Wagner, Klopp, and Loans

[ged in the onion bag 857]

13 minutes ago, Google Bot said:

Promotion of course, there's very little stability in football and even less in our position of the football pyramid.  Otherwise we'd have Emi Buendia at the club still.   

So, We do what we can, and attempt to punch above our weight as best as possible.

And, as shown, players like Jordan Rhodes, Skipp, Gibson, Dimi, Lansbury, Holt & Crouch... All major parts of promotional seasons to the prem league.

Show me a season where we've been promoted to the prem without a loan coming in to aid the team.

Explained before that it's injuries, and whatever is going on with Todd that is killing us.  Because of this we're without true wide players, without defensive mid, and without a truly creative attacker.

Hayden, Rowe, Springett, Cantwell, Tzolis, Rashica, Placheta, Sorensen - all been unavailable.  On top of that Idah, AO both in and out of fitness.

If we don't support players like Nunez and Sara with the correct players around them, then we'll be stunting their development also.

It's a high risk strategy to think we'll be ok and just go into second half of season without any additional cover based on what the first half has demonstrated.

I agree with your comments there but they don’t relate specifically to the loan policy… the squad pre-season was huge and I said then will Ramseys inclusion affect Sinani, Cantwell, Dowell etc and wow has it!   They all look low on confidence now and probably feel unwanted!   
 

I am also referring to recent history, with this current (failing) scouting set up!   Their competence just can’t be trusted.

Many fans think we still need to strive for promotion this season.    No one has answered the question…. What do they expect that will look like with this current squad?   Does it enthuse you or daunt you?    If it’s the former, perhaps you could give some justification to it, I’d be genuinely intrigued!

Edited January 6, 2023 by ged in the onion bag

[Helsinki canary 244]

14 hours ago, kick it off said:

I'd take Musialowski to give us a creative spark. 19 year old, can play across the wings or as a number 10.

Quick af, and an outstanding dribbler. Decent finisher too, scores quite a lot of goals. Been nicknamed "Polish Messi" and you can see why (not proclaiming him to be a future ballon d'or winner or anything, but his playing style is VERY similar, ability level obviously not on par).

Never been tested at a real level of football, but more than worth a punt given his potential.

 

Looks a good opportunity!

[Google Bot 3,342]

1 hour ago, ged in the onion bag said:

I am also referring to recent history, with this current (failing) scouting set up!   Their competence just can’t be trusted.

Is it competence or lack of finances though? 

In regards to loans, Ramsey looked good, and Hayden seems more of a longterm prospect (hence why he's seemingly not going back too)

In regards to transfers, we were reportedly in for many names such as Billing, Ajer etc.  But could not attract them to the club.  

Whether that's due to incompetence, inability to offer them the money wanted, or the player just didn't fancy the move here, i really don't know.  I'm more inclined to say it's a share of those 3 reasons than just incompetence.

So what we done was invest into younger players without breaking our salary caps.   The Gilmour loan, though.  I think that's what broke us at the start of the season, came with much hype, Tuchel and Farke relationship probably sealed it... But we failed to pair him with a ball winner - the result is that the opening months of the season were spent working out what to do.

So yes, i'd put that one down to incompetence.

However.. Right now, we have a large squad but so many in similar areas, along with the injuries and fact that we have a new manager coming in who's very close with the Liverpool boss I think there's room for optimism there.  There's no track record to either trust or untrust, more a 'suck and see' moment perhaps?

1 hour ago, ged in the onion bag said:

Many fans think we still need to strive for promotion this season.    No one has answered the question…. What do they expect that will look like with this current squad?   Does it enthuse you or daunt you?    If it’s the former, perhaps you could give some justification to it, I’d be genuinely intrigued!

I think any league positional progression is something to be enthusiastic for.  If we fail to go up then we lose the establish cream from this squad and left with such a large "Also ran" majority of players. 

And then we go on a period of rebuild, but we do so with less financial ability than we've had in the past 4 seasons.  Meaning that even our youth could start to be stripped too.

But then i'm very much of the belief that prem league survival is achievable if you have a manager who can build the right mindset, have a true leader on the pitch, and you have players in crucial positions such as in defensive mid. 

We just lacked the finishing touches last season, and put too much pressure on the manager to focus on so many new players who hadn't played in this country, let alone prem league.  But Webber is still a young SD, Adams backing him up is new to the role, and as long as we're learning from these mistakes then I do have trust that it will make us better.

As the saying goes, The man who makes no mistakes is the man who never does anything.

That said, i'm a forever optimist.. I can't help it, too much Disney as a kid maybe?! 🙂

[ged in the onion bag 857]

1 hour ago, Google Bot said:

Is it competence or lack of finances though? 

In regards to loans, Ramsey looked good, and Hayden seems more of a longterm prospect (hence why he's seemingly not going back too)

In regards to transfers, we were reportedly in for many names such as Billing, Ajer etc.  But could not attract them to the club.  

Whether that's due to incompetence, inability to offer them the money wanted, or the player just didn't fancy the move here, i really don't know.  I'm more inclined to say it's a share of those 3 reasons than just incompetence.

So what we done was invest into younger players without breaking our salary caps.   The Gilmour loan, though.  I think that's what broke us at the start of the season, came with much hype, Tuchel and Farke relationship probably sealed it... But we failed to pair him with a ball winner - the result is that the opening months of the season were spent working out what to do.

So yes, i'd put that one down to incompetence.

However.. Right now, we have a large squad but so many in similar areas, along with the injuries and fact that we have a new manager coming in who's very close with the Liverpool boss I think there's room for optimism there.  There's no track record to either trust or untrust, more a 'suck and see' moment perhaps?

I think any league positional progression is something to be enthusiastic for.  If we fail to go up then we lose the establish cream from this squad and left with such a large "Also ran" majority of players. 

And then we go on a period of rebuild, but we do so with less financial ability than we've had in the past 4 seasons.  Meaning that even our youth could start to be stripped too.

But then i'm very much of the belief that prem league survival is achievable if you have a manager who can build the right mindset, have a true leader on the pitch, and you have players in crucial positions such as in defensive mid. 

We just lacked the finishing touches last season, and put too much pressure on the manager to focus on so many new players who hadn't played in this country, let alone prem league.  But Webber is still a young SD, Adams backing him up is new to the role, and as long as we're learning from these mistakes then I do have trust that it will make us better.

As the saying goes, The man who makes no mistakes is the man who never does anything.

That said, i'm a forever optimist.. I can't help it, too much Disney as a kid maybe?! 🙂

I wouldn’t wish to knock your optimism and fair play for that but from a footballing perspective it’s pure fantasy to think this squad could compete in the EPL even if we managed to gather 5 competent additions.    
We didn’t get Billings or Ayer, because we weren’t prepared to pay the going rate, Brentford were.    As for loaning young players, firstly, we will never be signing them, as was the case with Skipp, Gilmore and Ramsey, and secondly, being so young, they are less likely to offer us the influence we needed in the Premier League.   That also proved to be the case with Tzolis, Sargent and Rashica.    

We used the loan system to sign Gibson and Giannoulis with the intention of promotion, but in actual fact, neither of them have proved to be competent in those positions, either in the EPL or Championship.     

I too like to be positive and think and have argued, in fact, that going back to a patient approach is the best way right now.   Re-setting in a position similar to where we were when Farke arrived, makes more sense than chasing money at the expense of the squad, the potential damnation next season and the clubs reputation.    Regardless, I think that is our best option right now, and we are still in a better position than when Farke arrived.   

We don’t have any cream right now!   Pukki will be off anyway!   Who of the contracted players will leave and who would we possibly want to keep anyway?    

If the clubs hierarchy would only learn the lessons of its experiences over the past four years, it might be able to make a better fist of promotions. But we need a base to start from and that is a competent enough squad and a playing style that everyone is used to. That is going to take a good 18 months like it did last time.

Edited January 6, 2023 by ged in the onion bag

[horsefly 4,318]

5 hours ago, ged in the onion bag said:

Stop developing, the rot sets in!    Our desperation for promotion instead of development has caused this stagnation.    
With the numbers in our squad, we shouldn’t need to loan players in the Championship.    Tzolis for example could now be developing in this team when he couldn’t in the EPL.    Recruitment should be committed to players we need, employed CDMs, pace, power and athleticism…. not lightweights and plodders which it seems is what we are good at scouting!  

Since when did the club "stop developing" young players? The club has stated explicitly time and again that the self-funding model depends fundamentally on the development of young players, so feel free to tell us when they stopped doing this and changed the model.

If we bring certain players in on loan and send others out it's precisely because the management see the incoming player as more advanced in his abilities and more capable of contributing to the team than the player(s) loaned out. The players loaned out are done so precisely to give them a chance to develop further by playing first team football that they would not get at NCFC. If a youth player shows he is good enough for first team football at NCFC then he has been given the chance, as the speedy elevation of the likes of Aarons, Omobamidele, and Gibbs attests. It is absurd to claim that player development has in any way been sacrificed because we have pursued promotion. Indeed, the reason why we have been able to invest so heavily in our academy (both in players and facilities) is precisely because of the money gained through winning promotion. I suggest you take a look 40 miles down the road to compare our history of player development with that of a club that languished for nearly two decades in the Championship and were rewarded with relegation to league one as a result. 

Edited January 6, 2023 by horsefly