Transfer Rumours The 2019/20 Season Rumour Mill

I hope Captain Calamity has played his last game in a Town jersey.

Great servant but sh1t footballer.

Woolfenden and Nsiala next season.

 

Nobody has given more for the club over the last decade. I know he will be hurting and I have a feeling there will be more to come from him for Town in a coaching capacity.

 

Be interesting to see what he's like next season. First few seasons with us he looked a great CB at Championship level, then he played RB for a few seasons and has never seemed to have recovered that form. Maybe at a lower level with a good pre-season he might find it again.

 

Football us a result business and there should be no room for sentiment.

He's way past his best so get rid

 

With the lack of available funds I can see him continuing next Season and League One may suit his limitations better.

 

Well, it sounds like most people have warmed to Nsiala as our first choice senior CB. Yet another vindication of Paul Hurst's summer signings.

 

What are the other viindications of Paul Hursts signings ? From what I've seen they've all been abject failures.

 

This is a baffling claim. Nsiala had a decent game last match, but believing that he is a better centre-back than a rapidly-declining, cumbersome Luke Chambers is not a vindication of a Hurst signing. The upside to Hurst's signings is that they are experienced, capable League One players (in theory). The only way those players can vindicate their transfers, and the extortionate transfer fees we've paid for some of them, is if they were to assist us in an instant promotion and perform better in the Championship at the second time of asking.

 

Where were the extortionate transfer fees? That claim is the baffling one.

 

Based on this season, we have paid well over the odds for both Kayden Jackson and Janoi Donacien, who cost us £1.7m and £750k respectively and arguably have no future at the club. We will struggle to recoup even half of what we paid for them. Nsiala and Nolan cost us £2m and they have not lived up to expectations, too expensive. A season in the third tier will benefit them, but they have not been good enough performers in the Championship and that £2m could have been much better spent. Ellis Harrison cost £750k and he's only scored once. He has struggled with injuries, so hopefully he'll step it up next season and have another chance in the Championship, where he'll hopefully perform much better. But based on performances this season - not good enough.

Edwards, who we also signed for £750k, looks like the only player we could actually sell for a profit and maybe get some Championship attention, although I highly doubt he'll move to a Championship club this summer because of his inconsistency and fading form. Again, he will hopefully perform better at League One level and use that momentum to excel in the Championship in a couple of years time for us.

To claim that Nsiala is being picked ahead of Chambers, who has been dire all season, and that alone is vindication for Hurst's summer transfer business is laughable. He's been okay, but if we had the budget, we'd better off bringing in a new, first team centre-back to partner Woolfenden. We don't. So those Hurst players are being considered as first team material because of their previous League One experience and success.

If we had somehow managed stayed up this season, I think that many of those Hurst signings would have been moved on, rightly so, and at a loss. The only way they can 'vindicate' their transfer fees is by getting us up next season and doing better in the Championship next time, than what they did this season. It's not just Hurst's signings fault, of course, but they have been unable to step up when we needed them to. We finished bottom of the table, adrift of safety, it's hard for any player to vindicate their poor performances all season.

 

Donacien should have been in the side. Nsiala should have been in ahead of Chambers all season. Nolan has justified his fee. Edwards should be first name on the team sheet. Harrison has been injured. Roberts is a dud. Jackson may or may not come good, I doubt it but we will see. Extortionate fees is a bit of a stretch.

None of these players are Premier League quality but with the exception of Jackson and Roberts they have all improved on the previous option in their position and part of the reason we have failed so abjectly is exactly that our best players in many positions - Donacien, Nsiala, Woolfy, Knudsen, Nolan and Edwards - haven't really featured.

We don't have the budget and we didn't have the budget in the previous summer, which is why we didn't sign 'set the world alight' players, but solid players are still an improvement on shockingly awful ones like Chambers, Spence and Skuse.

 

" Donacien should have been in the side " that's the best joke I've heard in a long time, he is dreadful in a mediocre Accrington side.

 

Jordan Spence and James Bree are outstanding options aren't they?

He looked dodgy at CB but did well at full back.

Let's put things into perspective - Town have not had a comfortable and established right back since David Wright nearly ten years ago.

 

Donacien and Nsiala have not offered anywhere near enough in the appearances they made to suggest they'd be capable Championship performers. Nolan has had about three good games all season. Edwards is inconsistent, at best, and has performed poorly in away games. Jackson has been terrible, his goals to minutes ratio is appalling. Harrison has had injury problems, but struggled when he did play. Roberts was a waste of a signing, but at least he didn't cost anything in fees. These players are not Premier League quality, you're right, but several of them are not Championship quality either, not on the evidence of this season.

It's almost like we are watching two different Ipswich Town sides. What do you see in those players to compel you to defend them at every available opportunity? We finished bottom of the table, Hampy. Waghorn and Garner are better strikers than Jackson and Harrison. Webster is better than Nsiala. Celina is better than Edwards. Even Connolly looks more assured and consistent in midfield compared to Nolan. We have not improved and upgraded on our departing players. It's one of the reasons why we've been so far adrift of safety.

 

I don't know what Celina and Webster and Waghorn have got to do with anything. The likes of Cresswell and Wickham were real talents in another league to any of those.

I think you confuse form with ability. Put any of those players in our 2014-15 side and I think they would hold their own. Keep pulling them in and out of the team and surround them with rubbish players - a dodgy goalkeeper, full backs that are beaten more easily than an egg, a hapless centre back, forwards who couldn't hit a banjo with a barn door - and it's very hard for anyone to shine and you get relegated.

Set aside loan singings - many of whom are internationals - and what I see in flashes and spells are three talented attacking players in Nolan, Edwards and Harrison and two defenders in Nsiala and Donacien who would be squad players in a good Championship side but could have done a much better job than those who have played.

If we had just had a solid set up and had a bit of common sense to play the best options we have at our disposal we would not be relegated and we would have a platform to build on and add some quality.

Spence and Chambers alone have cost us enough points between them to have survived, never mind all the goalkeeping **** ups that come from being put under pressure by rubbish outfield players.

 

I compared them to players from last season's squad because you opined that they were, Jackson and Roberts aside, 'improvements on the previous option in their position'. I don't think they are. Certainly not most of them.

It's all well and good cherry picking areas such as full-back and dodgy goalkeeping, but the reality is been we've looked abject across the pitch. Five wins all season, lowest in the division by three games. Three! Far too many draws - the fourth highest total in the division. Yes, poor goalkeeping mistakes have been a problem this season. And yes, that isn't helped by a generally inept defence. But the issues with our defence has been exacerbated by an ordinary, often over-run midfield that frequently appears physically lightweight. And what creative opportunities the midfield does create often gets wasted by a misfiring, out-of-depth strikeforce. When the focus is on keeping clean sheets and minimising goals, because your team cannot score and you invite far too much pressure in games, then there's an issue with the squad, not two or three problematic positions.

In seasons gone by, we have usually been bailed out in defence by a safety-first approach and a back line that regularly plays together. It wasn't pretty, but it's what this defence is used to. They had been asked to play a style of football that a majority of them are clearly uncomfortable doing, and Chambers is the prime example of that. Webster, the one first team player whose playing attributes would have complemented that style well, was sold. Nsiala may be many things, but he is not a defender who looks comfortable on the ball and going forwards. In recent years, we've relied on wingers and a strikeforce that has a couple of stand-out, technically gifted players (Waghorn and Celina last season, Lawrence and McGoldrick year before) which have bailed us out of relegation in 2016/17 and lower mid-table trouble last season. We haven't had those benefits this season because a) we got rid of our best strikers b) we didn't get a loanee in as good as Celina and Lawrence and therefore looked short of quality out wide, until we shunted Judge out wide when he's clearly better used in a number 10 role, and c) the attacking players we did bring in over the summer have been nowhere near good enough to make up the goals and assists we lost from last season. That's your main reason for why we have finished where we finished.

In short, a managerial shambles of approach, method, and transfer policy. Too many departures in the summer, not enough experience and quality brought in, and then continuous changes to tactics, style of football, and formation which left us without an identity and without good enough players for Championship survival.

 

Oh right, I meant the options we actually have, rather than players we’ve sold or were here on loan.

The better players are the new players brought in and that goes for Judge, Quaner and Keane too.

Loanees don’t move the club forward, they are a red herring and really they have only served to mask deficiencies.

 

Put any of those players in our 2014 - 2015 side and they would hold their own ?? I don't know how many Town games you've watched in the last few seasons but that statement is total rubbish, to suggest otherwise is completely off the wall, I don't know who you've been watching but its not Town.
We are bottom of the league, we are relegated, all of Hursts signings have been dreadful, a total waste of money, 3rd and 4th div players and not even good ones at that, we have to off load as many as we can and build a side that can challenge in Lg1 and that's not going to be easy with our useless owners record of investment.

 

Fair enough, of Hurst's summer signings, I think Nsiala, Edwards, and Nolan will hopefully feature regularly in League One. I wouldn't argue with Harrison as a second choice striker (on the pitch if we go two up top). I think Donacien, Roberts, and Jackson should be moved on, if we can find buyers. My point about the new signings not being good enough to replace the departing players from last season is still a valid one, I feel, and certainly one of the factors in our relegation.

As for Lambert's transfer business, Judge looks like he'll be a good player for us. He's arguably been trying 'too hard' in recent months and snatched at chances you'd think he'd take. He's been ineffective when given a free role, so hopefully Lambert has more of an idea in how to better implement his quality on the pitch.
Of the other permanent transfers, Collins looked reassuring but not fit enough to make much impact. Dawkins, like Roberts, was a low-risk freebie that didn't do anything. Regarding the loans, Elder was a waste, Bree was below average but needed to boost that weak right-back slot, and Quaner looked okay, but I wouldn't take him. Keane scored a few, but far too injury-prone to risk paying him the high wages he'd demand. So a pretty mixed back on that front, but to give Lambert his due, we were bottom of the table and adrift at the start of January, so attracting the quality he probably wanted was beyond us.

Agreed we've been far too reliant on loans in recent years, particularly this season and last season, as the departing loanees are leaving too many gaps in the squad. So clearly not sustainable. I'd argue if a good, talismanic loan player was made available and interested (someone like a Fraser, Lawrence, or Celina) then we'd be idiots not to sign him, because he'd only go a benefit a rival team in the division. So hopefully next season we only have one or two good loanees in the squad.

 

Was Tommy Smith tangibly better than Nsiala? When was the last time we had a quality right winger or a playmaker that anybody feared?

Murphy’s goals catapulted us into the play offs but that was a very average side. Don’t get me wrong, these are average players, but for the money we paid they were by and large decent signings.