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Samwam27

Have we waved the white flag

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Many on here agree the summer transfer window has been poor, two of those loans now having bee cancelled.

We are bottom of the league, and players recruited loaned back to clubs for remainder of the season.

To say we don't have money available for a Premier League campaign is royally ridiculous. Our model remains to try and bag bargain basement players, which clearly isn't good enough for the PL.

With Amadou off, we have to hope Tettey can stay fit as we have no cover (unless you count the natural replacement Godfrey there but Farke is blind to that option)

So had we waved the white flag before the season started, and more so, with recruitment targeted for next season, have we waved the white flag for our remaining PL campaign? 

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Most of the subs will have packed up and gone home the rest will ask to keep their tracksuits on knowing they won't break a sweat with the game time they'll get!

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The accounts are publicly available. We don’t have the cash available. Our owners do not subsidise the club whatsoever - they can’t afford to. 

I think you can succeed in the Premier League on a budget. Burnley are the best example of that. But to do it you need to recruit the right people. That absolutely hasn’t happened.

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37 minutes ago, Terminally Yellow said:

I think you can succeed in the Premier League on a budget. Burnley are the best example of that. But to do it you need to recruit the right people. That absolutely hasn’t happened.

Our recruitment this season hasn't been great, but the way we operate now is to scoop up players of high potential, who perhaps have lost their way. Usually they loose their way for a reason... i.e. Injury or Bad attitude. So it's always going to be 50/50 on the signing front. For every Amadou, there's a Byram. For every Buendia, there's a Franke. It's just about playing the numbers.

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43 minutes ago, FenwayFrank said:

Can I be the first to complain about the timing of today’s substitutions ?

Why are you complaining? I thought Farke was bang on with his subs today. Taking 3 players off to run down the clock and protect our 2-0 lead.

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Some loans you win, some you lose. Agree it's probably something like a 50/50 gamble. I suppose it depends on what impact they can make or getting established in the team (thinking Huckerby in his day and Duda in the current team). We can see with Sitti and McCallum signings the way our club is thinking (Sinani too possibly). Not sure about a white flag but their avowed strategy has certainly been honoured. They haven't wavered from what they set out to do. And before they did it they tried to explain it us all. We were not kept in the dark. On this occasion the club has communicated with its fanbase.

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The question I ask is are we stronger or weaker after each Window. Up to Amadou leaving without being replaced it was a ‘yes’, but now it’s a ‘no’.  Whether or not he was rated/used, Amadou still played 13(?) times, an option we no longer have.  Hopefully we do have enough, but it seems that we now need to be reliant on luck with injuries to see us through - that’s not good enough for me.  
As to the 50:50 thing, we are some way off that ratio.

Edited by Branston Pickle

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We’ve added Duda on loan to see if we can possibly get a run going........sensible.

We’ve added a sold experienced pro in Rupp.

We’ve not sold anyone of any note

We’ve bought two really good youngsters loaned back, with bags of potential to replace those players we know will be going to bigger clubs.

We’ve loaned out majority of our youngsters who will be promoted to the senior side next year to get first team football.

We are going to be relegated from where we were at the start of the window so yes the club under its current financial restrictions and model, it’s been a solid window for our club.

Edited by Indy
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2 hours ago, Samwam27 said:

Many on here agree the summer transfer window has been poor, two of those loans now having bee cancelled.

We are bottom of the league, and players recruited loaned back to clubs for remainder of the season.

To say we don't have money available for a Premier League campaign is royally ridiculous. Our model remains to try and bag bargain basement players, which clearly isn't good enough for the PL.

With Amadou off, we have to hope Tettey can stay fit as we have no cover (unless you count the natural replacement Godfrey there but Farke is blind to that option)

So had we waved the white flag before the season started, and more so, with recruitment targeted for next season, have we waved the white flag for our remaining PL campaign? 

Yes and yes. 

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Above are the transfers of Sheffield United. How many of them would you categories as a success? 

Luke Freeman - Doesn't start

Callum Robinson - loaned back to the championship

Ravel Morrison - loaned back to the championship

Oliver Mcburnie - The odd goal for £17m

Every club has hits and misses.

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Surely at some point you need to look at the first XI, which however you look at it has diminished in depth.  Rupp and Duda are definite upgrades on Roberts and Srbeny but then to lose a utility option without replacing it is just odd.  Rupp seems to be the answer to all roles, I just hope he’s up to it!

It’s great to get ‘ones for the future’ but it is results in the PL in the here and now which determine where we stand in the pecking order.  I can’t shake the feeling that we could and should have done better with our first team squad.

Edited by Branston Pickle

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1 minute ago, Bovril said:

Above are the transfers of Sheffield United. How many of them would you categories as a success? 

Luke Freeman - Doesn't start

Callum Robinson - loaned back to the championship

Ravel Morrison - loaned back to the championship

Oliver Mcburnie - The odd goal for £17m

Every club has hits and misses.

Every club has hits and misses, yes - but if your strategy is that you are going to go the frugal route you need a far better ratio of success as you can’t afford as many fails as we’ve had. Out of 5 summer transfers only one, Byram, can be classed as a success in the first half of the season, and two have gone.

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Just now, Branston Pickle said:

Surely at some point you need to look at the first XI, which however you lol at it has diminished in depth.  Rupp and Duda are definite upgrades on Roberts and Srbeny but then to lose a utility option without replacing it is just odd.  Rupp seems to be the answer to all roles, I just hope he’s up to it!

It’s great to get ‘ones for the future’ but it is results in the PL in the here and now which determine where we stand in the pecking order.  I can’t shake the feeling that we could and should have done better with our first team squad.

I don’t Branston, I’ve never thought realistically we would do anything but be relegated, the players have given it all, most are young enough to learn from this season and grow into good premiership players, Hopefully most with us.
 

Just look at all those above and around us how much have spent and two of those will come down with us with players who will either jump because they believe they’re too good for the championship or too expensive, they will be far worse off than us building now.

We are down look forward to next year and just enjoy the rest of the season.

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2 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

It's certainly not our football club waving the white flag.

No but more some of our fans.

Anyway, to say we have no cover for Tettey ignores Trybull and I'm guessing they think Rupp can do a job there too, hence happy to let Amadou go.

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17 minutes ago, hogesar said:

No but more some of our fans.

Anyway, to say we have no cover for Tettey ignores Trybull and I'm guessing they think Rupp can do a job there too, hence happy to let Amadou go.

I'm more concerned about the lack of centre back cover that this now leaves us with. 

With Godfrey suspended and Klose out injured... 

Why put ourselves in the position where an injury or red card to a centre back today leaves us short again, this time without Amadou to bail us out? 

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2 minutes ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

I'm more concerned about the lack of centre back cover that this now leaves us with. 

With Godfrey suspended and Klose out injured... 

Why put ourselves in the position where an injury or red card to a centre back today leaves us short again, this time without Amadou to bail us out? 

To be fair Godfrey is only suspended today. Then hes back. Rumoured are Klose isnt as far away as being made out either. 

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33 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

It's certainly not our football club waving the white flag.

In fairness Nutty, that's only because we can't afford the stick or the cloth.

Personally, I'm glad we haven't gone big in this window; some lessons have been learned from previous years. Proper business always needs to be sorted in the summer.

Glad we've got some young players in for the future.

OTBC

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The club have chosen to invest in the future, it’s pretty obvious they’ve taken a very low risk policy to build. Duda loan offset by releasing Amadou, buying in two youngsters then loaning them back and not selling any players is the club stating we go on budget we have and not taking any financial risk as they certainly see us back in the championship next season so I disagree that the club have given up, but I’m sure the players, manager will give every game maximum effort as indeed they should.

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But our club hasn't given up. This was always the way it was planned. All they haven't done is change that plan because we were bottom in January.

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6 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

But our club hasn't given up. This was always the way it was planned. All they haven't done is change that plan because we were bottom in January.

Exactly as I said they planned for us to be bottom, budgeted to make sure we don’t stretch and bought this January for next season.

Had we done a Sheffield and sit in 8th with 30 points I doubt this January spend would be as it has been so yes they are planning for next season a lower league.

Edited by Indy

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18 minutes ago, Indy said:

Exactly as I said they planned for us to be bottom, budgeted to make sure we don’t stretch and bought this January for next season.

Had we done a Sheffield and sit in 8th with 30 points I doubt this January spend would be as it has been so yes they are planning for next season a lower league.

You're suggesting that they plan year by year?! They'll have a five year plan in place... Webber will be looking at season 2023 to 2025. Nobody would have predicted promotion last season... this is a free hit on a longer plan which helped us move on dead wood, secure long term deals for our brightest talent, thus creating high value assets and step us forward on our LONGER TERM STRATEGY.

Sheff United... short term focus. This season they are doing great... do you think they'll reach these heights again next season?! Do you think that they'll be able to sustain spending at 22m for a single player? Financial Fair Play rules apply.

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2 hours ago, Branston Pickle said:

The question I ask is are we stronger or weaker after each Window. Up to Amadou leaving without being replaced it was a ‘yes’, but now it’s a ‘no’.  Whether or not he was rated/used, Amadou still played 13(?) times, an option we no longer have.  Hopefully we do have enough, but it seems that we now need to be reliant on luck with injuries to see us through - that’s not good enough for me.  
As to the 50:50 thing, we are some way off that ratio.

I think Rupp will offer more Amadou. Duda looks the biz. So overall I am not displeased with our signings this season.

 

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4 minutes ago, Michael Starr said:

You're suggesting that they plan year by year?! They'll have a five year plan in place... Webber will be looking at season 2023 to 2025

So the 5 year plan starts again each year? 

Its 2020 so we have a five year plan which lasts until 2025.

Does that mean that the 5 year plan which started in 2017 got cancelled? Or didn't he have one then? 

If the 5 year plan gets extended each year doesn't it become a 6, then 7, then 8 year plan, rather than an annual 5 year plan? 

Although I do agree with the premise that we've signed 2 young players for the future in this window (good, that's what we did when we signed Maddison and Godfrey), this "five year plan" thing gets bandied about on this forum a lot these days and yet we've never heard anything about there being a "five year plan" from Webber. 

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1 hour ago, hogesar said:

No but more some of our fans.

Anyway, to say we have no cover for Tettey ignores Trybull and I'm guessing they think Rupp can do a job there too, hence happy to let Amadou go.

No white flag waving here, get a result today and its game on Jeff!

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Certainly won’t find me raising/waving the white flag.  The point though, surely, is to give yourself the best chance now within the constraints you find yourself, whilst also planning for the future.  I’m just not sure we have concentrated on the latter at the expense of the former...which if anything feels the wrong way round.  We might drop lucky with injuries and it not be a problem, that obviously has to be the hope.

Edited by Branston Pickle

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58 minutes ago, hogesar said:

To be fair Godfrey is only suspended today. Then hes back. Rumoured are Klose isnt as far away as being made out either. 

Forgot that FA Cup games count, that's pleasing. 

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31 minutes ago, Indy said:

Exactly as I said they planned for us to be bottom, budgeted to make sure we don’t stretch and bought this January for next season.

Had we done a Sheffield and sit in 8th with 30 points I doubt this January spend would be as it has been so yes they are planning for next season a lower league.

Where has Webber said they're  planning to be bottom? And where is the bit about changing their plans if they found themselves where Sheffield Utd are?

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