Will anything change as long as Coton And Hill remain

My big gripe is buying injured unfit players.
How on earth can you do a proper medical.
You'd think we'd avoid all that 5hite after the Alvarez debacle.

 

All depends on who you believe - there are reports saying £1.5m up to £4m and others saying £3m. Nobody actually knows except the powers at the 2 clubs.

I'm going to look through rosey glasses and say it was £1.5m

 

Fair enough, but to be honest even 1.5m looks like we have had our eyes taken out.
Matthew's left for nowt and charlton snapped him up. By all accounts he is starting to look the part. These things boil my pi55.

 

I've just checked and we've paid 3.08m for Grigg. That is astonishing money for somebody with an established song.

 

Mathews looked decent but was injured a fair amount of the time he was here, same with Johnny Williams its almost impossible to base an argument along these lines.

 

Agree re Williams. He was a renowned sick note before he joined us and pretty soon was true to form.
I dont believe any manager from sam onwards liked or rated Matthews. Yes he had injuries but I am led to believe he has been ok for a while.
I disagree re sam being lucky. He knows how to get the best out of players and uses sport science as well as any.
Kirchoff would usually play 60-70 minutes max and BSA would haul him off and wrap him in cotton wool for a week.
We have in the past though been naive or stupid with players we have taken on.
Mensch, mboma, tainio immediately spring to mind. Laslandes was supposedly an alchi.

 

I have a passing interest in the progress of Lee Bowyers career and read that Williams was Charltons fans player of the season last year.

 

I remember years ago, when Coton wasn't getting a game at the club he was with back then (iirc, he was possibly the 3rd choice keeper), he turned down a move to Sunderland, and a chance to resurrect his career, just to stay at his club and play reserve team football.
Sums him up perfectly for me.

 

Matthews left for nowt but was on PL wages which is the reason - Think he's on around £10k a week for Charlton which is more than we should be paying (or can afford to be honest!) He was also injured more than he was fit here to be fair too. Decent enough RB but a lot of money opn physio table warmers (not the only one!!)

 

Advocaat didn't want him either. It was our dear friend Congerton who brought him in.

 

Sam used various methods to keep people playing - most of our injury prone players played more consecutive games with him than any other manager - but his methods often had a lasting effect on injury prone players which meant, once that treatment cycle stopped, they end up with much longer term injuries. Kirchhoff has hardly played 2 games in a row since leaving! Short term benefits for the club but no long term benefit for the players!

 

Maybe mate. The problem with Ross was that he seemed to keep repeating the same mistakes. Blindly ignoring the fact that we created so little while rarely getting enough players in the box.

 

Agree with all of that mate. The appointment of Coton and Hill just reeks of jobs for the boys.
The OP was spot on to highlight this and our academy, as areas which need improvement. I am heartened by what i've read in that article about our potential investors involvement in Miami Marlins, and how they've funded their academy. I hope they insist on the same happening here. At the moment, we appear to have a Class 1 academy in name only, and a radical overhaul is needed.

 

As has been said earlier the academy has never recovered from Robbie Stockdale's move up and then out. He should have been given a top job, in overseeing player developement and integration, we are a hopeless mess atm. and a lot of the progress has been lost across all levels since he was shown the door imo.

 

I hope I'm wrong I really do but I worry that it's going to be no different under Parkinson, in fact wouldn't surprise me if it was worse.

 

He has to be given a chance to get them organised and playing as a team. It's not something that'll happen overnight given the lack of time he has had on the training pitch with them so far.

 

One single training session with them before the Wycombe game.... And not many more before tomorrow's game.

 

I agree recruitment hasn't been the best but I do wonder how many players turned us down. Wyke wasn't our first choice last season and I think he was more along the lines of what we could get. We were deffo in for Taylor who went to Charlton, daresay a few others knocked us back like he did. Having said that, it's a bit mental we haven't got much pace, power, athleticism or nastiness in the team. Get three or four like that in January and it would make a world of difference to this side.

 

Said at the time he would have been the best signing we could make .

 

After that performance I would have had them in on Sunday to emphasise it was not good enough , line in the sand time .