad we agree dave all good players, saw more hunger from them in pre season than I saw from two of the Chelsea signings who didn't want to be here ftom Day one in two years! Hopefully come good

[italian dave]

1 hour ago, mozo said:

I think the issue is that Mehmeti, Knight and Roberts have potential to be top 6 Champ players but that could take time, so in the here and now we might need to adjust the expectations. The same applied to other young players like Bell, Tanner and Sykes.

I don't think anything is stopping Dickie being part of a successful side.

 

46 minutes ago, Oh Louie louie said:

Dave its August they haven't even played five games, both have the potential to be that level, thats the aim this year after all

You’ve got to hit the ground running Louie!!

And, you’ve both made judgements about them (“good” and “potential”) after only 4 games, so I don’t see why I should be criticised for doing so in response!

Seriously, I know it’s early, which was why I deliberately said ‘not so sure’.

I just remain to be convinced that any of them, including the ones you mention Mozo, and who we’ve seen a bit more of, are going to be players to get us challenging seriously in the top 6.

I hope I’m wrong, but the thought of another year or more in an uninspiring 14th to 16th place while we find out, never mind the prospect of finding out I’m right, just fills me with gloom. 

[Oh Louie louie]

Was just agreeing with you they were good tbh, wasn't any criticism one of those days here, I see

[Son of Fred]

On 19/08/2023 at 21:35, Dr Balls said:

I know that there has been a bit of a “love-in” for Tinman and his recruitment over the summer, but when seen against the players brought in by other teams, ours looks a lot less impressive.

So many supporters judgements are clouded (understandably) by the fact a player was an influential part of a decent side/era & all that goes with it, memorable cup victories are just one obvious example..

At this juncture in our relatively recent history,and all that's come with it, means recruitment is at the sharp end/pivotal to direction of travel.

Brian Tinnion now finds himself,not for the first time, with all eyes on him..

The jury is very much out.

[italian dave]

13 minutes ago, Oh Louie louie said:

Im glad we agree dave all good players, saw more hunger from them in pre season than I saw from two of the Chelsea signings who didn't want to be here ftom Day one in two years! Hopefully come good

That would be the two who so didn’t want to be here that they both saw out their contracts with us, racking up 250 appearances between them? One of whom played in two promotion winning sides. And the one whose career got off to a flying start before being sidelined by managers playing a style of football which just didn’t suit his strengths. And who played a central part in Coventry achieving a top 6 place.

They are all good players Louie. I just don’t get this obsessive need to somehow ‘prove’ that one player is good by slagging off another one. It happens so often on here - managers too.

They are all different. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. But to suggest that players like Kalas and Dasilva and Palmer aren’t good players and don’t have a hunger to succeed is, sorry, nonsense. 

[Oh Louie louie]

Blimey Dave jay and Kasey 250 appearance's apparentl seems a awful lot,  are you suggesting they were value for money?

[italian dave]

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

I know you asked Harry, but I think we’d run out of assets to sell when Covid hit….so all Covid did was impact our other revenue streams.

The buy cheap / sell high model wasn’t being adhered to.

We might’ve sold a few players high, but we’d stopped buying cheap, and we bought multiple players too.  Hence why I bleat about net spend being an inaccurate way of comparing managers.  Sell one, buy 6, costs you 6 players wages too, not just the fees.

I’ve said it before, covid just sped up the awful financial situation we were heading for.  The trend of our financials was worrying before covid.

Always good to hear from you Dave!

I get what you’re saying and yes it did seem like we decided in 2018/2019 that it was the time to really go for it, so strayed outside the model by buying expensive too, but at the same time stuck to the model when we had the chance to sell players we’d previously bought cheaply! All a bit odd.

Being devil’s advocate, I’d suggest that we didn’t entirely stop buying cheap, but that the definition of ‘cheap’ had become very different. Football finances just went crazy pre covid, and it’s easy to forget that. £1m was nothing back then.

I take your point about net cost, but I wasn’t disregarding that in what I said. I was deliberately trying to keep it simple! But the principle still holds that if you acquire 10 players at a gross cost of x, and sell one of them for x +10% then the model works.

Had we nothing left? It’s speculation of course, and by its nature you don’t always know who’ll make it. It took barely a year for Webster’s value to increase manyfold. We had Semenyo. And worst case scenario we’d have been able to make a profit on players like Kalas or Diedhiou.

I’m not fundamentally disagreeing with you and my nature, like yours and Harry’s, is more cautious: I go back to Des Williams days!! But I also think back to the fact that so many other clubs were doing what we were doing and it’s easy to forget that too. Some got over it better than others: thinking of three that were taking the risks we did, Reading are clearly now in a worse position than us, but Birmingham (on the evidence of Saturday) seem stronger and Forest certainly so. So I just wonder whether the cautious ones like you and me and Harry never actually make it to the PL!!

[italian dave]

8 minutes ago, Oh Louie louie said:

Blimey Dave jay and Kasey 250 appearance's apparentl seems an awful lot,  are you suggesting they were value for money?

250 Kalas and Dasilva. What I’m really suggesting is that the way in which discussions about current players (or managers) get sidetracked by slagging off previous players (or managers) is pointless and tiresome.

We were discussing whether Roberts, Dickie, Knight are good, promising, top 6 players. I’m not sure what a derogatory comment about players we signed 4 years ago adds to that discussion. 

[Oh Louie louie]

Well you were happy to discuss how many games they played and what good servants they were,

[Nathandao]

I think the only player we have actually replaced with an equivalent or better alternative in the past 5 years is Flint with Webster, and we only had Webster for a season before he moved on and left another hole.

All of the other 'Top 6' capable players we have had have not properly been replaced. We looked lost when Brownhill left, Reid, Bryan and Semenyo were all significantly better than their replacements imo.

And now we have the best player I have seen in a city shirt to replace, I'm not sure people realize how much of a hit losing Scott is going to be.

So no, I don't think our recruitment is as good as we think...

[Maldini]

Apologies if I've missed this but what is our actual recruitment/scouting set up at the moment? Think I read a post that the head is someone who hasn't scouted before? Any idea how many scouts we have? How does that compare with the average for a champ side?

Also, why were the club interested then dropped the fans scouting group Harry is involved with?

[mozo]

4 hours ago, italian dave said:

 

You’ve got to hit the ground running Louie!!

And, you’ve both made judgements about them (“good” and “potential”) after only 4 games, so I don’t see why I should be criticised for doing so in response!

Seriously, I know it’s early, which was why I deliberately said ‘not so sure’.

I just remain to be convinced that any of them, including the ones you mention Mozo, and who we’ve seen a bit more of, are going to be players to get us challenging seriously in the top 6.

I hope I’m wrong, but the thought of another year or more in an uninspiring 14th to 16th place while we find out, never mind the prospect of finding out I’m right, just fills me with gloom. 

I don't think the friendlies helped because watching our lads spanking lower league opposition didn't help moderate expectation levels.

The talk from the club has been about top 6 too, but these first three games have serves a reminder of how attritional the season will be, and we definitely haven't looked like a top 6 side in those games. 

Could things just click? Maybe.

 

[Oh Louie louie]

Some optimism at last mozo, nige commented the other day, different mentality at the club now, by that I think he means all the wasters been shown the door, I think things could click

[Davefevs]

4 hours ago, italian dave said:

Always good to hear from you Dave!

I get what you’re saying and yes it did seem like we decided in 2018/2019 that it was the time to really go for it, so strayed outside the model by buying expensive too, but at the same time stuck to the model when we had the chance to sell players we’d previously bought cheaply! All a bit odd.

Being devil’s advocate, I’d suggest that we didn’t entirely stop buying cheap, but that the definition of ‘cheap’ had become very different. Football finances just went crazy pre covid, and it’s easy to forget that. £1m was nothing back then.

I take your point about net cost, but I wasn’t disregarding that in what I said. I was deliberately trying to keep it simple! But the principle still holds that if you acquire 10 players at a gross cost of x, and sell one of them for x +10% then the model works.

Had we nothing left? It’s speculation of course, and by its nature you don’t always know who’ll make it. It took barely a year for Webster’s value to increase manyfold. We had Semenyo. And worst case scenario we’d have been able to make a profit on players like Kalas or Diedhiou.

I’m not fundamentally disagreeing with you and my nature, like yours and Harry’s, is more cautious: I go back to Des Williams days!! But I also think back to the fact that so many other clubs were doing what we were doing and it’s easy to forget that too. Some got over it better than others: thinking of three that were taking the risks we did, Reading are clearly now in a worse position than us, but Birmingham (on the evidence of Saturday) seem stronger and Forest certainly so. So I just wonder whether the cautious ones like you and me and Harry never actually make it to the PL!!

Summarising:

Can see why we did what we did, but boy did we poorly execute it.

If we’d have sold player x and bought player y (ready) and player z (project) that would’ve made a lot of sense.  Instead we stockpiled multiple players because we had no identity, so didn’t know what we really wanted, so tried to cover all bases, and more!!

Summer 2018, seemed a well structured recruitment.  Predominantly Hunt (y), Weimann (y) , Webster (y) and Maenpaa (y) to add experience and replace Flint, Reid and Bryan…together with projects of Eisa (z) and Adelakun (z).  Watkins, who knows.  That had logic in the main.

But by the end of the window, never satisfied, we went and got Dasilva and Kalas on loan too, Palmer at Xmas iirc.

We just spent because we had nobody stopping us and asking us to solve problems with what we had in-house.

And when I say “we” / “us”, I mean “they”

Summer 2019 was just beyond madness.

 

Edited August 21, 2023 by Davefevs

[italian dave]

40 minutes ago, mozo said:

I don't think the friendlies helped because watching our lads spanking lower league opposition didn't help moderate expectation levels.

The talk from the club has been about top 6 too, but these first three games have serves a reminder of how attritional the season will be, and we definitely haven't looked like a top 6 side in those games. 

Could things just click? Maybe.

 

Agree with that, and expectation levels for both fans and players? It’s not the first time that’s happened: you’d think we might learn!

And thanks for reassuring me that I haven’t imagined hearing that from the club too. I’d be very surprised if there was the kind of “top 6 or you’re out” ultimatum that saw LJ get the sack a matter of 3-4 weeks after being there! Clearly unrealistic given the resources and the strength of the Championship this season. And so far we’ve been pitted against teams that in many ways our our ‘equals’: no parachute payments and, in the case of Birmingham, the financial legacy of an attempt to go for broke.

And we haven’t even started on the likes of Leeds, Southampton, Leicester, Norwich!

It’s going to be tough. Yes, I always hope it will click! I don’t care who’s playing for us, who’s managing us, that’s always my hope! It’s seemed to happen a few times in the past couple of years - we’ve suddenly put together a little run of not just results but where we also start to play some attractive football. And then it just peters out. I don’t know why we can’t sustain that.

I guess there’s a lot of luck involved - and some of those ‘fine percentages’. It would be nice to have a run with a settled side without injuries forcing changes - we’ve so missed that for years now. And a dubious penalty or two in our favour would help - karma if that happened on Friday!

[Oh Louie louie]

4 hours ago, italian dave said:

250 Kalas and Dasilva. What I’m really suggesting is that the way in which discussions about current players (or managers) get sidetracked by slagging off previous players (or managers) is pointless and tiresome.

We were discussing whether Roberts, Dickie, Knight are good, promising, top 6 players. I’m not sure what a derogatory comment about players we signed 4 years ago adds to that discussion. 

Dave fevs has just given a lowdown on the 2019 seasons signings, be interesting to see what Italian Dave says about this, talking about the past is not on as he has clearly stated

[italian dave]

46 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Summarising:

Can see why we did what we did, but boy did we poorly execute it.

If we’d have sold player x and bought player y (ready) and player z (project) that would’ve made a lot of sense.  Instead we stockpiled multiple players because we had no identity, so didn’t know what we really wanted, so tried to cover all bases, and more!!

Summer 2018, seemed a well structured recruitment.  Predominantly Hunt (y), Weimann (y) , Webster (y) and Maenpaa (y) to add experience and replace Flint, Reid and Bryan…together with projects of Eisa (z) and Adelakun (z).  Watkins, who knows.  That had logic in the main.

But by the end of the window, never satisfied, we went and got Dasilva and Kalas on loan too, Palmer at Xmas iirc.

We just spent because we had nobody stopping us and asking us to solve problems with what we had in-house.

And when I say “we” / “us”, I mean “they”

Summer 2019 was just beyond madness.

 

Yep!

On that first point (identity) I do think that was a massive part of the problem. We ended up with effectively two teams. Which is fine: it's what most sides at our level do. But the objective is two teams that mirror each other, so that when one player is out there's ready made replacement: ready made as in suits the style, formation, playing pattern. We seemed to somehow end up with two entirely different teams, different style, different formation, different playing styles!

I guess Dasilva was maybe the Bryan replacement (I can't off the top of my head recall who else we had around at the time). I just have a sense that 2019 was the point where we decided it was go for broke; reflected in the very clear 'top 6 or you're out' for LJ. And presumably decided that we weren't going to do that using 'the model' alone. And in that context someone like Kalas probably makes sense: especially so after an impressive loan spell. And although you say "They", I don't recall too many of "us" being anything much other than delighted when we signed Kalas and Dasilva!

But, yes, the change of model, plus the totally scattergun approach, and - even taking on board your comments earlier - I still reckon the final nail in the coffin was choosing the worst possible time to have done that, with all that came down the tracks 6 months on!

[italian dave]

1 hour ago, Oh Louie louie said:

Dave fevs has just given a lowdown on the 2019 seasons signings, be interesting to see what Italian Dave says about this, talking about the past is not on as he has clearly stated

I don't I've ever suggested we shouldn't talk about the past. I can do it all day long. And in the context of a discussion about our changing recruitment policy it's clearly relevant.

What I've suggested isn't helpful is framing discussions about a current player in terms of "well at least he isn't was bad as xx past player". 

And when that just degenerates into emotive comments about "wasters" it's even less helpful.

[Oh Louie louie]

Boring long winded and a massive goal post mover above

[Oh Louie louie]

All this, after you quoted it was tiresome unreal

[Davefevs]

39 minutes ago, italian dave said:

Yep!

On that first point (identity) I do think that was a massive part of the problem. We ended up with effectively two teams. Which is fine: it's what most sides at our level do. But the objective is two teams that mirror each other, so that when one player is out there's ready made replacement: ready made as in suits the style, formation, playing pattern. We seemed to somehow end up with two entirely different teams, different style, different formation, different playing styles!

I guess Dasilva was maybe the Bryan replacement (I can't off the top of my head recall who else we had around at the time). I just have a sense that 2019 was the point where we decided it was go for broke; reflected in the very clear 'top 6 or you're out' for LJ. And presumably decided that we weren't going to do that using 'the model' alone. And in that context someone like Kalas probably makes sense: especially so after an impressive loan spell. And although you say "They", I don't recall too many of "us" being anything much other than delighted when we signed Kalas and Dasilva!

But, yes, the change of model, plus the totally scattergun approach, and - even taking on board your comments earlier - I still reckon the final nail in the coffin was choosing the worst possible time to have done that, with all that came down the tracks 6 months on!

Think we ended up with more than two teams and then had to send players on loan…to which we then brought in another to block the returning loanees pathway.

Re Dasilva loan, that is fair.  We sold Bryan after the first game.  We only really had Kelly.

I guess the issue was we spent that we spent £14m (plus wages) on the three Chelsea boys to retain the status quo of the previous season.  I had no complaints with the signings themselves, I just thought we overpaid for Kalas and Palmer.  Dasilva I thought was cracking value.

The annoying thing for me is the timing of SL deciding to restrict budgets.  And I don’t mean going shit or bust.  But another couple of Knight, Dickie, McCrorie profile players is probably all that’s needed to get us to that next level of competitiveness.

[italian dave]

2 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Think we ended up with more than two teams and then had to send players on loan…to which we then brought in another to block the returning loanees pathway.

Re Dasilva loan, that is fair.  We sold Bryan after the first game.  We only really had Kelly.

I guess the issue was we spent that we spent £14m (plus wages) on the three Chelsea boys to retain the status quo of the previous season.  I had no complaints with the signings themselves, I just thought we overpaid for Kalas and Palmer.  Dasilva I thought was cracking value.

The annoying thing for me is the timing of SL deciding to restrict budgets.  And I don’t mean going shit or bust.  But another couple of Knight, Dickie, McCrorie profile players is probably all that’s needed to get us to that next level of competitiveness.

Ha ha...I'd forgotten the loanees team as well...make that three!!

And, Lloyd Kelly...of course. How could I have forgotten him: I loved watching him play, as much as any player at City in recent years. I feel so bad now...I've let him down .  As it happens, we'd probably have been OK, but yes would have been a big risk to be reliant on him at the start of that season.

Fair enough on Kalas: I just think that was what you had to pay at the time for a defender of his quality; some of the money being splashed around by Championship clubs was silly and we just joined in. Palmer, yes, especially given that we were never going to utilise his strengths anyway!

I know just what you mean on the budget: it's SL though, isn't it? I'm by no means anti SL, especially when you look at some (most) of the alternatives. But, again, he seems to switch from one extreme to another. There's been a debate on another thread about his managerial appointments, and whilst not wishing to re-start here on the quality, what I think you can say is that they've represented complete changes of style and philosophy every time.

 

 

[Dr Balls]

1 hour ago, italian dave said:

Ha ha...I'd forgotten the loanees team as well...make that three!!

And, Lloyd Kelly...of course. How could I have forgotten him: I loved watching him play, as much as any player at City in recent years. I feel so bad now...I've let him down .  As it happens, we'd probably have been OK, but yes would have been a big risk to be reliant on him at the start of that season.

Fair enough on Kalas: I just think that was what you had to pay at the time for a defender of his quality; some of the money being splashed around by Championship clubs was silly and we just joined in. Palmer, yes, especially given that we were never going to utilise his strengths anyway!

I know just what you mean on the budget: it's SL though, isn't it? I'm by no means anti SL, especially when you look at some (most) of the alternatives. But, again, he seems to switch from one extreme to another. There's been a debate on another thread about his managerial appointments, and whilst not wishing to re-start here on the quality, what I think you can say is that they've represented complete changes of style and philosophy every time.

 

 

Not all of the managerial choices have really been those of SL. Cotterill wasn’t his man, and after backing him in League 1, he chose not to in the Championship, when the prices were significantly higher.

It does seem like we are now seeing something very similar with Nige, which considering the impressive job he has done of tidying up the mess left by LJ and Ashton and their profligate spending just feels very unfair. I could be proven wrong in the next 10 days, but it really wouldn’t surprise me if we don’t bring in anyone between now and the end of the transfer window.

[Mr Popodopolous]

On 21/08/2023 at 00:12, Harry said:

 

Right. Ok I think I now understand your question. 
What your asking is that, we currently operate a model of A) look for lower league bargains, B) Sprinkle with the occasional youngster released from a prem team and C) Top it with a bit of experience. 
And the question is, under that model, has the relaxing of work permits and the lack of financial regulations had a negative impact? 
Is that about right? 
 

If that’s the case my answer would be this :

We’ve flipped and flopped from one strategy to the next countless times under Lansdown. The buy cheap, sell high philosophy was a nice one on paper but you’re screwed as soon as you don’t get the big money sale (as we’ve seen the last 2/3 years prior to Semenyo and Scott leaving). Much is made of the financial state we got ourselves in but it was basically because we were running a model that relied on us selling an asset at least once a season. Never guaranteed! 
 

So, is our model the correct one? Far from it. Should we have been quicker to react to the work permit regs - absolutely. Are we shooting ourselves in the foot by restricting our spending, particularly with  the lack of new regs - yes, but to be honest I actually morally agree with that. I’d rather we lived within our means, but I guess if you do that in this league you go backwards, so that’s a tough call. 
 

I do firmly believe though, that even by being frugal we could still have done a lot better in recent years. I wouldn’t have paid large wages to certain players and would instead have looked for lower paid younger players who could easily fulfil what those older high wage players have done. So whilst we’ve not spent as much as other clubs in fees, I still think we’ve not used the money as wisely as we perhaps could have. 
There are flaws in every model, but if ours is to shop in certain places (ie Primark rather than John Anthony’s) then we must enter those shops and pick up the best garments on the rack, and not still be in the end of stock sales section of an already discounted store. 

Yeah I wasn't too clear in the first place perhaps. That is the gist of it yeah, thanks.

The switching up of philosophy? Totally agree. It is a bit feast and famine for sure or has been. Splurge, austerity, splurge, austerity.

Yes agreed. Covid didn't assist but we also ran out of key players to sell. If is a risky game, one bad year and a side can be screwed badly. Not necessarily one I'd advocate.  Suppose if extremely finely balanced but not for me really.

Agree with that. A bit of quicker reaction yet I'm conflicted because it is also a delight to see so many new and some not so new hut now regular academy players. Credit to Tinnion, NP,  SL, LJ and anyone else I may have forgotten. O'Leary, Vyner, Pring, Bell.

Then we add the injured Benarous and Conway. The two superb players in Scott especially and to an extent Semenyo who have gone to the PL (yes I know Guernsey and SGS but we played our part). We should take a lot of pride as a club really.

Just need that balance, as you say a bit quicker with work permits for one- the odd PL loanee perhaps to add something different. The slowness of change to financial regs we can flex it a little- 5 players out of contract next summer isnt it?

As well as TV money rising for Championship clubs so we can flex it a little. Do believe that literally as close to breakeven as possible over time is no bad thing, just feels a risk in the current League climate. Of course that then depends on how far as long as within FFP SL wants to take it.

Agreed. We have to seek to get the best of what we can get if we are all in, although Naismith older e.g. or James a good influence perhaps.