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Chris Turner had a plan


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I know no one on here (me included) don't rate this guy as a manager, but still he had a great plan too improve our squad and ease our financial troubles.

He sow potential in signing ex-academy players, and reserves from Premiership clubs who were in his opinion quality, confident, and ambitious enough that they would rather step down to the 2'nd or 3'rd tier of English football and try to make name for themselves, then to pick their wages playing for reserves as 17'th or 27'th choice players at their clubs.

He did brilliantly to sign Brunt and Whelan for nothing, and missed with Chris Carr. We got years of great service and more than 3m in transfer fees for first two, and lost very little or nothing on Chris Carr.

I've seen huge amount of both academy and reserve football in last couple of seasons and can say that there really is a pool of talent to pick out from in the summer.

Man Utd, Man City, Sunerland and Boro academys were particularly impressive.

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I know no one on here (me included) don't rate this guy as a manager, but still he had a great plan too improve our squad and ease our financial troubles.

He sow potential in signing ex-academy players, and reserves from Premiership clubs who were in his opinion quality, confident, and ambitious enough that they would rather step down to the 2'nd or 3'rd tier of English football and try to make name for themselves, then to pick their wages playing for reserves as 17'th or 27'th choice players at their clubs.

He did brilliantly to sign Brunt and Whelan for nothing, and missed with Chris Carr. We got years of great service and more than 3m in transfer fees for first two, and lost very little or nothing on Chris Carr.

I've seen huge amount of both academy and reserve football in last couple of seasons and can say that there really is a pool of talent to pick out from in the summer.

Man Utd, Man City, Sunerland and Boro academys were particularly impressive.

I agree.

I have said many times the restructuring of the first team squad undertaken by CT in the summer of 2004 was vital for our club. For all his faults as a manager he really did the business that summer - remember JPM, Maclean, Bullen all came down on frees from Scotland, Marsden came in who I am sure would have been absolute quality had he stayed fit. We also signed a solid keeper in Lucas, who was unfortunate to suffer from injuries when he was here. Turner had a wage budget of 2 million and no transfer fees that summer - an amazing job to pull that squad together.

PS another we dont give him credit for is Grant Holt who he signed from non league - a goal machine these past few years at other clubs.

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I know no one on here (me included) don't rate this guy as a manager, but still he had a great plan too improve our squad and ease our financial troubles.

He sow potential in signing ex-academy players, and reserves from Premiership clubs who were in his opinion quality, confident, and ambitious enough that they would rather step down to the 2'nd or 3'rd tier of English football and try to make name for themselves, then to pick their wages playing for reserves as 17'th or 27'th choice players at their clubs.

He did brilliantly to sign Brunt and Whelan for nothing, and missed with Chris Carr. We got years of great service and more than 3m in transfer fees for first two, and lost very little or nothing on Chris Carr.

I've seen huge amount of both academy and reserve football in last couple of seasons and can say that there really is a pool of talent to pick out from in the summer.

Man Utd, Man City, Sunerland and Boro academys were particularly impressive.

Good points there - Chris Turner was a hopeless team manager but he'd be a big success if the English game was comfortable with the Director of Football role. He had the best eye for assembling a squad since Big Ron - unfortunately, he was hopeless at getting that squad to play coherent football...

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I agree.

I have said many times the restructuring of the first team squad undertaken by CT in the summer of 2004 was vital for our club. For all his faults as a manager he really did the business that summer - remember JPM, Maclean, Bullen all came down on frees from Scotland, Marsden came in who I am sure would have been absolute quality had he stayed fit. We also signed a solid keeper in Lucas, who was unfortunate to suffer from injuries when he was here. Turner had a wage budget of 2 million and no transfer fees that summer - an amazing job to pull that squad together.

PS another we dont give him credit for is Grant Holt who he signed from non league - a goal machine these past few years at other clubs.

Erm, being pedantic but didn't we buy Maclean from Scunny? Agree about him having relatively buggerall resources, though...

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I know no one on here (me included) don't rate this guy as a manager, but still he had a great plan too improve our squad and ease our financial troubles.

He sow potential in signing ex-academy players, and reserves from Premiership clubs who were in his opinion quality, confident, and ambitious enough that they would rather step down to the 2'nd or 3'rd tier of English football and try to make name for themselves, then to pick their wages playing for reserves as 17'th or 27'th choice players at their clubs.

He did brilliantly to sign Brunt and Whelan for nothing, and missed with Chris Carr. We got years of great service and more than 3m in transfer fees for first two, and lost very little or nothing on Chris Carr.

I've seen huge amount of both academy and reserve football in last couple of seasons and can say that there really is a pool of talent to pick out from in the summer.

Man Utd, Man City, Sunerland and Boro academys were particularly impressive.

You are right. There are absolutely some good players who would drop down to the championship to play reguarly. However, as a Championship club, it is far harder to either spot the player who could come in and make an impact in his first season and secondaly, those players who could make the step up to this level, would be wanted by pretty much the rest of the league. They would be far harder to attract to us.

Dare i say it, that as a league one club at the time, we were a pretty attractive proposition to the likes of Brunt and Whelan. I would also suggest that when he signed for us, Whelan wasn't good enough to play regular Championship football. He improved a lot, the more he played, just as he has improved a lot since he signed for Stoke.

If this policy was to succeed it could prove very frutiful. However, given the pressures to win games and win promotion by the fans / media / directors etc, it would probably leave many managers in this league hesitant to go down this route as there doesn't seem to be much long term planning in the championship anymore.

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Guest Kintana

He also signed the most important player at our club in recent years - Guylain Ndumdu-Nsungu.

Without his goals we would have gone down to league 2.....

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MacLean came from Rangers.

Turner didn't do the spotting though, that was Eustace

Gah - apologies. Never realised we got Maclean on a freebie. Westwood *shudder* was a couple of years earlier, I think - if Wikipedia's right then Jewell signed him not long after we got relegated from the Prem (along with defensive titans like Harkness and Hendon). Poor Des, having to play alongside that shower...

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Gah - apologies. Never realised we got Maclean on a freebie. Westwood *shudder* was a couple of years earlier, I think - if Wikipedia's right then Jewell signed him not long after we got relegated from the Prem (along with defensive titans like Harkness and Hendon). Poor Des, having to play alongside that shower...

Ah, it wasn't a free transfer , according to Wikipedia (so therefore probably wrong) - apparently, we bought him from Rangers for £125k. I think I'm arguing with me'sen here...

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I mentioned recently on here that at least Turner brought in Brunt and Whelan which brought much needed funds to the club, but someone stated that it was actually Mark Smith who brought Brunt to the club.

Just a bloke, who used up all his luck in one go when he met his wife.

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