Recruitment strategy under the spotlight

[JimmyC74]

 

Acknowledging there are several weeks left in the window for player trading we appear to have made little progress with clearing the decks, what interest there is appears centred on loan deals or nominal pay in full deals. Our PL squad stands at 28 players compared with a limit of 25. And many of the fringe squad are reported to be on wages no-one else is willing to match.

 

The case of Soumare raises so many questions around how well we performed our due diligence and how we have looked to integrate him. Was he a player Brendan ever wanted / trusted?

 

Hopefully the Club has done a lot of work behind the scenes and shortly will move out a few and bring in 1 or 2 quality additions but, there is little sign of this and the later we go then the more selling clubs will raise fees to deal / there is less time to organize and integrate new players into the squad.

 

This season will be more competitive with likes of Spurs. Villa, Newcastle all investing and it will be harder to make the top 8. Our First XI on form is capable of challenging for top 6 no doubt, but you always need 1 or 2 quality additions to drive standards / cover injury. 

 

The fear is if we don’t reach top 6 the likes of Madders and Fofana may look elsewhere. And we may also need to sell to rebalance the squad (finance moves / cover losses to paying up likes of Vestegaard’s contract).

 

Do we need a stronger / more effective Director of Football to sort this out?

[Grebfromgrebland]

Yeah let's see where we are in a few weeks time. Top is in town and I'm sure he's here to sort out the transfer window. Hopefully.

[sdb]

We ****ed ourselves with Bertrand and Vestergaard. 2 poor, expensive signings that we didn't need and weren't good enough to even strengthen the wider squad. The damage is going to be long lasting too.

[JimmyC74]

6 minutes ago, pmcla26 said:

I think we need to keep the faith for now, and assess things at the end of the window.

Don’t disagree. I think a critical review of strategy and how we can be better is key for us to keep punching above our weight.

[Wymsey]

Perhaps the club have been doing some negotiations behind the scenes and, for whatever reason, there could've been a player that changed his mind on moving to the club.

[jayfox26]

2 minutes ago, JimmyC74 said:

Don’t disagree. I think a critical review of strategy and how we can be better is key for us to keep punching above our weight.

Hopefully Martin Glover will help with this going forward but not sure whether he's actually started at the club yet and can't see him having much influence in this window. 

[davieG]

18 minutes ago, JimmyC74 said:

Do we need a stronger / more effective Director of Football to sort this out

We currently do not have one as the new anyway guy wont be coming until Southampton release him.

 

A massive proportion of any due diligence is done by the recruitment team before it is even seriously considered by the Brendan, Rudkin and the purse string holders.

[Pinkman]

Think our recruitment is the most overhyped in the country. Yes, we have done some brilliant business in the past, but the media seem to forget some of the money that we've pissed players on, mainly because they remember that we signed Vardy and Mahrez for small fees nearly a decade ago, and due to Man Utd's sheer incompetence, we robbed them for Maguire.

 

Over the last six years, we've signed Islam Slimani, Adrien Silva, Ahmed Musa, Nampalys Mendy, Rachid Ghezzal, Vicente Iborra, Danny Ward, Ayoze Perez, Filip Benković, Yannik Vestergaard and Boubakary Soumare, a combined sum of £200 million. Whilst it's true, it's impossible for every signing to be a success, our recruitment is average at best nowadays.

[JimmyC74]

1 minute ago, davieG said:

We currently do not have one as the new anyway guy wont be coming until Southampton release him.

 

A massive proportion of any due diligence is done by the recruitment team before it is even seriously considered by the Brendan, Rudkin and the purse string holders.

Rudders tho is in place and should be leading efforts to clear decks of players the manager doesn’t want and recover funds to be reinvested in the playing squad.

 

 

[Stadt]

The biggest mistake we made was apportioning Congerton, if Rodgers was willing to ditch Celtic whilst on course for consecutive 9 trophies it definitely wasn't contingent on Congerton's appointment. Everywhere Rodgers has been the transfers under his watch have been mixed at best. Managers are less responsible for recruitment than ever and it's increasingly departmental or via committee which is why having your 'allies' in positions of power is so critical.

 

When we signed Soumare Rodgers said we wanted him because he's physically dominant and capable of becoming a box-to-box goal threat, a cursory look at his 20/21 stats immediately shows that up as outright false. The manager should be involved in the recruitment process but they're bound by short termism and self-preservation (Rodgers especially so) but the team whose literal job it is to objectively identify and analyse players will be better at it than 99% of managers.

 

We've been linked to Bourigeaud, Sangare, Madueke; they're obviously all talented players and we might have been tracking them anyway but it doesn't suggest we're looking very far. Additionally we've signed Perez, Vestergaard and Bertrand (his 2021 stats  )under Rodgers' tenure, difficult to believe we'd make those signings under any of our previous managers.

 

As for Rudkin, he's presided over a very successful spell but it doesn't necessarily mean he's the best fit for us in the here and now. Not to say we should blindly follow what other clubs are doing - we're certainly at a higher jucnture anyway - but Forest almost completely cleared their decks off the pitch last season and replaced them with up-and-coming personnel from elsewhere and it's paid off incredibly quickly.

 

 

 

[davieG]

Just now, JimmyC74 said:

Rudders tho is in place and should be leading efforts to clear decks of players the manager doesn’t want and recover funds to be reinvested in the playing squad.

 

 

Sure but you can't force player on contracts to accept moves they don't like so it's hard to find a club that wants a player at the right price that the player wants to go to.

[Chocolate Teapot]

I honestly don't know what to think and won't know what to think until at least the first game of the season if not the end of the window.

 

There's been a lot of chat and no action by the club. Yes that could change but its going to be hard to compete and we may have bitten off more than we can chew.

 

We never spend that much in the market so that's not a suprise but this window will set us up for the future. We need to ship out the deadwood and get some bright young players in.

 

Jury's out for me but feels like a pivotal window and I'm trying not to get carried away but the longer it goes the more it feels like we're struggling.

Edited 6 July 2022 by Chocolate Teapot

[davieG]

2 minutes ago, Stadt said:

The biggest mistake we made was apportioning Congerton, if Rodgers was willing to ditch Celtic whilst on course for consecutive 9 trophies it definitely wasn't contingent on Congerton's appointment. Everywhere Rodgers has been the transfers under his watch have been mixed at best. Managers are less responsible for recruitment than ever and it's increasingly departmental or via committee which is why having your 'allies' in positions of power is so critical.

 

When we signed Soumare Rodgers said we wanted him because he's physically dominant and capable of becoming a box-to-box goal threat, a cursory look at his 20/21 stats immediately shows that up as outright false. The manager should be involved in the recruitment process but they're bound by short termism and self-preservation (Rodgers especially so) but the team whose literal job it is to objectively identify and analyse players will be better at it than 99% of managers.

 

We've been linked to Bourigeaud, Sangare, Madueke; they're obviously all talented players and we might have been tracking them anyway but it doesn't suggest we're looking very far. Additionally we've signed Perez, Vestergaard and Bertrand (his 2021 stats  )under Rodgers' tenure, difficult to believe we'd make those signings under any of our previous managers.

 

As for Rudkin, he's presided over a very successful spell but it doesn't necessarily mean he's the best fit for us in the here and now. Not to say we should blindly follow what other clubs are doing - we're certainly at a higher jucnture anyway - but Forest almost completely cleared their decks off the pitch last season and replaced them with up-and-coming personnel from elsewhere and it's paid off incredibly quickly.

 

 

 

Forest's players were on much lower wages though, Shifting PL players is tough as the market is so limited. It's inevitable they'll go for a loss.

[mozartfox]

8 minutes ago, davieG said:

We currently do not have one as the new anyway guy wont be coming until Southampton release him.

 

A massive proportion of any due diligence is done by the recruitment team before it is even seriously considered by the Brendan, Rudkin and the purse string holders.

New Recruitment Team it is then.  

[Stadt]

Just now, davieG said:

Forest's players were on much lower wages though, Shifting PL players is tough as the market is so limited. It's inevitable they'll go for a loss.

 

Quote

but Forest almost completely cleared their decks off the pitch last season

I was talking about their non-playing staff

[davieG]

Just now, Stadt said:

 

I was talking about their non-playing staff

Ha Ha! I thought you meant got players off the pitch.

[Pinkman]

Obviously, Soumare struggled last season but the decision to seemingly loan him out after shelling out nearly £20 million on him a year ago is indicative of our problems. Either, give him an opportunity this season if Tielemans departs or sell him. Same goes for Dennis Praet.

[JimmyC74]

4 minutes ago, davieG said:

Sure but you can't force player on contracts to accept moves they don't like so it's hard to find a club that wants a player at the right price that the player wants to go to.

Agreed but there in is the dilemma in that we need to move players out to meet squad requirements/ finance incomings.

[davieG]

1 minute ago, JimmyC74 said:

Agreed but there in is the dilemma in that we need to move players out to meet squad requirements/ finance incomings.

Sure but it's obviously proving difficult to do, I'm sure everyone involved is working as hard as they can on this.

[JimmyC74]

2 minutes ago, Pinkman said:

Obviously, Soumare struggled last season but the decision to seemingly loan him out after shelling out nearly £20 million on him a year ago is indicative of our problems. Either, give him an opportunity this season if Tielemans departs or sell him. Same goes for Dennis Praet.

I think we may well need to reintegrate likes of Praet. Agreed.

 

if Youri goes late it could negatively impact our ability to bring in a replacement.

 

I am hoping tho we can get Orkun Kokcu.

[JimmyC74]

1 minute ago, davieG said:

Sure but it's obviously proving difficult to do, I'm sure everyone involved is working as hard as they can on this.

No doubt ….hopefully you are right and we get a couple of diamonds to push us on.

[tylesta]

57 minutes ago, sdb said:

We ****ed ourselves with Bertrand and Vestergaard. 2 poor, expensive signings that we didn't need and weren't good enough to even strengthen the wider squad. The damage is going to be long lasting too.

Bertrand was a free, but still a shocking signing never ever rated him

[AjcW]

Surely the biggest mistake we've made is being so desperate to hire a specific person as head of recruitment, that we've let them strengthen their current team before joining us after the window closes... in what is probably our most important transfer window in years.

 

There's so so many talented, young recruitment heads we could have targetted from all over Europe, but no, we've gone for one who has done so so at a number of Premier League teams, and in the process let him work his notice meaning he'll have no impact until January here.

 

I know there's the old 'business was already worked on' and that's fine, but bringing in a new head immediately might have opened up new and better business for us.

[LeePhilpottsBaldSpot]

I think too much focus is put on transfers these days, but even I was hoping for some movement by now.

 

Rodgers responded to the criticism after the Forest humiliation by promising a rebuild this summer.

 

I hope journalists remind him of this if we do no business / leave it until the last minute.

[The_77]

We’ve had several windows to sort out a bloated squad and it doesn’t seem like we’re much closer to doing anything about it.