If We Go Up - Transfer Strategy

[shefcanary 2,407]

4 hours ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

Also, its a big "if", we will be in the mix but I l think Sheffield United will win the league unless they do something silly like flog their best player in January.

The match versus the Blades on 22nd October is now looking to be a pivotal match in the season. They have just failed to win in two consecutive home matches, by all accounts both Birmingham and QPR did a job on them, low blocks with sporadic presses which nullified any creativity (sound familiar). I'm sure the pragmatic Deano will want to repeat such a feat, rather than play them off the park which could end in disaster.

The feedback I have is the Blades are looking blunter by the game, so they may just sell Berge in January to get in couple of more aggressive midfielders: they feel they are missing Fleck at his peak, he is not the player he was.

[NCPFC 11]

22 hours ago, hairpie said:

listening to how recruitment team work and there record so far, i don't think we have a chance to get good premier league players. we need players that are ready now and if they are expensive only buy one or two. For example Skipp, would cost a lot but would be better than 6 players totalling the same price, that are; injured, new to english football, just potential, cheap.

We need quality NOT quantity and get them in early enough so the boys can train together with the  team and not look like a typical NCFC team and make an **** of ourselves again.

[Diane 500]

If we go up we wont do a Forest, they spent over 125m and brought in 24 new players?

We have several players out of contract Pukki, Dowell, Cantwell, McClean, Byrams, Sinani, Onel , Hugill,   so could see most of them going and being replaced  but no way will there be the massive changes that Forest made

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,220]

On 04/10/2022 at 13:36, Badger said:

Obviously any club would want as many good players as possible, but I think that supporters over-estimate the "imperative" of having a team full of "premier league quality" players in their quest to stay up and as we have seen many times it can be an expensive mistake. 

1. It is very hard to attract clearly premier league standard players to newly-promoted teams unless clubs are prepared to be financially reckless (e.g. not include significant relegation clauses).

2. Most championship clubs that stay up don't do so simply because of their success in the summer transfer market, it is a much more complex than this. It is essentially about "finding a way."

3. How many of Lambert's players had significant premier league careers after they left us? Not many - but they found a way so that the likes of Steve Morison, Aaron Wilbraham, Bradley Johnson, David Fox, Elliot Bennet etc operated effectively enough to keep us up.

Looking at most successful staying up campaigns, staying up involves being (relatively) defensively secure and finding enough goals from somewhere - this is very often accompanied by more direct play; a big emphasis on set pieces; very hard work; "physicality and pragmatism*" and counter attack and dare I say it, a smidgeon of luck, especially with injuries to key players.

We need to identify what we wish "our way" to be and find players that make it work and not spend a fortune trying to buy "premier league quality" players - most of whom would only come to us as a last resort.

Both boxes.

It is more about having a very clear pattern of play, with very clear roles that any squad member understands. This is drilled over time (like Farke did for example).

However as a low level Prem team you simply must be able to to keep goals out, have a creator, a goal scorer and a set piece taker. These are ‘weapons’. They cannot be completely stopped by the opposition without compromising their (the opposition’s) modus operandi. 

On top of this you must have a tactical structure capable of shutting spaces, restricting opportunities between the lines and - crucially - you must be very circumspect about the moments when you ‘try to win’ or ‘try to score’.

This will upset most fans, who want to see their team ‘go for it’ and will flood message boards with ‘If only we went after them, then…’ or ‘we need more belief’ or ‘we need to be up for it more’. No, no, no and no. 

In simple terms - and using our current squad as player-type-role examples - you would have a set up like:

Krul

Aarons (attacking forensically, occasionally), Hanley (trained to attack our corners better), Omobamidele (very good), Dimi (see Aarons)

Gibbs and Hayden in a screening deep-lying 2.

Nunez in front, shooting from distance. Working day and night on his set pieces. 

Sargent (maybe, someone hard-working, lots of running), you all won’t like it but MaClean (maybe, someone hard-working, lots of running)

Then Pukki as an occasional flyer, getting few touches, running hard and snaffling the occasional moment.

Frankly Pukki plus Sargent, plus Nunez is already too attacking. Sargent is shoe-horned into that role and Nunez has a mistake and an over-reach in him at the higher level. 

Artacking-wise, Pukki plus Nunez at 10 is about right in terms of openness and risk. 

Buy a different player instead of Sargent and a stronger, better version of MaCLean for the mid-fluid left of the semi-advanced (not really) 3.

It is a very structured 4231 if you want to call it that. When you are doing well the full backs push inside into midfield for overloads. There is not much wide play, it leaves you too open.

You are massively reliant on Pukki taking a high percentage of his chances, Nunez scoring free kicks or creating from set pieces and keeping games very suffocated and restricted. 

None of this ‘going after them’ nonsense 🤣. You asked for a top level progression recipe that maximised odds of staying up. 

Sorry about that chaps…🤗

Parma 

(oh and as for signings to fit the model, I would go for: Emi, Skippy…)

(Oh 2: and you still get thrashed by Man City and other good teams playing this way. Your odds just improve a bit 👌)

Edited October 6, 2022 by Parma Ham's gone mouldy