repman

It'll be interesting to see how much staff turnover we see this summer at Colney. When Webber came in he brought quite a lot of people in in a short space of time, Weaver included. I think this time around there are better foundations but it also wouldn't hurt to get some fresh perspective in either.

The underlying numbers suggest the opposite though, there's certainly the factor of game state which would lead to us perhaps sitting back and conceding more shots while taking less but I think the difference is still pretty stark. Our xG difference in the first half since boxing day (last 20 games) comes out to an average of +0.25, so if we played like that for the full 90 we'd be around Ipswich but still below the other top 4 teams. In the 2nd half of games the average comes out at -0.15, which over a full 90 would equate to something like relegation standard. This has been even more apparent in the last few games, which I guess would lead us back around to the subs debate.

Really? I feel like we routinely fade as the game goes on, our default when sitting on a lead is to drop deep and I don't think I can recall many games this year where we've really ramped up the pressure in the last 10-15 minutes, even in games where we're behind. The most obvious case to me is Hull at home which was the opening day. I'm not sure it's strictly a fitness issue though. It's probably more to do with older legs, and more recently lack of subs, combined with us not being a possession heavy side like under Farke.

He doesn't though? His career mark is 48% vs Barnes' 37%, obviously a smaller sample size and there's some missing data too but considering SVH was also in his teens/early 20s for some of it then he's not exactly going to have full grown into his body by then. It's logical to suggest his physical game will improve as his body matures.

I doubt SVH is someone Knapper has been following for a long time considering his role at Arsenal wouldn't really have covered those bases. It's more likely he was one of a number of names on a list made by the recruitment department. The fact he'd had 2 good goalscoring seasons at a young age makes him somewhat of an outlier. That's probably what inspired the followed for a long time comment. When January came it was probably more a case of finding someone who was available on loan, rather than us getting the best possible target. What it did show though was that Knapper is going to go through the recruitment department for transfers and the manager's voice would no longer be the prominent one, as it has been every window since Webber joined bar last summer.

The main problem with Hwang was that he spent most of January in South Korea. With that situation going on it was hard to see him as an option.

Based off of this it's probably fair to say they've basically been the same player this season. The only real differentiators being some of the defensive counting stats, ie the aerials and clearances which are perhaps more indicative of team style. Also worth pointing out that Kenny has had a stint at CB which will pad those slightly (and dampen others). Kenny's carrying is better than Morsy too, probably the most underrated part of his game.

Our record did improve when Knapper walked in the door but truthfully we were pretty bad for a while even as we were picking up points. Only been the last 2 months when we've looked better.

It's funny how graphs can make things look to be fair, Kenny looks like the outlier but considering him and Sara have played basically the same amount of minutes it works out at him winning 7/8 more tackles over the course of the season. Nonetheless it's good to see them both grade out well here.

If we don't go up this year I think we are going to see lots of changes. I just can't see how we maintain such a high wage budget considering parachute payments will be no more. If that's the case, we will probably be looking to get as many high earners off the books, but considering most of them are 30+ that will be easier said than done. The first lot will presumably be done this summer with Gibson, Giannoulis and Batth all likely to be let go for nothing. We'll still need to plug the finances anyhow and that will have to come from player sales, at least 1 of Sara/Sarge/Rowe will go and possibly more than one if we need money to spend in other areas. I don't think Attanasio will be putting his pocket any more than he has done so far. If this is the situation we find ourselves in I don't think Wagner will be here, and I'm not sure he'd be massively keen either. We rolled the dice on this season and it might just pay off, but no matter the outcome I don't think we'll be doing similar again.

I really don’t see how Aboh or SVH for Barnes isn’t an improvement. He’s such a non threat at this point. As he’s probably staying on though I hope I reverse jinx him.

The SD shouldn’t interfere with selection, and I doubt Knapper is. However, the fact that the SD is the one who constructs the squad means you can at least force a managers hand more than they would like. Webber did this plenty of times with Farke, it was perhaps less obvious then as their success was tied into one another. I’m not sure that’s the case right now with Wagner & Knapper.

He’s injured more often than Sam Byram, that should say it all.

I think the squad how it is shaped now is much closer to what we've had in previous seasons. Going into the start of the season the squad had a lot of short term value but not much long term, especially when you consider the fact that the players with the most long term value will be the ones who have to be sold. Based off what he has done with his baseball team, Attanasio isn't going to want to dump money into the club year on year with no return. American sports teams are more prone to the boom and bust routine than football clubs, there's always a number of clubs who are going through various 'rebuilds'. This is something Attanasio has avoided doing with the Brewers over the past decade, save for the reset year they had when they brought someone new in to lead the team. With how results were going around the AGM, and the fact we chose not to sack Wagner then, it seems possible that the instruction for Knapper from Attanasio was to start a soft rebuild of sorts to make us competitive in a year or two instead of doubling down on the present. It's another area where Attanasio's experience with baseball comes in, the January window is in a way akin to the trade deadline. When you're on the outside looking in, as we were, you tend to stand still and not risk the future. If anything you might even be a seller and look to the next season.

People talk about Idah and that contract as if he was simply cashing in and has no care about his career at all. So many people here go on about how he has needed a loan over the years as if he was simply content with his role. He's been promised chance after chance and never really given it, players have been signed to jump ahead of him instead of giving him that role (Hugill, Sargent, Barnes). Some of them have worked but the contract he signed was as much the club, at least seemingly, committing to him. Six months later when he's been rotated every other week for Hwang and faced with the prospect of a return to being back up with Sargent back he finally says maybe he doesn't really believe that being here is the best thing for his career anymore. As Wagner said after he went, we don't want players who aren't 100% committed to the cause.

I'm fairly certain that's not allowed, the club has to submit squad lists and he's not on that and you can't change it during the season as far as I'm aware.

This bit feels the most true to me, realistically it's not that simple but I do think we have enough going forward to hurt any team and when we move away from that to protect a lead we are basically shooting ourselves in the foot. Interestingly we are ranked joint second for points won in games where we've fallen behind (https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/championship/punktenachrueckstand/wettbewerb/GB2/saison_id/2023/spiele/alle/plus/1). Only Ipswich are ahead and Leeds we have the same amount of points as. We have had more opportunities than Leeds to come from behind though. On the flip side, we've had the lead in 31 games this season, which is higher than both Ipswich and Leeds. Of those 31 games we've won 20, drawn 6 and lost 5. The 5 losses is joint worst in the league alongside Rotherham and Swansea (though we've led more times so again more opportunity to do so). Our average points from winning positions is 2.13, which is 16th best in the league so we do seem to struggle at maintaining leads. On the positive side though Coventry, perhaps our nearest playoff challengers, are actually worse than us with an average of 2.11 points.

I don't disagree that they're the better players but even the ones you mention I don't think harmed the team in any way. Kamara played 39 minutes across 3 games, 2 we lost 1-0 and the other was a 0-0 draw. He may have looked out of his depth but that's really not much of a sample size to go off, he touched the ball a combined 19 times in those games. Fisher came off vs Sheff Wed but I don't really remember him being that bad, when he's played he's looked fine to me, not as good as Stacey but that's hardly a criticism for a lad who was playing in non league last season. Springett is one where people I think have made their mind up already, if I remember rightly the criticism with the Leeds game was that he came on for Onel, who had their full back on strings for most of the game and once he went off we were worse for it. There's been an attitude amongst fans that when a young player comes in they have to produce the goods immediately, if not then they aren't good enough and shouldn't get any more opportunities. We went through this with Idah time and time again. The reality is that they're probably going to be somewhere in the middle. It's a risk but one that's worth taking, and one that this club has to due to the financial situation. Look at Kamara, 3 very brief appearances here but then with a good 5/10 games under his belt he was suddenly one of the star players for the best side in league one. The talent is there, you just have to challenge them.

I generally agree that you shouldn't throw players in before they're ready but I think there's plenty of evidence from the past 5/6 years here that throwing lads into the fire can be a good thing and they'll reward you greatly in return. Jamal Lewis was maybe 4 games into his senior career when he scored against Chelsea. Aarons made his league debut away at Ipswich when there was massive pressure on Farke, that same game Godfrey came on to play CB over Zimmermann. Omobamidele stepped in to the side with 8 games to go and thrived. Even last year Gibbs came into the side and looked good in that early spell. Jon Rowe had barely any minutes to his name before this season but he got the slightest chance and he took it completely. Maybe the current young lads on the bench won't work out as well as those listed (there's plenty of examples of them too over the years). What you can guarantee though is they'll give it their all whatever chance they get, and who knows they might even do something special in that time.

I think this is true but at this point I think Wagner is starting to do harm by not making some subs at the minimum. The players consistently look knackered out there towards the end of games, we drop deeper and deeper and hope we hang on. It worked against Ipswich but most of the other times it has not (certainly away from home). By running the players into the ground it's only making it worse. It may be the case that Wagner doesn't like the look of these lads in training, but he's made it pretty clear his hands are tied in regards to squad makeup. At this point he's basically resembling a fussy eater kid who won't eat their greens, insisting that he doesn't like them despite never trying them. This of course is coming from a guy who played Nunez up front for the first few months of the season and kept Sainz on the bench for 2 months before giving him a start, it's not unfathomable to me that he's prone to getting these decisions wrong once in a while.

Yeah I think your point about wages is true, I'm not sure there was going to be a need to ever sell in January but instead the trimming was done in the hope of getting younger players into the side to prepare for next season. I'd imagine that Knapper has seen the budget for next year (possibly a lot less than right now due to loss of parachute payments) and realised the problems in the squad. We have 4 or 5 players who are 30+ and on contracts that extend beyond the end of this season. Those deals won't be cheap and perhaps more importantly there going to be very hard to get out of. We do have some younger players who we could sell, the issue there is that if they go the money that comes in will presumably be used to cover losses instead of investing straight back into the team. Hence the need to re-open the talent pipeline as soon as possible.

I think this scene from Moneyball (and the rest of the movie) probably sums up what it's like at Colney between the two right now.

It’s almost certainly down to money, and Knapper trying to get a jumpstart on next season when there’ll be even less money. Even as we sit 6th the chances of promotion are pretty slim I would say. I think there are quite a few parallels to when Webber joined, an old expensive squad not quite meeting expectations on the pitch with the end of parachute payments on the horizon. The big difference is that Webber had a full season before parachute payments ended, this time we’ve spent significant 2 years straight trying to claw our way back to the prem. If we don’t go up we’re going to be forced to sell 2 or 3 of our best players, but how much of that money will be reinvested in the squad is another question. The need to get younger is based on the fact that we need to elongate our window of opportunity. The squad as it stands is in a win now shape, and I’m not sure we were ever close enough to say let’s push more chips in.

It's not like there's a plethora of options in the last few days of January to start with. The club were never going to spend on someone to be backup so it had to be a loan. SVH is basically the same mould as Kieffer Moore but he's significantly cheaper.

Is it though? That logic only works if you think that Wagner is infallible in his player choices, but this is a guy who played Nunez up front for months and kept Sainz on the bench for a good 2 months before giving him a start. Even now he seems to rather use Gibbs in any position other than his natural one.