Just thought this thread needed a bump now we officially have a new manager 
The “we were fifth when Dean Smith left” is a bit false, I think we were a game ahead of most teams when he left and when the game week was complete we were 10th or thereabouts. Still above where we finished with Wagner.Given that we were in fifth place when Dean Smith left - and Wagner has contrived to drag us down to thirteenth, could it be time to resurrect this (often contentious) topic?![]()
Nowhere near as false as the notion that we are better under Wagner. Under Smith we only got a point against teams we should have beaten - under Wagner we lost. Under Smith we didn't score enough goals - under Wagner we don't score at all. Need I go on!! Neither Farke, Smith or Wagner - all capable Coaches - could get a performance out of this squad so what does that tell us about where the fault lays?The “we were fifth when Dean Smith left” is a bit false, I think we were a game ahead of most teams when he left and when the game week was complete we were 10th or thereabouts. Still above where we finished with Wagner.
I agree with RER, give him a full preseason with his own squad and see where we are at Christmas
Has anyone actually made this argument?Nowhere near as false as the notion that we are better under Wagner. Under Smith we only got a point against teams we should have beaten - under Wagner we lost. Under Smith we didn't score enough goals - under Wagner we don't score at all. Need I go on!! Neither Farke, Smith or Wagner - all capable Coaches - could get a performance out of this squad so what does that tell us about where the fault lays?
Has anyone actually made this argument?
The biggest issue has been recruitment. I think there's a case to be made for muddled thinking in terms of abandoning Farkeball, and now trying to return to something more akin to it, but fundamentally the player trading simply hasn't been good enough.
Michael Bailey had an interesting Athletic article the other day (might have been discussed here, I'm not around as much these days), where he classified players bought (and money spent) under Webber as a success, failure, or too soon to tell. Obviously Mr Bailey's isn't the only opinion that matters, but it was an interesting exercise. The summary (excluding loan players) was:
£19.5m spent on 16 successes. (The successes still contracted for next season are Hernandez, Gunn, Hanley, Sara, McLean, Krul, Mumba)
£28.6m on 18 failures (Rashica, Giannoulis the only ones remaining)
£37.4m on 7 players for whom the jury is still out (McCallum, Gibson, Sorensen, Nunez, Sargent, Placheta, Tzolis remain)
It's pretty damning that of £85.5m spent, just £19.5m went on clear success stories, and that's probably a generous assessment given the wages/loan fees (and agreed fees) for failed loans like Normann, Kabak, Gilmour, Fahrmann, Amadou, Hayden, Duda, Roberts, Ramsey, Marquinhos, Edwards aren't included and far outweigh the successful loanees like Rhodes, Skipp, Reed and Quintilla.
In terms of player trading, I think Buendia* is the only player of 58 signed under Webber to have been sold at a profit (obviously excludes Maddison, Godfrey, Murphy's, Jamal Lewis). That's horrendous business given the club espouse a philosophy of developing players. And you look at the current squad, and it's not like there's a strong crop there the club are just waiting to harvest for significant profit. We haven't used the loan market well, I don't think a single loanee signed after 2020 counts as a clear success.
*An argument could be made for Cantwell, who broke through under Webber and was sold for a small fee, and Marley Watkins, who was a free transfer signing and left for around £1m, but I hardly think either of those could be seriously called a success.
Has anyone actually made this argument?
The biggest issue has been recruitment. I think there's a case to be made for muddled thinking in terms of abandoning Farkeball, and now trying to return to something more akin to it, but fundamentally the player trading simply hasn't been good enough.
Michael Bailey had an interesting Athletic article the other day (might have been discussed here, I'm not around as much these days), where he classified players bought (and money spent) under Webber as a success, failure, or too soon to tell. Obviously Mr Bailey's isn't the only opinion that matters, but it was an interesting exercise. The summary (excluding loan players) was:
£19.5m spent on 16 successes. (The successes still contracted for next season are Hernandez, Gunn, Hanley, Sara, McLean, Krul, Mumba)
£28.6m on 18 failures (Rashica, Giannoulis the only ones remaining)
£37.4m on 7 players for whom the jury is still out (McCallum, Gibson, Sorensen, Nunez, Sargent, Placheta, Tzolis remain)
It's pretty damning that of £85.5m spent, just £19.5m went on clear success stories, and that's probably a generous assessment given the wages/loan fees (and agreed fees) for failed loans like Normann, Kabak, Gilmour, Fahrmann, Amadou, Hayden, Duda, Roberts, Ramsey, Marquinhos, Edwards aren't included and far outweigh the successful loanees like Rhodes, Skipp, Reed and Quintilla.
In terms of player trading, I think Buendia* is the only player of 58 signed under Webber to have been sold at a profit (obviously excludes Maddison, Godfrey, Murphy's, Jamal Lewis). That's horrendous business given the club espouse a philosophy of developing players. And you look at the current squad, and it's not like there's a strong crop there the club are just waiting to harvest for significant profit. We haven't used the loan market well, I don't think a single loanee signed after 2020 counts as a clear success.
*An argument could be made for Cantwell, who broke through under Webber and was sold for a small fee, and Marley Watkins, who was a free transfer signing and left for around £1m, but I hardly think either of those could be seriously called a success.
Has anyone actually made this argument?
The biggest issue has been recruitment. I think there's a case to be made for muddled thinking in terms of abandoning Farkeball, and now trying to return to something more akin to it, but fundamentally the player trading simply hasn't been good enough.
Michael Bailey had an interesting Athletic article the other day (might have been discussed here, I'm not around as much these days), where he classified players bought (and money spent) under Webber as a success, failure, or too soon to tell. Obviously Mr Bailey's isn't the only opinion that matters, but it was an interesting exercise. The summary (excluding loan players) was:
£19.5m spent on 16 successes. (The successes still contracted for next season are Hernandez, Gunn, Hanley, Sara, McLean, Krul, Mumba)
£28.6m on 18 failures (Rashica, Giannoulis the only ones remaining)
£37.4m on 7 players for whom the jury is still out (McCallum, Gibson, Sorensen, Nunez, Sargent, Placheta, Tzolis remain)
It's pretty damning that of £85.5m spent, just £19.5m went on clear success stories, and that's probably a generous assessment given the wages/loan fees (and agreed fees) for failed loans like Normann, Kabak, Gilmour, Fahrmann, Amadou, Hayden, Duda, Roberts, Ramsey, Marquinhos, Edwards aren't included and far outweigh the successful loanees like Rhodes, Skipp, Reed and Quintilla.
In terms of player trading, I think Buendia* is the only player of 58 signed under Webber to have been sold at a profit (obviously excludes Maddison, Godfrey, Murphy's, Jamal Lewis). That's horrendous business given the club espouse a philosophy of developing players. And you look at the current squad, and it's not like there's a strong crop there the club are just waiting to harvest for significant profit. We haven't used the loan market well, I don't think a single loanee signed after 2020 counts as a clear success.
*An argument could be made for Cantwell, who broke through under Webber and was sold for a small fee, and Marley Watkins, who was a free transfer signing and left for around £1m, but I hardly think either of those could be seriously called a success.
Not only a cheap comment, but completely false. My reason was exactly what I said -- to avoid the thread descending into arguments about whether player A and Player B should be in this group or that, based on each poster's predilections. As I said, I kept to MB's assignments on the assumption that we'd all agree that his is an experienced, knowledgable and independent voice. As I also said, I myself didn't agree with all of them.I can see now why Robbie declined to name Bailey's 'successful' players because they include Hanley and McLean.............
I agree. Webber's best signings have been those who came in at reasonable outlays like Pukki and Buendia. Because of that, I could accept the first PL failure as we didn't have the money then, but the failure in 21-22 happened in spite of big money being spent to little effect.Seeing as we have several £10m signings on the books not performing, it doesn't appear to be lack of spending
The notion I was referring to in my earlier post was the title of this thread which indicates that the answer to poor performance is to always just sack the Manager. Many people thought that Dean Smith was the problem and sacking him was the answer but clearly that was wrong as results have got worse since he left. Three very competent coaches have now failed with this squad which means that either the squad is not good enough or there are other internal issues within the squad that are dragging down performances. It is easy, and possibly correct, to blame Webber but perhaps we have to accept that if you buy everything at car boot sales you end up with more crap than bargains.
I agree generally, but disagree with the idea that clearly it was wrong (or at least that was partly wrong) and that results have got worse. It’s too nuanced for that. I think even Smith would admit that we got to the end of the road with him and the squad, and luck just wasn’t there for us.

Good afternoon everyone,
Haven't posted on here for many many months so with our poor run of form I thought that I'd pop on to this board to see if my (this) thread had been given a 'bump' and I wasn't disappointed
I reckon DW will be gone by Christmas but we all know that the real problem lies in the Boardroom![]()