Where did Webber think the goals were going to come from...

[Danke bitte 965]

17 minutes ago, ged in the onion bag said:

 As a result, we were never prepared for the step up, floundered in the transfer market (the signings all seems a tad desperate right now) and so we were never ready.    If we aren't going to be ready / good enough with what we can buy or produce then we will find our place....  The likes of Skipp only offer false hope and expectation.

Excellent post. It’s chicken and egg. You sign players who may have a sell on fee when developed but how do you blood them in the Premier League when the league is too brutal? Conversely, as you point out, buying players who can do a job in the Championship but can’t cut it at Prem level blocks development of those players you want to develop for the Premier League though they may get you promoted.

I don’t know where you stand with the self funding model, it’s admirable but it’s created this loop of we find ourselves in. 

[rock bus 851]

Must admit I am also struggling with the concept/benefit of loans.

Arguably it worked last season as getting Skipp was a big factor in us being promoted but being blunt what was the point.. we havent replaced him and now we are struggling to survive. There's an argument that we would of been better off playing Sorrenson - we may not have been promoted last year but maybe this and have a player of our own who 'could' step up to the premier league.

SImilarly this year the loans havbe been far from convincing - Williams is decent but wont make the difference in keeping us up. Gilmour was probably meant to bring that little bit of magic that would have made the difference but sadly he looks like a youth player being given the chance to have a dabble with the mens team (I'd send him back in Jan).

Normann obviously looks like a proper player who (if he can stay fit) is premier league quality ... but again like with Skipp... if we dont sign him permanently it just leaves a massive hole which we will be unable to fill.

I know loans can work (Skipp and the best ever Huckerby) but I think we should always be looking to use our own players first (eg Dimi ahead of Williams, Cantwell/Dowell/Tzolis ahead of GIlmour)

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,220]

17 minutes ago, Danke bitte said:

Excellent post. It’s chicken and egg. You sign players who may have a sell on fee when developed but how do you blood them in the Premier League when the league is too brutal? Conversely, as you point out, buying players who can do a job in the Championship but can’t cut it at Prem level blocks development of those players you want to develop for the Premier League though they may get you promoted.

I don’t know where you stand with the self funding model, it’s admirable but it’s created this loop of we find ourselves in. 

Quoted from December 2017 in ‘Sustaining the future’  and written earlier in ‘The Company, The Philosophy and The Future’ :

 

quote user="Parma Hams gone mouldy"]To quote from The Company, The Philosophy and The Future:

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Premier money has allowed our model to succeed and operate without significant shareholder or owner financial input in recent years. Many, many others now have this additional funding and the priceless ability to take repeated calculated risks with a safety net of further wealth beyond Sky''s television income. This allows for the amortisation of mistakes that may lead to Premier relegation or non-promotion years within the Championship.

 

 

 

 

As we return to living within our limited means, the theoretical nominal value of shares likely returns to a far lower level and losses are unlikely to be able to be sustained for more than a very few years. The Championship is not as cheap a place to fail as it once was.

 

 

 

 

Thus within a fairly short timeframe further investment may become more than a desirable addition, it may well become a necessity, unless we are to very severely reduce our playing staff and their remuneration. Just as prices and fees stepchange far beyond anything seen before. ‘

 

 

 

 

Balls is deliberately raising the investment issue as a gentle, reawakened siren call. He is making a statement on behalf of himself and the board. He may now be pulling them with him

 

 

 

 

Investment means others. Others means compromise. Compromise means change. Change means certain visions - heritary peerage and trust fund style club hand-downs - may not be possible or acceptable.

 

 

 

 

The sustainable model was only such without Premier League success in the first place (or hoarding the money the first (few) time(s), or with continued Murdoch-money. Community club principles were funded by capitalist coin.

 

 

 

 

Dealing with the readjustment from success to beige Championship survival is actually too much for the sustainable model with the huge sums of 2017 (comparing it to even 6 or 7 years ago is pointless, the disparity is now too great).

 

 

 

 

It’s not the failure, it’s the success that killed the model.

 

 

 

 

Parma[/quote]Yes, Parma, very much from the outside that is what it looks like to me. Balls could have come up with a vague, politician''s answer that dodged the question, but it sounded as if he wanted to be asked that and  had got that response prepared, with the "our doors are open" soundbite.It quickly got noticed here that Webber in effect was criticising the board with that comment about money having been wasted, but Balls'' statement on investment is at the least a "clarification" - and arguably more than that - of what Smith and Jones said to The Times. The real poser, assuming etc, is whether he is pulling the other directors with him.

[ged in the onion bag 855]

1 minute ago, Danke bitte said:

Excellent post. It’s chicken and egg. You sign players who may have a sell on fee when developed but how do you blood them in the Premier League when the league is too brutal? Conversely, as you point out, buying players who can do a job in the Championship but can’t cut it at Prem level blocks development of those players you want to develop for the Premier League though they may get you promoted.

I don’t know where you stand with the self funding model, it’s admirable but it’s created this loop of we find ourselves in. 

I back the self-funding model, its the only way..... just needs to be done with more clarity (players with the right tools for the job - power and athleticism in midfield for starters), better scouting and a bit more patience.   We work to develop players like we have quite successfully, give opportunity and go up when ready...

Can't fathom what anyone saw in Jordan Rhodes, to do it again, only with a worse version in Hugill is bordering on incompetence.  Couldn't understand Quintilla (clearly too lightweight) or loaning Skipp when the last relegation demonstrated the massive CDM void that we had (literally not one central midfield player capable in the EPL and we are still playing one of them every game now).    McLean isn't anywhere near good enough to compete and he's seemingly always our best option.    How on earth have we left Sorensen twiddling in fingers whilst we produce a player for another team (Skipp), what was the point.   Non of this is preparation for promotion....

Why play Williams instead of Giannoulis when we desperately need someone to force opponents back, find and overlap the forward ahead and get crosses / passes into the box.   Can only understand that on the occasions when we should be parking the bus.... top 6 teams. 

I get Tzolis and Rashica but Sargent is no option at this level, yes he can work and hold the ball up but he's not clinical and doesn't have the awareness or skill to create much.    I don't get Williams down the left, we are so unbalanced and he can't get us moving forward with any quality.   I'm looking at us and thinking its just unfair to expect anything of Pukki, Idah, Aarons, Giannoulis, Cantwell, Dowell, Tzolis, Gilmour or Rashica or Sargent since they are either very young or we don't seem to have a stable spine!

Be so proud when we finally get there but without proper preparation and direction as well as better scouting, we aren't going to compete at this level.  

[lake district canary 4,531]

32 minutes ago, Disco Dales Jockstrap said:

Good money ay? How much is that? £10? £100? £1000? I'll bet you a bag of Mini Cheddars that they won't total 10 goals between them. And I love Mini Cheddars so that is stellar money for me.

Ten goals? Thats two or three each - should be possible.

Also -

Normann 4

Gilmour 2

Mclean 2

Defenders 1 each

If Pukki gets 12, that's a team total of 32 goals. Not great, but whichever way you look at it, we need all these players to step up.

[TeemuVanBasten 3,327]

54 minutes ago, king canary said:

I think anyone wondering why we didn't sign Dennis is getting into 20/20 hindsight territory. He scored 0 league goals last season across two clubs and was bombed out of FC Koln due to massive attitude issues (apparently he once refused to get on the team coach because someone else was sat in his favoured seat!). He's obviously worked out well for Watford but he was a huge gamble and I can totally understand why many clubs, including us, wouldn't have wanted him.

To an extent it is hindsight, obviously, although it is 0 in the league, scored a couple in other competitions.

And the season before he scored twice against Real Madrid and once against Man Utd in European competition, for some context.

[TeemuVanBasten 3,327]

15 minutes ago, lake district canary said:

Ten goals? Thats two or three each - should be possible.

Also -

Normann 4

Gilmour 2

Mclean 2

Defenders 1 each

If Pukki gets 12, that's a team total of 32 goals. Not great, but whichever way you look at it, we need all these players to step up.

Normann scored 2 goals in 56 games in the Russian League.... he's halfway through his career and he's scored 10 goals in entirety... and now we're expecting 4 goals from him in the Premier League in a single season, where he's playing as a Defensive Midfielder? A goal tally only matched by N'Golo Kante in one season?

Planet Earth calling. 

[king canary 7,606]

12 minutes ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

To an extent it is hindsight, obviously, although it is 0 in the league, scored a couple in other competitions.

And the season before he scored twice against Real Madrid and once against Man Utd in European competition, for some context.

Sure but the point still stands- I know you were skeptical about Sargent, I can't imagine we'd have been delighted with our backup striker for this season being someone who'd scored 0 league goals the season before and it isn't like he was an obvious choice.

[Ken Hairy 3,772]

2 hours ago, lake district canary said:

They all have good potential. I'd put good money on all of them scoring goals this season.

Hope you're right 👍

[lake district canary 4,531]

1 hour ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

Normann scored 2 goals in 56 games in the Russian League.... he's halfway through his career and he's scored 10 goals in entirety... and now we're expecting 4 goals from him in the Premier League in a single season, where he's playing as a Defensive Midfielder? A goal tally only matched by N'Golo Kante in one season?

Planet Earth calling. 

He has one in seven games so far and has looked dangerous with his free kicks and long shooting. Four goals is well within his capability.

[hogesar 9,671]

2 hours ago, Disco Dales Jockstrap said:

As lacking as DCB might well be in Christmas cheer, I'm not sure even Baby Jesus would disagree with this 3 points.

OTBC

Of course, but it is christmas after all and DCB is thinking about Pukki's legs in a years time.

Which makes his last point a little ironic, about how we don't have the cash to replace someone we managed to get when we had significantly less cash...

[wcorkcanary 4,334]

2 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Of course, but it is christmas after all and DCB is thinking about Pukki's legs in a years time.

Which makes his last point a little ironic, about how we don't have the cash to replace someone we managed to get when we had significantly less cash...

Ah yes Hoggo, but you have forgotten  the ' we got lucky' caveat which is used to dismiss absolutely anything positive  the Club achieves.

[Danke bitte 965]

2 hours ago, ged in the onion bag said:

I back the self-funding model, its the only way..... just needs to be done with more clarity (players with the right tools for the job - power and athleticism in midfield for starters), better scouting and a bit more patience.   We work to develop players like we have quite successfully, give opportunity and go up when ready...

Can't fathom what anyone saw in Jordan Rhodes, to do it again, only with a worse version in Hugill is bordering on incompetence.  Couldn't understand Quintilla (clearly too lightweight) or loaning Skipp when the last relegation demonstrated the massive CDM void that we had (literally not one central midfield player capable in the EPL and we are still playing one of them every game now).    McLean isn't anywhere near good enough to compete and he's seemingly always our best option.    How on earth have we left Sorensen twiddling in fingers whilst we produce a player for another team (Skipp), what was the point.   Non of this is preparation for promotion....

Why play Williams instead of Giannoulis when we desperately need someone to force opponents back, find and overlap the forward ahead and get crosses / passes into the box.   Can only understand that on the occasions when we should be parking the bus.... top 6 teams. 

I get Tzolis and Rashica but Sargent is no option at this level, yes he can work and hold the ball up but he's not clinical and doesn't have the awareness or skill to create much.    I don't get Williams down the left, we are so unbalanced and he can't get us moving forward with any quality.   I'm looking at us and thinking its just unfair to expect anything of Pukki, Idah, Aarons, Giannoulis, Cantwell, Dowell, Tzolis, Gilmour or Rashica or Sargent since they are either very young or we don't seem to have a stable spine!

Be so proud when we finally get there but without proper preparation and direction as well as better scouting, we aren't going to compete at this level.  

Again, great post. Do you think it’s a fundamental issue with recruitment then? And who holds sway with those recruitment decisions, is it a mix of head coach requirement and “what’s on offer” which has caused the problems you point out (which I agree on btw)? 

[Bonzo 198]

Some of the forward players might come good, but most except Pukki look as though they will under perform this season.

Idah, Cantwell, Sargent, Rashica, Tzolis and Dowell are all short of goals and a few of them are very short of game time too.

Players need games to get sharp and feel confident. However if it is simply the case that these players are not good enough to play Prem football then surely we need to move them on and pronto.

Brereton-Diaz looks like a player who knows where the back of the net is. £15m and Idah should do it.

Come on Webber make a deal for this player - surely now is the time to finally stop being so gutless when it comes to signing strikers?

[ged in the onion bag 855]

2 minutes ago, Bonzo said:

Some of the forward players might come good, but most except Pukki look as though they will under perform this season.

Idah, Cantwell, Sargent, Rashica, Tzolis and Dowell are all short of goals and a few of them are very short of game time too.

Players need games to get sharp and feel confident. However if it is simply the case that these players are not good enough to play Prem football then surely we need to move them on and pronto.

Brereton-Diaz looks like a player who knows where the back of the net is. £15m and Idah should do it.

Come on Webber make a deal for this player - surely now is the time to finally stop being so gutless when it comes to signing strikers?

In the right set up they all could come good but it needs a team to function well first so they have a chance to excel and for that reason, no point in spending a min. £15m on Brereton when 1) Pukki will still be the better option if fit and 2) we can't get any supply to the forwards....  The problem remains the central midfield, thats what gives us the insurance to go forward knowing there is some quality cover for the full-backs to attack and knowing we can play through the middle (be less predictable) instead of just passing wide always to Aarons (who has no decent option ahead of him) or Williams (who frankly hasn't got a clue going forward).   

Also fundamental is getting our full-backs in overlapping situations and that means Giannoulis has to play, Williams is awful going forward (primarily the reason we didn't beat Newcastle in my view).   Very useful against top 6 opponents as mentioned above.

Any forward doing due diligence would not come here at present if they value their career until we can find a spine that works well.  That needs Normann in alongside something better than we have unless Sorensen can allow Normann slightly further forward (might work) and Rashica back and firing.    Sadly, think Normann might be struggling for fitness from here on....  Also suspect we might get much more from Cantwell if he played in the No. 10 role instead of wide.   

No point wasting money on forwards until the midfield is sorted since we will probably just ruin their confidence and forward momentum.

[ged in the onion bag 855]

3 hours ago, Danke bitte said:

Again, great post. Do you think it’s a fundamental issue with recruitment then? And who holds sway with those recruitment decisions, is it a mix of head coach requirement and “what’s on offer” which has caused the problems you point out (which I agree on btw)? 

Thanks, and yes recruitment is a fundamental issue.   I'm a firm believer that our way is how all football clubs should be run and will always support the club for following this path, although, It does absolutely rely on the quality of individuals involved in all the stages.

No idea who holds sway with decision's, however everything suggests that it is a committee of Webber, the scouts, the stats and the manager.   That's how it should be but if we want to be a Premier League team then the players we bring in must be capable or have the potential of that level of football.  

Recruitment philosophy and the recruitment itself

We need to be developing players in the championship, preparing them for the premiership.  For example, we don't sign players of Hugills limited talents and we must find ways of getting players like Idah and Sorensen minutes on the pitch, whether that be in our team or on loan.   

Fundamentally, there should be a set of criteria players must meet, e.g EPL potential, pace, power, athleticism, touch, creativity, anticipation and instincts, which may differ dependent on the positions.  Simply, it wouldn't take me more than 45 minutes scouting Hugill to know he's not a Norwich City player and would never be at the levels we have played at this past four years.   Similarly, unless Quintilla ran like a rocket, it was clear to me he was too lightweight from the first friendly in Germany…. Stop gap signings only delay inevitable problems down the line.   McCallum was as good an option if not better at the time.     Now we are stuck with Hugill, not an option, just a burden.

Secondly, we need to stop loaning players in the championship.    Develop our own, give them opportunity, the only difference between Sorensen and Cantwell / Godfrey / Aarons / Lewis seems to be that he hasn’t been given a chance. 

If, for whatever reason we can't afford or find the right player, just throw one of the under 23s in…. you just never know.   In many cases, opportunity and trust is all they need.

When we got relegated last, we tried 5, possibly 6 central midfielders, none of which were good enough and in the end only two were pickable (McLean and Tettey), but neither of those two have ever proved themselves good enough in this league.    It's imperative that the engine room performs  well for the team to function as a unit and I said at the time / been harping about it ever since, we needed 3 new central midfielders with pace, athleticism, and / or enough quality to develop before the start of that Championship season (one of which seemed to be Sorensen).     Appreciate we had difficulties with COVID just like every other club, but at least we had parachute payments to help.  

Instead of addressing this, we persevered with McLean / Rupp who don't have the EPL tools (quality, pace, athletism) and brought in a loan player (who does) at the expense of player development including Sorensen’s.   IMO, that lack of adequate recruitment / foresight has caused the chaos / desperation with signings this season and the problems we still face in central midfield….  Now we only have one player who is capable (Normann) and it looks like he’ll need a long break to fix that injury.   Without pace, power and some quality, (the insurance) and some unpredictability (playing through the middle (McLean can’t)) how can our offensive players be expected to attack without fear.    They aren’t receiving the ball in positions often enough where 1) they can do any damage / be creative and 2) they have good support of other players around them in the attacking areas.   

Can always be argued the club made the right decisions to get promoted but ultimately its bloody embarrassing racking up the kind of unwanted stats and performances that these promotions are creating.  Villa last week for example.  

In the past five years our scouts have had some great finds from youngsters Maddison and Godfrey to Pukki and Buendia who in my view is an absolutely wonderful footballer, a complete bargain.   We've also bought in some really good youngsters who will always be a risk but that's proved quite successful so far.   Omabamidele, Mumba and Sorensen for example look great prospects.  We've had some stinkers too!   The recruitment philosophy and subsequent signings last year were not clever despite the promotion and we need to learn for next year as relegation seems pretty inevitable.   

The signings this year need time, a year or three… they may have been magnificent last season giving them all time to adjust to the English game but perhaps they wouldn’t have come, we weren’t prepared to pay on relegation and that’s fair enough but the philosophy would require some element of risk (its just shouldn’t be on technically deficient players like Hugill and possibly Sargent).    

It didn't need hindsight for anyone in the know (Webber and Farke should be in the know) that it was asking far too much of the players they signed this summer to hit the ground running.... it can take even the best a season to adapt in this league. 

Signing players now shouldn't be the focus, it needs to be about getting the better players fit and a formation that can offer a robust defence, enable us to get forward into better situations and re-develop confidence.    If we sign anyone, it needs to be a capable central midfielder first.

Another matter of course is that our first team players that can play should be getting games with the under 23s so they are more likely to be ready, Sorenson, Tzolis, Idah, Mumba, Sargent even etc… they just don’t play proper football, can’t be right or productive for them or us.    Makes you wonder whether an under 23 having played regular games would do a better job on the pitch.   Take Tzolis, he’s not really had much chance, the step might be too great right now, he was thriving at PAOK, playing football scoring / assisting and developing, now his career has stalled, why didn’t we loan him back, why don’t we loan him back?   Idah is getting all sorts of grief on here (he isn’t good enough blah blah) yet he’s never had a proper chance (never) or a loan and people expect him to play on this level (he’s probably had the equivalent of 3/4 games overall), in this offensively abject team and do well, not realistic, definitely unfair!   Seems Sorensen’s literally had 20 competitive games in his professional career.  

Perhaps we should take a gamble, let these lads get out on a championship loan for the rest of the season and allow some of the under 23s to be the backup.

[Mat McGoo 0]

LDC--"Your op is yet another attempt to put a downer on an aspect of the club, this time Webber, yet we have not been lucky with injuries, covid, the way the fixtures set us off this season and the battle to turn it round."

 

Wow Lakey this is really quite ridiculous, the first four games are not the reason we are 20th right now, also are we the only club that has had covid?? NOPE. Its the usual excuses about everything from yourself mate.

[Mat McGoo 0]

PurpleCanary " Of course all those Canary fans who voted for Brexit have made finding the right player or players harder"

Are you after a job at the BBC or the Guardian PC???

[Basel_NCFC 7]

All great points, but how much do you think a 10 to 15 goal prem standard striker is going to cost? And it is not like we would have no competition for his signature?  Add in the fact all the teams across the top leagues in Europe are scouting the world for such a player... Think sadly they went all in for "potentially" Rashica and Sargent to produce some goals? 

[PurpleCanary 5,558]

4 hours ago, Mat McGoo said:

PurpleCanary " Of course all those Canary fans who voted for Brexit have made finding the right player or players harder"

Are you after a job at the BBC or the Guardian PC???

Nothing so lowly!🤓

[Christoph Stiepermann 1,135]

I don't think our lack of goals is down to a lack of talent it's simply a case of our team not being physically built for this league so we get absolutely suffocated in games, teams can just run and press faster than we can pass the ball so it's hard for us to create anything.

We are too easy to disposes and press into mistakes because very few players have any strength to shield the ball and they don't have the pace and dribbling ability to beat a man who is trying to press them. We don't have enough pace to hit teams on the counter attack, only Rashica really can run with the ball at speed and play a decent ball in but the rest of the team is too slow to get up quickly enough in support and then if we lose it they're too slow to get back in shape quickly enough. We can't force things going forward because teams just shrug us off the ball so that final pass or through ball always has to be a worldie to create a chance, we can't just throw crosses in because of our lack of height etc

This is the fundamental flaw in our recruitment strategy, it's like we built a team thinking the opposition would just let us play our football and not offer any resistance off the ball. You need pace, power and athleticism as a minimum in this league as a lower half team and we don't have anywhere near enough to impose ourselves on teams. 

[Michael Starr 519]

As others have said, Rashica was brought in to unlock defences and make chances. He signed an 8m striker plus a young prospect with huge potential. We had Pukki here already and Cantwell who have both scored at this level previously. The fact is, our new signings, with exception to Normann, have struggled to make an immediate impact. We'll see more from them for sure, but good luck going out and getting a 20 goal a season striker at this level for less than our entire budget. Would rather have more squad depth tbh and try to get the most from the players we do have here.

[PurpleCanary 5,558]

24 minutes ago, Christoph Stiepermann said:

I don't think our lack of goals is down to a lack of talent it's simply a case of our team not being physically built for this league so we get absolutely suffocated in games, teams can just run and press faster than we can pass the ball so it's hard for us to create anything.

We are too easy to disposes and press into mistakes because very few players have any strength to shield the ball and they don't have the pace and dribbling ability to beat a man who is trying to press them. We don't have enough pace to hit teams on the counter attack, only Rashica really can run with the ball at speed and play a decent ball in but the rest of the team is too slow to get up quickly enough in support and then if we lose it they're too slow to get back in shape quickly enough. We can't force things going forward because teams just shrug us off the ball so that final pass or through ball always has to be a worldie to create a chance, we can't just throw crosses in because of our lack of height etc

This is the fundamental flaw in our recruitment strategy, it's like we built a team thinking the opposition would just let us play our football and not offer any resistance off the ball. You need pace, power and athleticism as a minimum in this league as a lower half team and we don't have anywhere near enough to impose ourselves on teams. 

Yes, but Premier League-quality players like that cost a bundle, even assuming they would be willing to accept our pay structure. Just one like that in midfield would have eaten up at least all and probably more than all of our non-Buendia transfer fund.

[ged in the onion bag 855]

To score 15 goals in this team, that striker would be needing to net 80% of his chances!     Not even Messi can do that.   

The problem is the creativity, comes back to not having an adequate central midfield to give our full-backs and offensive midfielders some insurance to get forward without fear or that can make us more unpredictable - fix that, then get Rashica and Cantwell (behind Pukki) back in form, we might have some faint hope but a striker is not the answer, simply won't get the ball in areas he can score!      

[birchfest 397]

I think Huckerby made some good points on the most recent Ontheball podcast about this issue. Ultimately we have a striker in Pukki who is capable at this level, and with the correct service could get us 10-15 goals at this level. Loosing Buendia, Vrancic and Stieperman has left us with just Dowel still in that central number 10 position and its becoming clear that Pukki isnt as effective with service from our current wingers. 

 

Ultimately we could raise a question mark against all of our signings so far, I don't think there has been a single one who has come in and nailed down a spot for us like Skipp did for example. If we are to get to the end of the season and thinks haven't improved its going to be a serious question over how we have gone about spending a record fee. Now don't get me wrong, I still desperately want them to come good, but a club of our size doesn't have the luxury of time and relegation is such a huge gamble, there are no promises of promotion and we will have to try again without Skipp, Buendia, maybe Todd and a Pukki who is only getting older.

 

My biggest questions would be if I had an interview with Webber:

 

1. At the start of the summer we were told we would be getting less bodies in but looking to bring in those who would increase the overall quality of the squad, why did that change? We signed 11 players I believe and some are only making the bench?

 

2. Why didn't we sign a back up for Pukki and send Idah on loan?

 

3. If players such as Tzolis and Sargent are 'ones for the future', why are we spending a good part of 20 million on players who might have to be trying to dig us out of the Championship. If they are for the future then they aren't ready for the fight of a team in the bottom 4 of the Prem. What is the logic of that? They will be good enough just in time for it to be too late. 

 

4. Why didn't we sign a CDM, a mobile defensive focused player who sole job is to protect the back four. Skipp did it brilliantly and Tetty was that no thrills player that could do that. Normann isnt that player, he's more progressive yes, but no where near as mobile as Skipp nor do the hard boring work of Tetty. Normann is the sort of player who should be next to Skipp, not replacing....

 

5. Which leads me to Gilmour. A talented excellent footballer, who will no doubt have a great career in the game. BUT he isnt a CDM and he isn't a number 10. In my opinion he's a luxury player that a side in our position cant benefit from. He will be great for sides that have lots of possession but that isnt us. We needed a CDM, we could have even kept Mario if the right CDM had come in.

[hertfordyellow 460]

It's a bit of a catch 22 situation when we talk about Skipp. Those who say we should have played Sorensen instead and prepare him for now make a good point, however, I don't we get promoted without Skipp, he was that important. Least we forget that he is now a starter for a much better team now, so good was that season.

[Danke bitte 965]

18 hours ago, ged in the onion bag said:

Thanks, and yes recruitment is a fundamental issue.   I'm a firm believer that our way is how all football clubs should be run and will always support the club for following this path, although, It does absolutely rely on the quality of individuals involved in all the stages.

No idea who holds sway with decision's, however everything suggests that it is a committee of Webber, the scouts, the stats and the manager.   That's how it should be but if we want to be a Premier League team then the players we bring in must be capable or have the potential of that level of football.  

Recruitment philosophy and the recruitment itself

We need to be developing players in the championship, preparing them for the premiership.  For example, we don't sign players of Hugills limited talents and we must find ways of getting players like Idah and Sorensen minutes on the pitch, whether that be in our team or on loan.   

Fundamentally, there should be a set of criteria players must meet, e.g EPL potential, pace, power, athleticism, touch, creativity, anticipation and instincts, which may differ dependent on the positions.  Simply, it wouldn't take me more than 45 minutes scouting Hugill to know he's not a Norwich City player and would never be at the levels we have played at this past four years.   Similarly, unless Quintilla ran like a rocket, it was clear to me he was too lightweight from the first friendly in Germany…. Stop gap signings only delay inevitable problems down the line.   McCallum was as good an option if not better at the time.     Now we are stuck with Hugill, not an option, just a burden.

Secondly, we need to stop loaning players in the championship.    Develop our own, give them opportunity, the only difference between Sorensen and Cantwell / Godfrey / Aarons / Lewis seems to be that he hasn’t been given a chance. 

If, for whatever reason we can't afford or find the right player, just throw one of the under 23s in…. you just never know.   In many cases, opportunity and trust is all they need.

When we got relegated last, we tried 5, possibly 6 central midfielders, none of which were good enough and in the end only two were pickable (McLean and Tettey), but neither of those two have ever proved themselves good enough in this league.    It's imperative that the engine room performs  well for the team to function as a unit and I said at the time / been harping about it ever since, we needed 3 new central midfielders with pace, athleticism, and / or enough quality to develop before the start of that Championship season (one of which seemed to be Sorensen).     Appreciate we had difficulties with COVID just like every other club, but at least we had parachute payments to help.  

Instead of addressing this, we persevered with McLean / Rupp who don't have the EPL tools (quality, pace, athletism) and brought in a loan player (who does) at the expense of player development including Sorensen’s.   IMO, that lack of adequate recruitment / foresight has caused the chaos / desperation with signings this season and the problems we still face in central midfield….  Now we only have one player who is capable (Normann) and it looks like he’ll need a long break to fix that injury.   Without pace, power and some quality, (the insurance) and some unpredictability (playing through the middle (McLean can’t)) how can our offensive players be expected to attack without fear.    They aren’t receiving the ball in positions often enough where 1) they can do any damage / be creative and 2) they have good support of other players around them in the attacking areas.   

Can always be argued the club made the right decisions to get promoted but ultimately its bloody embarrassing racking up the kind of unwanted stats and performances that these promotions are creating.  Villa last week for example.  

In the past five years our scouts have had some great finds from youngsters Maddison and Godfrey to Pukki and Buendia who in my view is an absolutely wonderful footballer, a complete bargain.   We've also bought in some really good youngsters who will always be a risk but that's proved quite successful so far.   Omabamidele, Mumba and Sorensen for example look great prospects.  We've had some stinkers too!   The recruitment philosophy and subsequent signings last year were not clever despite the promotion and we need to learn for next year as relegation seems pretty inevitable.   

The signings this year need time, a year or three… they may have been magnificent last season giving them all time to adjust to the English game but perhaps they wouldn’t have come, we weren’t prepared to pay on relegation and that’s fair enough but the philosophy would require some element of risk (its just shouldn’t be on technically deficient players like Hugill and possibly Sargent).    

It didn't need hindsight for anyone in the know (Webber and Farke should be in the know) that it was asking far too much of the players they signed this summer to hit the ground running.... it can take even the best a season to adapt in this league. 

Signing players now shouldn't be the focus, it needs to be about getting the better players fit and a formation that can offer a robust defence, enable us to get forward into better situations and re-develop confidence.    If we sign anyone, it needs to be a capable central midfielder first.

Another matter of course is that our first team players that can play should be getting games with the under 23s so they are more likely to be ready, Sorenson, Tzolis, Idah, Mumba, Sargent even etc… they just don’t play proper football, can’t be right or productive for them or us.    Makes you wonder whether an under 23 having played regular games would do a better job on the pitch.   Take Tzolis, he’s not really had much chance, the step might be too great right now, he was thriving at PAOK, playing football scoring / assisting and developing, now his career has stalled, why didn’t we loan him back, why don’t we loan him back?   Idah is getting all sorts of grief on here (he isn’t good enough blah blah) yet he’s never had a proper chance (never) or a loan and people expect him to play on this level (he’s probably had the equivalent of 3/4 games overall), in this offensively abject team and do well, not realistic, definitely unfair!   Seems Sorensen’s literally had 20 competitive games in his professional career.  

Perhaps we should take a gamble, let these lads get out on a championship loan for the rest of the season and allow some of the under 23s to be the backup.

Hey buddy, I wanted to offer a proper response so sorry for the late reply! 

Thanks for this, really insightful. 

I agree re: developing our own talent in those positions we’ve had successful loans with. 

My reasoning last season was we might have been promoted too early again insomuch we bought in Placheta, Sorenson, Mumba, Martin to name a few, but were reliant on the usual suspects plus loans to get us promoted.

My worry with that was how were we going to bed in these new guys if they had no playing time in preparation for the Premier League when we were never going to be able to compete financially to kit out a squad capable of survival. And so it’s come to pass, though I appreciate we’re not down yet. 

A part of me wonders too that Webber took on this job as a 2/3 year stint, pay lip service to the self funded model, tidy up the infrastructure and ride off into the sunset. A tad cynical from me admittedly but I can’t help feel he took the job thinking he could overhaul us in a few seasons. Whereas, as you’ve pointed to, this is a long term project that requires efficiency at key junctions such as in-house player development and scouting to keep that flow of talent from drying up and future proof key positions in our starting 11 we’ve always struggled to purchase well for in the common market.

Webber has fallen victim to his own rhetoric of being a top 17 club and has, in the Premier League at least, failed thus far in bringing in the right talent for key positions which I find baffling. Perhaps his swagger and honesty made me place unfounded confidence in his recruiting ability? Either way, it seems fundamentals were identified but somehow left unresolved unless, as you say, targets fell through and we were left scrambling around for “that’ll do” options. 

Smith has his hands tied in that the squad he has isn’t his, and is tasked with keeping us up and then rebuilding, on a budget, if we go down. Fortunately for him, some of our untried heroes in Sorenson and Placheta do seem like astute signings after all so there’s something of a base he can mould. 

It’ll be interesting to see how Smith tackles the development and integration of academy players for the new season. But agreed that we cannot and should not go down the route of tried and tested “champ veterans” to get us up when we can’t afford to replace them for better players and when they block the development of homegrown talent who need minutes for a new potential Prem campaign. 

[ged in the onion bag 855]

2 hours ago, hertfordyellow said:

It's a bit of a catch 22 situation when we talk about Skipp. Those who say we should have played Sorensen instead and prepare him for now make a good point, however, I don't we get promoted without Skipp, he was that important. Least we forget that he is now a starter for a much better team now, so good was that season.

Don't disagree with you that Skipp (and Buendia) were primarily responsible for promotion but Skipp was a gamble at the time we igned him and now look at the mess (the void) that's been left due to a lack of foresight.   We should be preparing a team for promotion, that is to say, they are pretty much of the required quality to only require a couple of additions on promotion.     Having loan players get us promoted just moves the problem down the road!    It's pretty demoralising, even embarrasing watching us rack up all these unwanted records and the unacceptable performances so I'd rather we don't gamble on loans and instead produce our own, if its not good enough, so be it.     

Much rather be competitive in the Championship, trying to develop the way we do, producing players, giving opportunity and being ambitious than stinking out this division like we are.   I agree with our philosophy and back it all the way but we need to be more honed in the details and the vision.    Loans in the Championship should be for the benefit of our players, not our team.    

[Christoph Stiepermann 1,135]

On 23/12/2021 at 09:32, PurpleCanary said:

Yes, but Premier League-quality players like that cost a bundle, even assuming they would be willing to accept our pay structure. Just one like that in midfield would have eaten up at least all and probably more than all of our non-Buendia transfer fund.

Look at Palace and Burnley. They have spent more than us in certain areas sure, but most of their squad cost in the 5-10m range when they were signed with some being free agents and academy players.  The difference is they don't have unrealistic aspirations regarding their playing style and don't feel the need to knock the ball between their cb's 10 times before building attacks against opposition that has got back into shape, we sign players who can only play this overly patient, slow, low intensity game due to their lack of physicality.

Those two teams get the ball, play it forward and run at teams and cause them problems and sign players who can do just that, they're often not world beaters technically but through good management, organisation and weapons that are difficult to defend against like pace, height and strength are able to be competitive in this league...Btw I don't like this style of play, but it's an unfortunate fact now that as every team in the PL must survive they have all gotten extremely pragmatic and you have to be a fast, physical side now to even compete. It's also why I laugh whenever the media calls it the most entertaining league in the world but it is what it is unfortunately. 

 

The finances are an issue still sure, but I maintain we could have assembled a much more suitable squad for this league with the 50m and 4 loan spots we had. I look at some of the signings we made and just wonder what we were thinking after the lessons we should have learned last time. Sargent and Tzolis have no pace, PLM and Gilmour are nowhere near the standard physically for a PL midfield, Kabak is yet another slow ball playing CB when we needed a faster out and out defender. Williams, Normann and Rashica I rate but that's not enough of a hit rate for how many we brought in. 

[Danke bitte 965]

15 minutes ago, Christoph Stiepermann said:

The finances are an issue still sure, but I maintain we could have assembled a much more suitable squad for this league with the 50m and 4 loan spots we had. I look at some of the signings we made and just wonder what we were thinking after the lessons we should have learned last time. Sargent and Tzolis have no pace, PLM and Gilmour are nowhere near the standard physically for a PL midfield, Kabak is yet another slow ball playing CB when we needed a faster out and out defender. Williams, Normann and Rashica I rate but that's not enough of a hit rate for how many we brought in.

Bottom line is Webber was asleep at the wheel. Has done a great job with infrastructure but he just can’t trade in the Premier League. Eventually we might get it right but as Ged has said above it comes down to ensuring we have a squad which isn’t reliant on top loan players from top clubs to plug fundamental gaps and that’s by developing those ourselves. Just as shame we have to endure stinking out the Prem in order to do so.