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Simply, goes to our failure. Inability to secure players that aid promotion - and are capable to perform at a higher level - has been completely lacking. It’s our lack of investment which means we have to buy lower quality players. Our business model lacks efficacy if is the idea is to be competitive in tier two let alone tier one.

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29 minutes ago, Terminally Yellow said:

Oh do give it a rest. The season hasn't even begun and you're already slapping around the blame like a giddy child in a sweet shop.

A bad first game a season does not make.

One player out injured for the season's start does not a poor window make.

We have plenty of cover in central midfield and most championship sides would take our central midfield over theres.

Oh well, if you're another who needs to peddle the personal stuff, then what's the point of debate.

I, for one, did not expect our opening day squad to be such a makeshift arrangement, with not one single new face added to our already inadequate resources in defensive midfield (which you seem not to have noticed.) 

I, for one, am also fully accepting of the fact that points gained in the opening games are as necessary as those gained after six, seven or forty odd games into the season.  

As for this gem:

"One player out injured for the season's start does not a poor window make."

Both new signings are out. Two others (midfielders) have been sold and, as far as I can make out, our options are now restricted from day one. Whilst the attacking midfielders available would  seem to be a "sweet shop" for Smith. 

Underestimate "most Championship sides" at our peril. It is not just most, though, it is the half-dozen or so who have every right to fancy their chances this season. They aren't likely to dismiss a defeat against Cardiff so lightly.

This window has been sloppy. 

Edited by BroadstairsR
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I don't know whether missing out on Kone is a blow or not in the longer terms. But what I do feel is that our transfer strategy remains somewhat random and reactive. I don't think we intended to sell PLM a month ago but I think he's gone because someone was prepared to stump up some cash so we took it, notwithstanding the fact that we know we are short in that position until we get some players fit. I'd like to see a bit more strategic planning and early action so that in effect each season we don't just accept that we aren't going to have our first choice team on the pitch until a month in. 

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Might not have intended to sell PLM, but he might not have settled too well and wanted to go back to France. Wouldn't blame him.

We've got McLean, Lungi, Hayden (still out), Sara (on the way back), Gibbs is unproven but clearly one Smith is keeping an eye on, as is Sinani. One more midfielder would be nice. Kone may feel with all the interest in him that he/his agents can drive a harder bargain, and we can't really afford to be caught up in such wars.

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6 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

Might not have intended to sell PLM, but he might not have settled too well and wanted to go back to France. Wouldn't blame him.

We've got McLean, Lungi, Hayden (still out), Sara (on the way back), Gibbs is unproven but clearly one Smith is keeping an eye on, as is Sinani. One more midfielder would be nice. Kone may feel with all the interest in him that he/his agents can drive a harder bargain, and we can't really afford to be caught up in such wars.

We also have Cantwell. I know everybody is suggesting his time at Bournemouth was a failure but his stats whilst playing as a "number 8" were very good. 

Stats and comment from BYG:

"While playing as an 8 for Bournemouth, no midfielder (including those playing as a 10) made more key passes in the Championship as Todd Cantwell. Smallish sample size, but give Todd the ball and he’ll create."

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23 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

I don't know whether missing out on Kone is a blow or not in the longer terms. But what I do feel is that our transfer strategy remains somewhat random and reactive. I don't think we intended to sell PLM a month ago but I think he's gone because someone was prepared to stump up some cash so we took it, notwithstanding the fact that we know we are short in that position until we get some players fit. I'd like to see a bit more strategic planning and early action so that in effect each season we don't just accept that we aren't going to have our first choice team on the pitch until a month in. 

It's looked pretty strategic to me. Hold onto our key players, bolster our midfield and offer a route through to the first team for young players. Looks pretty good to me on paper and let's remember the sort of complaints on here at the start of our last championship campaign. 

30 minutes ago, Highland Canary said:

Simply, goes to our failure. Inability to secure players that aid promotion - and are capable to perform at a higher level - has been completely lacking. It’s our lack of investment which means we have to buy lower quality players. Our business model lacks efficacy if is the idea is to be competitive in tier two let alone tier one.

When's the last time we weren't competitive in tier two? And how does that compare to the other 23 championship clubs with richer owners than ours? You're good at making up sh*t but that's about it.

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16 minutes ago, Badger said:

We also have Cantwell. I know everybody is suggesting his time at Bournemouth was a failure but his stats whilst playing as a "number 8" were very good. 

Stats and comment from BYG:

"While playing as an 8 for Bournemouth, no midfielder (including those playing as a 10) made more key passes in the Championship as Todd Cantwell. Smallish sample size, but give Todd the ball and he’ll create."

Image

I doubt many are that critical of Todd's creativity. It's how it fits in our midfield, especially with a seeming lack of defensive bite (although I think Lungi's earned a crack at it even though he won't necessarily be as tigerish as Skipp, Lungi will turn it over where he can, but looks to slow the opposition down and intercept things).

You would think he should have a good partnership with Pukki at this level though.

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1 hour ago, Badger said:

We also have Cantwell. I know everybody is suggesting his time at Bournemouth was a failure but his stats whilst playing as a "number 8" were very good. 

Stats and comment from BYG:

"While playing as an 8 for Bournemouth, no midfielder (including those playing as a 10) made more key passes in the Championship as Todd Cantwell. Smallish sample size, but give Todd the ball and he’ll create."

Image

Yeah, he's not a bad player when playing amongst creative players far too good for the league they're in. 

When he is the only creative player, or playing amongst players at their level in the championship, Cantwell will be exposed. 

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It’s odd how people look at things: we had none of us heard of this lad until a few days ago.  I’m certainly not going to go off on one just because we think he’s s’more than we want to pay.  I too would have expected a few more faces but there’s still 5 weeks of the transfer window to go.  That’s tonnes of time  to get a new player or two through.

Added into the mix, something that many seem keen to forget is that we have players available who weren’t here last season - this includes Sinani on the back of a play-off campaign and a rejuvenated Todd is effectively one (he certainly wasn’t here literally from Jan, mentally for longer).

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1 hour ago, hogesar said:

It's looked pretty strategic to me. Hold onto our key players, bolster our midfield and offer a route through to the first team for young players. Looks pretty good to me on paper and let's remember the sort of complaints on here at the start of our last championship campaign. 

 

And in particular bearing in mind Parma's at-the-time specific criticisms of last summer's window, that not only did we not replace Buendia or Skipp but that we brought in wingers when nobody (exaggeration to make the point) plays with wingers anymore. So we overkilled by signing Rashica and Tzolis when we already had Placheta and Hernandez.

This time around we have replaced Skipp (and, yes, Jim, I know Hayden can't start the first game of a 46-game season...) and may be looking at Sara and AN Other and perhaps even Cantwell to sort of replace Buendia, while Tzolis and Placheta have been offloaded. The balance of the squad looks better already, and we are apparently still in the market for loans in and at least one permanent signing.

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So playing poorly so badly noone wants to sign any of this misfiring shambles was in fact a strategy.  A strategy we used in 2019/20 so well we employed it again last season.  Suggest if this was our strategy it certainly was an unqualified success.  Perhaps we need to change plans.

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2 hours ago, Highland Canary said:

Simply, goes to our failure. Inability to secure players that aid promotion - and are capable to perform at a higher level - has been completely lacking. It’s our lack of investment which means we have to buy lower quality players. Our business model lacks efficacy if is the idea is to be competitive in tier two let alone tier one.

We've brought in Hayden (PL proven) on a loan to buy, and Sara (Serie A proven). Our business model has cleared our debt, saved us from administration, and secured two promotions well before that business plan predicted. Our self-funding model has seen us spend amounts of cash way beyond what any of us would have predicted before its implementation. In 2017/18 we finished 14th 2 places behind Ipswich, I wonder if they would trade the "efficacy" of their billionaire owner model for the efficacy of our self-funding business model!!!

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3 hours ago, 1902 said:

Why would our championship squad be substantially better than our premier league squad? That's completely unrealistic

Hayden is a better midfielder than any we had last season. He is not god, but he is a genuine premier league standard player. Sara we haven't seen so no idea how he will work out. So what have we lost in reality, Rupp and PLM? 

So that's one player who was injured half the time and getting on a bit and another who we sold for 3.5 million and we are clearly looking to replace.

Where did I say substantially better? I said I was hoping that last years appallingly bad team / squad would be better. That team would not have got promoted. Hayden is injured and has spent most of the last campaign injured. The impact he will have is very much up in the air. You are right we have no idea if Sara will improve us. We have added no one who will start on Saturday and the team isn't in slightest bit better yet. Given Webbers record in the last two windows you can forgive those who are yet to be convinced.

Punki is not getting the service he needs, not convinced Sargeant, Idah or Hugill will get the gaols we need and we lack any creativity outside of a player who had massive issues last year.

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12 minutes ago, horsefly said:

We've brought in Hayden (PL proven) on a loan to buy, and Sara (Serie A proven). Our business model has cleared our debt, saved us from administration, and secured two promotions well before that business plan predicted. Our self-funding model has seen us spend amounts of cash way beyond what any of us would have predicted before its implementation. In 2017/18 we finished 14th 2 places behind Ipswich, I wonder if they would trade the "efficacy" of their billionaire owner model for the efficacy of our self-funding business model!!!

It's premiership funded not self funded. 

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3 minutes ago, Kenny Foggo said:

It's premiership funded not self funded. 

Is that supposed to be funny or just ignorant?

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40 minutes ago, Terminally Yellow said:

The same thing isn't it. 

I think he was trying to be funny.

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By definition, self-funded means any money we generate - which naturally includes prize money.

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What angers me about Kone, is that we seemingly aren't willing to pay a higher fee for him, and yet we did exactly that for Sargent.

Kone looks an athletic, physical young midfielder, who on paper looks like he'd improve our 1st team straight away. Sargent for all we're told was bought for much more than we should have paid, was young but didn't possess any technical skills and didn't really have any stats or performances to back up why we paid so much. And a year on we're all still wondering what Sargent does best

Similar for Tzolis. Young and touted as exciting, but not played in 1st season, loaned out in 2nd season, so to date the £9m investment looks awful and an expensive player who hasn't contributed anything yet to NCFC.

Yes, none of us had of Kone a couple of days, but it's a shame Webber flew all the way out there to pull out. At least he had a nice trip to USA!   

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32 minutes ago, Samwam27 said:

What angers me about Kone, is that we seemingly aren't willing to pay a higher fee for him, and yet we did exactly that for Sargent.

Kone looks an athletic, physical young midfielder, who on paper looks like he'd improve our 1st team straight away. Sargent for all we're told was bought for much more than we should have paid, was young but didn't possess any technical skills and didn't really have any stats or performances to back up why we paid so much. And a year on we're all still wondering what Sargent does best

Similar for Tzolis. Young and touted as exciting, but not played in 1st season, loaned out in 2nd season, so to date the £9m investment looks awful and an expensive player who hasn't contributed anything yet to NCFC.

Yes, none of us had of Kone a couple of days, but it's a shame Webber flew all the way out there to pull out. At least he had a nice trip to USA!   

Football. The only industry in the world where you get criticised for not repeating your mistakes.

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1 hour ago, Samwam27 said:

What angers me about Kone, is that we seemingly aren't willing to pay a higher fee for him, and yet we did exactly that for Sargent.

Kone looks an athletic, physical young midfielder, who on paper looks like he'd improve our 1st team straight away. Sargent for all we're told was bought for much more than we should have paid, was young but didn't possess any technical skills and didn't really have any stats or performances to back up why we paid so much. And a year on we're all still wondering what Sargent does best

Similar for Tzolis. Young and touted as exciting, but not played in 1st season, loaned out in 2nd season, so to date the £9m investment looks awful and an expensive player who hasn't contributed anything yet to NCFC.

Yes, none of us had of Kone a couple of days, but it's a shame Webber flew all the way out there to pull out. At least he had a nice trip to USA!   

Michael Bailey said we'd agreed a fee with Montreal, so it was presumably his wages we didn't want to go for.

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4 minutes ago, repman said:

Michael Bailey said we'd agreed a fee with Montreal, so it was presumably his wages we didn't want to go for.

Yes that's how I understood it. It's frustrating but you can't speak to players until a fee is agreed. 

It will be be interesting to see if and where Kone ends up. Always a bit disappointing to see a young player driven by money.

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21 minutes ago, Capt. Pants said:

Yes that's how I understood it. It's frustrating but you can't speak to players until a fee is agreed. 

It will be be interesting to see if and where Kone ends up. Always a bit disappointing to see a young player driven by money.

It may be that he's driven by money, but moving to Europe at 20 will be a big thing for him personally, coupled with the fact it could easily make or break his career so you can't blame him for trying to lock in some cash too.

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