Taylor signing so far g morris keeper 6 ok not as good as nelson a morris 6.5 was doing ok before injured Egan 9 fantastic, player of season already hoyte 6 ok so far loft 7 should be an 8 if had played more prichard 5 still not fit mcglashion 6 no better than Weston Dickenson 6.5 much improvement this last month Norris 5 disappointing loan signing have been better hause 7.5 got better the more he played dockety 7 looks quality chickson 6 also looks better with more games bywater 7 did well ehmer 6 ok debut so no the signing without the loan players on the whole have not been better than what we had.
It is just not as simple as that! First of all there is what I will call a senior acquisitions group. By this I mean players with some experience who ought to be capable of first team football and who might be expensive in terms of salary even though they do not cost a transfer fee. Any manager with a 50% success rate in this category is doing well. In this group I would put the following; Egan success Loft success McGlashan Disappointing Hoyte Disappointing (but some people think better of him) Morris A Hard to tell Then we have what I would call the juniors. these are very young or inexperienced who might develop into first team players. They are inexpensive and if one in three of them come good that has to be regarded as a success. The time to judge this pool of players is about this time next year. In this category i would put Norris, Dickerson, Pritchard. Then we have the loan signings. In my opinion these can do more harm than good if they become the backbone of the team and then get repatriated at an inappropriate time. However the loan system is perfect to cover the temporary absence of a player and it is also an ideal way of having a look at someone you might want to sign permanently, a bit like having a test drive in a car. So looking at this category we have Bywater and Chicksen....Terrific signings. Doughty and Ehmer. Might make sense if we are having a look with a view to signing especially with QPR's surfeit of players. Hause. Probably the most potential of any player who will pull on a Gills shirt this season but in my category of more trouble than benefit as he has gone already therefore an unsuitable signing. Overall I reckon Taylor and Hessy have done well in the transfer market given that they are trying to build a team for the future rather than for today. Nobody gets it right all the time in the transfer market and the only big disappointment so far is McGlashan. If you want to be critical of transfer activity it has to be the transfer that has not taken place ie a big goalscoring forward in his early 20s. easy to describe, hard to find especially on a Gillingham budget.
I was thinking about taylors signings the other day and whilst I like Hoyte and McGlashan the only ones you could really call a success so far are Egan and Loft. It seems that both mad dog and Taylor have grossly underestimated this league, Taylor has signed Loft which is good but you cant just sign one or two experienced players (while losing lots of experience in players like Lee and Whelps) and hope that a bunch of kids with probably under 100 league appearances between them can fill the void, basically were asking these young players to turn potential into performances near instantly and so far its not worked at all. Ratings: G Morris - 6 (Solid back up keeper) A Morris - 6 (Looked decent but didn't amaze me) Egan - 9 (Near faultless) Hoyte - 7 (Looked good, comfortable as wing back) Loft - 8 (So talented but needs to show more often) Pritchard - 5 (Yet to really make an impression, better in the squad than him) McGlashan - 6 (When played properly is good but often wasted) Dickenson - 5 (Really underwhelming, can't cross for toffee and not strong enough, boots make him look better than he is) Norris - 5 (Great goal at Sheffield but couldn't name another good performance) LOANS Hause - 8 (Really improved as the season went on, shame to lose him) Doughty - 8 (So composed on the ball often makes team mates look even worse) Chicksen - 7 (Very impressive, improvement on Martin) Bywater - 7 (Best shot stopper even seen for Gills, poor at the rest) Ehmer - 6 (Haven't seen enough to make a fair judgement)
Bristol....a nicely balanced assessment. Your last two lines says it all.........we can moan and bitch all we like......but a quality forward cost a lot of money in a market where even mediocrity is over priced.
ok apart from Egan and loft would any other permanent signing get into the team from this season compared from last season.
With one or two exceptions, I think Taylors signings have been good. Certainly better than what we had. The problem as I see it, is he can't get them to perform adequately, but the quality is there to maintain a mid table position.
Gio Surely the question ought to be....Which of last seasons team might have a chance of reaching the Championship standard within the next 2 or 3 years? I think the answer would be Dack, Hessy and maybe Macdonald. I do not mean that they will reach that standard but there is a reasonable chance. Now ask the same question for the current squad and you have the three from last year plus Egan, plus (if we can get to sign him) Doughty, plus Loft and maybe one from Dickerson/Norris/Morris/Pritchard. These are the real issues and PT is going in the right direction with his signings. The only real grumbles are about Macglashan (because he is a high earner,whereas the youngsters people moan about are on peanuts) and the transfer that has not happened (a decent frontman).
I actually think that Taylor's acquisitions this summer have been good, yes they have been sometimes inconsistent however if players like Mcglashan and Dickenson went round their man every time they got the ball then they would be in the premiership, you have to take them for what they are. The problem as i see it currently is three fold, firstly there is a serious problem with injuries which has to have something to do with training methods and workload on the players or we have bought in players with pre-existing conditions which should have been looked into more. Secondly we have a lack of an attacking threat, namely goals, so we need someone who can either score goals or allow others to start scoring. Taylors 'experience' should mean he is able to find a player who can enable us to do that within our budget. Finally, our tactics in general. Now i like to consider myself good at understanding football matches and how teams play etc, however i have very much struggled this season to work out what our tactics are and indeed even what our formation is at times. Now i wouldn't care about this if we were blitzing teams however when we are losing and our shape is inexplainable it causes me to think whether the players even know what they are supposed to be doing. All of the above makes me think that perhaps Taylor would have been great for us in a Director of Football role, developing the youth and bringing young players with potential to the club but with a head coach in charge of training and tactics.
bristol i agree about potential but Taylor knows his signings were not good enough that's why we have so many loan players in. I don't have a problem with loan players but most will never play for gills after there spell here.I am just saying only 2 or 3 are good signings out of 9
Starting with the use of loan players, most of the top teams in the league use loans to improve their squad, it is the best way of injecting quality at a affordable price. The bulk of our permanent signings have been cheap, young, with signs of potential, sometimes that potential will fail to materialise. Young players will be inconsistent and suffer with confidence issues, this confidence will not be helped by some of the comments they read on line, I know people are free to say what they like but the consequence of that can be a player with negative tactics during a game, more concerned with not making a mistake than making a positive impact. I believe as a team we have improved during the season, there will still be times when things will slip backward but overall if we can keep the core of this team together for next year things could be on the up. With plenty of money we could go out and buy success, unfortunately we don't have that and must patiently build a team with freebie's, we've tried old last pay cheque players and failed, now is the time to support a new approach.
Just out of interest for those thinking the team isn't improving I have looked at possession stat's month on month since the start of the season. August average possession.........43.71% September average possession...46.33% October average possession.......45.83% November average possession....48.83%
Possession doesn't mean very much. Look at the possession Arsenal had v Man Utd last week .I think it was about 68% but Utd won. Possession means nothing if you're passing sideways across the defence. It's attempts on goal and goals scored that are the meaningful stats. That would be the interesting ones to see. So in all those games the opposition have had more possession than us.
ok. vinney, here is another stat. August shot's average per game..........6.57 September shot's average per game....6.83 October shot's average per game........8.00 November shot's average per game....10.83
Grumpygit -Your argument is like saying that for 95+% of the time my neighbour is sane ! --- some, (most) of the games we've played this season has been painful to watch - there were many times I was, (perversely) happy to see the opposition with the ball - actually trying to be progressive.
Grumpygit - whilst November was 'better' - it was hardly exceptional - and I'm not sure that it wasn't the 'minimum' requirement. There were many attempts that were not worthy of being called a 'shot' - some of these attempts are now orbiting the Earth ! - and certainly of no worry for the opposing goalkeeper. We need to increase on the November stat and get these attempts into the same postcode of the opposition's goal.
It is foolish to scoff at Grumpy's stats. The objective has to be to score more goals than the opposition. To do this the four big buliding blocks have to be; 1 Stop the other team scoring. 2 Get possession. 3 Get shots on goal. 4 Score goals. Every building block is important and any statistical improvement is worth celebrating and an improving trend is vital and a real measure of improvement for a young team being built from scratch. Vinney's interpretation of Arsenal v Man U is way off beam. Aresenal were superb and vastly superior to Utd but they forgot the first building block of success ie to stop the other team scoring.
The stats are improving but that could mean they were bl**dy terrible to begin with and now they are just terrible. They need to be compared to the other teams around us, if not the whole division.
And therein lies our problem. We can't stop the opposition scoring (especially first and usually early) and that's Taylors master plan out of the window. How many clean sheets have we kept this season? I haven't looked it up,but I bet it's not many
I intend no scoffing of grumpygit's statistics.I apologise if he or anyone feels that is the case - but I make no apology for being uninspired by Taylor's tactics - which are not exactly in tune with your points above. 1. We are NOT stopping the opposition from scoring, either in spite of, or because of these tactics. 2. We are getting a little more possession ( but then there was HUGE room for improvement ) - and what are we doing with the increased possession ? At Coventry we had 70 % possession of the second half - remind me how many we scored ! 3. Yes ,more shots on goal - but they remind me of a program called 'Never mind the quality - feel the width.' 4. Score goals - a welcome improvement on the recent near zero ! I am eternally grateful. In replying in this fashion, I apologise if you might think that I am scoffing your opinion. It is valued - but I am looking at things with clarity of vision. I understand the need to build for the future - and the limitations that our budget places on us - so I am realistic of our prospects - that in the short term future we appear to be going backwards. ---- but I will still support the Club.
