After our miracle survival last year I thought we would look to put the bad days behind us and sign some decent players. Rodwell was our main purchase...he's hardly had an impact. Alvarez another big signing albeit a loan with a view to permanent deal.....he's hardly had an impact. The previous season Giaccerini...same thing....and I will add Altidore. Prior to that Fletcher, Danny Graham....these players all cost some major money but our return return on the investment is minimal. Then we go the other way with frees for Jones and Gomez....to me they are a waste of payroll. Buckley and Bridcutt were small fees for these days in the transfer market....but clearly there Championship players at best. We will continue to fight for the 4th bottom spot until we get the transfer market cracked....it's just so frustrating that we can't get it right. Can't blame Ellis for not putting cash in....any ideas to get it right?
My assessment of the last two seasons of signings is grim reading Jozy Altidore: Squad Player- ****e Emanuele Giaccherini- First team- Crock Liam Bridcutt: Squad Player-****e Ignacio Scocco: Squad Player-****e Charalampos Mavrias : Prospect/Squad Player-****e Vito Mannone: Success Fabio Borini:Loan-Success David Moberg Karlsson:: Prospect/Squad Player-****e Ondrej Celustka: Squad Player/loan-****e Óscar Ustari: Squad Player/free agent-****e Andrea Dossena: Squad Player/free agent-****e Valentin Roberge: Squad Player/free agent-****e Modibo Diakité: Squad Player/free agent-****e El-Hadji Ba: Prospect/Squad Player-****e Cabral: Squad Player/free agent-****e Santiago Vergini: Squad Player/loan-****e Marcos Alonso: Loan- Success Sung-Yong Ki: Loan- Success Duncan Watmore: Prospect-Looking good Jack Rodwell: First teamer-Crock Will Buckley: Squad Player-****e Patrick van Aanholt Prospect/First teamer- Looking good Ricardo Álvarez: Loan- Could go either way Billy Jones: Squad Player/free agent-****e Crock Jordi Gómez: Squad Player/free agent-****e Costel Pantilimon: First team/free agent-Success Sebastián Coates: Squad Player/loan-****e Jermain Defoe: First Teamer, Should be sweet if given service Anthony Réveillère: Squad Player/free agent-Great success
29 signings in two seasons is disgraceful squad management btw. Too many average players being brought in over a short period and expected to perform as a competent team.
Great assessment Funky.....pretty much sums it up why we can't move forward. Is it the DOF role that is causing this....or should the manager have all say in this matter? Something is going wrong somewhere and it's hurting us...
I'd say the problem is more patching weaknesses with loan signings and free agents. Been going on longer than our DoF role. Here's 12/13 & 11/12 signings Steven Fletcher- Limited success-****e imo Adam Johnson- Success- should be better for the money and his ability Danny Graham- Squad Player- ****e Alfred N'Diaye- Signed For first team-****e Carlos Cuéllar- Squad Player/free agent- ****e Louis Saha- Past it/free agent- ****e David Ferguson- Who? Prospect- ****e Kader Mangane- Squad player/free agent- ****e Danny Rose- Loan-Success Connor Wickham Prospect- ****e Craig Gardner- First Team- ****e John O'Shea- First team- First good season, overall ****e Ahmed Elmohamady- Squad player- ****e Dong-Won Ji- Squad player- ****e Wes Brown- First team- Crock Nicklas Bendtner- Loan- Success James McClean- Squad player ****e Roarie Deacon- Who? Prospect- ****e Sebastian Larsson- First teamer/Free agent- Success David Vaughan- First team/free agent- ****e Wayne Bridge- Past it/free agent- ****e Keiren Westwood- First team/free agent- ****e Sotiris Kyrgiakos- Past it/free agent- ****e So that's 23 players there. In the last 4 seasons we've brought in 52 players, that's a team and two substitues every season. 17 free agents and 8 loan signings. It's like Barry Fry has been secretly pulling the strings for 4 seasons.
Wow...when you look at it like that...it's frightening....how much do you think it's cost us going back over them years? Up to maybe 70 million pounds? I know we got funds in from Henderson, Bent, Mignolet etc to offset but the bottom line is our performance in the transfer market is shocking. Stability at the club....lol.....what with 4 or 5 managers over this time....we just seem to constantly be fire fighting. Need to get out this vicious circle....but how?
According to transfermarkt.co.uk those in comings cost us 98 million. That of course doesn't include signing on fees which we'll have dug deep on with all the free agents, without agent fees and without loan fee. Then of course we had to pay all these mediocre players. According to transfermarkt.co.uk in that time we raised around 65 million in sales. How do we get out of it? Don't know mate but I'm sure if we stopped plugging holes with ****e footballers, instead repair the holes with talented promising young players on permanent deals we'd be much better off. The bad news is that our squad instantly drops down to 17 at the end of the season(loans & contracts ending) so that's 5 players we'll probably need so more wholesale changes are unavoidable and this is before other players are sold and need to be replaced. The good news is that we've hinted the debt is cleared and providing we stay up there's a lot of money coming our way. It would be a chance to repair these holes properly instead of making the same mistakes again and again and again and again and again.
With the managers we have had over the last few years Keane, Bruce, O'Neil, Di Canio and Poyet who were pretty decent players themselves....how come we bought so much crap that didn't perform?
Between them managers there has been some decent players, just to far and between. Even now we have please log in to view this image
I think Defoe is a great buy or swop for Altidore. At times Johnson has done the business but has lacked the consistency his talents deserve.....but yes these two are the better ones we have got!!
Both of your lists have made for some depressing reading Funky. I still think a manager with stronger tactical knowledge and motivational skills would get enough out of this squad to have had us comfortably mid-table by now.
Not wanting to pour cold water on the green shoots of recovery, but Its still early doors to assess Defoe's impact on the team imo, the lad looks good so far but so did Fletch at first, and as for AJ he is as frustrating as it gets, but we play the wrong team game after game, this manager is clueless when it comes to tactics. We need a Dyche' a tough strait forward individual who talks a language we can all understand. Confusion reigns at the moment and the team is suffering. Pulis or Sluglips anyone.
Im not sure what has gone wrong !! In the early part of the season, I saw some good fluent pass and move stuff, keeping good ball possession but seriously lacking in any attacking sense or ideas in the final 3rd. Now we seem to simply defend our own half against all comers, in the vain hope of nicking the odd goal on the break (at a snails pace !!). When did we last score from a corner btw ? I recently read an article on the Bundesliga forcing all top teams to invest heavily and push through home grown Academy players from 2002 ish, resulting in an increase in German national talent in the top division from 40% up to 60% home grown players. The German National side obviously bearing the fruit with a World Cup win !! Our Academy has been running since 2003 with not much success (Hendo, Colback-Spit, Leadbitter...... errrrrr my memory is poor these days !!!) So our scouting system appears to be pretty poor \ unable to bring through enough talent to bear fruit with the Lads on a Saturday. I am sure that was the plan ?????????????????????????
I think the Academy spread over the timescale you highlighted has been a dismal failure. However, there are times like yesterday when we had Watmore on the bench he should have played some part in that game. Watmore's strength is his pace and running with the ball. Our current team is sadly lacking in pace and when you go down to 10 men bring someone on that once he gets the ball he's away down the other end. Will Watmore be the real I am....I honestly don't know but the frustrating thing is we don't give many kids the opportunity like yesterday which was crying out for it. Instead we went for the Graham and Fletcher option. There probably would be top ****e in Funky's list. I posted this frustration about Watmore in another post so sorry if I am repeating myself but it 'grinds my gears'....Totally agree with you about lacking any attacking sense. This is the other side of possesion football.......gives a player the opportunity to chicken out making a forward pass........
I think it would take a brave manager to send a young inexperienced player like Watmore on after we'd conceded and were in the position we were in, even if that would have been the right move. I don't think we have a brave manager.
