So who identified transfer targets?

[dorian gray]

On 07/08/2018 at 20:01, IstillhateSteveBould said:

And who had the final say on actually bringing them in?

 

Because it's our dealings in the transfer market that have royally fizzed us up. Particularly after the play off defeat.

 

As far as I can see, Chansiri has indeed invested a significant amount of money on transfer fees and wages......but it's been horrendously mismanaged. And there's no clarity on who's responsible. 

 

At some point we were led to believe Carlos was purely a coach and had little say on incomings. But then suddenly Carlos was responsible, and now we're told certain players were signed as a "gift" to the fans, suggesting Chansiri himself. 

 

It all just seems a complete clusterfuck. Pretty much just - "Here's the amount I'm putting in - we've got a couple of years deadline to get up or we're fizzed. Let's sign some players". Scattergun approach. No strategy, no thought beyond 3 years, no contingency plan if it doesn't work out etc....

 

We're talking significant sums on fees and wages, used up on "risky" signings. Players in their late 20s and early 30s with no resale value whatsoever. All the while neglecting areas that CLEARLY needed addressing.

We knew 2 years ago that Loovens was coming to the end and we'd need a replacement. Same with Pudil. And Wallace. We knew we couldn't rely on Hutch for any period of time. And they're just the obvious things. Those elements of the play off team needed addressing without even adding to it. 

 

Why on earth didn't we spend the money we gambled on players coming to the end of their careers, on serious replacements for those players at the very least? Who ever decided to pursue the likes of Fletcher, Abdi, Jones and Rhodes? Whoever it was needs a slap.

 

I know some like to point out it's easy in hindsight, but there were plenty of people highlighting the fact that we were neglecting areas that needed attention even back then. Many said this could come back to bite us on the arse.

 

If the club had shown a bit of foresight and used up our available transfer pot on more players with a future (with resale value, as they actually did with Reach and Winnal), we'd now be in a position where we could easily sell a couple of players and rebalance properly. No silly contracts given to aging players with no resale value. 

 

Many on here felt that was the correct way to go. And they say football fans know nothing. 

i'll give you my sixpenneth on who and why, in the first season (and still) we have playing at c/f atty nuhiu, 100% wednesday through and through, great guy, but sadly short of the mark then and now for a side wanting to be promoted. whilst in fletcher they no doubt thought they were buying in a 'proven' premier c/f, capable of (when needed) playing one up and waiting for support, or playing in a twin strike pairing, whilst overall improving on what nuhiu had done the previous season when either 1 or 2 up top.

abdi, i imagine, was going to fit in and do bannan's job when bb wasn't fit, and perhaps supply the missing attacking link up play that was clearly missing whenever forestieri was out.

jones was a shoe in (just short of premier standard) from a promoted side to cover or replace for hutch when injured or suspended.

rhodes, again obviously, the big scoring, big hammer forward, that was going to supply the goals needed to alter us from promotion candidates to promotion winners by bulldozing us over the line.

now where you draw the line on how much did a new owner have his leg lifted on fees and wages, and how much did the 'heroic' coach fail to get the best out of them, depends on you the individual.

from the takeover (for me) the club was short of expertise in the business of english football, and what appears to be very short of 'knowledge' of the local area and sheffield wednesday fc.

[IstillhateSteveBould]

4 minutes ago, dnhc said:

 

from the takeover (for me) the club was short of expertise in the business of english football, and what appears to be very short of 'knowledge' of the local area and sheffield wednesday fc.

 

Agree with that. 

 

As for the signings, yes I can see purely from a football quality perspective why those players may have been looked at.

 

But as a strategy, signing multiple players at that age, on huge wages and long contracts, is high risk poo or bust. It HAS to work or you're in trouble. Terrible from a business point of view.

[gurujuan]

7 minutes ago, dnhc said:

i'll give you my sixpenneth on who and why, in the first season (and still) we have playing at c/f atty nuhiu, 100% wednesday through and through, great guy, but sadly short of the mark then and now for a side wanting to be promoted. whilst in fletcher they no doubt thought they were buying in a 'proven' premier c/f, capable of (when needed) playing one up and waiting for support, or playing in a twin strike pairing, whilst overall improving on what nuhiu had done the previous season when either 1 or 2 up top.

abdi, i imagine, was going to fit in and do bannan's job when bb wasn't fit, and perhaps supply the missing attacking link up play that was clearly missing whenever forestieri was out.

jones was a shoe in (just short of premier standard) from a promoted side to cover or replace for hutch when injured or suspended.

rhodes, again obviously, the big scoring, big hammer forward, that was going to supply the goals needed to alter us from promotion candidates to promotion winners by bulldozing us over the line.

now where you draw the line on how much did a new owner have his leg lifted on fees and wages, and how much did the 'heroic' coach fail to get the best out of them, depends on you the individual.

from the takeover (for me) the club was short of expertise in the business of english football, and what appears to be very short of 'knowledge' of the local area and sheffield wednesday fc.

Interesting, but all those signings, however well intentioned, were not particularly thought through 

I’ll start with Abdi, a proven player at Watford, but was never going to play in a central two. Fletcher wasn’t a sufficient upgrade on Nuhiu,  in my opinion, and certainly didn’t warrant the contract offered to him. As for Rhodes, well he was a busted flush, and quite frankly, wasn’t even needed Quite why we paid what we did for him, when there was little other genuine interest, just beggars belief 

Of course, the biggest fizz up, was that these players were all signed at the expense of bringing in the type of players we really needed, and have done since Wembley

[dorian gray]

3 hours ago, IstillhateSteveBould said:

 

Agree with that. 

 

As for the signings, yes I can see purely from a football quality perspective why those players may have been looked at.

 

But as a strategy, signing multiple players at that age, on huge wages and long contracts, is high risk poo or bust. It HAS to work or you're in trouble. Terrible from a business point of view.

i'd like to think any of our supporters with proper football knowledge would go along with your post, and at the start of all this i was very uncomfortable with what appeared our 'lash out' spending, BUT when i weighed up the continuing wages over the seasons needed to build a 'proper' side, then i can see why chansiri went for it from the off.

it was promotion in 3 seasons, without much of a second thought of what happens IF we don't,  we were going 'for it', well now we're finding out what happens WHEN we haven't achieved our goal.

personally (and i've not hidden this) i'd have given gray the gaff, with money to spend on a 'proper' forward line and supply, if he's short of the mark then you keep the players who are up to it and shift the rest on with gray, and build under a new manager.

for me then, and certainly now, it was far too much too soon, with little continuity of footballing knowledge within the set up, and big money to spend???

dc (perhaps) didn't entirely get what he thought he was getting when he bought the club, perhaps he didn't get what he thought he was getting when he bought the coach/manager, and perhaps one or two players could be added to that list also.

it is of course his money not ours, but i do wonder if he could have been advised better at times?

where to next? i don't know, but i hope they do.

[dorian gray]

3 hours ago, gurujuan said:

Interesting, but all those signings, however well intentioned, were not particularly thought through 

I’ll start with Abdi, a proven player at Watford, but was never going to play in a central two. Fletcher wasn’t a sufficient upgrade on Nuhiu,  in my opinion, and certainly didn’t warrant the contract offered to him. As for Rhodes, well he was a busted flush, and quite frankly, wasn’t even needed Quite why we paid what we did for him, when there was little other genuine interest, just beggars belief 

Of course, the biggest fizz up, was that these players were all signed at the expense of bringing in the type of players we really needed, and have done since Wembley

the latter part in bold is correct, and just about everybody (but a fool) would agree. 

however, i don't remember anybody saying AT THE TIME that 'fletcher wasn't better than nuhiu' that 'abdi was completely f***ed', and that 'rhodes was spent as a goal scorer', all of this is now only with us due to hindsight being 20/20.

though it seems that the air in norwich is suiting rhodes better than it did here.

[dorian gray]

4 hours ago, IstillhateSteveBould said:

 

Agree with that. 

 

As for the signings, yes I can see purely from a football quality perspective why those players may have been looked at.

 

But as a strategy, signing multiple players at that age, on huge wages and long contracts, is high risk poo or bust. It HAS to work or you're in trouble. Terrible from a business point of view.

TRUE, but how many at that time shouted 'NO'? and how many sang 'carlos had a dream?

[StudentOwl]

1 minute ago, dnhc said:

TRUE, but how many at that time shouted 'NO'? and how many sang 'carlos had a dream?

 

Edited August 11, 2018 by StudentOwl

[Lord Snooty]

4 minutes ago, StudentOwl said:

 

 

[dorian gray]

On 07/08/2018 at 21:05, SallyCinnamon said:

 

No one is going to not welcome a new signing are they.

 

But many people questioned why we hadn't signed a proper centre half to partner Loovens? Why have we signed both Jones and Abdi, experienced and could turn out good players but hardly the midfield beast we need. Why have we still not signed anyone with pace? Fletcher's got a decent CV but his wages are huge, has he ever been a prolific goalscorer where he's been? 

 

A lot of comments that at the time. But the narrative was 'we're spending money let's enjoy it and stop whinging'. And we did. Because we trusted those in charge.

 what you post is true of our needs at the time, and STILL now.

the actual signings have turned out to be in many cases only a shadow of what we wanted, expected, needed, and have coast us plenty.

poor choices, for top money it seems, but who does the buck stop with?

[Brommers]

On 07/08/2018 at 20:35, WalthamOwl said:

Let’s be honest the final decision would always come down to DC. Nobody else. 

Only the decision of was it affordable.  I can't imagine he turned players down on the basis he thought they were bobar.

[dorian gray]

14 hours ago, StudentOwl said:

 

 

14 hours ago, Lord Snooty said:

 

really?, well done, care to dig out your postings on each one?

[StudentOwl]

3 hours ago, dnhc said:

 

really?, well done, care to dig out your postings on each one?

So you'd like me to jump through hoops like a trained dog just to satisfy your curiosity? 

 

"Recruitment has been very, very poor overall not addressing last seasons' weaknesses at all. Every single signing has been good, but the overall recruitment has been highly sub-par"  August 28th 2016

 

"You combine all the transfers together, what has our recruitment been? A bunch of players in their late 20s/early 30s in positions that we were already considered 'strong' in. No resale value in any of them and not addressing the areas we all thought we were weak in last season. We're still weak in exactly the same areas now as we were in May. [...] Signings have been great. Recruitment, poor." August 28th 2016

 

"Without wishing to be negative, the only players we've signed in the last 18 months with any resale value are FF, Hoops, Joao and Reach (with 'maybies' over Hunt and Matias- who is fast diminishing). All the others are in their late 20s/early 30s and will almost certainly go for less than we got them for. As it is, I doubt Hunt or Matias will move on for anywhere near as much as we got them for" August 31st 2016

 

 

I posted the above just a week ago... I really can't be bothered to do any more searching through my posts that are between 18 and 24 months old... I just hope that the above does enough to satisfy you. 

[dorian gray]

1 hour ago, StudentOwl said:

So you'd like me to jump through hoops like a trained dog just to satisfy your curiosity? 

 

"Recruitment has been very, very poor overall not addressing last seasons' weaknesses at all. Every single signing has been good, but the overall recruitment has been highly sub-par"  August 28th 2016

 

"You combine all the transfers together, what has our recruitment been? A bunch of players in their late 20s/early 30s in positions that we were already considered 'strong' in. No resale value in any of them and not addressing the areas we all thought we were weak in last season. We're still weak in exactly the same areas now as we were in May. [...] Signings have been great. Recruitment, poor." August 28th 2016

 

"Without wishing to be negative, the only players we've signed in the last 18 months with any resale value are FF, Hoops, Joao and Reach (with 'maybies' over Hunt and Matias- who is fast diminishing). All the others are in their late 20s/early 30s and will almost certainly go for less than we got them for. As it is, I doubt Hunt or Matias will move on for anywhere near as much as we got them for" August 31st 2016

 

 

I posted the above just a week ago... I really can't be bothered to do any more searching through my posts that are between 18 and 24 months old... I just hope that the above does enough to satisfy you. 

 

i'm only questioning the timing of the objections because i saw few of them (to put it mildly) at the time of procurement.

parts 1 and 2 are what a great many people thought at that time due to us acquiring players whilst not adressing weaknesses that were abundantly obvious. 

at the time i observed no one criticizing the rhodes move, in fact as a supporters site we looked over the moon with it.

i thought we paid too much for reach, grossly overpaid on salary for fletcher, but generally i thought that when dc arrived he wanted promotion 'NOW' (and that 'NOW' was within a couple of years) it became 'more difficult' when newcastle were relegated.

apologies, as i didn't see your posting of a week ago as i've been away for 2 weeks on the equivalent of the dark side of the moon.

[fred mciver]

Chansiri's committee, which also included his son and Doyen, plus - for all we know- the family cat. 

[Jackie Sewell]

The only player I can think of in recent memory, that the fans were directly responsible for us signing ( obviously pre DC), was Antonio. And that was because we knew for certain how good he'd be for us.