Webbers recruitment aide speaks- We DON'T lack ambition!

[Yobocop 1,105]

3 minutes ago, Icecream Snow said:

Two seconds ago you didn't know who they were or what they did. You still don't know what they do.

But hey, If you've got a fantasy narrative that they forced Webber to sign Sargent, then there's no point trying to explain anything to you. 

Well said, typical knee jerk reaction from some of our fans! 

all of the players we signed in the summer are either short term loan deals or ones of the future, in my opinion we could’ve signed 4 players of better quality with more experience if we wanted a short term fix but we decided to invest in the future again 

We’ve taken a risk in signing the likes of Sargent and Tzolis who may not get up to speed before the end of this season but you better believe they will be next season regardless of what division we find ourselves in, they are better players than we already have got and every signing we made was an upgrade on what we had previously 

I completely understand peoples frustrations but labelling two unknown members of staff useless is criminal 

[Mullet 293]

1 hour ago, Icecream Snow said:

Two seconds ago you didn't know who they were or what they did. You still don't know what they do.

But hey, If you've got a fantasy narrative that they forced Webber to sign Sargent, then there's no point trying to explain anything to you. 

I didn't know either of them until 1 hour ago, but the clue is in their job titles so now I do know what they do. 

Regardless of who does the initial scouting and progresses the interest in a player to deciding to sign them and how much they are willing to pay. Based on the recruitment of our 12 summer signings (not just Sargent) , all 3 in the process are fukcing useless. 

Edited January 3, 2022 by Mullet

[Highland Canary 76]

The level of ambition is entirely consistent with our business model. The problem is the business model is inconsistent with succeeding in the PL Only new equity investment can change this.

[glory.win or die. 270]

I think one issue with our model is we bring in young players but 1) we have not invested in good proven coaches to develop them and 2) we loan them out and expect other clubs to turn them into good players 

 

[Icecream Snow 762]

By all accounts the recruitment this summer was a bit of a mess due to international scout Chris Jones leaving for Crystal Palace at the end of May, Kieran Scott wasn't involved as he was off to Middlesbrough, and Manchester City recruited one of our analysts. I'd heard that a lot of our top targets got better offers elsewhere.

 

[Mullet 293]

8 minutes ago, Yobocop said:

Well said, typical knee jerk reaction from some of our fans! 

all of the players we signed in the summer are either short term loan deals or ones of the future, in my opinion we could’ve signed 4 players of better quality with more experience if we wanted a short term fix but we decided to invest in the future again 

We’ve taken a risk in signing the likes of Sargent and Tzolis who may not get up to speed before the end of this season but you better believe they will be next season regardless of what division we find ourselves in, they are better players than we already have got and every signing we made was an upgrade on what we had previously 

I completely understand peoples frustrations but labelling two unknown members of staff useless is criminal 

We have all witnessed the incompetence of our recruitment since Hugill was signed.  

We have had two back to back campaigns in the PL and some like yourself are happy to be an embarrassment in the PL because we recruit for the future. This is second consecutive farce of a PL campaign so how are my comments knee jerk.   

Please explain why buying players for the future helps us this season? When we inevitably get relegated should we buy league 1 league 2 players with potential, with an eye on the future.

[Ulfotto 644]

43 minutes ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

Why have you listed a range of players who moved for anywhere between £5m and £36m, what is it that you are trying to illustrate? 

Ben Brereton will probably go for 25 million that is twice our transfer record.

[Mengo 825]

11 minutes ago, Icecream Snow said:

By all accounts the recruitment this summer was a bit of a mess due to international scout Chris Jones leaving for Crystal Palace at the end of May, Kieran Scott wasn't involved as he was off to Middlesbrough, and Manchester City recruited one of our analysts. I'd heard that a lot of our top targets got better offers elsewhere.

 

By all accounts a bit of a cluster by all accounts. And you heard that a lot of our top targets got better offers. I would imagine they did wouldn't you say. We are finding it very difficult to attempt to play in the Billionares playground. It's not over yet . We can just pray it comes good. I seriously believed this recruitment was for the here and now. But hey how naive have I been.  Silly me.

[Jim Smith 2,339]

1 hour ago, Mullet said:

Thanks for the correction. They are both fukcing useless

And Lee Dunn is a data analyst by trade I believe. 

[TeemuVanBasten 3,327]

45 minutes ago, Ulfotto said:

Ben Brereton will probably go for 25 million that is twice our transfer record.

Right.... but  from your list Armstrong went for £15m and Cash went for £14m.

And why have you selected that particularly bunch of players? Crystal Palace purchased Will Hughes from Watford for £5.5m and Michael Olise for £8m. Brentford paid £5m up front for Toney, who you listed, from League One. Fulham paid £12m for Harry Wilson in the summer, which is apparently only £1m more than the eventual Josh Sargent fee. West Brom have just paid £7.7m for Daryl Dike who impressed in the Championship last season.

Bargain of the season looks to be the £1m that Swansea paid for Piroe, followed by the £1.1m that Coventry paid for Gyokeres and the £1.2m that Middlesbrough paid for Crooks. 

Really odd that you are just posting a selection of the biggest Championship transfer fees, whilst ignoring the good value ones. What I will say about Matty Cash at £14m is that he is showing that he is worth it, and none of our new transfers have justified their fees yet. 

Jarrod Bowen went for £18m. Now he's linked with a £60m move to Liverpool.

Josh Sargent cost up to £11m, and when he leaves us it will be for something like £1.1m to Toronto FC.

You just see £11m versus £18m, but we know which one of those players was cheap. 

Edited January 3, 2022 by TeemuVanBasten

[TeemuVanBasten 3,327]

I haven't really seen anybody claim that the recruitment team lacks ambition, I've mainly just seen people claim that they don't know what the f*ck they are doing, and they'd have a tough time refuting that one.

[Kingston Yellow 224]

6 minutes ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

Right.... but  from your list Armstrong went for £15m and Cash went for £14m.

And why have you selected that particularly bunch of players? Crystal Palace purchased Will Hughes from Watford for £5.5m and Michael Olise for £8m. Brentford paid £5m up front for Toney, who you listed, from League One. Fulham paid £12m for Harry Wilson in the summer, which is apparently only £1m more than the eventual Josh Sargent fee. West Brom have just paid £7.7m for Daryl Dike who impressed in the Championship last season.

Bargain of the season looks to be the £1m that Swansea paid for Piroe, followed by the £1.1m that Coventry paid for Gyokeres and the £1.2m that Middlesbrough paid for Crooks. 

Really odd that you are just posting a selection of the biggest Championship transfer fees, whilst ignoring the good value ones. What I will say about Matty Cash at £14m is that he is showing that he is worth it, and none of our new transfers have justified their fees yet. 

Jarrod Bowen went for £18m. Now he's linked with a £60m move to Liverpool.

Josh Sargent cost up to £11m, and when he leaves us it will be for something like £1.1m to Toronto FC.

You just see £11m versus £18m, but we know which one of those players was cheap. 

Excellent post.

[Ulfotto 644]

12 minutes ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

Right.... but  from your list Armstrong went for £15m and Cash went for £14m.

And why have you selected that particularly bunch of players? Crystal Palace purchased Will Hughes from Watford for £5.5m and Michael Olise for £8m. Brentford paid £5m up front for Toney, who you listed, from League One. Fulham paid £12m for Harry Wilson in the summer, which is apparently only £1m more than the eventual Josh Sargent fee. West Brom have just paid £7.7m for Daryl Dike who impressed in the Championship last season.

Bargain of the season looks to be the £1m that Swansea paid for Piroe, followed by the £1.1m that Coventry paid for Gyokeres and the £1.2m that Middlesbrough paid for Crooks. 

Really odd that you are just posting a selection of the biggest Championship transfer fees, whilst ignoring the good value ones. What I will say about Matty Cash at £14m is that he is showing that he is worth it, and none of our new transfers have justified their fees yet. 

My point is we can’t afford top end championship players on wages or transfer fees. Of the examples there Cash and Wilson would have broken our transfer record.

We have to try and get them before they become top end championship players. Which to be fair we have done with Buendía, Maddison, Godfrey. The example of Toney is a good one though I was thinking more of what we would go for now.
 

 

[Newtopia 519]

Hughes and Olise were very good purchases.

[Legend Iwan 30]

Don't think anyone can truly question the ambition this season. We spent an enormous amount in the summer, the most we ever have in a transfer window, reinvesting a lot, if not all, of the money from player sales. The problem is most of the players who came in have been duds, either not suiting the team or not being good enough. Which raises a whole load of other questions about Webber and the recruitment team.

 

2 hours ago, Jim Smith said:

Interesting there is never any mention of tracking African talent. Seems to be a deliberate ommision from the markets we look at. I guess most end up in (or indeed develop in) France or other European leagues but most lower half prem sides seem to have an African player or two. 

And not sure this is quite right, Jim. Three out of the bottom five clubs don't have an African player in their squad. Although I agree with you original point about recruiting African talent. Does seem an oversight.

[Yobocop 1,105]

2 hours ago, Mullet said:

We have all witnessed the incompetence of our recruitment since Hugill was signed.  

We have had two back to back campaigns in the PL and some like yourself are happy to be an embarrassment in the PL because we recruit for the future. This is second consecutive farce of a PL campaign so how are my comments knee jerk.   

Please explain why buying players for the future helps us this season? When we inevitably get relegated should we buy league 1 league 2 players with potential, with an eye on the future.

Did we do that last championship season? 

Was james Maddison a failure? Was emiliano Buendia a failure? 

Would you accept that we bought players from the bundesliga, premier league and a defender good enough for Liverpool last season, hardly bargain basement stuff is it?

[Billyboybunters 26]

2 hours ago, Icecream Snow said:

By all accounts the recruitment this summer was a bit of a mess due to international scout Chris Jones leaving for Crystal Palace at the end of May, Kieran Scott wasn't involved as he was off to Middlesbrough, and Manchester City recruited one of our analysts. I'd heard that a lot of our top targets got better offers elsewhere.

 

Any players that didn’t make the press that got better offers?

[Mengo 825]

 

 

Edited January 3, 2022 by Mengo

[Dean Coneys boots 1,406]

The issue is wages.
 

We don’t sign championship talent ready to step up…because we cannot afford it. Cf Billing last summer. 

we don’t get our top targets because other clubs gazzump us easily. Cf Ajer last summer 

When we try and spend we end up overpaying from the top of the bargain bucket - which is always a risk. It can come good - cf Pukki- but usually doesn’t - cf Sargent et al  

[PurpleCanary 5,585]

13 hours ago, TIL 1010 said:

Looks to me that Webber has thrown her under the bus to do the article.

Looks to me like a straightforward interview with someone worth obviously interviewing, and including the factual piece of information that we are now being able to take an on-the-ground look at the South American market.

[Green Canary 21]

Playing devil's advocate, I wonder if our recruitment team is over staffed and over-thinking stuff. The interview suggests we can all spot a good player but it's harder to spot who is right for our team. So here is a scenario. Striker A from a German team doesn't look like a goal scorer, either from stats, videos or scouting visits. Striker B looks strong, fit, skilful and scores goals. What level of over-analysis would lead to this team of recruitment experts deciding that striker A would be a better fit for our team? Better fit because we are crap? 🙂

[yellow_belly 226]

Just an observation… but perhaps we should not rely on data and statistics when buying footballers. 
 

Even IF the data was good for Sargent (Eg he runs around a lot)… anyone who has seen him play can clearly see that he has the ability of a lower championship  / league one player worth c £500-750K. 
 

Perhaps we need to employ people that know about football and can see if a footballer can play football?! Just an idea.

 

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,243]

13 hours ago, Christoph Stiepermann said:

I wonder what the playing squad thought when they found it we were selling Buendia and not replacing Skipp?

I can't imagine they were thinking to themselves "Wow, we've really got an opportunity to build on what we achieved last season"

Probably not so much a lack of ambition as baffling naivety. I wouldn't say everyone below the owners is unambitious (I think the owners are too old to really care and just want to see us playing passing football while bringing through young players) but I would label them naive, idealistic and stubborn. 

This is a key point I also made at the time. 

The effect on the dressing room of selling Emi - plus the baffling failure to replace Skipp role at all - has a huge effect on players.

It’s rather like getting people to ‘look down’ on a high wire. It’s so important that you don’t, that you treat it mentally like walking a wire near the ground. Or you fall.

Players are hugely sensitive to this. They may not be coaches or sporting directors, but they have a refined sense of smell as to which way the football wind is blowing. 

These two strategic recruitment failures will have made players ‘look down’. 
 

For all Norwich’s attention to detail, they missed this blindingly obvious ‘mind effect’. A weakened mind in players dominates and obliterates any other ‘good work’ or carefully laid plans. 

Parma 

@Ray

@Ray

Edited January 4, 2022 by Parma Ham's gone mouldy

[Ulfotto 644]

Two points I think signing Gilmour would have helped after selling EMI he did come with a big reputation…

It would be interesting to know Norwich spend on scouting and recruiting in comparison to other Premiership teams. 

[Mello Yello 2,303]

Is our player recruitment akin to going to the local Newsagents with a substantial amount of your disposable income and purchasing half a reel of scratchcards; in the divine hope that you get a good return or pick a 'big one' that allows you to live comfortably for a time.....but if you don't get a 'big one'?......Well, some you win and some you lose.....

[TIL 1010 4,798]

1 hour ago, yellow_belly said:

Just an observation… but perhaps we should not rely on data and statistics when buying footballers. 
 

 

Hold that thought right there mate as i can think of somebody on here who will be cringing at that observation.

[Nora's Ghost 157]

It is what it is unfortunately. Poundshop thinking, poundshop standards.

 

It's generally cheap because it's old stock or not very good.

[Creedence Clearwater Couto 1,297]

14 hours ago, Yobocop said:

Well said, typical knee jerk reaction from some of our fans! 

all of the players we signed in the summer are either short term loan deals or ones of the future, in my opinion we could’ve signed 4 players of better quality with more experience if we wanted a short term fix but we decided to invest in the future again 

We’ve taken a risk in signing the likes of Sargent and Tzolis who may not get up to speed before the end of this season but you better believe they will be next season regardless of what division we find ourselves in, they are better players than we already have got and every signing we made was an upgrade on what we had previously 

I completely understand peoples frustrations but labelling two unknown members of staff useless is criminal 

What? Better believe it? Based on what? Blind faith?

[Icecream Snow 762]

2 hours ago, Green Canary said:

Playing devil's advocate, I wonder if our recruitment team is over staffed and over-thinking stuff. 

Think it's the opposite. The interview Kieran Scott did a while back said they had a small, tight team, which means that when one or two heads leave in quick succession it can cause a bit of turmoil.

[Ray 111]

1 hour ago, Parma Ham's gone mouldy said:

This is a key point I also made at the time. 

The effect on the dressing room of selling Emi - plus the baffling failure to replace Skipp role at all - has a huge effect on players.

It’s rather like getting people to ‘look down’ on a high wire. It’s so important that you don’t, that you treat it mentally like walking a wire near the ground. Or you fall.

Players are hugely sensitive to this. They may not be coaches or sporting directors, but they have a refined sense of smell as to which way the football wind is blowing. 

These two strategic recruitment failures will have made players ‘look down’. 
 

For all Norwich’s attention to detail, they missed this blindingly obvious ‘mind effect’. A weakened mind in players dominates and obliterates any other ‘good work’ or carefully laid plans. 

Parma 

@Ray

@Ray

Parma, A very valid point.  The brain is hard wired to achieve, hence the expression, be careful what you wish for, as the subconscious is unable to accept the negative/reverse of an idea, telling someone 'not' to look down is futile as the brain ignores the 'not' and hears, look down and therefore sends signals to do exactly that, the conscious can override this but is slower and weak compared to the subconscious.  

Expecting success must be the indigenous mindset if success is to be achieved, it guarantees nothing but certainly tips likely outcomes in your favour,