Poor squad

[ged in the onion bag 855]

1 hour ago, Branston Pickle said:

You have this odd idea that I want an entire loan XI but I have only ever said we should use loans to cover squad gaps.  I’d say 3 loans would probably be a max.  And it is far from necessarily related to poor recruitment, you could fast track a player who doesn’t come on as hoped, or have long-term injuries to key roles. Even at PL level you have key players who are on loan.

At least you are as predictable as expected, Mr anti-loans who certainly rose to the bait.

Where do I suggest that?    In my view one loan is too many in our situation in the Championship and they are not guaranteed to be useful either.    I don’t think you want a team of them.   We disagree but at least I explain why.   
 

If we got promoted then I would agree loans are necessary but only experienced ones.   Kids with no EPL experience are no good to us which is where we kept looking!    Would it be different? 

Gibbs should be in the team at CDM, Warner should be in the squad too.   
 

I’m not predictable, just consistent, practical and and clear as to why?   You could always try to argue a case to convince me otherwise but no one has come up with any ideas or evidence to suggest loans actually help us in the Championship.    
 

Ramsey for example, played well in some games but what was the point?   Skipp, left us with a massive hole in midfield… Hayden, Marquinhos!

Edited December 18, 2023 by ged in the onion bag

[Thirsty Lizard 3,166]

2 hours ago, ged in the onion bag said:

Where do I suggest that?    In my view one loan is too many in our situation in the Championship and they are not guaranteed to be useful either.    I don’t think you want a team of them.   We disagree but at least I explain why.   
 

If we got promoted then I would agree loans are necessary but only experienced ones.   Kids with no EPL experience are no good to us which is where we kept looking!    Would it be different? 

Gibbs should be in the team at CDM, Warner should be in the squad too.   
 

I’m not predictable, just consistent, practical and and clear as to why?   You could always try to argue a case to convince me otherwise but no one has come up with any ideas or evidence to suggest loans actually help us in the Championship.    
 

Ramsey for example, played well in some games but what was the point?   Skipp, left us with a massive hole in midfield… Hayden, Marquinhos!

Skipp got us promoted (not on his own, but he was a massive part of it)

[Indy 3,301]

6 minutes ago, Thirsty Lizard said:

Skipp got us promoted (not on his own, but he was a massive part of it)

Skipp, Buendia & Pukki. Absolutely the three who got us up. It was a good team effort but they were the quality difference between promotion and staying where we were!

[ged in the onion bag 855]

16 minutes ago, Thirsty Lizard said:

Skipp got us promoted (not on his own, but he was a massive part of it)

I know, the rest is history.   We didn’t replace him, couldn’t replace him, we suffered a season of torture and have nothing to show for it, a poorer squad and no money!   What’s not to love about that!    How have the last two promotions sustained us?    What’s your point?
 

We need money to sustain that kind of approach.   We don’t have it so development is the best way.    You can’t do that with too many hackneyed old journeymen, by chasing promotion or filling spots in the team with loans.  
 

It needs a plan, time, patience, bravery and astute staff making the right calls.  It needs a team that never has its belly tickled. Surely that’s the priority right now.   

[Thirsty Lizard 3,166]

4 hours ago, ged in the onion bag said:

I know, the rest is history.   We didn’t replace him, couldn’t replace him, we suffered a season of torture and have nothing to show for it, a poorer squad and no money!   What’s not to love about that!    How have the last two promotions sustained us?    What’s your point?
 

We need money to sustain that kind of approach.   We don’t have it so development is the best way.    You can’t do that with too many hackneyed old journeymen, by chasing promotion or filling spots in the team with loans.  
 

It needs a plan, time, patience, bravery and astute staff making the right calls.  It needs a team that never has its belly tickled. Surely that’s the priority right now.   

Probably best I don't mention the £100 to £150 million you get for one seaon in the Premier League then............

[ged in the onion bag 855]

7 minutes ago, Thirsty Lizard said:

Probably best I don't mention the £100 to £150 million you get for one seaon in the Premier League then............

You're not reading the whole thread or thinking this through are you.    Where is the £100mm - £150m we received for the last two EPL seasons right now?  Where is the squad we bought with it?   Where is the progress?    It all gets spent very quickly on just trying to compete, paying wages, signing average Joe's, then it leaves you in a right financial mess when the leagues spat you back out the other end.   

Tell me, what do you think will happen then....  like to mention a little matter of our own little debt that also needs servicing.   Exactly how would we compete.   Who at that club can perform the miracles required.    You all think promotion is the answer.  It's not, unless we have another £200mm to add to the pot but we don't.   

Please feel free to justify your comment with something valid, I'm only basing my opinion on the evidence before and ahead of us... there's no massive financial benefactor on the horizon.   

Remember how toxic this forum was last time.    Short memories, it only took 5 games, after Watford crushed us at home, the season was evidently over.   We need some way to compete in that league or it's going to be a mess again.   Otherwise, we are just existing the same as the rest of the wannabe pretenders in the Championship, they all want to go up and like Luton did and Huddersfield nearly did the year before, its very possible for it to be any one of the teams, even Ipswich are showing that you can come up and have a chance at promotion.   

The gap is massive, even £150m is not enough.    And what would this recruitment team do with £150m?   I dread to think.  Convince me otherwise, please.     A plan or a whim? 

[sgncfc 1,228]

There seem to be two issues on this thread - is our squad good enough to make the playoffs and if they do what is the point of winning them?

To be fair, these were discussion points before the season even started. What is the point of competing to win a league when being promoted is completely pointless? The only way it isn't pointless is if Mr A chooses to finance a splurge in the transfer market - always possible I guess, but why would he? So yes, being promoted is pointless. On that basis, our best season is to lose in the PO final, but we wouldn't want to lose having got there would we? So should we lose in the SF's? Maybe, unless we're playing Ipswich.

But if we do get up to 6th we're not going to want to lose are we? So maybe 7th is the best option. But then we lose half our income next season whereas if we do get promoted we can reset again and maybe keep Rowe, Sara, Gunn, Gibbs, Nunez and Sargent as the basis of a half decent team. Even when we come straight back we get two more years of parachute money and it's two years of developing Kamara, Tomkinson, Hills, Ryes, Aboh and Fisher etc.

That's where we are. That's our position in the football pyramid.

So is our squad good enough to get us to 6th. Yes, it is. On song, with confidence and belief we could make 5th or 6th. A lot depends on these "exciting" January plans. A couple of decent Arsenal loanees (Smith Rowe? You're having a laugh!) would help.

What I'd really love is for us to win the PO's and then just announce that we're not going to try and compete because it's pointless; because the football model is broken so that we force the powers that be to at least recognise the problem. But they won't of course - they'll just let Talksport badmouth us again.

Maybe I'd really rather finish 7th and have a happy year watching 1p5wich get stuffed week after week instead of us.

 

[Thirsty Lizard 3,166]

1 hour ago, ged in the onion bag said:

You're not reading the whole thread or thinking this through are you.    Where is the £100mm - £150m we received for the last two EPL seasons right now?  Where is the squad we bought with it?   Where is the progress?    It all gets spent very quickly on just trying to compete, paying wages, signing average Joe's, then it leaves you in a right financial mess when the leagues spat you back out the other end.   

Tell me, what do you think will happen then....  like to mention a little matter of our own little debt that also needs servicing.   Exactly how would we compete.   Who at that club can perform the miracles required.    You all think promotion is the answer.  It's not, unless we have another £200mm to add to the pot but we don't.   

Please feel free to justify your comment with something valid, I'm only basing my opinion on the evidence before and ahead of us... there's no massive financial benefactor on the horizon.   

Remember how toxic this forum was last time.    Short memories, it only took 5 games, after Watford crushed us at home, the season was evidently over.   We need some way to compete in that league or it's going to be a mess again.   Otherwise, we are just existing the same as the rest of the wannabe pretenders in the Championship, they all want to go up and like Luton did and Huddersfield nearly did the year before, its very possible for it to be any one of the teams, even Ipswich are showing that you can come up and have a chance at promotion.   

The gap is massive, even £150m is not enough.    And what would this recruitment team do with £150m?   I dread to think.  Convince me otherwise, please.     A plan or a whim? 

Your whole argument is based on 2+2 = 5.

Most of what you have said above is quite true - it's because the whole nature of football has shifted irreversably since the Premier League started and it's now just incredibly difficult/impossible for a self funded club like ours to compete.

It's nothing to do with the fact that we've loaned a few players - some successfully others unsuccessfully - in the last few seasons. 

Oh and btw - it appears that you've had your head buried in the sand for the last 10 years or so. The vast majority of the good young players get hoovered up by the big clubs now too. Just look at what happened with us and Chelsea with Alex Matos. 

Edited December 18, 2023 by Thirsty Lizard

[ged in the onion bag 855]

Where is the £100mm - £150m we received for the last two EPL seasons right now?  Where is the squad we bought with it?   Where is the progress?  

18 hours ago, Thirsty Lizard said:

Your whole argument is based on 2+2 = 5.

Most of what you have said above is quite true - it's because the whole nature of football has shifted irreversably since the Premier League started and it's now just incredibly difficult/impossible for a self funded club like ours to compete.

It's nothing to do with the fact that we've loaned a few players - some successfully others unsuccessfully - in the last few seasons. 

Oh and btw - it appears that you've had your head buried in the sand for the last 10 years or so. The vast majority of the good young players get hoovered up by the big clubs now too. Just look at what happened with us and Chelsea with Alex Matos. 

Lets see if this whole explanation can register or will you just pick one little titbit again and run with that ignoring the rest.

What are you talking about.... I'm perfectly aware of how football works, i have coaching qualification and football experiences that very few on here will have.    I know how opportunity and trust and game time can help develop youngsters and can see how badly we have performed in lots of ways in this area (and how well we've performed too) and I am quite convinced that development and strategy will serve us much better in terms of relationship between fans and the club, finances and also in terms of potential for success in the future.   

Whats your plan then, answer the questions i raised, where is that money from EACH of the two promotions, where is the team, the progress.   How do we break from the same routine as everyone else?   Lets face it, each Championship club has the same aspiration right now, some are in less debt than us and some much more difficult to beat than us thus more likely to give the EPL a crack than we have.   We are in no different situation right now so essentially just in the lottery of hoping for something to click.  Law of averages suggests its not our turn for quite a while.   

I'd rather we tried a different approach and tried to develop our own, give them contracts, a good working environment and opportunity, if they are good enough, we have better players, if they leave we receive money for them... .how much do you reckon we will get for Batth in January?     Your response above is pretty ill-considered in my view but please feel free to justify it or articulate why my suggestions are so flawed with reason rather than one off, non-typical examples.  You quote Matos, I reply with Lewis, Aarons, Godfrey, Buendia, Maddison, no doubt Sara and Rowe will follow, all players brought in with progress and development in mind.   

Edited December 19, 2023 by ged in the onion bag

[ged in the onion bag 855]

18 hours ago, sgncfc said:

There seem to be two issues on this thread - is our squad good enough to make the playoffs and if they do what is the point of winning them?

To be fair, these were discussion points before the season even started. What is the point of competing to win a league when being promoted is completely pointless? The only way it isn't pointless is if Mr A chooses to finance a splurge in the transfer market - always possible I guess, but why would he? So yes, being promoted is pointless. On that basis, our best season is to lose in the PO final, but we wouldn't want to lose having got there would we? So should we lose in the SF's? Maybe, unless we're playing Ipswich.

But if we do get up to 6th we're not going to want to lose are we? So maybe 7th is the best option. But then we lose half our income next season whereas if we do get promoted we can reset again and maybe keep Rowe, Sara, Gunn, Gibbs, Nunez and Sargent as the basis of a half decent team. Even when we come straight back we get two more years of parachute money and it's two years of developing Kamara, Tomkinson, Hills, Ryes, Aboh and Fisher etc.

That's where we are. That's our position in the football pyramid.

So is our squad good enough to get us to 6th. Yes, it is. On song, with confidence and belief we could make 5th or 6th. A lot depends on these "exciting" January plans. A couple of decent Arsenal loanees (Smith Rowe? You're having a laugh!) would help.

What I'd really love is for us to win the PO's and then just announce that we're not going to try and compete because it's pointless; because the football model is broken so that we force the powers that be to at least recognise the problem. But they won't of course - they'll just let Talksport badmouth us again.

Maybe I'd really rather finish 7th and have a happy year watching 1p5wich get stuffed week after week instead of us.

 

I appreciate your points here and like the idea of 7th too.... but there are issues with promotions...   We need to be competitive.  These EPL experiences do serious damage to confidence and moral, they really do, players come back beaten up, realising how vast that gap is and can lose desire... it happens.   Not sure an unsupported group of Rowe, Sara, Gunn etc..would cope as the experienced group look old and tired and slow to me, that won't be any use or support.   Of course, the younger ones are less likely to come through, we can't develop in the EPL.   We need a squad of capability first and a team that is robust defensively.... the only way that happens is with a change of personnel as this lot aren't good enough.   We need better team shape and CDM's to protect the defence.   

I still don't see how the EPL pot or the parachute money has helped us.  Can anyone explain what good its done us say since the last promotion? 

Chances are, we won't win the play-offs so why not give opportunity to players like Gibbs, Warner, Sainz, a proper run of games and look for hungry, athletic players to develop further in January.   

I like it when we go our own way.... at the minute we are just existing like every other Championship club, with little planning, just hoping more than anything that it works out for us rather than someone else.   We had our time, chances are (especially with our recruitment performance) other teams will have theirs now.       

 

[Thirsty Lizard 3,166]

1 hour ago, ged in the onion bag said:

Where is the £100mm - £150m we received for the last two EPL seasons right now?  Where is the squad we bought with it?   Where is the progress?  

Lets see if this whole explanation can register or will you just pick one little titbit again and run with that ignoring the rest.

What are you talking about.... I'm perfectly aware of how football works, i have coaching qualification and football experiences that very few on here will have.    I know how opportunity and trust and game time can help develop youngsters and can see how badly we have performed in lots of ways in this area (and how well we've performed too) and I am quite convinced that development and strategy will serve us much better in terms of relationship between fans and the club, finances and also in terms of potential for success in the future.   

Whats your plan then, answer the questions i raised, where is that money from EACH of the two promotions, where is the team, the progress.   How do we break from the same routine as everyone else?   Lets face it, each Championship club has the same aspiration right now, some are in less debt than us and some much more difficult to beat than us thus more likely to give the EPL a crack than we have.   We are in no different situation right now so essentially just in the lottery of hoping for something to click.  Law of averages suggests its not our turn for quite a while.   

I'd rather we tried a different approach and tried to develop our own, give them contracts, a good working environment and opportunity, if they are good enough, we have better players, if they leave we receive money for them... .how much do you reckon we will get for Batth in January?     Your response above is pretty ill-considered in my view but please feel free to justify it or articulate why my suggestions are so flawed with reason rather than one off, non-typical examples.  You quote Matos, I reply with Lewis, Aarons, Godfrey, Buendia, Maddison, no doubt Sara and Rowe will follow, all players brought in with progress and development in mind.   

It really is quite ironic that of all the posters on here you've chosen to have this argument with me! I completely AGREE with you about the absolute need for us to develop our own players. If you take just a cursory look at my posting history you will see that I often post short reports of U18/U23 games I've been to - and I regularly start/contribute threads on our younger players who are out on loan. I'm a former teacher and I completely AGREE with you about how young people - in any walk of life or profession, including professional football - can develop when given, time, trust and appropriate mentoring/coaching.

Unfortunately the Matos situation is rapidly becoming typical - not non typical. I started/contributed to a thread a while back about a player who used to be in our academy called Ruben Shakpoke - I don't know if you saw that thread or if you've even ever heard of him. He apparently once scored 11 goals for us in a younger age group game - U10's, U12's something like that. He was poached from us by Aston Villa 3 years back at the age of 16!! Before he had remotely had time to make any impact for our first team and before we could get any sort of useful fee for him - apparently Villa paid us some sort of compensation at the time. 

You may not have heard of Ruben Shakpoke, but I'm sure you've heard of Angus Gunn. If you recall he was  with our academy, but was poached by Man City as a 16 year old. We got a tribunal fee of £250,000 for him. He's back with us now, but only after we paid a fee reported to be £5 million for him. Nothing very sustainable about that business model is there?

I repeat - I absolutely agree with you about the necessity of developing our own young players and giving them time and support to flourish. However, the reality is that it's just becoming increasingly difficult. 

As to what our approach should be going forward I think it should be to have a core of players we've developed ourselves, but not to be dogmatic and purist about how we can develop a winning team from other sources as well such as traditional transfers and sometimes a loan player or two as well. 

One final point - it's quite funny that you quote Sara in your list of players. Where did the £10 million or so that we paid for him come from? From the £100 - 150 million we got for our Premier League season of course!!

[ged in the onion bag 855]

1 hour ago, Thirsty Lizard said:

It really is quite ironic that of all the posters on here you've chosen to have this argument with me! I completely AGREE with you about the absolute need for us to develop our own players. If you take just a cursory look at my posting history you will see that I often post short reports of U18/U23 games I've been to - and I regularly start/contribute threads on our younger players who are out on loan. I'm a former teacher and I completely AGREE with you about how young people - in any walk of life or profession, including professional football - can develop when given, time, trust and appropriate mentoring/coaching.

Unfortunately the Matos situation is rapidly becoming typical - not non typical. I started/contributed to a thread a while back about a player who used to be in our academy called Ruben Shakpoke - I don't know if you saw that thread or if you've even ever heard of him. He apparently once scored 11 goals for us in a younger age group game - U10's, U12's something like that. He was poached from us by Aston Villa 3 years back at the age of 16!! Before he had remotely had time to make any impact for our first team and before we could get any sort of useful fee for him - apparently Villa paid us some sort of compensation at the time. 

You may not have heard of Ruben Shakpoke, but I'm sure you've heard of Angus Gunn. If you recall he was  with our academy, but was poached by Man City as a 16 year old. We got a tribunal fee of £250,000 for him. He's back with us now, but only after we paid a fee reported to be £5 million for him. Nothing very sustainable about that business model is there?

I repeat - I absolutely agree with you about the necessity of developing our own young players and giving them time and support to flourish. However, the reality is that it's just becoming increasingly difficult. 

As to what our approach should be going forward I think it should be to have a core of players we've developed ourselves, but not to be dogmatic and purist about how we can develop a winning team from other sources as well such as traditional transfers and sometimes a loan player or two as well. 

One final point - it's quite funny that you quote Sara in your list of players. Where did the £10 million or so that we paid for him come from? From the £100 - 150 million we got for our Premier League season of course!!

I'm glad to hear your thoughts here and yes, I do know of Shakpoke, he ended up at West Brom and my wife's a Villa fan.   I would have no problem with loans if there was a point and there would be in the EPL.   At the moment, we don't need to go up, we need to develop, I want to see Gibbs played and in his better position, Warner played over any of the CB's we have, McCallum over Giannoulis, Sainz and Rowe over Hernandez, Fassnacht (when it suits over Barnes too) and I'd like to see our coaches getting more from these younger players.   When they are doing that, then we would have a bigger pool of capable players and no need to get loans in.    We don't need a loan at CB, we need players for CDM but then I can't see the point of a loan, give Gibbs a go.   We need to be looking for a playmaker behind the forward, Barnes isn't that, but again, whats the point of a loan, Barnes, Sainz, Rowe can do that in the interim.   

Matos and the Gunn situation is still not typical, that common and I am not sure if this can be addressed with how the contracts are set up... but still there is significantly more numbers who do stick around as i listed.    One of our failings is that we said as part of the process, when they outgrow us, they can go.   We shouldn't be giving out those messages, we should be aspiring for continuous improvement, to do better, gain momentum and consequently keep them on the journey.   Farke got us on that route, we just didn't learn the right lessons in my opinion.   So while I accept that loans can work, what's the point of them in our situation because we aren't likely to go up or get relegated and we shouldn't aspire to promotion right now until we are in a stronger position for all the reasons I've mentioned in the past.     

Edited December 19, 2023 by ged in the onion bag

[shefcanary 2,410]

2 hours ago, ged in the onion bag said:

I still don't see how the EPL pot or the parachute money has helped us.  Can anyone explain what good its done us say since the last promotion? 

Nothing at all except lumber us with the bloated salaries of a few underperforming players, paid out of parachute money, instead of using that very parachute money to underpin the development of our academy players that you, and others like myself, crave. Given we didn't get promoted first time, in hindsight (and I appreciate it is in hindsight) that parachute money should have been used to pay off those players with bloated salaries and sign a few hungry lower league players with the capability of at worst see us into mid-table (after all we barely achieved that), at best see us achieve the competitiveness of a Lambert side and sneaked into the pay-offs.

From this position, a few people are getting giddy again about our chances of sneaking into the play-offs, but realistically we should be building for next season and beyond now. Although Wagner is charged with an immediate return, Knappers surely holds sway over this now, it is very much in his court now what happens next (at least until Attanasio is firmly in charge) and I would encourage him to thing long rather than short term. But a couple more wins and ....

[Thirsty Lizard 3,166]

15 minutes ago, ged in the onion bag said:

I'm glad to hear your thoughts here and yes, I do know of Shakpoke, he ended up at West Brom and my wife's a Villa fan.   I would have no problem with loans if there was a point and there would be in the EPL.   At the moment, we don't need to go up, we need to develop, I want to see Gibbs played and in his better position, Warner played over any of the CB's we have, McCallum over Giannoulis, Sainz and Rowe over Hernandez, Fassnacht (when it suits over Barnes too) and I'd like to see our coaches getting more from these younger players.   When they are doing that, then we would have a bigger pool of capable players and no need to get loans in.    We don't need a loan at CB, we need players for CDM but then I can't see the point of a loan, give Gibbs a go.   We need to be looking for a playmaker behind the forward, Barnes isn't that, but again, whats the point of a loan, Barnes, Sainz, Rowe can do that in the interim.   

Matos and the Gunn situation is still not typical, that common and I am not sure if this can be addressed with how the contracts are set up... but still there is significantly more numbers who do stick around as i listed.    One of our failings is that we said as part of the process, when they outgrow us, they can go.   We shouldn't be giving out those messages, we should be aspiring for continuous improvement, to do better, gain momentum and consequently keep them on the journey.   Farke got us on that route, we just didn't learn the right lessons in my opinion.   So while I accept that loans can work, what's the point of them in our situation because we aren't likely to go up or get relegated and we shouldn't aspire to promotion right now until we are in a stronger position for all the reasons I've mentioned in the past.     

I completely agree with every thing you've written that I've highlighted. I wouldn't be looking to loan anybody in in the January transfer window, unless we suddenly got a slew of injuries in one particular position and couldn't cover them from within the current squad.

Funnily enough I don't think we would have had any loan players at all this season had it not been for the fact that Sargent picked up a long term injury a few days before the August window closed.