Rebuild Paused

[Lillehamring]

3 hours ago, Stadt said:

If we go into the season light on players I hope the hyper-rational set on here eat their words. 
 

Last summer posters were coming out with similar sentiments and look how that ended up.

If we go into the season light on players it won't be through a lack of effort or neglect, it will be because we won't have found the right payers for the right price.  Or would you rather us just buy any old player, at any cost, just to make up the numbers?

It's hard enough getting the right personnel when it's a normal pre-season refresh, but when you're rebuilding on the scale we are, it's reassuring to see we're even as advanced as we are, to have replaced 10+ players in one window would be a miracle - if we have academy players making up the numbers this season, or at least until january, it's not unreasonable.

 

[shen]

2 hours ago, Sly said:

You’d need games …… 

Pretty sure the coaches can spot this in training 

[Lillehamring]

1 hour ago, Product of 84 said:

I think we need to move more players on before we can buy. Yes we've made money from our outgoings but we have to many players for certain positions eating into our wage bill. 

 

I'd imagine that there has been priority signings, which I think we've done. Then a natural pause as the new team looks at what we've got. They only started a few weeks ago themselves. All while those who look after transfers are doing the ground work on potential deals (I hope). 

 

I expect there will be a few more transfer twists. We will lose a few more and gain a few before deadline day.

 

And you never know... Under a new team we might yet see Ndidi back to his best or Veste looking like the signing we thought he'd be. 

 

It's the hope that kills you 

Yes.  I've made this point elsewhere.  If certain players don't want to be here, they need selling, but if, say castange or ndidi are up for it and can raise their game, then not selling them saves us having to replace them.  Granted it leaves us with a wage bill closer to that of a PL team, but equally, having that standard of player playing at 100% should make a massive difference to our chances of promotion.  And yes, it's not ideal with players with just a year to go, but if we can't sell them or they don't want to go, we've seen the club are prepared to accept this situation, realistically apart from nacho, there's not a massive amount of value left in these players (vestergaard 4M, Thomas 12M, praet 7m).

[coolhandfox]

2 hours ago, shen said:

Not sure that perspective says much as I don't recall any of those sides selling £80m+ worth of players and freeing up around £3-400k/week in wages.

If you are talking about perspective you have to consider that other teams in the list didn't have the 7th/8th high PL wages bill and reported £92m losses for the year previous.

 

So those sales and cuts are needed to balance the books and not just fund transfers. 

 

For reference, Burnley also sold 65m worth of players and released 12 players 

[sacreblueits442]

14 hours ago, Lillehamring said:

And even then, bertrand looked good in pre-season before his injury, so we'll never know; and vestergaard wasn't planned but was a last minute reaction to losing fofana.

.. Rodgers courted him for 18 months!!!

[Stadt]

3 hours ago, Lillehamring said:

If we go into the season light on players it won't be through a lack of effort or neglect, it will be because we won't have found the right payers for the right price.  Or would you rather us just buy any old player, at any cost, just to make up the numbers?

It's hard enough getting the right personnel when it's a normal pre-season refresh, but when you're rebuilding on the scale we are, it's reassuring to see we're even as advanced as we are, to have replaced 10+ players in one window would be a miracle - if we have academy players making up the numbers this season, or at least until january, it's not unreasonable.

 

Effort alone isn't enough, we need competence. Burnley were in a comparable situation to us last summer, they made 10 permanent signings. In a 50+ game season we need depth and that means incomings.

 

We seem to have trouble signing players, Glover has a track record of signing a reasonable number so the stumbling block is the ops side behind the deals, which will be surprise, surprise Rudkin's remit.

[filbertway]

Weve known about this for at least 6 if not 12 months and @Lillehamring claiming it'll be a miracle to sign replacements this summer. 

 

Is it a lack of belief in the current set up or do you just have extremely low standards?

[SouthStandUpperTier]

Rudders will be back on it....... just as soon as he's moved on the 73 reserve goalkeepers we have.

[Staff]

Thing is, whilst we still need 6 or 7 in and probably the same out, the moronic DOF is lapping it up in Thailand 1000s miles away. What's so significant about his role that he has to be there? Should be doing his fecking job at home and not running around in training gear half way across the world the specky twat

[CosbehFox]

The club went on complete close down of action until the final week of June despite the situation look incredible pivotal. 

 

As Stadt says, Burnley had signed 9 players by this time last year - with a further player to follow on 28th July. They'd sold £30 million worth of players by now and had loaned Weghorst off their wage bill. 

 

Eventually they brought in 19 players by deadline day! 11 out. 

 

Quick, decisive, and on the money from a club which has never previously know for excellent playing trading. Just got their heads down without arrogance and did very well. 

[shen]

7 hours ago, coolhandfox said:

If you are talking about perspective you have to consider that other teams in the list didn't have the 7th/8th high PL wages bill and reported £92m losses for the year previous.

 

So those sales and cuts are needed to balance the books and not just fund transfers. 

 

For reference, Burnley also sold 65m worth of players and released 12 players 

Yup, also true. But my point was more that the amount spent, on it's own, is not a very interesting figure without the context.

 

With a lot of the window still to go, I'm quite confident we will see a few more departures which will bring us more in line with the rest. Our sold/released players were comfortably among our highest earners too.

 

Except Vardy and Ricardo, I don't see anyone as a must keep or unsellable.

[moore_94]

1 hour ago, CosbehFox said:

The club went on complete close down of action until the final week of June despite the situation look incredible pivotal. 

 

As Stadt says, Burnley had signed 9 players by this time last year - with a further player to follow on 28th July. They'd sold £30 million worth of players by now and had loaned Weghorst off their wage bill. 

 

Eventually they brought in 19 players by deadline day! 11 out. 

 

Quick, decisive, and on the money from a club which has never previously know for excellent playing trading. Just got their heads down without arrogance and did very well. 

I mean when you actually look into those 9 players that they had signed as of this date last year:

 

Thompson who was a youth player

 

Egan-Riley and McNally, kids who played around 20 minutes in the whole first half of the season combined and then both were loaned out

 

Bastien played just 546 minutes in the whole season

 

Twine spent a lot of the season injured

 

Muric, Harwood-Bellis, Maatsen, Cullen who were key players, 2 of which were also only on loan

 

They got unlucky with Twine of course but it isn't like they were miles ahead of where we are in terms of bringing players in by this point who would be key players for them

 

5 key squad players (I believe Twine would have been one), 1 squad duffer, 2 kids, and 1 youth player vs 4 key squad players and maybe giving a chance to 1 or 2 of our own kids

Edited 26 July 2023 by moore_94

[CosbehFox]

22 minutes ago, moore_94 said:

I mean when you actually look into those 9 players that they had signed as of this date last year:

 

Thompson who was a youth player

 

Egan-Riley and McNally, kids who played around 20 minutes in the whole first half of the season combined and then both were loaned out

 

Bastien played just 546 minutes in the whole season

 

Twine spent a lot of the season injured

 

Muric, Harwood-Bellis, Maatsen, Cullen who were key players, 2 of which were also only on loan

 

They got unlucky with Twine of course but it isn't like they were miles ahead of where we are in terms of bringing players in by this point who would be key players for them

 

5 key squad players (I believe Twine would have been one), 1 squad duffer, 2 kids, and 1 youth player vs 4 key squad players and maybe giving a chance to 1 or 2 of our own kids

And ? 
 

it’s more than we have currently when squad depth is critical. 

[moore_94]

1 minute ago, CosbehFox said:

And ? 
 

it’s more than we have currently when squad depth is critical. 

So they had added 5 key squad players, we have added 4

 

They added 1 youth player and 2 kids, looks like we could potentially just be using a couple of our own

 

1 squad player who was very quickly booted from starting a few games, to stuck on the bench and never brought on, and eventually not even wanted in the match day squad - I expect any of our current midfielders who could still leave would contribute and play more if they do stay

 

Not that far ahead of us in my opinion

[CosbehFox]

1 minute ago, moore_94 said:

So they had added 5 key squad players, we have added 4

 

They added 1 youth player and 2 kids, looks like we could potentially just be using a couple of our own

 

1 squad player who was very quickly booted from starting a few games, to stuck on the bench and never brought on, and eventually not even wanted in the match day squad - I expect any of our current midfielders who could still leave would contribute and play more if they do stay

 

Not that far ahead of us in my opinion

But ahead of us. 

[moore_94]

Just now, CosbehFox said:

But ahead of us. 

By at most 1 player who would actually be useful

 

Not massively far ahead like you were clearly trying to say in your post

 

Then 3 more of their key signings didn't happen until after the season had started, 2 of them around deadline day so clearly not all of them were quick or decisive

[CosbehFox]

2 minutes ago, moore_94 said:

By at most 1 player who would actually be useful

 

Not massively far ahead like you were clearly trying to say in your post

 

Then 3 more of their key signings didn't happen until after the season had started, 2 of them around deadline day so clearly not all of them were quick or decisive

You are saying that with the retrospective of the season past. Both young defenders ended up having successful loan spells at decent levels. So were more than capable of doing a job at Championship. So that’s two more players useful according to your own personal rating 
 

Great work by Burnley. Urgent need to sort out their issues at the time which they did. Reduced the wage bill quickly in the scale of things. 

[moore_94]

2 minutes ago, CosbehFox said:

You are saying that with the retrospective of the season past. Both young defenders ended up having successful loan spells at decent levels. So were more than capable of doing a job at Championship. So that’s two more players useful according to your own personal rating 
 

Great work by Burnley. Urgent need to sort out their issues at the time which they did. Reduced the wage bill quickly in the scale of things. 

Had no actual wingers in time for the first game of the season so had to use players out position and kids

 

When they did eventually pick up a couple of wingers they weren't ready enough to go straight into the team so they had to continue with players out of position in some games

[CosbehFox]

Just now, moore_94 said:

Had no actual wingers in time for the first game of the season so had to use players out position and kids

 

When they did eventually pick up a couple of wingers they weren't ready enough to go straight into the team so they had to continue with players out of position in some games

Yet lost two games between start of the season and January 1st albeit a few draws to start 

[moore_94]

Just now, CosbehFox said:

Yet lost two games between start of the season and January 1st albeit a few draws to start 

So why cant we do the same if we are also missing players by the time the season starts exactly like Burnley?

[CosbehFox]

1 minute ago, moore_94 said:

So why cant we do the same if we are also missing players by the time the season starts exactly like Burnley?

Depends if we can flesh the squad out effectively as they did 

[Lillehamring]

7 hours ago, filbertway said:

Weve known about this for at least 6 if not 12 months and @Lillehamring claiming it'll be a miracle to sign replacements this summer. 

 

Is it a lack of belief in the current set up or do you just have extremely low standards?

To replace ten players within one transfer window - you think that's easy, that any club would comfortably pull that off?  Even if we'd sold every player we wanted to sell in the first week and had no competition for the players we wanted to buy, there's still the question of actually finding players that a) fit our system, b) are available, c) are affordable d) want to play for us - even if we were the most wonderful perfect club in the world, with unlimited funds, to get that many players in such a short time is still at the mercy of the market - sometimes the players you want just aren't available (especially with the positions we need to fill).  To think that we will have a full squad by the end of the window, let alone the start of the season is incredibly optimistic - i don't know what planet you're living on if you think the recruitment problem we have can be, should be surmountable in this time - it could happen, but it would be a hell of an achievement to bring in 10 players to an already bloated squad, that needs to sell before buying, in one transfer window.  So, no, not a lack of belief (what we've done so far is really good business) or low standards, i just live in the real world, where these things simply aren't just a matter of clicking your fingers.

[Lillehamring]

8 hours ago, Stadt said:

Effort alone isn't enough, we need competence. Burnley were in a comparable situation to us last summer, they made 10 permanent signings. In a 50+ game season we need depth and that means incomings.

 

We seem to have trouble signing players, Glover has a track record of signing a reasonable number so the stumbling block is the ops side behind the deals, which will be surprise, surprise Rudkin's remit.

Burnley had a complete transfer window to do their business, we've had less than half so far.  To suggest a lack of competence when the job is half done is utterly wrong.  Come the end of the transfer window and we don't have a 25 man squad, then sure, ask that question, but right now we're on track.

 

The 'trouble signing players' is a totally subjective opinion - as of today, not including loans, leeds and huddersfield have signed 1 player, blackburn, hull, sheffield and southampton have signed 2 players, ipswich, cardiff, rotherham, swansea, watford and us have signed 3, a fwe have made four signings and west brom have bought no one - so i'd say we're no worse than most other clubs.

[Fansincethe80s]

Not sure why this is even a thread, there is still around 5 weeks left in the window, we have signed 4 players in the last 5 weeks… we have sold Madders & Barnes without the usual summer long saga, I think this window is going really well.. we may lose 1/2 more quality players, but I’m confident that we will get decent replacements.

 

I read somewhere that a couple of the ‘sellable’ assets have taken to Enzo and are no longer pushing for a move, time will tell but I feel we are well placed to have a great season.

[Stadt]

10 hours ago, Lillehamring said:

Burnley had a complete transfer window to do their business, we've had less than half so far.  To suggest a lack of competence when the job is half done is utterly wrong.  Come the end of the transfer window and we don't have a 25 man squad, then sure, ask that question, but right now we're on track.

 

The 'trouble signing players' is a totally subjective opinion - as of today, not including loans, leeds and huddersfield have signed 1 player, blackburn, hull, sheffield and southampton have signed 2 players, ipswich, cardiff, rotherham, swansea, watford and us have signed 3, a fwe have made four signings and west brom have bought no one - so i'd say we're no worse than most other clubs.

Our resources and attractiveness eclipse all of those clubs, maybe aside from Southampton. This is the second summmer  'rebuild' we've needed in a row. In the last one we gained one player, Alex Smithies on a free as Faes in Fofana was like for like replacement.

 

Being no worse than other clubs is the problem, we should be much better.