Why wouldnt you bring back Onel/Hugill?

[The Great Mass Debater 1,202]

May be a moot point as we may not have a recall clause in their loan agreements, but in recent weeks we have not had enough professionals to field a team.

We have been playing Placheta and Idah/Sargent.

Would anybody argue that Placheta was better than Hernandez? Onel is better than Placheta and Tzolis - so why wouldnt you recall him if you could?

Hugill I would argue is better than Idah and Sargent. Not because Hugill is a world beater, but because those two are frankly cr*p.

Hugill remains our second best striker in my opinion, and Onel is currently better than both Placheta and Tzolis. If I were Dean Smith recalling those two would have been my first piece of business this transfer window.

[crab man 178]

Completely agree and they were both huge personalities within the group as well which must count for something. 

Although Hugill hasn't done well for WBA he can't exactly do any worse than Idah or Sargent currently are. Bring em both back and send Idah out on loan. 

[Fr. Chewy Louie 140]

Neither of them have particularly flourished on loan this year have they (especially Hugill)? Harsh to pick out Placheta who has been one of our better performers lately (albeit with limited end product).

On the Hugill situation, he couldn't do much worse, and I could see him bundling in a scrappy goal or two, but it emphasizes the weakness of our options. Putting so much faith in Idah was always a gamble.

[Google Bot 3,929]

2 minutes ago, Fr. Chewy Louie said:

Putting so much faith in Idah was always a gamble.

We haven't put any faith in Idah though, that's the trouble.  We were playing a very tired Pukki from the start of the season, where Idah had looked quite sharp in pre-season.  We haven't allowed him to develop at all, and that's a major part of him being off the boil.  (imo)

Guy needs a loan out and some real faith shown in him to deliver week in week out.

[Danke bitte 1,154]

5 minutes ago, crab man said:

Completely agree and they were both huge personalities within the group as well which must count for something. 

Although Hugill hasn't done well for WBA he can't exactly do any worse than Idah or Sargent currently are. Bring em both back and send Idah out on loan. 

I feel we’re entirely bereft of any personalities in this squad and coaching staff now. Partly why I’m feeling so apathetic towards it all. 

[Newtopia 573]

I think we will see Idah go out on loan if Hugill comes back.  BTW I am not saying he is the answer to our goal scoring issues, I think it is about Idah playing 20 games and hopefully scoring some goals

[Midlands Yellow 4,682]

Both and resign Lafferty. 

[Fr. Chewy Louie 140]

2 minutes ago, Google Bot said:

We haven't put any faith in Idah though, that's the trouble. 

Fair, but we went into the season with him as basically our first back-up option to Pukki, which is a show of faith of sorts.

[tricky974 63]

Hugill, ldah are not good enough, I love Onel but sadly he is probably not good enough either.

[king canary 8,754]

As much as he's out of fashion, the only one I'd consider bringing back from loan is Drmic.

I know the Croatian league isn't up to much but he's now played a solid 12 months of first team football to get his fitness back and would have some restored confidence from his goal scoring form.

[The Great Mass Debater 1,202]

4 minutes ago, Fr. Chewy Louie said:

Fair, but we went into the season with him as basically our first back-up option to Pukki, which is a show of faith of sorts.

Isnt that called 'prudence with ambition' (ie let's not sign a striker and hope the youth team lad will be alright)

[The Great Mass Debater 1,202]

5 minutes ago, tricky974 said:

Hugill, ldah are not good enough, I love Onel but sadly he is probably not good enough either.

The question is - are they better than what we have in our first team at present? Imo - yes

[Newtopia 573]

1 minute ago, king canary said:

As much as he's out of fashion, the only one I'd consider bringing back from loan is Drmic.

I know the Croatian league isn't up to much but he's now played a solid 12 months of first team football to get his fitness back and would have some restored confidence from his goal scoring form.

I think that is a good call, he might get a better option with a new team if he produces in the EPL.  Only if Smith fancies him as an option.

[sgncfc 1,330]

Not good enough for the PL but they'll be back in our Champs squad for next season.

[Google Bot 3,929]

Just now, Fr. Chewy Louie said:

Fair, but we went into the season with him as basically our first back-up option to Pukki, which is a show of faith of sorts.

Always felt that Idah was third option after summer window, personally, and wondered if Idah would go out on loan.

Sargent appeared to be our other option for forward, but he's so devoid of confidence you can seem him drag wide even playing in central positions.  He was moved out wide in his final season for Bremen, and really I don't think it's doing his mindset as a forward any good.

There was a chance to show some faith in Idah when Pukki looked half asleep on the field in those opening games, but we never did, zero faith in the guy - look how many times he's played for 1 or 2 minutes, it's an absolute pisstake really.  He looked sharp pre-season too.

[The Great Mass Debater 1,202]

2 minutes ago, king canary said:

As much as he's out of fashion, the only one I'd consider bringing back from loan is Drmic.

I know the Croatian league isn't up to much but he's now played a solid 12 months of first team football to get his fitness back and would have some restored confidence from his goal scoring form.

I dont think Drmic is anywhere near the level we need. He looked good on Youtube but then I realised that most of that footage was from 6-8 years ago. He was a punt on a free-transfer signed on the hope he could get back to his former level - ie a typical Norwich signing. It didnt work and scoring some goals in the Croatian League only tells us thats his level. The Croatian League is currently ranked 17th in Europe with the EPL number 1.

I've tried to find a list which included the Championship but struggled. But I suspect the Championship also ranks higher than the Croatian Premier League

[hogesar 10,762]

47 minutes ago, Google Bot said:

Always felt that Idah was third option after summer window, personally, and wondered if Idah would go out on loan.

Sargent appeared to be our other option for forward, but he's so devoid of confidence you can seem him drag wide even playing in central positions.  He was moved out wide in his final season for Bremen, and really I don't think it's doing his mindset as a forward any good.

There was a chance to show some faith in Idah when Pukki looked half asleep on the field in those opening games, but we never did, zero faith in the guy - look how many times he's played for 1 or 2 minutes, it's an absolute pisstake really.  He looked sharp pre-season too.

Problem is at Prem level Idah has looked alarmingly deficient in pretty much every aspect of CF play, so I can kind of understand why he got such limited time.

[essex canary 622]

Far too many loans both in and out. The squad needs a balance of youth and experience. Players need continuity.

These 2 should be with us. Gilmour shouldn't be.

[Google Bot 3,929]

6 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Problem is at Prem level Idah has looked alarmingly deficient in pretty much every aspect of CF play, so I can kind of understand why he got such limited time.

Sure, but to have faith in someone is to utilise them, which is why I posted the screenshot to demonstrate how very little faith has been placed into him.

[Indy 3,471]

Because both are worse than we have by a mile!

[AJ 1,358]

1 hour ago, Newtopia said:

I think we will see Idah go out on loan if Hugill comes back.  BTW I am not saying he is the answer to our goal scoring issues, I think it is about Idah playing 20 games and hopefully scoring some goals

If we had another striker on the books then I think this would have been the plan, maybe last season as well. Idah has unfortunately struggled for game time in a team devoid of confidence and usually used out of position which hasn't aided his development at all. He's only 20, and still have huge potential to become a good player and a loan is absolutely the right thing for him.

Unfortunately, he's currently our second choice striker, so we need to sign at least one before we can even think about loaning him out

[keelansgrandad 6,680]

My Baggies buddy has told me that they are sending Hugill back. His name is booed when read out over the tannoy. When I have seen him play for them, he hasn't looked good.

Its WHUs fault. Jarvis, Byram, Hugill.

[Google Bot 3,929]

1 minute ago, AJ said:

If we had another striker on the books then I think this would have been the plan, maybe last season as well. Idah has unfortunately struggled for game time in a team devoid of confidence and usually used out of position which hasn't aided his development at al

I think the only plan was to get the wage bill down to bring in new players such as Sargent, hence why Hugill got loaned out and Idah is sat here as a cheap backup.   Wages being equal I think we would've held on to Hugill and Idah would've been loaned out.

[Google Bot 3,929]

2 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

Its WHUs fault. Jarvis, Byram, Hugill.

Broke Ashton too, the sods!

[CanaryConspiracy 1]

1 hour ago, king canary said:

As much as he's out of fashion, the only one I'd consider bringing back from loan is Drmic.

I know the Croatian league isn't up to much but he's now played a solid 12 months of first team football to get his fitness back and would have some restored confidence from his goal scoring form.

I would actually agree with this, not that he's any better necessarily, but certainly not any worse and could want to prove a point under a different manager, plus has experience... however I suspect that there's no recall clause, or to that point, any desire from Smith to have him back and, like Pukki, didn't shine last time round.

I did read (on here somewhere) that apparently Hugill cannot be recalled and I as much as Onel is a great character and City legend in his own way, he's far from getting in the matchday squad, let alone first team and making a difference.

On the Idah point, for anyone still reading or remotely interested..., I think he's another Carlton Morris, physically impressive and promising but just not going to cut it at this level... he's yet to score in the Premier league and internationally and at best, might show something next season if given a regular run of games at a lower level, but I just don't see it.

Simple fact is, I believe for what's been spent over the summer on several players, had we pumped it all into one proven player to supercede or play with Pukki, it would be a different story. 

[Move Klose 303]

1 hour ago, Google Bot said:

We haven't put any faith in Idah though, that's the trouble.  We were playing a very tired Pukki from the start of the season, where Idah had looked quite sharp in pre-season.  We haven't allowed him to develop at all, and that's a major part of him being off the boil.  (imo)

Guy needs a loan out and some real faith shown in him to deliver week in week out.

The worst thing Idah couldve done in his NCFC career was scoring that hattrick vs Preston in the cup. He was supposedly on the verge of joining Doncaster on loan for the rest of the season, instead he ended up playing a bit part for the rest of the season with us.

The boy clearly has talent but getting 10 minutes here and there isn't doing his development much good. He needs a season out on loan somewhere playing 30+ games, getting some minutes and confidence.

As for Hernandez & Hugill they weren't good enough to feature much for us in the championship let alone the prem. Let's not fool ourselves into thinking they are better than what we have here. As once we have everybody back and fit they don't make the 18 man squad.

[essex canary 622]

1 hour ago, Indy said:

Because both are worse than we have by a mile!

Both have reasonable appearance records for teams at the top end of the Championship this season albeit often for less than 90 minutes and neither have been pulling up trees.

All teams need a mix of youth and experience. Players themselves need some stability. All in all it may have been better to reduce some of this loan nonsense and a better option than yet another youngster like Gilmour.

[Fr. Chewy Louie 140]

1 hour ago, Move Klose said:

The worst thing Idah couldve done in his NCFC career was scoring that hattrick vs Preston in the cup. He was supposedly on the verge of joining Doncaster on loan for the rest of the season, instead he ended up playing a bit part for the rest of the season with us.

The boy clearly has talent but getting 10 minutes here and there isn't doing his development much good. He needs a season out on loan somewhere playing 30+ games, getting some minutes and confidence.

Also managed to be injured (or possibly Covid-ed) at the time last season when Pukki was injured and he could have had a run of Champ games.

[Petriix 3,218]

2 hours ago, Indy said:

Because both are worse than we have by a mile!

How can you possibly say that, given how awful our current team is? It's hard to do worse than zero goals and zero assists. 

A massive factor in our failure this season has been the enormous and unnecessary turnover of players. We've replaced some bang average players who were familiar with our team, style, system, country, culture etc. with some bang average players who were totally alien to all of those things. 

The players we've lost had other attributes such as leadership, charisma and enthusiasm which are conspicuously absent from our remaining squad. Worst of all, we've spent about £30m net to go backwards. We'd be vastly better if we'd simply retained last season's squad minus Emi and Skipp. 

[kirku 1,358]

Placheta has been one of the better performers recently and is probably better than Hernandez is now. Both struggle for end product, but one is improving and the other is 28 with a very patchy recent injury record. Despite how much we all love Onel for his attitude and personality.

As for Hugill being better than Sargent, we've generally played Sargent at RW. I don't think there's any credible argument that Hugill is better as a wide forward. 

In summary - no.