The state of our recruitment

[Gubbins]

2 minutes ago, Aus Fox said:

Am I right in saying that only Mahrez, Maddison, Kante and Fofana have been resold for profit in that time?

Almost. We also scraped a few quid profit for Maguire! Think that's it though. Depressing stuff.

[Wink84]

40 minutes ago, honeybradger said:

Justin was a good transfer, injuries have just knocked him down a couple levels but there's another world where we sell him for £30-£40mil to a big six 6 club if he stayed fit.

Felt a little harsh, maybe swayed by his form this season tbh. Overall for what we paid, a good buy.

[Clever Fox]

20 minutes ago, Bilo said:

When you consider that his summer here saw him bring in Maddison, Soyuncu, Ricardo and Evans, you see that Rodgers' success was built on Puel's recruitment. Maddison from Championship Norwich, Soyuncu from midtable Freiburg, Evans from relegated West Brom for £3m and Ricardo from the periphery of Porto's squad after a loan at Nice. Absolutely A1 recruitment that built the spine of a team that played genuinely outstanding football, won us two trophies and regular European football. 

 

It pretty much went south when Rodgers got what he wanted and we put Congleton in charge of recruitment.

Yes, Puels signings were mostly very good. I think Fofana was down to him also. He certainly left Rogers a good squad to work with. Rogers is a good Coach but has his limitations as we know well.

 

He also cost us European Football not once but twice in failing to replace Ulloa in the the squad. Any half decent CF would have got us the goals and few points necessary to qualify.

 

The less said about Congerton the better.

[Clever Fox]

4 minutes ago, Wink84 said:

Felt a little harsh, maybe swayed by his form this season tbh. Overall for what we paid, a good buy.

He was a good signing Sadly injuries and time has caught up with him.

[kingfox]

Losing key experience with Morgan, Fuchs, then Schmeichel, while replacing them with shit didn’t help. 
 

Soumare and Daka failing to make an impact didn’t help. 
 

Replacing Fofana with Faes didn’t help. 
 

Kristiansen and Souttar failing to make an impact didn’t help. 
 

Letting players go for free didn’t help. 
 

Overloading the squad with Championship standard players hasn’t helped. 
 

Our recruitment has been mostly piss poor since the 21/22 season. 

[CosbehFox]

Congerton’s assembly of a total wonder team at Atalanta should tell you I don’t think he was necessarily the issue when in situ. I know that’s not a common opinion but the way he’s done well there suggests to me he isn’t this calamity it’s perceived.

 

The club runs it’s transfers in a way clubs really don’t now. Ie. Managers contacts/preferences, then scouting get their input and then higher echelons of the club involved. 
 

There appears to be zero joined up strategy 

Edited 14 December 2024 by CosbehFox

[HankMarvin]

30 minutes ago, Aus Fox said:

Am I right in saying that only Mahrez, Maddison, Kante and Fofana have been resold for profit in that time?

 

The other big thing is the contracts they’ve been given - The actual transfer fee really doesn’t matter - it’s the frankly ridiculous wages, even by Premier League standards players have been put on. 
This makes them not only huge liabilities, but also as we’ve seen with the likes of Praet, Vestergaard, Soumare, Ward they are priced out of a move and we need to let their contracts run down. 

Maguire, Drinkwater, Nugent, Lawrence, Wood

[Lambert09]

2 hours ago, Sly said:

I think this needs its own topic. 
 

We’ve made some awful signings in recent years. 
 

Just read through this lot.

 

El Khannouss - £20m

Skipp - £20m

Buonanotte - Loan

Edouard - Loan

Fatawu - £15m

Ayew - £5m

Golding - £5m

De Cordova-Reid - Free

Winks - £10m

Cannon - £8m

Coady - £8m

Hermansen - £7m

Mavididi - £6m

Akgun - Loan

Casadei - Loan

Doyle - Loan

Faes - £15m

Souttar - £15m

Kristiansen- £13m

Tete - Loan

Daka - £28m

Soumare - £20m

Vestergaard - £15m

Bertrand - Free

Lookman - Loan

 

Fofana - £30m

Castaneda - £20m

Under - Loan

Tielemans - £40m

Perez - £30m

Praet - £15m

Justin - £5m

Bennett - Loan

Maddison - £23m

Ricardo - £20m

Soyuncu - £18m

Benkovic - £12m

Ghezzel - £12m

Ward - £12m

Evans - £3m

Iheanacho - £25m

Silva - £20m

Iborra - £15m

Maguire - £13m

Dragovic - Loan

Jakupovic - £2m

Diabate - £2m

Slimani - £28m

Musa - £18m

Ndidi - £16m

Zieler - £3m

Hernandez - Free

Wague - Loan

 

Okazaki - £10m

Kante - £8m

Amartey - £6m

Gray - £4m

Huth - £3m

Fuchs - Free

Dyer - Loan

Ulloa - £8m

Kramaric - £7m

Simpson - £2m

Lawrence - £1m

Cambiasso - Free

Albrighton - Free

Hamer - Free

Schwarzer - Free

Upson - Free

 

Mahrez - £0.4m

Hammond - Free

Wasielwski - Free

Miquel - Loan

Phillips - Free

Bakayogo - Free

Slowly we’ve raised what we pay for lesser quality players. We had a system that appeared to be working quite well. Why did we change our approach? 

Since winning the league 25 signings I’d call complete flops - compared to 24 worth signing… with a few not included as the results are unknown (including soumare) 

 

That’s why the club got relegated and most of the signings I’d call worthwhile were when we were in the championship 

[Chrysalis]

I tried to bring these issues up before, but everyone was so obsessed with Cooper the discussions went nowhere, it seems everyone wanted to plug their ears on it until we got a new manager in.

[Sly]

39 minutes ago, Chrysalis said:

I tried to bring these issues up before, but everyone was so obsessed with Cooper the discussions went nowhere, it seems everyone wanted to plug their ears on it until we got a new manager in.

It’s been a challenge for some time I think. 
 

As someone rightly pointed out, losing big money signings on free transfers is going to hurt us from a financial rules point of view. I don’t see Tielemans, Perez, Iheanacho, Soyuncu, Mendy etc as bad signings, as they were part of a very good team. Allowing them to leave for nothing is criminal. 
 

Congerton has done okay at Atlanta and in reality, Lookman was a shrewd bit of business. He was already proven and it’s bonkers we don’t sign him. 

I’d suggest the jury is out on Glover, as the recruitment this season has been nothing short of horrendous. If they saw Skipp as the KDH replacement, then something has seriously gone wrong. 
 

Coady has regressed ever since he’s signed for us. He’s a good leader but he shouldn’t be on the pitch. 

Mavididi looks like a different player to last year. 

Injuries to Winks, Fatawu, Ricardo and Stolarkzyk don’t help this squad, as it’s paper thin. Soumare has emerged as a more suitable player in midfield. That’s unthinkable two seasons ago. 
 

Every club gets transfer wrong, however it’s the amount we’ve gifted up the wall. 
 

Ayew and Reid aren’t bad in terms of they add experience at this level. 

[Blue ROI]

11 hours ago, Bilo said:

When you consider that his summer here saw him bring in Maddison, Soyuncu, Ricardo and Evans, you see that Rodgers' success was built on Puel's recruitment. Maddison from Championship Norwich, Soyuncu from midtable Freiburg, Evans from relegated West Brom for £3m and Ricardo from the periphery of Porto's squad after a loan at Nice. Absolutely A1 recruitment that built the spine of a team that played genuinely outstanding football, won us two trophies and regular European football. 

 

It pretty much went south when Rodgers got what he wanted and we put Congleton in charge of recruitment.

'Brendan Rodgers is a genius.'

 

Things we don't hear anymore. 

[Wasyls Pec Deck]

I want to bump this thread, because finally national press has cottoned on. Though for Tanner and his connections and brief to report on the club I’m amazed it’s taken him this long to call it all out…

 

 

[SK3Blue]

A lot of panic buys in there, I’m absolutely astounded that we paid a combined total of 76m for Faes, Kristiansen, Skipp and Daka.  
And we let Maddison, Barnes and Tielemans out of the door for less than that combined. 
 

[Les-TA-Jon]

The current squad and contract expirations:

 

 

And a rudimentary look at the book values of players this summer - i.e the minimum we need to sell them for to break even. 

 

 

Quite a few there that will be hard to shift...

[Haywood_6]

I think recruitment is the club's biggest issue. We shouldn't be constantly changing our recruitment strategy with every new manager. Enzo made some solid signings, but Cooper's choices were drastically different. Our marquee signing under Cooper was Oliver Skipp for 25 million, and then we moved on to players like Bobby Reid, Ayew, and Eduoard. We're acquiring average players who a lot of the time are old, have lost their hunger and ambition, and seem more interested in getting their paycheck and having a holiday at Seagrave than contributing to the team.

[davieG]

None of this takes into account all the players who left for nothing.

[Parker Pen]

Recruitment stats don’t include Leadership!

100% we lack from a playing staff perspective. Walsh and Pearson got the talent and leadership blend spot on. Ranieri piggy backed that for one season and led from the front. After that I would argue that we have struggled to recruit an onfield leader and since first Wes retired and Kasper was let go we have nobody. Kasper for me was a complete scandal who set high standards for himself both in and off the pitch that he measured others by!

We were fortunate with Enzo as he was an off field leader and controlled pretty much everything due to his workaholic approach. Cooper by comparison was an absolute shambles. Add to that a recruitment strategy that has failed since Congerton and now Glover overseen by Rudkin we are have replaced good players with bang average. We haven’t learnt or grown in that department.  Replace Rudkin and Glover And start again. Some of the kids who play Championship manager have a far better scouting network than us!

[moore_94]

10 minutes ago, davieG said:

None of this takes into account all the players who left for nothing.

I think it is around £200m worth of players that have left the club for nothing since 2020

 

With a couple of them also being mutually terminated before their contracts were even up

[Les-TA-Jon]

15 minutes ago, moore_94 said:

I think it is around £200m worth of players that have left the club for nothing since 2020

 

With a couple of them also being mutually terminated before their contracts were even up

It'd be really interesting to try and benchmark this sort of stuff - failed signings and talent leaving on frees - vs other PL clubs. 

[Wasyls Pec Deck]

1 hour ago, SK3Blue said:

A lot of panic buys in there, I’m absolutely astounded that we paid a combined total of 76m for Faes, Kristiansen, Skipp and Daka.  
And we let Maddison, Barnes and Tielemans out of the door for less than that combined. 
 

Says it really about the drop off in decision making, quality and ability to move players on at the right time to support squad building