BRILLIANT post General and I agree with everything you say. With losing the likes of Howson, I feel we are considerably weaker and both Boro and Sunderland will be serious contenders for promotion I feel. I'd be INCREDIBLY impressed if SW can get us in the play-offs with the players we're signing. Time will tell and my guess is that 'patience' may be 'starting to wear a bit thin' if we're not in or near the top 10 come October.
I think we have to face up to the reality of our situation. The riches are not there anymore, we are not a Premier League Club anymore, we stuck with an ageing squad for too long and this has lead to the situation we are in now. Let's be serious though, we have hardly sold of the crown jules because of our financial position. The 7 released were ageing players on high wages, many had fallen short of their previous quality over the last few years. Rudd was surplus to requirements and therefore sold. Howson and Dorrans both expressed that they no longer wanted to be at the club and their desired clubs came in for them, if a player wants to leave all we can realistically do is try to get the most attractive price for them. None of this is the new regimes doing, they are simply problems and situation that they inherited or been presented with. I think Stone, Webber and Farke are doing a good job of things, obviously we no longer have the money we had a few years ago and some fans need to sit back and realise that, this window and season aren't going to be like the last 5 or 6 years. Unfortunately we may have to accept that we will be in the Championship beyond this season, I for one am confident that we will see some better team performances than last year.
I would love to think that we could all be collectively patient beyond at least November perhaps to the new year, but I think such is the nature of the fans relationship with the club and the burbling frustration from the last 2 seasons, that cracks will as you suggest start to appearby Oct if we start badly. I genuinely think that we will again have the attacking talents to see us comfortably top half even if things aren't going quite to plan. But the question I think we all need to ask ourselves is what can we reasonably expect this coming season? A lot will depend on the remainder of the transfer window. Lose Jacob and we are moderately weakened, but we have cover,. As yet for me we have not really convincingly plugged the gaps at the back and Howson has left a hole not easily filled. The great unknown is the coaching. I am optimistic that by coaching alone, we will be better at the back even with Martin and Klose as starting CB's. So for me if we were to only lose Jacob, but keep all the rest of our attacking talents, then I think we should expect top half at least, this is still a squad full of talent. In fact I would say anything worse than this last season, I think has to be seen as failure. OK if we start badly but finish like champions and fall short, you probably finish placated, not happy but optimistic for the following season. But for me to fail to challenge for even the playoffs will be a disaster and the deathnell to holding on to our better players (Obviously that is if they have shone in what would be an unremarkable season) So what do I expect? I'm gonna plumb for 6th place and Hope for? Wembley victory riding the crest of a second half of the season wave. (Though I could also see us in 15th place with an increasingly angry mob clinging on to the one joyous fact that we are still above the binners) I would put up a predictions thread, but it might be a little early for that. If Nelson and Jacob were to be sold and not adequately replaced I might be a bit more negative. That or if I wrote this on a Monday morning, it's Friday Woohoo! Bah!
If Russell Martin lines up as a CB in the first game of the season I will have to shake my head in disgust.
OK the only crown jewel we have sold so far in this window is Howson although it looks increasingly like Jacob will follow, just as he had become a player that we really wanted to see in the team. But couple that with Brady and Olssen in January. And the need to ofload all of those players on high wages and whilst necessary to live within our means it does paint a rather stark picture of where we are going. I still think that whilst it was an obvious decision to let the players go who have high wages and possibly some baggage. They are not being replaced with better players. Hungrier, surely, but better, I don't think so. With the right managment I think most of the guys who have left are still likely to be better than those coming in. I hope to be wrong. Unfortunately I think you are right, we may well have to get used to being a championship plodder, with the slashing of the wage bill and lower caliber of transfer target we are now returning to a team that will likely have to sell it's best players continually, often to rivals (Howson) Ok that has ever been the way, but the days where we are buying a Brady or a Pritchard will be long gone and where do we go from there? Mid table mediocrity! Your last point about seeing some better team performances is interesting, last year we had a number of very good team performances and some that will in fact be very hard to match. I would like to see far less non-performances and giving up, generally greater consistency and some spine in away games. Bah!
Whilst I would be disappointed given what has gone before and I had hoped he would have been moved on, I am also ready to give the HC and Martin the benefit of the doubt, Martin and any partner at the back may both look far more capable in a well coached and organised team. As much as possible, mentally I am trying to start the season seeing everyone with a clean slate. Bah!
Agreed and I guess our new management team must have seen some potential to have offered Rusty a new contract.
Personally, I 'd like to see some entertainment and consistency brought back in. We had some good performances last year coupled with some frigging nightmares and if we can become a bit more consistent and play attractive football at the same time I'd be happier. I'm already thinking that this season is going to be different to last season when there was an "expectancy" that we would automatically go back up and that may have led to complacency in many of the "old guard". That won't be there this season - we will not be favourites for promotion and that release of pressure may lead to a more creative approach.
Well said, squire. There will so many 'unknown quantities' in the new season - new back room staff, new recruitment dept, coaching staff, footballing ethos, not forgetting wholesale player changes. Anyone who thinks all of the above will click from day one is seriously deluded. So, as a result, we'll be sailing on uncharted waters to an extent. The other thing is, opposing teams won't have a scooby about our new coach, or our players strengths and weaknesses initially, so they can't set up to negate us - something that was all too bloody easy under AN. Exciting times, but all a bit 'journey into the unknown'. I like that
Agreed Cromer - I could predict the way we'd play last season and I'm an eeejet so any coach worth his salt would have sussed us and had their game plan worked out. Didn't always pan out that way as we had some stellar shows last season (Brentford, Derby, Florists, Reading) but most of the time we were quite predictable.
OK, so we've signed Zimmerman and Franke, ostensibly to replace the departed Bennett and Bassong. And after the increasingly shaky performances B & B put in when called on last season, that's good enough for me - the new guys can't possibly be any worse
That was the old management team, think we should give the new structure and team a chance. Webber seemed to have done a good job with Huddersfield, so that gives me hope he might know what he is doing.
I mean the last time we let managers bring their pet players we ended up with Andreu! I suppose Hughton bought Redmond, and Lambert Fox, so it's not all bad. As Huddersfield's summer of 2016 seems to be a reasonable barometer for transfers this summer, I had a look at who they signed, and how well they did. Christopher Schindler (BuLi 2) - CB - £1.87 m - 47 appearances, Huddersfield's top rated player on Whoscored (7.1) van La Parra (Champ) - Winger - £0.8 m - 43 appearances, WS 6.84 (7th best) Stankovic (Dortmund II!) - CB - £0.5 m - 7 appearances, WS 6.50 Quaner (BuLi 2) - CF - £0.4 m - 19 appearances, WS 6.13 Kachungu (BuLi 2) - Winger - 45 appearances - WS 6.85 (5th best) Jack Payne (League 1) - CAM - 23 appearances - WS 6.46 Hefele (BuLi 2) - CB - 40 appearances - WS 6.65 (11th) Lowe (BuLi 2) - LB - 44 apps - WS 6.85 (6th) Loanees: Mooy (Man C), Brown and Palmer (both Chelsea) were Huddersfield's 2nd, 3rd and 4th best players last season by WS ratings. There's more signings but I got bored... Looking at it overall, it's incredible really just how significantly Huddersfield's signings dominated the list of their top performers (9 in top 10), and also how well the BuLi 2 imports did. Lightning might not strike twice, but you can definitely see the parallels in how Webber is building our squad here. Stankovic and Zimmerman are as alike as you could get, and hopefully Franke can perform as well for us at CB as Schindler did last season!
I think Franke should be a good signing. Reminds me a bit of Klose. So Him, Klose and Zimmerman I think are pretty good CB options for the Championship! We should certainly have a strong aerial presence in both boxes this year!
