Disappointing day and no denying it. But the points don’t lie and 7th ain’t a bad effort. Rosie will have learnt a lot this year and to be fair our form over the last month has been good. It didn’t really matter what we did today given the West Brom result and to be fair they cruised over the line. We will have to sell in the summer but we have seen how lightweight we have been in some positions, especially full backs and we have tried plenty of options there. Given the fantastic backing the owner has put in we just need to wait until summer and see how the cookie crumbles ( Mc Vities ! ) . Until then keep the faith and let’s move on. We still have the club, we still have the new owner and staff. It could be a lot worse.
Not meaning to be 'self indulgent', but moving this here as it's not really related to the Plymouth match thread (other than Rosenior's post match comment about our foundations and bedrock) ... No bedwetting, panicking, whatever. Easy cliches to throw, easier than putting a coherent argument back. It's just realism. Looking at our squad, assuming Greaves and Philogene go, we are left with the following. Even assume we keep Philogene if you like: Quality at 'serious promotion push' level: Omur Tufan Seri (assuming he's got another season at that level in him - he'll be 33 in July) Jones (arguably) Decent squad / utility players: Slater Coyle Pandur is a young kid we know nothing about. Huge assumption to believe he's the one. Then we're left with players like S McC, Jacob, Allsop. I expect the rest will go if deals can be sorted, and if they stay we would hope not to be relying on them either as starters or from the bench, just as fillers in a 26 man squad. I don't see the younger ones being at a level to step in - players like Smith, Jarvis, Jones simply aren't going to make it for the level Acun aspires to. You can't argue with the above, it is FACT. That's not a "foundation" or a "bedrock". It's a shambles. It's an absolutely massive rebuild ... again. It's like 15 players to bring in, of which something like 10 (maybe more) need to be at the level of those first 4. We haven't got any strikers, none!! https://www.wearehullcity.co.uk/teams This will be Roseniors FOURTH transfer window, yet he'll be starting from a base that is absolutely miles off. I'm not putting all the blame at his door either. Rather than throw lazy insults, explain to me why I'm wrong (not panicking, not bedwetting, etc). I see the task this summer as absolutely huge, and if it's not done early, which it rarely if ever is, then we're once again playing catch up with near to a 1/3 of the season gone before we know where we are.
24/25 We sell Greaves = we can recruit adequately to push for promotion. 25/26 We sell Philogene = we can recruit adequately to push for promotion 26/27 We sell ‘Delap/Omur/AN.Other’ = we can recruit adequately to push for promotion This is the model until promotion is achieved. We just need to keep producing at least one saleable asset each season. We have the next 2 seasons covered already. It’s a fairly sensible model so not sure why some people are panicking.
It's funny when you can make that sound like a negative when he's had 3 windows, 2 of which were January windows and they tend to be loan heavy/short term windows. Last summer was tough as we couldn't spend much, apart from Philogene, it was all done on a budget but the squad we start with is miles better than it was 12 months ago.
Apologies in advance if this is uncoordinated but I'm on the ohone and its a nightmare.. Think the easy answer is we've just finished 7th, taking it to the final day and we're losing greaves (massive loss), Morton (big loss) probably, Carvalho (semi already replaced by Omur), Giles (reasonably easy to replace for what he's given), Zaroury and Ohio (same story as Giles). You've decided that out of a squad who finished 3 points outside the playoffs only 5 of the players still here - 6 if you count philogene are of any actual use. We've currently lost 5 players in and around the starting 11 for pretty much definite as far as i can tell but only 2 of them leave gaps that we may struggle to replicate what they've given. Hell we can keep Giles and Ohio you would think if we wanted to limit the losses even further. However you think we need 15 with 10 players at a high level. Yes we need to recruit well, greaves and Morton are big losses... Unless we manage to get Morton back and i think we'll see Delap return, but to think it's a massive rebuild job seems a little bit dramatic. Our 'team' of this year Allsop (still here) Coyle (still here) Jones (still here) Greaves (gone, huge loss) Giles (underwhelming) Seri (still here) Morton (gone... probably... huge loss) Omur (still here) Philo (still here i reckon) Carvalho (gone, was only here since jan, replaced by Omur) Delap (still here i reckon) Then benchwise Pandur (still here) Macca (still here) Jacob (still here) Slater (still here) Doc (still here but yeah probably gone) Toure (gone, hardly a loss) Zaroury (gone, not shown much) Sharp (gone, hardly a loss) Ohio (maybe keep, not too fussed) So looking at that is it a massive rebuild job to get back to the level we're currently at, or is it a simple case of looking into the free agent market and relegated teams for some depth, a couple of prem loans and some lower prem players who want regular football?
You’d be looking to improve players every summer as part of the clubs developmental plan anyway, so players like Macca, Allsop, and the like are always going to be moved into backup places eventually. That’s just part of positive progress. And for all the players out of contract, there aren’t many that are seriously competing for a place in the squad, so no real loss there either. A lot of people keep talking about the loans we’re losing, and how massive that is, but don’t forget it was the players we had before January that got us into the top six initially.
Possibly stuck in a forever cycle of ‘pushing for promotion’ - the parachute teams will always have a monopoly on the automatics. Ipswich broke the mould this season, so it can be done - with great recruitment and a great manager! Coventry have sold assets and recruited well to compete for the play-offs. I expect them there and thereabouts next season - so something for us to follow. Brentford and Brighton are the gold standard models!
Probably the people who said we were going for it or bust this season as if the notion of having to sell a player is particularly concerning or telling.
Fantastic analysis of our squad strength. Love the idea that Slater, a player who played 40 times in a season where we made a serious promotion push, isn't counted among the 'serious promotion push' quality players.
£10m is a gamble for any Championship club without parachute payments Its easy to say spend when you aren't in charge of the money - but I think this could be a really important deal. We already know that he fits in with our style - he's strong and he can score. That's more research than we'll have on any other striker. Its easy to see him being the striker that gets us promoted and/or we'll sell him for a large fee (particularly because he's English). I'd make this the priority this summer.
I’m sure it’s a deal that we’d like to make happen and we’ll do what we can to make it happen, but I seriously doubt it will be at £10m.
I'm hopeful that we can do a deal under 10m, not quite sure he's shown that value yet so probably just Man City trying to raise expectations. My guess would be closer to 5 with add ons.
