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Monty13

Maybe we haven’t quite got the recruitment right?

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Couple of points the midfield has basically been completely different for three seasons now. This takes time to settle down.

We are strong on paper but we lack an outstanding talent. We basically have a collection of strong Championship players. There is no Buendia, Mitrovic, Toney, Bamford, type talent in the squad. 

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2 hours ago, Monty13 said:

To be fair, I see Smith being blamed constantly, and IMO deservedly at least for his part, for the disjointed performances. I’ve not seen much questioning of the players he has at his disposal post the summer. Injuries aside, most seem to think, unless I’m completely misreading the room, we have the required players. I’m not so sure.

We’ve spent £80’000’000 give or take over two summers I’d say the only player that has gotten a guaranteed starting place after all that money now is Sargent. That’s hardly a ringing endorsement of the spend. 

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2 hours ago, Kingston Yellow said:

“Maybe we haven’t got recruitment quite right?” Is this a serious post?

Yes I was wondering the same. The question has to be a wind up we have p1ssed multi millions away over the past 3 years and gone backwards. I do question some of our fans logic. We got promoted to the premier league twice and not only failed to buy anyone near PL standard we are now about a top 6 chumps side at best and it appears that the recruitment failures of the past 3 years are all Dean Smiths fault.

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If the problem is recruitment how will changing the manager change that. Replacing Farke didn't work.

The only two positive changes I saw after Smith joined was Idah looking the part up front and us defending our box better.  That defending seems to have stopped now. And Idah's injured.

Despite Idah's injury Pukki/Sargent are on for 40 goals this season. But we're not defending our box well enough to be top six let alone top two. Centrebacks seem to be the problem here. Let's hope that can be addressed in January.

 

 

 

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Tzolis remains a black mark on Webber's reputation. Okay if he wasnt ready for the Premier League ,thats one thing ..but to then loan him out ,as they didnt think he'd contribute in the Championship (when we have one winger at the club) doesnt look at all promising

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2 minutes ago, GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary said:

Tzolis remains a black mark on Webber's reputation. Okay if he wasnt ready for the Premier League ,thats one thing ..but to then loan him out ,as they didnt think he'd contribute in the Championship (when we have one winger at the club) doesnt look at all promising

I'm sure I read that Chelsea were looking at Webber, I had to be dreaming right? Any club looking at Webbers signings over the past 3 years would know he can't recruit footballers fit for purpose. Webber got lucky with a couple of signings long long ago but has subsequently put the club back 10 years

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The players signed this summer have been good. I think they've individually done well. Ramsey has shown that he's more than capable in this league. Nunez is a steal at 3.5m. Hayden could be perfect for us, if he can stay fit. Sara has taken time to adapt. He was expensive, but I think it'd be harsh to judge him as a failure quite so soon.

It's a mistake to look at the four players in isolation and say we got it wrong. We need to look at the situation in context: central midfield was the area most in need of surgery, so that's where we concentrated our resources. They then recruited players to fit into this 4-3-3 formation, which is yet to convince anyone that it actually works. That's problem number one, for me. Having said that, I'm hoping (praying) things will improve once everyone's fit/settled.

It also meant that we lacked the funds to properly invest in wide players. I'm not sure if Smith would prefer to play with wingers, forwards or inverted number tens (he had BMW at Brentford), but we seem to possess a complete mixture of attributes in Sargent, Hernandez, Cantwell and Sinani, it's difficult to see the strategy. 

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4 hours ago, GodlyOtsemobor said:

where have the days gone of picking up the starving hungry players from the bottom of the champs/top of league one to slot in with our team. Players who will run through brick walls at the chance of playing for a team like us. 

We seem hell bent on finding " Gems " from places no one else is looking. 

The club will absolutely be scouting the football league. The likes of Toney and Vardy show that it is still possible for players to make the jump. It has been explained why we don't often recruit there:

1) The gap between League 1 and the Premier League (even the top of the Championship) is massive. There aren't many players who are good enough to make the jump. 

*Having just checked, there were four transfers from League one (or below) to the PL - Matt Wilcox, Leon Chiwome, Dom Plank, Lukas Vine. All of them are youth team players. Only the more established players (Burnley players) or exceptional talents (Carvalho) have featured much, having transferred from the Championship last summer. Toffolo O'Brien and Lewis-Potter have also featured.

2) The prices of British talent is over inflated - we can get better value elsewhere. Nunez in particular would have been worth double what he cost us, if he had played at Peterborough.

3) We scout the players' personality/on-pitch attitude as well as their playing attributes. 

I understand where you're coming from - the likes of Pilkington, Holt, Bennett and Martin were great, however they were only really effective under Lambert. Holt aside, they were all poor post-Lambert and none of them went on to bigger or better things after leaving us. 

The irony of your comment / username combo is quite funny though. 

 

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It beggars belief to read that some people think we should walk this League with our squad!

What do they base it on? The fact we won the League at a canter the last 2 times? It’s ridiculous to say it’s a great squad, when in truth it’s actually full of journeymen and relatively untried youngsters!

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10 hours ago, Richard Richard said:

Split on this Mastoola. At the start of the season I thought we were very strong on paper but looking through the squad now, do we not just have a team of average champ players?

Nunez, Gibbs, Sara, Ramsay unproven to be fair.

But the rest - Gibson, Hanley, Byram, McClean, Cantwell, Onel, Dowell and so on....

Who's realistic Prem quality aside from Pukki? Who came out of the last two seasons there with any real credibility?

I'm not sure there were many. I'm similarly not sure that this squad is anything more than bang-average in reality and we may need to adjust our expectations accordingly.

Expectations are just disappointments , waiting to happen. Be neither a pessimist or an optimist, but a realist with a positive disposition. It provides the most comfortable ride through most things...which is as much as we can expect really. Given the state of the world. 

Time and tide waits for no man .🎣🐟 See y'all in a couple of hours when I'm eating breakfast part 2. 

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4 hours ago, Yellow and Green said:

The players signed this summer have been good. I think they've individually done well. Ramsey has shown that he's more than capable in this league. Nunez is a steal at 3.5m. Hayden could be perfect for us, if he can stay fit. Sara has taken time to adapt. He was expensive, but I think it'd be harsh to judge him as a failure quite so soon.

It's a mistake to look at the four players in isolation and say we got it wrong. We need to look at the situation in context: central midfield was the area most in need of surgery, so that's where we concentrated our resources. They then recruited players to fit into this 4-3-3 formation, which is yet to convince anyone that it actually works. That's problem number one, for me. Having said that, I'm hoping (praying) things will improve once everyone's fit/settled.

It also meant that we lacked the funds to properly invest in wide players. I'm not sure if Smith would prefer to play with wingers, forwards or inverted number tens (he had BMW at Brentford), but we seem to possess a complete mixture of attributes in Sargent, Hernandez, Cantwell and Sinani, it's difficult to see the strategy. 

I’m not saying his a failure, but is he really what we need? I don’t think so, the money should’ve been better spent. 

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Of course we haven’t and yet the fraud Webber gets a free pass and won’t be held to account because the only person who can do so is his wife who is too busy counting their hoards of cash and letting him climb mountains and interview for other jobs. 

Edited by Jim Smith

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5 hours ago, Yellow and Green said:

The players signed this summer have been good. I think they've individually done well. Ramsey has shown that he's more than capable in this league. Nunez is a steal at 3.5m. Hayden could be perfect for us, if he can stay fit. Sara has taken time to adapt. He was expensive, but I think it'd be harsh to judge him as a failure quite so soon.

It's a mistake to look at the four players in isolation and say we got it wrong. We need to look at the situation in context: central midfield was the area most in need of surgery, so that's where we concentrated our resources. They then recruited players to fit into this 4-3-3 formation, which is yet to convince anyone that it actually works. That's problem number one, for me. Having said that, I'm hoping (praying) things will improve once everyone's fit/settled.

It also meant that we lacked the funds to properly invest in wide players. I'm not sure if Smith would prefer to play with wingers, forwards or inverted number tens (he had BMW at Brentford), but we seem to possess a complete mixture of attributes in Sargent, Hernandez, Cantwell and Sinani, it's difficult to see the strategy. 

Ramsey has had a couple of decent halves but actually is a problem for us in that Smith insists on playing him nearly every game, he can only really play in that central role (where Dowell or Todd would be better), he has little end product and goes completely missing. He’s a player we didn’t need. 

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1 hour ago, wcorkcanary said:

Expectations are just disappointments , waiting to happen. Be neither a pessimist or an optimist, but a realist with a positive disposition. It provides the most comfortable ride through most things...which is as much as we can expect really. Given the state of the world. 

Time and tide waits for no man .🎣🐟 See y'all in a couple of hours when I'm eating breakfast part 2. 

Almost poetic so early on a Sunday morning Corky!

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8 hours ago, nutty nigel said:

If the problem is recruitment how will changing the manager change that. Replacing Farke didn't work.

The only two positive changes I saw after Smith joined was Idah looking the part up front and us defending our box better.  That defending seems to have stopped now. And Idah's injured.

Despite Idah's injury Pukki/Sargent are on for 40 goals this season. But we're not defending our box well enough to be top six let alone top two. Centrebacks seem to be the problem here. Let's hope that can be addressed in January.

 

 

 

Why do the majority seem to overlook who’s single handedly overseen recruitment over this time period.  Not to mention the panic appointment of Smith.

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12 hours ago, Richard Richard said:

Split on this Mastoola. At the start of the season I thought we were very strong on paper but looking through the squad now, do we not just have a team of average champ players?

Nunez, Gibbs, Sara, Ramsay unproven to be fair.

But the rest - Gibson, Hanley, Byram, McClean, Cantwell, Onel, Dowell and so on....

Who's realistic Prem quality aside from Pukki? Who came out of the last two seasons there with any real credibility?

I'm not sure there were many. I'm similarly not sure that this squad is anything more than bang-average in reality and we may need to adjust our expectations accordingly.

You mean the players that contributed to two winning Championships, in what was undoubtedly better leagues than this year?

Edited by CDMullins
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3 hours ago, TheBaldOne66 said:

It beggars belief to read that some people think we should walk this League with our squad!

What do they base it on? The fact we won the League at a canter the last 2 times? It’s ridiculous to say it’s a great squad, when in truth it’s actually full of journeymen and relatively untried youngsters!

Lol, it's the core of the same team that's won it twice and have an additional two years Prem Experience.

One thing is sure for me,

If Farke was here we'd be performing and winning 

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Recruitment is a funny thing,

Im sure some questioned spending money on a young kid from York for the youth team, or a young lad from Coventry who wasn't good enough to play for us so we sent him to Aberdeen for a year, or couple of million on a unknown 5ft nothing Argentinian we'd not heard of, or even a washed up Finn that struggled in Scotland on a free.

Yet we were all over the moon when we brought in a Chelsea lad who we had watched dominate England in the Euro's that summer, a big strong DM from Sevilla who was our missing piece and one of the most exciting players in Greek football.

At the time of the recruitment, it's been hard to knock it, apart from not finding the DM we clearly need 

In hindsight some hasn't worked and some IMO we should have tried harder with (Tzolis/Rashica) none of us would have believed that Hernandez/Sinani were regularly playing for us this season.

What stands out for me and makes me believe we'd be fine (if we changed managers) is that we played so poorly for so long and picked up so many points, only good teams/players are able to do that.

No matter what your stance on Smith is everyone knows these players have another 2 if not 3 gears and once they clicked in, this is a division where nothing but Top2 should be acceptable.

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1 hour ago, Creedence Clearwater Couto said:

I’m not saying his a failure, but is he really what we need? I don’t think so, the money should’ve been better spent. 

Yes, in the sense that they needed central midfielders.

Also, in the 4-3-3 formation that they seem to be persisting with, he seems to have many of the attributes that they're looking for i.e. energy and the ability/drive to get into the box.

Having said that, I am surprised they spent that much on someone when we have substantial loans to repay. I also agree that his transfer fee could've been spent on a cm and a winger... although that may well be easier said than done.

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Just to add that at this point in time Hayden is just a loan, not our player. If certain 'performance' (not 'appearance') criteria is met we have to buy him. Presumably 'performance' means promotion. I wouldn't regard Hayden as once of own just yet!

In terms of recruitment and outgoings I'm failing to see cohesion between the players we have and the tactics Smith wants to use. It's probably more worse this season than last tbh.

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1 hour ago, Kingston Yellow said:

Why do the majority seem to overlook who’s single handedly overseen recruitment over this time period.  Not to mention the panic appointment of Smith.

I don't think they do. But how do you determine what the majority view is. Some posters like to frame their opinions with phrases like "most of us think" but that's rarely true.

For me the jury's out about Smith. But he certainly wasn't a panic appointment. When he was sacked by Villa he became first choice. That's because all eventualities are planned for which is the total opposite of panic.

 

 

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12 hours ago, GodlyOtsemobor said:

THIS X1000 

where have the days gone of picking up the starving hungry players from the bottom of the champs/top of league one to slot in with our team. Players who will run through brick walls at the chance of playing for a team like us. 

We seem hell bent on finding " Gems " from places no one else is looking. 

Exactly , Webber keeps wasting millions on foreigners who are not worth half of what he is paying for them . 

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Not sure why, yet again, some folks have to go for division by deliberately trying to polarise people.

"Our recruitment has been s*!t!" isn't a great or useful comment. Someone trying to break it down a bit and who isn't 100% disagreeing with you shouldn't be the target of scorn just because they look to break it down more.

Lots of problems really. First of all, a lot of folks suggested after last summer/season that we should have spent more money on fewer additions as we didn't need such wholesale change.

Last summer the senior players that left were:
Permanent - Buendia, Leitner, Heise, Nyland, Stiepermann, Tettey, Vrancic, Thompson, Trybull, Sitti, Klose.
Loans - Martin, Barden, Soto, Drmic, Famewo, McCallum, Sinani, Hugill, Hernandez, Mumba, Cantwell.

First off, we know Buendia left - we have to go with that for this scenario otherwise we are playing with around £15m. Of the other permanent players to leave, the only one I feel has even close to resembling some argument for retaining would be Vrancic. However, he would not be a starter. He also isn't pacey or particularly physical, a useful squad player to switch in and out when needed - yes. Not someone to massively improve our season.

From the loans... Hernandez? Mumba and Cantwell were loaned out in January, neither, for various reasons, had made an impact on the first half of the season really. 

Why is this important? What did it leave us with?

GK: Krul, McGovern
RB: Aarons, Byram
CB: Hanley, Gibson, Zimmermann, Omobamidele
LB: Giannoulis
CM: McLean, Rupp, Sorensen
AM: Cantwell(1/2), Dowell, Placheta(though the club had wanted to loan him out too but couldn't due to long covid)
Str: Pukki, Idah

Even if you add Vrancic and Hernandez to that squad we look light. So we had to recruit and we had to spread the money. You can see why that approach was taken.

We then have to take into account that our model means we are more prepared to spend more on break through young talents than older more proven pros. For what it's worth, for me, this is where perhaps, we could learn to do better? Look for more Haydens who are closer to their prime?

- Sargent, 21, £8m
- Tzolis, 19, £9.5m
- Rashica, 24, £9m
- Gunn, 25, £5m
- Gibson, 28 (27 when loaned), £8m
- Giannoulis, 26(and when loaned), £6m
- Lees-Melou, 28, £3.5m
Players signed for U23's and youth teams all undisclosed: Gibbs, Clarke, Berry, Coker.
Loans: Williams 20, Kabak 21, Gilmour 20, Normann 25.

Of the 11 players signed, two were already at the club in Giannoulis and Gibson, their deals became permanent as part of their loan agreements. 5 were 21 or under and added to Aarons, Omobamidele, Mumba and Idah at the start of the season who were that age or younger, so 9 players.

Not a problem in of itself if these players are of very good quality. In reality, if they were that proven they wouldn't be fetching less than £10m.

The biggest criticism for me, is that in the premier league, we continued with this idea that loans could find us a Skipp. In the championship it works to loan young talents from the premier league as with games coming thick and fast you can rotate them in and out with some success. Skipp and Reed have proven that. Perhaps less so with Ramsey.

In the premier league, it's a different matter. I think our loans had been better used on players with more experience. Especially Gilmour and Williams. I get with Kabak and Normann we essentially had try before you buy deals in place. At 21, Kabak is very young for a centre back, to expect him to come in and be consistantly better than our CB's was probably asking too much from the get go. He certainly showed he could well develop into a better CB, which is what I suspect we were hoping, get him in now, stay up, sign him relatively cheaply, another season with more regular football etc. Normann, of our loans, was probably the best in terms of age and experience.

Too much youth though. You can't really question the positions we signed players in. Gibson and Giannoulis had already proven themselves the previous season. Fee paid for Gibson may have been a bit much in hindsight.

Which ever way you look at it though, we paid out what can only really be described as competitive championship prices for our signings. Top championship strikers, as in strikers that are proven at that level cost £10m+. Toney cost £10m upon promotion, still a bargain, but he was £5m when signed from League 1. Armstrong was £15m rising to £20m and priced out of our reach. Ajer, not even proven championship standard (no disrespect to Celtic) went for £13.5m, Billing was valued at £15m by Bournemouth.

This is where we are in the world now. Even £30-50m will only buy you so much "proven" quality from the Championship. Our squad was in no way good enough to just sprinkle a few quality signings here and there. Even I will admit to being guilty of thinking that the squad we had left from the previous season were good enough. I don't think many are, and I feel they are only proving that this season.

This is the story of Norwich in my lifetime though. We usually have one or two players that we have somehow picked up with true quality. In the mid-late '90's it was our youth set up providing the likes of Eadie and Bellamy, the 2000's had Marshall, Green, Shackell and then we managed to loan a young Peter Crouch and Darren Huckerby. After that it was Hoolahan... Otherwise, we have normally relied upon a huge team spirit and a coach that can well drill us to be a sum of more than our individual parts.

I think I am right in saying that Wolfswinkel pretty much doubled our previous most expensive signing, which I think was Bassong at £3.5m. That says it all to me.

Prior to that, our signings had all been relatively solid championship players. No doubt about that, we had a pretty good success rate, and some of those that didn't succeed were prevented from doing so by the immergence of youth players. Paslack with Aarons, Heise with Lewis, Roberts with Cantwell.

If we are being brutally honest on the assessment of our squad, right here, right now, you could probably have a very good argument to suggest that half of it could well be no longer up to our standard, either because we have moved on or because their form/ability is waning. 

GK: - fine, no need to change here.
RB: If Byram is fit, probably no issue here.
CB: Anyone think we could sign two CB's and say, lose Gibson and see Tomkinson loaned out? 
LB: Giannoulis and McCallum - jury still out? 
CM: McLean, Sorensen, Sara, Nunez, Hayden - latter three are new, too soon to judge seriously though Hayden looks the part. Sorensen people argue about but we have to be honest, McLean is 30 and his experience is important but would people be upset to lose both of them? We look to be losing one in the summer at least.
AM: Cantwell, Dowell, Placheta(loaned out), Hernandez, Sinani, Ramsey (loan), Rowe, Springett - simple question, are Sinani and Hernandez good enough for us now? Is Dowell? Cantwell there is no doubt is - he, Dowell and Sinani are out of contract in the summer. I wouldn't be massively upset if we only kept Cantwell from that lot along with Rowe and Springett (for the future).
STR: Pukki, Sargent, Idah and Hugill - Idah is injured again and I feel probably needs a loan out, though I have said this since the end of the 1st premier league season, Hugill just isn't good enough for us tbh.

Pretty easy to slash it in half. The other day, someone argued that a good manager that could get this team firing on all cylinders could put two good championship teams together from this squad.

GK: Krul
RB: Byram
CB: Tomkinson
CB: Gibson
LB: McCallum
DM: McLean
DM: Sorensen
AM: Hernandez
AM: Sinani
AM: Springett/Rowe
STR: Hugill/Idah

Does anyone truly believe that what is effectively our 2nd 11 when everyone is fit/in form, would challenge top 6 in the championship? 

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4 minutes ago, City 101 said:

Exactly , Webber keeps wasting millions on foreigners who are not worth half of what he is paying for them . 

This is just incredibly lacking in any form of understanding of the current international market when it comes to football.

Armstrong £15m, Billing £15m - just two examples of players in the English football pyramid that we wanted but were priced out of getting. Players from abroad are half the price, but due to the rules we play by post Brexit, they also have to have accumulated enough points to get a work permit.

In other words, the pool in which we have been able to recruit from has gone from a vast ocean to a garden pond. 

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15 minutes ago, chicken said:

This is just incredibly lacking in any form of understanding of the current international market when it comes to football.

Armstrong £15m, Billing £15m - just two examples of players in the English football pyramid that we wanted but were priced out of getting. Players from abroad are half the price, but due to the rules we play by post Brexit, they also have to have accumulated enough points to get a work permit.

In other words, the pool in which we have been able to recruit from has gone from a vast ocean to a garden pond. 

Some of it may be necessity but I do also feel there is an element of “look how clever we are” to some of our recruitment. There are still some gems to be found in the lower leagues or Scotland if you get them early enough. 

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34 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

I don't think they do. But how do you determine what the majority view is. Some posters like to frame their opinions with phrases like "most of us think" but that's rarely true.

For me the jury's out about Smith. But he certainly wasn't a panic appointment. When he was sacked by Villa he became first choice. That's because all eventualities are planned for which is the total opposite of panic.

 

 

Quick Q Nutty,

Where would we have gone had Smith not been sacked by Villa?

Webber seems to make out Smith was his plan all along but none of us are buying because we know it can't possibly be true.

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10 minutes ago, CDMullins said:

Quick Q Nutty,

Where would we have gone had Smith not been sacked by Villa?

Webber seems to make out Smith was his plan all along but none of us are buying because we know it can't possibly be true.

Webber has never claimed Smith was the plan all along. What he has claimed is that he was the best candidate available to us at the time we were recruiting a manager, which is undoubtedly true, given that his record of achievements exceeds any manager we've had in the 21st century, except arguably Paul Lambert, who had a promotion to the Premier League and a survival season on his CV here at Norwich. 

We'd have either had Russell Martin or a promising coach from overseas with no experience of English football or a promising coach from league one or lower. None of them would have had a history including managing a team through promotion or keeping them up at least one season in the Premier League. 

Edited by littleyellowbirdie

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40 minutes ago, CDMullins said:

Quick Q Nutty,

Where would we have gone had Smith not been sacked by Villa?

Webber seems to make out Smith was his plan all along but none of us are buying because we know it can't possibly be true.

We'd have gone to the highest available manager on Webber's list. That wasn't Smith when Farke was sacked but became Smith the next day.

I'm not saying that's the best way to operate because like many things I don't know. But it's the way Norwich operate and I don't see why it's so difficult to understand.

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3 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

We'd have gone to the highest available manager on Webber's list. That wasn't Smith when Farke was sacked but became Smith the next day.

I'm not saying that's the best way to operate because like many things I don't know. But it's the way Norwich operate and I don't see why it's so difficult to understand.

You don't see why sacking a manager with no plan, is so difficult to understand?

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