Get rid or trust Webber to Rebuild the Team ?

[chicken 2,624]

1 hour ago, Graham Paddons Beard said:

You said earlier that Rupp was a “success” . Depends on your definition . Rupp signed from Hoffenheim as a known injury risk. He played 1 game in 2018/19 and 7 in 19/20 , before signing for us. 
 

And so it turned out. He was a decent player but at best played half a season. His injuries weren’t impact they we muscular / biomechanical. 
 

I wouldn’t  use the word success . But it’s about opinions of course . 

He signed for us in Jan 2020 and left in the summer of 2022. In which time he made 62 appearances for us. I would argue that's a fair number.

In terms of "known injury risk" that's any player that has had ligament injuries... Pukki was rubbish in Scotland and elsewhere prior to going to Brondby which isn't recognised as being in one of the top leagues in Europe... or close to it if you go by the points system now in place. 

17 minutes ago, Midlands Yellow said:

‘We asked Norwich City fans to name one player Stuart Webber signed in 21/22 who went on to have a successful season’ lees- Melou would guarantee a juicy fat zero on Pointless. 

We asked Norwich City fans to name one pinkun poster who changed the goalposts the most... 100% Midlands Yellow.

First of all you said successful in the last 18months, now it's just the "21-22" season. Handy when it then means you have to ignore Sargent, who again evidences that it can take a season for players to settle and adapt. Yes, there is an argument that we are a level lower, but bare in mind last season people were saying he'd be lucky to score two goals this season. Same as they wrote off Vrancic and Stiepermann, and questioned the signing of Pukki. 

Edited February 5, 2023 by chicken

[hogesar 9,654]

4 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

I'd have more confidence in Webber for a rebuild than Chase, Cooper, Doncaster, McNally, Moxey or Adams.

Of course the next one could be better than Webber.

What are the odds?

I guess the answer is, take all the clubs in England whom are a similar size to us (let's allow some traditionally larger clubs too). Create a list, how many have outperformed us under Webbers tenure, how many have we outperformed. Then count. 

It's that simple. Webber had had us outperforming so many clubs similar to us whilst navigating the club through a financial crisis in Covid which we managed to come out of relatively unscathed.

[wcorkcanary 4,334]

50 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

That seems to be just a personal opinion without any actual meaningful measures of success in there.

Could you post a picture of your calibrated Successometer? As you seem to have some standard measure of success in mind.

[Google Bot 3,262]

32 minutes ago, Monty13 said:

From a playing squad perspective I’d say right now we are, or are looking like being no better than that first promotion season.

Agreed, and beyond believing his own hype when bringing in hopeful signings, Webber's biggest failing was the appointment of Smith.  Not because of Smith in his own right, As I think his credentials and achievements were good.

But the context of those achievements, squads he had, and style just didn't apply to our squad, or playing style.  And the DoF's prime goal is to oversee that we stick to that unified plan.

I think he's already learnt from that mistake, whether he got refusals, ran out of time and had to opt for Smith, or Was first choice - Who knows?!.  But, the drop off in moral over that period is why we look no better to 18/19 right now (imo).

If we could wipe the memories and go back with this squad to end of 17/18, take that weight of disappointment and feeling of being on a low away I think only then could you properly compare with the 18/19 squad.  Morale and confidence is everything, and that comes with being on the up... Not in a period of recovery from a spiral down.

Edited February 5, 2023 by Google Bot

[chicken 2,624]

I think the biggest issue people are forgetting here is that the Webber's have been instrumental in bringing in Attanasio. For me, the connection may actually be longer standing than people realise. After all, Stuart Webber was at Liverpool when they were taken over, Attanasio is friends with those Liverpool owners. Coincidence?

In reality though, Webber is going no where at this point in time, especially if new finances are coming in due to his and his wife's connections. At the very least not until Attanasio is the owner and feels well enough informed to make decisions. I actually feel this has been the inspiration behind Webber's "unfinished business" statement last year.

I also tend to feel that if we are in an ownership transition then we are better off allowing that to happen before the new owners start to make decisions. I have suggested this is partly the reason for some of the silence from the club over recent months, with Delia and Michael being a little less visible than has historically been the case. I really do think we are going through the motions right now. I guess we may know more in 8 days time. 

[BroadstairsR 2,147]

Is this a question to be asked?

I thought he wants away and is only at the club now because the majority shareholders persuaded him to stay.

For good or bad, I'd like a change. New broom etc.

Please not Adams though, as nice a chap he seems to be I would imagine he lacks ruthlessness.

Interesting to find out what Anatasio's approach will be.

[chicken 2,624]

50 minutes ago, Monty13 said:

Then we shouldn’t have been signing them, or at least so many that fit this criteria. There’s few players we have signed in the last few windows that didn’t meet this criteria, were injury prone, generally unproven or a mix.

The last two seasons have had very specific goals, maintain premier league status and restore premier league status this season.

If we weren’t signing players to do that what on Earth were we spending huge sums of money on both to buy and loan?

Regardless there are a fair number of players performing in this league this season who have never played English football that prove you can. We saw evidence yesterday including a brand new CB from Sweden who looked completely untroubled by two of the leagues best strikers in his first game.

That's my point. The main issue with that though, is that signing someone like Sargent from the championship costs you more money. There will be those that will constantly point at Toney, and perhaps Vardie, and Holt too, but those are rare. A term that gets banded around a fair bit is "proven". We tabled an offer for Blackburn's Armstrong but we could not match the £15m rising to £20m offered by Southampton - that to me says it all.

This is why we shop abroad. The same was said when we signed Srbeny for £1.5m-ish. We had looked at a lower league striker (can't remember who at the time) and were quoted £7m for them. I believe they were League 1 poss League 2.

I think people forget that we have stuck to this sustainable model like glue. We have tried to sign "better" players. Michael Bailey, who the vast majority on here trust, wrote an article about this. How we tried to sign more expensive players but they either turned us down for contractual reasons (relegation clauses etc, that old ghost haunting us again, as well as wage amounts) or we were outbid or clubs in better positions came in for them. 

We seem to have this circular discussion all of the time about that summer. The main argument people put forward requires us to ignore, or dismiss via some odd conspiracy theory, the fact that we know we put down offers of over £10m for Billings, Ajer and Armstrong and landed none of them. That's not including players on the continent that Bailey shared.

As @Parma Ham's gone mouldy has pointed out so many times and far more eloquently, we don't shop with the same wallet as other people. Both championship title campaigns had us in the bottom three in terms of wealth of owners. We were also not the most expensive squad either, probably barely top 6 for that. Especially if you took out Klose the 2nd season as he was loaned out.

Even now, we are still not the most expensive squad in this league. We constantly have to overperform to achieve given our model and finances.

That's the reality. It's why there is so much more focus on a £9m player at Norwich than there is at Watford, Burnley, Nottingham Forrest, Fulham etc. £7-9m for a 'proven' championship footballer is about the minimum. Murphy x2, Pritchard, Lewis - all evidence of that from our very own perspective.

[By Hook or Ian crook 917]

5 hours ago, The Real Buh said:

Webber should be long gone

He’s a liability

I’m inclined to agree with Buh. It’s an abject failure to of added sufficient cover both in Defence and in holding midfield. we identified 2 seasons ago we needed a new centre back when we went after Ajer but yet we are still left with the same defence we’ve had for virtually 4 seasons. Andy O is promising but I don’t see him at the stage in his development where he should be first choice in a top 6 championship side. Hanley is great for what he does well but is very limited with his ability with the ball. Gibson less said the better of late. there’s been far far more duds in recent seasons than there has been hits with transfer requirement.

[Monty13 2,231]

32 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

I'd have more confidence in Webber for a rebuild than Chase, Cooper, Doncaster, McNally, Moxey or Adams.

Of course the next one could be better than Webber.

What are the odds?

Don’t disagree, grass isn’t always greener and any change is a gamble.

Personally I don’t want revolution. However I think the current regime just needs to show (whether publicly or just in its actions) that lessons have been learnt.

The Webber regime so far has neither been infallible or unsuccessful, what happens next though will probably define what the next few seasons look like.

[Monty13 2,231]

12 minutes ago, chicken said:

That's my point. The main issue with that though, is that signing someone like Sargent from the championship costs you more money. There will be those that will constantly point at Toney, and perhaps Vardie, and Holt too, but those are rare. A term that gets banded around a fair bit is "proven". We tabled an offer for Blackburn's Armstrong but we could not match the £15m rising to £20m offered by Southampton - that to me says it all.

This is why we shop abroad. The same was said when we signed Srbeny for £1.5m-ish. We had looked at a lower league striker (can't remember who at the time) and were quoted £7m for them. I believe they were League 1 poss League 2.

I think people forget that we have stuck to this sustainable model like glue. We have tried to sign "better" players. Michael Bailey, who the vast majority on here trust, wrote an article about this. How we tried to sign more expensive players but they either turned us down for contractual reasons (relegation clauses etc, that old ghost haunting us again, as well as wage amounts) or we were outbid or clubs in better positions came in for them. 

We seem to have this circular discussion all of the time about that summer. The main argument people put forward requires us to ignore, or dismiss via some odd conspiracy theory, the fact that we know we put down offers of over £10m for Billings, Ajer and Armstrong and landed none of them. That's not including players on the continent that Bailey shared.

As @Parma Ham's gone mouldy has pointed out so many times and far more eloquently, we don't shop with the same wallet as other people. Both championship title campaigns had us in the bottom three in terms of wealth of owners. We were also not the most expensive squad either, probably barely top 6 for that. Especially if you took out Klose the 2nd season as he was loaned out.

Even now, we are still not the most expensive squad in this league. We constantly have to overperform to achieve given our model and finances.

That's the reality. It's why there is so much more focus on a £9m player at Norwich than there is at Watford, Burnley, Nottingham Forrest, Fulham etc. £7-9m for a 'proven' championship footballer is about the minimum. Murphy x2, Pritchard, Lewis - all evidence of that from our very own perspective.

But you said this and this is where I feel we’re at odds.

2 hours ago, chicken said:

There aren't, it's a myth.

If you consider when players were signed and for what level they were signed to play at, there have been very few actual failures. 

By the measure of the level they were signed to play and what they ultimately produced the last two windows have been failures.

PL

Normann - Failure

Kabak - Failure

Rashica - Failure

Tzolis - Failure

Gilmour - Failure

Sargent - I love him and he’s proving his worth this season but last year - Failure

Williams - good signing IMO

Championship

Hayden - Failure

Ramsay - was pretty good but now gone

Nunez - not lived up to early promise

Sara - Shown flashes but can we really say he’s hit the ground running and what we needed?

For what they were signed for, survival last year and promotion this year it’s unbelievably generous not to consider the last two summers incomings anything but a failure IMO.

[repman 635]

I think we certainly lost our way over the last 18 months but hopefully now we've refocused.

How much of a rebuild is required I don't know. Sara, Nunez, Sargent, Idah, Omobamidele, McCallum, Gibbs and Tzolis are all 23 and under, Mumba too is another one when he comes back from loan. I didn't include Aarons as he seems most likely to be sold but he also fits into this group. Any success over the next 2/3 years will be built around these players, we don't have the money to replace them so we might as well start focusing on giving them game time to improve. 

[The Real Buh 3,432]

39 minutes ago, By Hook or Ian crook said:

I’m inclined to agree with Buh. It’s an abject failure to of added sufficient cover both in Defence and in holding midfield. we identified 2 seasons ago we needed a new centre back when we went after Ajer but yet we are still left with the same defence we’ve had for virtually 4 seasons. Andy O is promising but I don’t see him at the stage in his development where he should be first choice in a top 6 championship side. Hanley is great for what he does well but is very limited with his ability with the ball. Gibson less said the better of late. there’s been far far more duds in recent seasons than there has been hits with transfer requirement.

We don’t have unlimited resources, every large player purchase takes a huge amount out of the club.

and Webber can’t be trusted with that. He’s a failure.

[Ken Hairy 3,769]

5 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

What's your basis for that suspicion?

Absolutely nothing at all, just a gut feeling that will either be right or wrong.  Not claiming any boardroom level info here 😁

[TIL 1010 4,737]

1 hour ago, nutty nigel said:

I'd have more confidence in Webber for a rebuild than Chase, Cooper, Doncaster, McNally, Moxey or Adams.

 

That is a wide ranging and comprehensive list so i am surprised you have not included The Man from Mulbarton.

[Kenny Foggo 1,116]

Quote

"I think the biggest issue people are forgetting here is that the Webber's have been instrumental in bringing in Attanasio. For me, the connection may actually be longer standing than people realise. After all, Stuart Webber was at Liverpool when they were taken over, Attanasio is friends with those Liverpool owners. Coincidence?"

Evidence?  Webbers main job is player recruitment. It's appallingly bad.

[Kenny Foggo 1,116]

Quote

"I think the biggest issue people are forgetting here is that the Webber's have been instrumental in bringing in Attanasio. For me, the connection may actually be longer standing than people realise. After all, Stuart Webber was at Liverpool when they were taken over, Attanasio is friends with those Liverpool owners. Coincidence?"

Evidence?  Webbers main job is player recruitment. It's appallingly bad.

[essex canary 495]

4 hours ago, Kenny Foggo said:

Since we beat Man City 3-2 we have played 50 games at home, winning 10, drawing 10 and losing 30.

Of course Webber should go.

That must be non pandemic matches and assuming you mean league ones my loss count seems to be 25.

Nonetheless as per your point, it still demonstrates how the supporters paying the highest season ticket prices in the EFL are getting poor value for money. Still best to get the facts right.

[nutty nigel 7,527]

1 hour ago, TIL 1010 said:

That is a wide ranging and comprehensive list so i am surprised you have not included The Man from Mulbarton.

Ricky wasn't that equivalent was he? I thought he was here with McNally and Moxey. 

I still miss him. Top man is Ricky. I remember posters saying he was stealing a living here. He's back with wee Alex now after four years running West Ham academy.

[hogesar 9,654]

1 hour ago, Kenny Foggo said:

Quote

"I think the biggest issue people are forgetting here is that the Webber's have been instrumental in bringing in Attanasio. For me, the connection may actually be longer standing than people realise. After all, Stuart Webber was at Liverpool when they were taken over, Attanasio is friends with those Liverpool owners. Coincidence?"

Evidence?  Webbers main job is player recruitment. It's appallingly bad.

Evidence for what? How instrumental Webber was in getting the Attanasios on board? Well, only the Attanasios, Foulger and Delia & Michael all saying he was!

[chicken 2,624]

5 hours ago, Monty13 said:

But you said this and this is where I feel we’re at odds.

By the measure of the level they were signed to play and what they ultimately produced the last two windows have been failures.

PL

Normann - Failure

Kabak - Failure

Rashica - Failure

Tzolis - Failure

Gilmour - Failure

Sargent - I love him and he’s proving his worth this season but last year - Failure

Williams - good signing IMO

Championship

Hayden - Failure

Ramsay - was pretty good but now gone

Nunez - not lived up to early promise

Sara - Shown flashes but can we really say he’s hit the ground running and what we needed?

For what they were signed for, survival last year and promotion this year it’s unbelievably generous not to consider the last two summers incomings anything but a failure IMO.

They were signed to make us competitive. The weird thing is it's either the players or the head coach. Many people lambasted Smith and his coaching. Farke, whether well liked or not, couldn't get us to play the way he wanted in the premier league after two bites of the cherry. We were not staying up under him either.

As I have said before, you need something of a core to the team. We didn't have one. Pukki, sure ok, but who else? McLean - as good as he is, he's a top championship midfielder, a bit of a steady eddy, but more than that?

I knew you would label them all failures, predictable. But not accurate. They had to come in and be better than what we had, first and foremost. They were, but we never played as a team. Kabak for my money was better than Gibson and Omobamidele which is why he is playing regularly in the Bundesliga this season. To add to that he has 2 league goals and 3 assists.

If you want to approach everything with a half barely 5% full, what you get is a very poor opinion and an inability to put down reasonable discussion.

Again, I go back to things that have already been said by people better than I could. Go read @Parma Ham's gone mouldy's thread.

Then go read the Michael Bailey piece on what we wanted to do in that transfer window and compare it with what we ended up doing. Then, recall those comments by Paddy from the PinkUn team that if we pulled off what we wanted to do it would be a very interesting summer.

Sometimes what you have to accept is that we are held back by our limitations. We don't get first choice targets because we can't offer the wages, or the contracts that other clubs can and do. Or we can't outbid teams in terms of transfer fees.

This isn't even rumour, it's confirmed fact.

When you take that into account, you have to view the players we signed for the money. Yes, last season our ultimate ambition wasn't even closely met by points totals. Equally, there is this sort of myth that the answer was completely obvious and somehow bypassed Farke and Webber - that we should have kept more bellow par players and plumped more money in for better players.

Again, this has been proven to be what they attempted to do earlier in that transfer window and it didn't pay off, as in, bar Rashica, they didn't land the other targets - Billings, Ajer, Armstrong or the European targets who went elsewhere.

In addition, if you go through the list of players, the only two that looked remotely capable of offering something had they been kept last season were Vrancic and Hernandez.

Once you accept that, we needed numbers, we needed transition. It is far from ideal to do it in the premier league, when you need to bed players in quickly and get results even quicker. Especially when your pre-season is disrupted by covid and some players were signed after the season had started.

Most people would have kept Normann and Kabak if we were able to. I would have liked to have seen Lees-Melou and Rashica hang about too.

I'm not sure where that leaves you wishing things to have been better... Webber tried, Farke tried - hence his retort about players some folks saying we should have kept playing lower down the leagues in Germany etc. It's oh so easy for a fan who knows so little about what has gone on to think it would have been so much easier to get better players in. Especially if they ignore the known factors, the known information and simply want to focus on scapegoating. 

[Capt. Pants 4,221]

Attanasio will keep Webber around as long as he wants to. It won't be forever but there's no way he's going anywhere soon, unless it's HIS choice.

[chicken 2,624]

4 hours ago, Kenny Foggo said:

Quote

"I think the biggest issue people are forgetting here is that the Webber's have been instrumental in bringing in Attanasio. For me, the connection may actually be longer standing than people realise. After all, Stuart Webber was at Liverpool when they were taken over, Attanasio is friends with those Liverpool owners. Coincidence?"

Evidence?  Webbers main job is player recruitment. It's appallingly bad.

Webbers main job is Sporting Director. It isn't purely player recruitment - there are other people who share responsibility for that. For example, there is the scouting department who go and scout players and report their findings back to the "sporting board" which includes the head coach.

The entire point of the set up is to allow the head coach to still have a say in signings but not be required to go and personally scout, watch and then tie up the details of the contracts etc. Think of it like the end of the auditions in x-factor if you will. You'd have a team sitting around a table drawing up the shortlist of players they want to prioritise for scouting and then signing. That summer it would have been the head scouts, Farke and Webber. Webber knows the budget, worries about the budget, does the leg work on transfer fees and contracts so I am led to believe. 

He is by no means the only person responsible for player recruitment and it is by no means his "main job".

[Midlands Yellow 3,970]

Which job did Webber turn down that would have tripled his salary (his words) a couple of years ago? I doubt they’ll be a similar one anytime soon. 

[Monty13 2,231]

18 minutes ago, chicken said:

They were signed to make us competitive. The weird thing is it's either the players or the head coach. Many people lambasted Smith and his coaching. Farke, whether well liked or not, couldn't get us to play the way he wanted in the premier league after two bites of the cherry. We were not staying up under him either.

As I have said before, you need something of a core to the team. We didn't have one. Pukki, sure ok, but who else? McLean - as good as he is, he's a top championship midfielder, a bit of a steady eddy, but more than that?

I knew you would label them all failures, predictable. But not accurate. They had to come in and be better than what we had, first and foremost. They were, but we never played as a team. Kabak for my money was better than Gibson and Omobamidele which is why he is playing regularly in the Bundesliga this season. To add to that he has 2 league goals and 3 assists.

If you want to approach everything with a half barely 5% full, what you get is a very poor opinion and an inability to put down reasonable discussion.

Again, I go back to things that have already been said by people better than I could. Go read @Parma Ham's gone mouldy's thread.

Then go read the Michael Bailey piece on what we wanted to do in that transfer window and compare it with what we ended up doing. Then, recall those comments by Paddy from the PinkUn team that if we pulled off what we wanted to do it would be a very interesting summer.

Sometimes what you have to accept is that we are held back by our limitations. We don't get first choice targets because we can't offer the wages, or the contracts that other clubs can and do. Or we can't outbid teams in terms of transfer fees.

This isn't even rumour, it's confirmed fact.

When you take that into account, you have to view the players we signed for the money. Yes, last season our ultimate ambition wasn't even closely met by points totals. Equally, there is this sort of myth that the answer was completely obvious and somehow bypassed Farke and Webber - that we should have kept more bellow par players and plumped more money in for better players.

Again, this has been proven to be what they attempted to do earlier in that transfer window and it didn't pay off, as in, bar Rashica, they didn't land the other targets - Billings, Ajer, Armstrong or the European targets who went elsewhere.

In addition, if you go through the list of players, the only two that looked remotely capable of offering something had they been kept last season were Vrancic and Hernandez.

Once you accept that, we needed numbers, we needed transition. It is far from ideal to do it in the premier league, when you need to bed players in quickly and get results even quicker. Especially when your pre-season is disrupted by covid and some players were signed after the season had started.

Most people would have kept Normann and Kabak if we were able to. I would have liked to have seen Lees-Melou and Rashica hang about too.

I'm not sure where that leaves you wishing things to have been better... Webber tried, Farke tried - hence his retort about players some folks saying we should have kept playing lower down the leagues in Germany etc. It's oh so easy for a fan who knows so little about what has gone on to think it would have been so much easier to get better players in. Especially if they ignore the known factors, the known information and simply want to focus on scapegoating. 

Which they didn’t do, that’s my point. They weren’t successful if they failed that basic criteria you have now twice laid out yourself.

I liked Kabak for instance, looked a half decent player there that if we owned you’d be semi enthused about the potential, but ultimately we paid a large loan fee for a guy who played 924 mins for us. He’s playing for a team in the Bundesliga yes, one that’s lost more than half their games and is shipping just under 2 goals a game, sounds about right.

I’m not interested in scapegoats. I work in continuous improvement and I know who is responsible is ultimately irrelevant, it’s the why things didn’t work and what could be changed that matters. I’d like to have some confidence lessons have been learnt and we will see some improvement when it comes to how we spend, but given last summer to now I’m unconvinced.

[chicken 2,624]

6 hours ago, Google Bot said:

Agreed, and beyond believing his own hype when bringing in hopeful signings, Webber's biggest failing was the appointment of Smith.  Not because of Smith in his own right, As I think his credentials and achievements were good.

But the context of those achievements, squads he had, and style just didn't apply to our squad, or playing style.  And the DoF's prime goal is to oversee that we stick to that unified plan.

I think he's already learnt from that mistake, whether he got refusals, ran out of time and had to opt for Smith, or Was first choice - Who knows?!.  But, the drop off in moral over that period is why we look no better to 18/19 right now (imo).

If we could wipe the memories and go back with this squad to end of 17/18, take that weight of disappointment and feeling of being on a low away I think only then could you properly compare with the 18/19 squad.  Morale and confidence is everything, and that comes with being on the up... Not in a period of recovery from a spiral down.

I don't think it was. Farke had already changed tack over the summer, and we were playing a 4-3-3. If you go over all of the chat that summer, it was about making us bigger, stronger and harder to beat. Farke failed to really impose that change successfully on the squad that was still largely made up of two the two promotion seasons. Smith was brought in because he had success doing exactly what Farke was trying to do.

In reality, I think we probably had bet our money on Farkeball too heavily and perhaps some of the players we have are just best suited to playing that way, much in the same way when Farke and Webber arrived, the players in that squad were not all good enough to play the way Farke wanted. Top quality players are able to adapt and play different ways. The problem we've had is that we won the championship twice playing that way, but got smashed off the park trying to play that way in the premier league, then tried to do different and ended up getting beat all the same, albeit with marginally more points.

As for being better than the first promotion season? In some ways yes, in some ways no. The biggest change is Buendia, and arguably Zimmermann.

Otherwise you are looking at fairly similar sides if not better in some senses.

GK: Krul, McGovern, Oxborough Vs Krul, Gunn, McGovern = better now.
LB: Lewis, then Heise in January Vs Giannoulis, McCallum = better now, both McCallum and Giannoulis are better than Heise, Lewis is pretty even.
RB: Aarons, Passlack Vs Aarons, Byram = Pretty even, Byram is better than Passlack but injured. Either way, neither pushing Aarons out for a place.
CB: Hanley, Zimmermann, Godfrey, Klose Vs Hanley, Gibson, Omobamidele, Tomkinson/Hill = 18/19 for me - just, because that season Zimmermann was so immense. I truly feel that the injury took away something from him, he was head and shoulders our best CB back then, even more so than Godfrey IMHO. Godfrey was akin to Omobamidele now, only he had lightening pace which made up for some poor positioning at times. Hanley spent much of that season in and out of injury as did Klose. That said, Gibson of the 2020-21 ilk was better than Klose or Hanley with the ball at his feet at least... just never recaptured that form.
CM: McLean, Leitner, Trybull, Reed, Tettey, Thompson Vs McLean, Gibbs, Sara, Nunez, Hayden = better now. Like for like with McLean, Tettey was already starting to show signs time was nearly up, Reed is the only one I would take from that side then and put in our side now. Leitner and Trybull wouldn't offer a lot more than Sara/Gibbs/Nunez IMHO. Plus they are younger and have more promise going forwards into the future. Trybull and Leitner never played better than they did then.
AM: Buendia, Stiepermann, Cantwell, Hernandez, Vrancic Vs Cantwell(gone), Hernandez, Sinani(gone), Dowell, Rowe, Tzolis(just returned), Marquinhos(just arrived) = 18/19 for me. Buendia is the obvious standout everyone will bang on about, Stiepermann was every bit as vital that season though, and of course, Vrancic and Hernandez popped up with their contributions. 10 goals for Vrancic, 9 for Stiepermann, 8 for Hernandez... all more goals than Buendia that season on 8 (not to diminish his tally, but just to underline their contribution in terms of goals). 
STR: Pukki, Rhodes, Morris, Srbeny Vs Pukki, Sargent, Idah = better now IMHO, though a younger Pukki, we now have two capable youngsters in Sargent and Idah, with Sargent already scoring more league goals than Rhodes when compared directly. You could add Hugill to that, but I don't think you need to. Both Sargent and Idah have premier league goals to their names as well.

So as Nutty has said before, stronger in some areas, weaker in others. The real loss has been as Parma has said before - the players that could reasonably be expected to step up to the next level whilst also delivering at this level. Namely Buendia. Though we also have to say that approaching 33, our reliance upon Pukki is going to start to wain, that is, if he stays beyond the summer, as age will start to impact his ability.

[chicken 2,624]

2 minutes ago, Monty13 said:

Which they didn’t do, that’s my point. They weren’t successful if they failed that basic criteria you have now twice laid out yourself.

I liked Kabak for instance, looked a half decent player there that if we owned you’d be semi enthused about the potential, but ultimately we paid a large loan fee for a guy who played 924 mins for us. He’s playing for a team in the Bundesliga yes, one that’s lost more than half their games and is shipping just under 2 goals a game, sounds about right.

I’m not interested in scapegoats. I work in continuous improvement and I know who is responsible is ultimately irrelevant, it’s the why things didn’t work and what could be changed that matters. I’d like to have some confidence lessons have been learnt and we will see some improvement when it comes to how we spend, but given last summer to now I’m unconvinced.

Nah, you don't, you work in continuous whinging and trying to argue straw man arguments that go against all the evidence. I really couldn't care whether you are convinced by anything or not, you continue to ignore facts that lay before you in preference for something to beat someone with.

I would have Kabak in this team now ahead of three of the four CB's we have in our squad. Five if you included Tomkinson. He was signed on loan with a view to a permanent if we stayed up - that's the precise nature of the deal, which made absolute sense. We didn't stay up, so we didn't sign him.

As for competitiveness - no, I think two head coaches absolutely failed to get the best out of that squad. There were some mitigating circumstances.

As for who you 'think' is responsible - again, couldn't give a monkeys. You've proven that you don't know the difference between "know" and "think" before now.

As for last summer, we signed two players permanently, one for £6m up front with add-ons that could take it to £12m. The other for the same fee we received for Lees-Melou. Otherwise we loaned Hayden who has been really unfortunate - again, not sure how you can call injuries "failures" like they are predictable... they're not. Ramsey who was decent for us for the first half of the season, just not in a decent side sadly.

Again, are you saying these players are rubbish or that Smith coached them poorly or both? Nunez clearly has ability as does Sara, yes, you can't expect all players to start off amazingly, especially when they are young and it's their first experience of European football, let alone English and living away from home cultures etc. Sure, why take those risks blah blah blah, but then that requires you to ignore the points I have made as has Parma, so not going there again just for you to ignore them.

Either face up to reality or just stick your head back in your imaginary world.

[Monty13 2,231]

9 minutes ago, chicken said:

Nah, you don't, you work in continuous whinging and trying to argue straw man arguments that go against all the evidence. I really couldn't care whether you are convinced by anything or not, you continue to ignore facts that lay before you in preference for something to beat someone with.

I would have Kabak in this team now ahead of three of the four CB's we have in our squad. Five if you included Tomkinson. He was signed on loan with a view to a permanent if we stayed up - that's the precise nature of the deal, which made absolute sense. We didn't stay up, so we didn't sign him.

As for competitiveness - no, I think two head coaches absolutely failed to get the best out of that squad. There were some mitigating circumstances.

As for who you 'think' is responsible - again, couldn't give a monkeys. You've proven that you don't know the difference between "know" and "think" before now.

As for last summer, we signed two players permanently, one for £6m up front with add-ons that could take it to £12m. The other for the same fee we received for Lees-Melou. Otherwise we loaned Hayden who has been really unfortunate - again, not sure how you can call injuries "failures" like they are predictable... they're not. Ramsey who was decent for us for the first half of the season, just not in a decent side sadly.

Again, are you saying these players are rubbish or that Smith coached them poorly or both? Nunez clearly has ability as does Sara, yes, you can't expect all players to start off amazingly, especially when they are young and it's their first experience of European football, let alone English and living away from home cultures etc. Sure, why take those risks blah blah blah, but then that requires you to ignore the points I have made as has Parma, so not going there again just for you to ignore them.

Either face up to reality or just stick your head back in your imaginary world.

Yawn… the irony of you of all posters accusing others of creating strawmen, moving goalposts and ignoring others points.

[Google Bot 3,262]

6 minutes ago, chicken said:

Otherwise we loaned Hayden who has been really unfortunate - again, not sure how you can call injuries "failures" like they are predictable... they're not. Ramsey who was decent for us for the first half of the season, just not in a decent side sadly.

I think in Smith's defence also, he and Webber most likely let Tzolis and Rashica out - With the belief that we had Idah, Rowe and Springett that could come through.... All of which got crooked.

None of those names are high profile to the point of Aarons/Pukki etc. for it to be overly concerning, but I think they were integral players to grow this season and placed an unforeseen spanner in the works.

Didn't rate Smith, but I don't think he had **** all luck during his time here in all honesty.  Wagner may just walk in and see the reversal of fortunes whereby he does have players available in the correct positions to work with.

[Kenny Foggo 1,116]

1 hour ago, chicken said:

Webbers main job is Sporting Director. It isn't purely player recruitment - there are other people who share responsibility for that. For example, there is the scouting department who go and scout players and report their findings back to the "sporting board" which includes the head coach.

The entire point of the set up is to allow the head coach to still have a say in signings but not be required to go and personally scout, watch and then tie up the details of the contracts etc. Think of it like the end of the auditions in x-factor if you will. You'd have a team sitting around a table drawing up the shortlist of players they want to prioritise for scouting and then signing. That summer it would have been the head scouts, Farke and Webber. Webber knows the budget, worries about the budget, does the leg work on transfer fees and contracts so I am led to believe. 

He is by no means the only person responsible for player recruitment and it is by no means his "main job".

From the Premier League site..

THE ROLE OF A SPORTING DIRECTOR

The sports director is responsible for the club’s overall philosophy beginning with the youth team all the way up to the first team. The sporting director will discuss the style of play with the team’s coach. The youth teams will follow the same style of play to make things uniform from top to bottom and bottom to top.

Sports directors attend training sessions and all games. They often travel and spend much of their time around the players, and are a common face around the dressing room. The sporting director will also work hand-in-hand with the club’s CEO to identify transfer targets, coaches, discuss budgets, buy and sell players, and offer existing players new contracts.

He is the main reason in my opinion, we are were we are. He is not doing a very good job. I think it's best we look for someone with new ideas. 

We can not keep replacing ( and wasting millions) of replacing coaches unable to get a tune out of his players.

If the scouts aren't doing a job, replace them. Weak argument to say it's not his main job recruitment.  

[Monty13 2,231]

8 hours ago, Google Bot said:

Agreed, and beyond believing his own hype when bringing in hopeful signings, Webber's biggest failing was the appointment of Smith.  Not because of Smith in his own right, As I think his credentials and achievements were good.

But the context of those achievements, squads he had, and style just didn't apply to our squad, or playing style.  And the DoF's prime goal is to oversee that we stick to that unified plan.

I think he's already learnt from that mistake, whether he got refusals, ran out of time and had to opt for Smith, or Was first choice - Who knows?!.  But, the drop off in moral over that period is why we look no better to 18/19 right now (imo).

If we could wipe the memories and go back with this squad to end of 17/18, take that weight of disappointment and feeling of being on a low away I think only then could you properly compare with the 18/19 squad.  Morale and confidence is everything, and that comes with being on the up... Not in a period of recovery from a spiral down.

Don’t disagree at all really. I was always prepared to give Smith a chance and presumed he was offering some kind of continuity, but it’s proven a really poor decision.

I’m very happy with Wagner, he’s not as close to Farke as some may believe IMO, especially in play style, but he and his tactics so far definitely ooze much more of the character and style we need.

You’re not wrong on confidence, 100% it’s a massive factor. However I’d argue player confidence is guided by who goes in and out the doors as well as by previous results.