How do they keep doing it? We are ****in hopeless by comparison. Fair enough they've got money to blow. But so many smaller clubs operate successfully to a budget yet we've thrown **** at the wall, I feel like Speakman acted like Donald would with the signings of Aouchiche and Pembele.
Coventry? Because they sold Gyokeres and Hamer for 40mill+, then this summer they could sell Sheaf for 15mill, Wright for 20mill and get a huge chunk of cash if Gyokeres moves club due to a sell on clause. Players like Aouchiche and Pembele are good signings in isolation but we already had players in them positions so they didn't get the game time needed to develop. You'll see us spending higher fees when we start selling players for big fees.
Got around £40m in player sales last summer didnt they? Gives them a bit more freedom in the market. We've only sold Stewart of any real significance in the past few years, we'll probably need another big sale before we can match their spending unfortunately. Looks like theyve spent it well so far though on Wright and Simms, interesting to see how they go in the summer. Looks like I wasted a post haha
All about developing a player trading model. All the clubs that spend in the championship either have big player sales within the previous 12months or parachute payments.
Spot on mate The players we have signed are mostly good players, who were worth the risk - just not all at the same time Coventry have a cracking recruitment team tbf, always impressed with how they go about their business
When I looked over our accounts (anar sad bastard) and seeing other clubs results, it was still canny surprising how much of a money pit this league is. Player trading is absolutely the key to pushing on at this level as **** as that is. That's why I'm quite defensive of the model, to me buying low on young talents to make significant profits to allow you to buy higher quality younger players down the line is a good way to go imo. But there has to be flex in order to get short term success too, that's where we've lost our way a bit imo. It's also pivotal to sell at the right time, I think we're possibly at the point with Clarke where we will get the max for him this summer. Its the reinvesting that Speakman and KLD havent been tested on yet, need to get it right.
I'm a huge fan of the model, just think it could be implemented a whole lot better. Weird because it's such a low key signing, but the Moore signing, even though he's a bang average backup goalkeeper, fills me with a bit of confidence that they know that removing the older heads and not replacing them was a mistake.
I hope so. I’m still wary of what our recruitment will be like in key positions this summer. Massive couple of months ahead that we need to nail.
Just want us to use the free agent market, like we did with Batth, Evans and Pritch, to add some older heads. Allows us to continue to spend on these younger lads without putting pressure on them to be top end championship players straight away.
Paddy McNair is one id like us to go for, not sure who else is available off the top of my head though
Bit too injury prone for me. If you have older players for their experience they need to be on the pitch. I'm probably biased as a result of his spell with us but, there's always a but...
https://www.premierleague.com/news/4030596 List of released players from the PL, could be some good options there.
We were supposed to sign Terence Kongolo in Jan 23 weren't we? Might be one we revisit but I doubt it, we're pretty well stocked with LB/LCB now with Hjelde and Alese. Few decent options on there though. Jack Cork or Norwood would be a great replacement for Evans as an older head in midfield.
That is the hope. When Clarke goes, I hope we replace him with Millar or Whittaker. If we replace him with Mundle or Bennette then people will be unhappy.
I like McNair, but the way he left the club was poor I felt. We nursed him back to fitness for 18 months then he left at the first sniff of a better deal.
A boro fan I spoke to said McNair was very good but strangely he wasn't sad to see him go. Didn't get in the starting line up in defence or midfield when everyone was fit. A jack of all trades, like O'Nien maybe, which is no bad thing in itself. Not sure he would improve our starting 11 a lot.
I know all this mate, hence why I said "I know they have money to blow", but there's no reason why we can't be finding these players that hit the ground running. Fair play, we have in Britain, with Ballard, Clarke and Cirkin, but our signings from abroad have been babies, Cov identify players who are ready and just need to acclimatise.