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hertfordyellow

Harsh judgement of our transfers

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3 hours ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

Will Hughes was a £5.5m player this summer.

He was available because he refused to play for Watford, so they had to let him go (despite some on here asserting that it only happens to us). He would have cost more than that otherwise.

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3 hours ago, king canary said:

So it all comes back to budgets in the end.

 

No. As Purple said it was highly questionable that we would ever be able to attract such a player. If you a player clearly of premier league class, you are likely to have better options than a newly promoted club.

It is very hard for newly promoted teams to by "dead certs." Buying a player is always a gamble - a certain percentage will always fail, but it is harder still for newly-promoted teams to the EPL, who are likely to be the bottom choice.

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3 hours ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

Could have signed them both in the summer then,  with £23m left in the kitty for other transfer fees.

There would have been loads of complaints if we had!

Anton Semenyo is a striker who scoured twice for Bristol City in 44 appearances last season, whilst Brennan Johnson was on loan to Lincoln City in League One.

There would have been a meltdown on here!😄

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33 minutes ago, Badger said:

There would have been loads of complaints if we had!

Anton Semenyo is a striker who scoured twice for Bristol City in 44 appearances last season, whilst Brennan Johnson was on loan to Lincoln City in League One.

There would have been a meltdown on here!😄

My point was the OP was talking like we couldn't afford those types of fees.

We could, if we signed 3 or 4 players in the summer rather than 11. 

There has been plenty of people argue that we should have gone with quality over quantity.

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5 hours ago, hertfordyellow said:

I've seen a number of transfer rumours involving Championship players recently and I increasingly feel the criticism of this season's signings very harsh.

Antoine Semenyo from Bristol City is being chased by some Premiership clubs for 15-16 million.

Brennan Johnson has been linked with a 18 million+ deal. 

These are Championship players with one or two seasons of football to their name. This is the market we are dealing with.

I've seen much criticism of Webber and our 9 million pound signings are struggling in the Premiership.

I have two points really.

1) 9 million is a lot of money when you haven't had any for decades but it really isn't in todays market, especially if you are trying to get Premiership quality. To some people, 9 million should buy you an almost guaranteed performer. People point to cheaper signings of other teams who have made it but just because some work out, doesn't mean they weren't a hopeful signing or always likely to succeed. Tzolis is a good example of one seen as a 'waste' of money. I get it, he has hardly played, but if he goes on to rip the championship up next season (it looks highly possible) then he is cheap for a top Championship performer with plenty of football ahead of him. You could say the same for Sargent and he has had a better contribution than Tzolis.

2) People point to Rashica, his ability to operate at Premiership level and benchmark him as what a 9 million signing should look like. If you look at the market actually we should be praising the recruitment team for getting such a player for way under the market level. Sargent for me is the bench mark of a 9 million player not Rashica.

The loans have obviously been mixed, I'm not saying we've played a blinder in the market overall, I just think people need to be more rational about the market, see we are having to take risks, even when breaking our transfer record. 

 

Where on earth is your evidence for this!!?? The boy does not even get on the pitch for a team rock bottom of the league. He will be the first to want out when relegation is sealed. Zero chance of him staying and suddenly 'ripping up the Championship'.

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11 minutes ago, yellowrider120 said:

Where on earth is your evidence for this!!?? The boy does not even get on the pitch for a team rock bottom of the league. He will be the first to want out when relegation is sealed. Zero chance of him staying and suddenly 'ripping up the Championship'.

Equally, where is your evidence that there is zero chance of him staying?

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5 hours ago, Robert N. LiM said:

The trick, therefore, is to buy the £20m players a couple of years before they're £20m players. We did that with Maddison and Emi, I suspect we've probably done it Milot and hopefully we'll also have done it with Tzolis. But the latter's lack of progress has certainly been disappointing. I guess the strategy is to buy a few and hope that the majority of them come off.

Danjuma was a bit part player before Bournemouths relegation, I’m not giving up on Tzolis yet

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58 minutes ago, yellowrider120 said:

Where on earth is your evidence for this!!?? The boy does not even get on the pitch for a team rock bottom of the league. He will be the first to want out when relegation is sealed. Zero chance of him staying and suddenly 'ripping up the Championship'.

The fact he has performed at Europa level very well and his mauling of Bournemouth in the cup indicates obvious talent outside of the intensity of the premiership.

I’m pretty confident if he doesn’t leave for personal reasons, he’ll get 10-15 goals next season and set up a similar amount.

Happy to have a wager with you?

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3 hours ago, NorthCarolinaYellow said:

As always, recruitment is a mixed bag. Webber has a number of great signings on his CV: Krul, Pukki, Buendia, etc. There are also clear duds—as you would expect. We should be somewhat lenient and realize that no club gets it 100% or even close. It could well be too early to judge on some players. We should be patient and keep our focus on the main problem being that MONEY has almost ruined the game.

 

That said ... there are some clear mistakes which now we should be able to point out. I'd list the following as obvious f*ck ups in no particular order:

 

1. Wasting money and a loan spot on a small, technical luxury player in Gilmour who was not what we needed in CM.

2. Wasting money on Tzolis under the guise of thinking towards the future when the real need is no. Keeping Hernandez would have gotten us the same output and saved ~£9m.

3. Wasting money and a loan spot on Kabak when for the same money we could likely have signed a young, promising CB to play in case of emergency who we could have developed over time into Omobamidele 2.0.

4. Not loaning out Placheta to the Championship to get him more match time at his level.

5. Whatever the f*ck happened with Cantwell.

 

Selling a fairly clearly malcontent Cantwell + avoiding the Tzolis buy + using our loans better and we could have brought in 3-4 players that would have really made a difference.

 

Also ... Once again, Webber has very much overlooked the importance of physicality in the PL: size, pace, strength. We are too small, too slow, and too weak across the pitch. We cannot physically compete and that, to me, is at the root of most of our problems.

We didn't know Gilmour would be useless. Half the world was clamouring for his signature. Likewise we didn't know Kabak would be equally useless after he had played several decent games for Liverpool. Both were hailed as great signings at the time - absolutely no one (and I mean no one) attacked those signings at the time. Tzolis is still hailed as the Greek Ronaldo - he was introduced as one for the future. Unsurprisingly, therefore, he is one for the future.

We also didn't know that Cantwell was going to throw his toys away quite so dramatically. As for selling him, haven't we done that?

Gilmour, Kabak and Cantwell have let us down and not turned out to be what we thought they were - those 3 players could have made a huge, massive difference. They are all in the RVW/Naismith/Dean Coney class of disappointment

Your last point about physicality is well made yet we have competed physically in some games. You can't tell me that Krul, Byram, Hanley, Gibson, Williams, Normann, Idah, Omobamidele, don't compete physically because they can and they do in every game they play. Our problem is in midfield where it has been for 4 years - temporarily solved by Skipp last year.

We can all criticise Webber for not solving that one - but I think he thought he had.

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6 hours ago, hertfordyellow said:

If my argument is far too simplistic to pay any attention to, why have you commented on it twice?

I didn’t mention whether Rashica was on 80k or not because we know we have a wage structure that doesn’t allow for massive pay outliers in  the squad.

I didn’t say Webber was a genius or we should have circle jerk in celebration. I mention specifically it has been of mixed success. As ever, you try to twist an open and honest thread into distorted extremes to shut down debate. Why do you bother?

He gets  off on it , he's  a one man circle jerk. 

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7 hours ago, sgncfc said:

Joshua King is on £60k a week at Watford. They wouldn' t pay Will Hughes that so he left and got it at Palace. Sissoko was £3m but also £80k a week. Dennis was £3.6m but also £40k a week and completely unproven. A reminder that Watford will probably come down with us, so even this isn't enough.

If we have a wage ceiling in order to stay solvent, then there are only certain players who will be interested. The Ajer deal didn't stack up for that reason. We couldn't even persuade Gary Cahill to stay in the PL for an extra season. If we pay £20m for an incoming 23 year old and £60k a week on a 4 year deal that's a £32m committment. He might turn into a £50m player but If he turns out to RVW or Naismith we are screwed again. If you look at our history on big signings we're not very good at it.

The fact that we can't compete over a full season with teams paying players 2, 3 or 4 times what we pay is not really a surprise. It's disappointing, but completely understandable. Players will have good and bad games. We need everyone to produce 9 out of 10 every week to win games but that isn't possible. When they produce 5s and 6s we look out of our depth.

That doesn't make them bad players, just not up to the standard which is now the EPL mean.

 

I believe Hughes left Watford as he wouldn't accept a relegation clause. The money on offer was the same. 

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2 hours ago, hertfordyellow said:

The fact he has performed at Europa level very well and his mauling of Bournemouth in the cup indicates obvious talent outside of the intensity of the premiership.

I’m pretty confident if he doesn’t leave for personal reasons, he’ll get 10-15 goals next season and set up a similar amount.

Happy to have a wager with you?

I believe there is a player there but the game against Bournemouth can't be used as an example. He was up against a player without a single appearance in the first team who had spent the last 2 seasons on loan at Weymouth. I will admit the Europa experience shows more. 

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9 minutes ago, Canaries north said:

I believe there is a player there but the game against Bournemouth can't be used as an example. He was up against a player without a single appearance in the first team who had spent the last 2 seasons on loan at Weymouth. I will admit the Europa experience shows more. 

He wasn’t up against one player though. There was plenty of Championship experience in that team that day. He hasn’t been trusted to do the defending without the ball in the premiership. I don’t think either manager thought Dowell would be better option, but he more reliable than Tzolis when it comes to shape etc. He can learn that, even Ronaldo had to learn this before cementing a full time place.

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16 hours ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

My point was the OP was talking like we couldn't afford those types of fees.

We could, if we signed 3 or 4 players in the summer rather than 11. 

There has been plenty of people argue that we should have gone with quality over quantity.

Fair point 👍

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14 hours ago, hertfordyellow said:

He wasn’t up against one player though. There was plenty of Championship experience in that team that day. He hasn’t been trusted to do the defending without the ball in the premiership. I don’t think either manager thought Dowell would be better option, but he more reliable than Tzolis when it comes to shape etc. He can learn that, even Ronaldo had to learn this before cementing a full time place.

What I was saying is the game against Bournemouth can not be taken as a great performance given the level of the players he was playing against. Bournemouth put out a similarly weak team against Boreham Wood and lost.

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Remember that Giannoulis was from prior years budget. 

Gilmour, Kabak & Tzolis still have time to come good (whether with is or not), they're just not what we wanted this season.  Whilst Gilmour and Kabak are relatively low cost, Tzolis is a gamble and a potential error in cash flow outlay timing certainly, but should we get relegated he still has a chance of coming good.   

In 15 months time everything may look different again (earlier if we miraculously survive this season - hmmmm).

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On 03/03/2022 at 13:38, hertfordyellow said:

Your point was indeed simple. We don’t own a time machine although if we did it would be labelled an expensive vanity project.

Why would we sign players for the Premiership season, who hadn’t even made it for their clubs yet.

The point went over your head, as per usual. 

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4 hours ago, shefcanary said:

Remember that Giannoulis was from prior years budget. 

Gilmour, Kabak & Tzolis still have time to come good (whether with is or not), they're just not what we wanted this season.  Whilst Gilmour and Kabak are relatively low cost, Tzolis is a gamble and a potential error in cash flow outlay timing certainly, but should we get relegated he still has a chance of coming good.   

In 15 months time everything may look different again (earlier if we miraculously survive this season - hmmmm).

Rumours that both our Greek players are homesick.

Should imagine we'll end up writing off millions on  each of them. 

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4 hours ago, shefcanary said:

Remember that Giannoulis was from prior years budget. 

 

No - he was paid for this summer.

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7 hours ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

The point went over your head, as per usual. 

Not really. You lament the signing of a raw Tzolis, with international and European experience for 9 million. Then suggest signing players with one championship season experience for twice as much. I’m struggling to see any logic let alone a simple one. What evidence is there, that either of the players I mentioned in the original thread are any less of a risk, using considerably more of the budget that you deem to have been wasted?

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14 hours ago, Badger said:

Fair point 👍

Is it a fair point? At no point did I say we couldn’t afford the fee, I was talking about what a certain amount gets you in todays market. If you wanted to spend 18 million on a player with less experience than Tzolis we could afford their wages too. But it would be a risk just as much as Tzolis and at twice the price.

when you start talking about players actually worth 20 million plus, ones with experience, international recognition etc, we are then competing with Leicester, Leipzig, Napoli, Everton. They offer more in every sense. That’s the player we can’t compete for. 

 

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50 minutes ago, hertfordyellow said:

Not really. You lament the signing of a raw Tzolis, with international and European experience for 9 million. 

"International and European experience"

I know the Greeks won the European Championships in 2004 hertfordyellow, but Tsoliz was 2 years old then. Fifa currently ranks them as the 55th best team in the world. 

That puts them between Northern Ireland and Burkina Faso.

When Jamar Loza got his final call up for Jamaica in 2015.... their world ranking then why higher than Greece's world ranking right now, and he's been a non-league footballer pretty much ever since. You are putting far too much weight on international caps, you should at the very least do a small amount of research into the current strength of the nation in question before basing any past of your argument on those caps.... Greece managed to fail to beat Kosovo twice in their unsuccessful attempts to qualify for the 2022 World Cup. 

They are in the 3rd division of the Nations League competition, in a group with Northern Ireland, Kosovo and Cyprus or Estonia. 

It is not an uncommon or particularly left field position to take to believe that we shouldn't have spent £9m on a player for the future, when there is so much money to be had by staying up, there is a lot of doubt that we'll have the ability to bounce back this time - the likes of Pukki and Krul are not getting any younger, and we lose the four loanees. 

So yes, I lament the signing of a player that Webber said himself was not expected to make an impact this season. Perhaps if I had more confidence in Webber's ability to identify and recruit young prospects I'd feel differently. Maddison and Godfrey arrived long before Webber did, and I just don't see a footballer in Placheta, and where is McCallum who is said to have cost a few million? (Poland ranked higher than Greece by the way, says it all!). 

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I get annoyed when people write off Tzolis as 'crap' when he has not been given a fair chance on the pitch. He has started (I think) two league games this season, plus the Bournemouth cup game, plus a sprinkling of 10-20 minute cameos at the end of a few games. Isn't that bound to hit the confidence of a 19-year-old (now just 20) away from home for the first time and struggling to cope with a different language, culture etc?

Meanwhile two players who are much less technically gifted have been allowed a long run of games to adapt to English football: Sargent because of his work-rate, and Placheta because of his speed. Sargent has done his defensive duties well, but in attack he has had one excellent game and perhaps two satisfactory games. Placheta has offered virtually nothing. Neither can be said to offer a smidgen of the creativity we need upfront.

Let's judge Tzolis when he's been given the same opportunity that Sargent and Placheta have been given. 

 

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25 minutes ago, canarybubbles said:

I get annoyed when people write off Tzolis as 'crap' when he has not been given a fair chance on the pitch. He has started (I think) two league games this season, plus the Bournemouth cup game, plus a sprinkling of 10-20 minute cameos at the end of a few games. Isn't that bound to hit the confidence of a 19-year-old (now just 20) away from home for the first time and struggling to cope with a different language, culture etc?

Meanwhile two players who are much less technically gifted have been allowed a long run of games to adapt to English football: Sargent because of his work-rate, and Placheta because of his speed. Sargent has done his defensive duties well, but in attack he has had one excellent game and perhaps two satisfactory games. Placheta has offered virtually nothing. Neither can be said to offer a smidgen of the creativity we need upfront.

Let's judge Tzolis when he's been given the same opportunity that Sargent and Placheta have been given. 

 

Well said.

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On 03/03/2022 at 18:17, hertfordyellow said:

The fact he has performed at Europa level very well and his mauling of Bournemouth in the cup indicates obvious talent outside of the intensity of the premiership.

I’m pretty confident if he doesn’t leave for personal reasons, he’ll get 10-15 goals next season and set up a similar amount.

Happy to have a wager with you?

Last summer, we were recruiting players for our forthcoming season in the Prem. We were not (or shouldn’t have been), recruiting for players for the subsequent season in the Championship.  It’s good to know that you’re satisfied with how last summers transfer budget was wasted, leading to our current position at the bottom of the league. I’m not and nor are most others.

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The harsh reality of our transfers this season is that only Rashica is premier League level, and it's taken him half a season to get going. Unfortunately you can't replace experience with cheap youthful signings from abroad and the only experience we signed was two kids. It just wasn't well thought out enough and was driven by cheap deals. I've no doubt most of these signings might come good but not enough to keep us up. 

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7 hours ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

"International and European experience"

I know the Greeks won the European Championships in 2004 hertfordyellow, but Tsoliz was 2 years old then. Fifa currently ranks them as the 55th best team in the world. 

That puts them between Northern Ireland and Burkina Faso.

When Jamar Loza got his final call up for Jamaica in 2015.... their world ranking then why higher than Greece's world ranking right now, and he's been a non-league footballer pretty much ever since. You are putting far too much weight on international caps, you should at the very least do a small amount of research into the current strength of the nation in question before basing any past of your argument on those caps.... Greece managed to fail to beat Kosovo twice in their unsuccessful attempts to qualify for the 2022 World Cup. 

They are in the 3rd division of the Nations League competition, in a group with Northern Ireland, Kosovo and Cyprus or Estonia. 

It is not an uncommon or particularly left field position to take to believe that we shouldn't have spent £9m on a player for the future, when there is so much money to be had by staying up, there is a lot of doubt that we'll have the ability to bounce back this time - the likes of Pukki and Krul are not getting any younger, and we lose the four loanees. 

So yes, I lament the signing of a player that Webber said himself was not expected to make an impact this season. Perhaps if I had more confidence in Webber's ability to identify and recruit young prospects I'd feel differently. Maddison and Godfrey arrived long before Webber did, and I just don't see a footballer in Placheta, and where is McCallum who is said to have cost a few million? (Poland ranked higher than Greece by the way, says it all!). 

Hard to argue against that. One thing I would say though is I’m sure Tzolis was not signed with the intention of no contribution whatsoever this season. I can’t believe that was the plan, although I do recall Farke/Webber being oddly quick to dampen our expectations.

But when they said ‘one for the future’ ‘don’t expect too much this season’ etc, were they anticipating the likes of Rowe and Placheta would be getting regular time ahead of him? Absolutely not, it’s clear his star has fallen way down.

Even if he does come good in the future it’s still a poor choice of player for what we needed this season. To be honest he’s so far down the pecking order now I’m struggling to foresee any ‘ripping up then championship’, his confidence is shot to bits. Felt like Wednesday was probably his last shot for some minutes this season but no, Placheta and Rowe are way ahead of him. Why do people expect that to change, Rowe is a year younger than him and has looked much the better prospect! If it wasn’t for the price tag no one would be expecting anything… 

Throw in this disappointment with the unraveling of Cantwell and all of a sudden the Tzolis business looks even worse than it already did - which of course was a situation the club could not have legislated for. Then again decisions such as loaning out Onel only exasperate the situation further - I don’t think you’d have a fan on this forum advocating for Placheta over Onel.

And if the argument is we can’t possibly spend enough to compete in this league, then how on Earth does that leave room in our budget to spend £15 mil (including Gunn) and 30% of our transfer budget purely on players ‘for the future’?! As a marker we only spent 7-8% of our budget on Maddison/Godfrey during the Alex Neil prem season.

So clearly Webber felt like we could compete, which is why he got comfortable spending so much on deeper squad building, and why we set our internal targets to become a top-17 club. 

 

 

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On 03/03/2022 at 18:17, hertfordyellow said:

I’m pretty confident if he doesn’t leave for personal reasons, he’ll get 10-15 goals next season and set up a similar amount.

Happy to have a wager with you?

One good game against Bournemouth’s reserves where Sargent also scored two. I’m finding it hard to read too much into that - perhaps a small silver lining to cling to for next season?

But 10-15 goals AND assists?! I mean I would be incredibly pleased but this feels more than a little ambitious. 

For reference Buendia scored 8 goals and 12 assists in his first championship season, and 15 goals and 17 assists in his second one. Last season Cantwell got 6 goals and 7 assists (in 33 games so a bit less than the full season).

So you’re putting him in and around Buendia’s level, and better than Cantwell’s?!

Not sure the one performance against Bournemouth’s reserves this season gives me that much confidence..

Edited by Hank shoots Skyler

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Webber’s fairly successful at buying in players for the Championship, we’ve seen that on a number of occasions. What he’s not so good at is buying them in with an eye for the future, the Prem. His record of Prem signings this season isn’t great (I won’t judge him on 19/20 as he was hamstrung).The glaring omission was the gutting of the CM and not replacing Skipp, Tettey or even Vrancic with any capable replacements. Coupling that with his bluster and rhetoric he’s not covered himself in glory. Be interesting to see what he says end of season should we go down.

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