Aydinlik? He went back at the end of the season, he did alright by all accounts, guessing the fee to buy him was too much.
We'd lose money on any player his age going into the last year of his contract. He's cost us about 2m and 2 years wages which I would say was probably value for what he contributed.
This is the naivety of the owner/brain team. As fans we've seen how hard the championship is and how many talented foreign players come in and struggle with the 46 game slog of the Championship. We should've left Grant in charge, he was doing a very decent job and we were playing some entertaining football with limited players at this level. I liked Grant so I'm probably biased, but the job he did under the circumstances was fantastic. But all this is my issue with the ownership, the footballing decisions lack logic and aren't very good. We've signed a **** load of players, I'm assuming around 40 now, but it would be difficult to make an argument that there's been more than 10 that have worked and the only one we've knocked it out the park with has been Philogene, although there's an argument to throw Fabio in their too. But that's really not good enough. When you compare that to Bruce's tenure with us and most notably his 1st season, that rebuild was outstanding. The players signed, got us up, kept us up, took us to a FA Cup final and Europe. It's crazy when you consider what they cost. But it was all done on the stability/platform that Nigel Pearson & Nick Barmby had provided. SB gets the credit, and rightly so, but it wouldn't have been possible without his two predecessors.
This is the bit that worries me. When we signed a load of players from Turkey in 2022, it was a similar situation to now where we were very short on players and each signing basically had to go straight into starting every game from when they arrived, having missed pre-season. Every one of the Super Lig boys struggled with serious muscle injuries, and we had an absolutely decimated squad for the entire season. The signings who came in and didn't get injured early on were all signed from other serious European leagues: Seri, Oscar, Christie. If we optimistically sign a load of highly rated Super Lig boys on big wages again, only to find that they all get muscle injuries when they have to start 5 games in 4 weeks in August after missing out on pre-season, then I really won't want to hear about how unlucky it is.
It was similar in the Slutsky year. We signed a lot of players late who hadn't had a proper pre-season and we got a tonne of injuries. They also weren't fit enough so we conceded way too many goals late in games and it cost Slutsky his job. I swear he rolled off the stat in an interview that we'd have been 6th if the game was 80 mins long.
This is why I keep disagreeing with anyone who says 'wait till we see what the squad will look like when the window closes'. It'll be too late then. We've already set ourselves back months by not having even a single player (and don't say Giles) in for our Turkish pre-season camp. It means that whoever we bring in now will be missing a lot of the conditioning Walter requires. The reason last summer we only had Delap signed before the camp was we had a far more stable squad, that's very clearly not the case this time around.
The reason we only had Delap signed this time last season was that he had no future at man city so they let him go out before their tour, and he'd had underwhelming loan spells at mediocre clubs the year prior, so there weren't an abundance of options. It had nothing to do with the existing squad at the time, just when we could get the deal over the line. We don't get to dictate when clubs will sanction the exit of a player, nor do we control when players decide to commit on the dotted line. And the more options they have, then the longer they will take to negotiate the best deal for themselves. So now you'll say, "move onto another target then", which is all well and good but you'll be limited to those who no one else wants. Or you overpay to blow away the competition and subsequently pay more than the market value. I see your posts and Sharks and wonder what on earth the club can do to win. It seems you have zero practical understanding of how competitive talent markets work. Yet hilariously you both accuse those who have years of professional experience as being naive. Jesus, talk about an arrogant lack of self awareness.
I think not having a settled manager and play style in place has impacted recruitment more than anything else. The big **** up was the summer 22 window when we were recruiting for Shota and whatever style you could call that. They were probably naive in thinking a few big names from Turkey would get us out the league and it's set us back years. Since then though, I think they've done all right. Rosenior came in with a clear idea of what he wanted and the success rate of transfers shot up: Jan 23: Darlow, Connolly, Ebiowe Summer 23: Philogene, Delap, Morton, Allsopp, Lokilo, Vinagre, Twine, Furlong Jan 24: Omur, Pandur, Sharp, Carvalho, Zaroury, Giles, Ohio Ebiowe, Vinagre and Sharp probably the biggest disappointments across 3 windows? I doubt they broke the bank either. The main issue now is having to start again under Tim and again having to recruit to fit a different style of play. That coupled with established players leaving has put us in the position we currently find ourselves in. I think Tan and Acun have enough credit in the bank to be trusted though. They've shown they're ambitious and i'm sure we'll have a competitive squad come the end of the window.
Song Min Kyu linked from Jeonbuk in South Korea reported by Ross Davis on twitter. Fairly reliable, Milwall were linked last night but they’ve come out and said it’s us. I know quite a lot about him with my interest in over expensive electronic football cards. Left winger who’s right footed, cuts inside a lot. Played for his national side 13 times. Decent scoring and assist rate, my feeling is he’s never kicked on really as he was dubbed the next ‘Son’.
