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Recruitment (in January)
- Thread starter Deacster
- Start date
Maybe the poor January transfer period was down to Foster, i'm assuming that Dewy and Nance had some targets chosen but Foster did'nt want them because he did'nt know them and he went with the 18/19 year olds because he knew them instead.
Just a thought.
Just a thought.
- Feb 24, 2007
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Do you exclude the Millwall ? Their recovery (and that of Wednesday and QPR) are the ones that have done for us.
I missed Millwall but discounted the other two as they changed manager properly a lot earlier I think.
Sadly facilities are not the issue. We already have a healthy championship revenue but to be competitive you have to spend more than you earn. This is nuts, championship football collectively is a massively successful product and has no need to run at a huge loss, but it is where we are. The only way to change it is remove parachute payments and have a strict wages to revenue cap of say 65%
It seems obvious but the best chance of establishing ourselves went when Schumacher left. Harmonious squad and a decent January window based on targets that had been jointly agreed and we would have been fine given the league position at the time. That’s why jumping ship - and the timing in particular - was so damaging.
But the appointment of Foster was just wrong, and felt wrong to me from the first murmurings. He magnified - not rectified - our issues by imposing too much too quickly and destroying whatever was left of a bond as well as recruiting badly. And to the last point I have no doubts that our January activity went back to the drawing board with his appointment and ended up with us scratching around for youngsters and players that clubs wanted to offload for different reasons - principally because we granted him authority (understandably for a new head coach to be fair), and that he just didn’t have the contacts or pulling power (coupled with our financial limitations) for the quality we needed.
And so we move on to ND/KN who seemed a reasonable choice based on quickly re-establishing the team bond. It worked with a bounce for the first few games culminating with a strong backs to the wall performance against Leicester. 48 points should be enough many people said but no, other teams saw some sort of resurgence and our feel good bounce ended. Suddenly, that isn’t enough. You need quality players and proper management and on that it’s obvious where we are lacking.
Yet after all this it’s still in our hands. Has this group of players got it in them to produce something special? A group that consists of some who are ‘want aways‘ (reportedly), other team’s youngsters and some who are struggling at this level. Maybe that’s the best option - to show them that people are doubting them and they have something to prove. Maybe that will bring about something outstanding next week. I hope so.
They're not the issue but they're definitely part of the problem. I've been to a dozen or so training grounds in this league and they all make Harper's look like a primary school field. We're light years behind even the likes of Swansea, Hull and Cardiff, who historically we were on a par with.
Dewsnip even had to pester the club to put up the money for a temporary gym, which wouldn't have gone down well with Schumacher and no doubt contributed to his decision to start looking elsewhere.
Not sure that is true as the recruitment process as described at various meeting with fans only gives the Head Coach the final say after a player is identified and due diligence carried out.
Why the senior management at the Club would allow the process to be suddenly circumvented seems odd.
Foster was announced on the 5th January and Phillips arrived on the 8th so that’s quick work if he wasn’t on the target list to speak to his parent Club, his agent and him to get him in in 3 days.
Hallett was asked about recruitment on the podcast he did, and his response suggested that we don't really have that strong a recruitment model, because he was saying about how data can be used in different ways by different people to try and back up their points. Ultimately, nearly everyone we signed had worked for Foster before, and he'd played a massive role in the really poor recruitment.
Andrew Parkinson’s statement made it clear Foster was the man making those decisions... if it wasn’t already from the England U20 links. Loan transfers can happen very quickly, look at the transfer deadline day.
You’re right, it’s incredibly odd how we veered off course and will form a big part of the post-mortem.
This is what I really struggle with. We didn't take a punt on a couple of 'unknowns'. We needed different options off the bench but didn't recruit anyone. I was excited by the Azzez rumours as it would have been different, no guarantees that foster would have done anything different with more options but we owed it to Hardie and Morgs to have tried.
I'm not so sure out-smarting and data driven procedures alone work at Championship level whereas, unfortunately, spending money and having an experienced manager more than likely does work.
Brentford bucked the trend with data analysis but still spent decent money.
We did spend £1 million each on two players, one has been very successful for 3/4 of the season and the other has been average.
But we didn't really spend money elsewhere in the squad and it is all part of becoming a financially sustainable club, which is understandable if we avoid relegation.
The fans have really financially backed the club with sold out games, record ST sales, record shirt sales, record merchandise sales and subscriptions to Argyle TV and Evergreen. We can't do anymore.
Brentford bucked the trend with data analysis but still spent decent money.
We did spend £1 million each on two players, one has been very successful for 3/4 of the season and the other has been average.
But we didn't really spend money elsewhere in the squad and it is all part of becoming a financially sustainable club, which is understandable if we avoid relegation.
The fans have really financially backed the club with sold out games, record ST sales, record shirt sales, record merchandise sales and subscriptions to Argyle TV and Evergreen. We can't do anymore.
I don't disagree with that but that is not the reason we are not competitive in the championship, our playing budget is the problem, and a new gym and smart training facilities are not going to change that. This is essentially why the other investors, who recognised this, fell out with Simon. It is also I think a major factor in Schumacher leaving - leaving when he did is now looking a very smart move. I rather suspect we would not be in a dissimilar position even had he stayed.
I dont blame Simon, he has given so much to the club already and he is not obliged to invest more than he is comfortable with, but it seems apparent that with him as the sole major investor we cannot realistically aspire to much more than league one with the occasional tourist trip to the championship if we get the alchemy right every now and then. Perhaps we just have to accept that is what we are as a club and embrace it in preference to a big money take over.
Frankly if we stay up with what seems to me a weaker squad than we left league one with, it will be a miracle and unless there is major change behind the scenes and in the squad over the summer we will be rooted to the bottom next season as its likely all the clubs coming up will have bigger budgets than us.
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