duncanjwitham

12 minutes ago, Carl Sagan said:

Yes this is two leagues below, but you look at all these goals -

left foot, right foot, headers, and often very clever finishes, poaching in the six yard area, running from the halfway line, shooting from outside the box - 

And all the other stuff too.  He looks quick enough to run away from players for the first goal in that clip.  There's a great first touch and some lovely close control to create the space for the second of his hattrick.  There's some great runs to get into position to score some of those poaches - the one for the last goal in particular.

10 minutes ago, TuffLuff said:

That’s the issue with the article, it’s alright saying ‘look at this wrongun’ and MM or Preston saying ‘we knew he was a wrongun’ but they didn’t raise any concerns at a time when they could. Yes there is an issue of football clubs that are going into the wrong persons hands, but part of that is those that help legitimise those people and push them through in the first place. Saying they didn’t know absolves the EFL, Cook, Stretford, Quantama and a whole lot of others who caused a lot more mess for Derby County. 
 

 

Can you imagine the absolute meltdown amongst the fanbase if Morris had basically come out and said he didn't like/trust/whatever Kirchner and wasn't going to deal with him?  The same with the EFL and Quantuma really.  Kirchner passed the basic tests he was required to pass, and had all the hallmarks of a reputable businessman - it wasn't like he was that random Sheikh who may or may not be related to the Man City lot, or that Spanish guy who seemingly had very little beyond an Instagram profile (which was probably faked anyway), or any of the other chancers who cropped up over the years.  He owned a legit business, had major financing from reputable companies and was actively involved in sports sponsorships.

If any of MM/the EFL/Quantuma etc had come out and said they weren't dealing with Kirchner, then Kirchner would have been all over Radio Derby/social media etc saying he was trying to save Derby and whoever was stopping him doing it.  It would have been chaos.

3 minutes ago, Oldben said:

What about proximity to suspension.

 

The cut-off point for a 10-yellow-card suspension is the clubs 37th game, which we're already past.

23 minutes ago, ivo_knoflicek said:

I’ll shed an actual tear (or two) when he finally leaves us. 

In 100 years time, I’m fairly sure Fozzy’s ghost will still be haunting the left back areas of Pride Park, and he’ll still be the best crosser of the ball at the club.

I think people do overlook how good he’s actually been for us. He’s been one of the best left backs in the championship for almost a decade. It’s no surprise at all he’s still very good at League One level.

1 hour ago, jono said:

Of course you are forgetting that the transfer market is just like Amazon prime. You just describe the player you want and up come hundreds of possible purchases at £4.99 with delivery included and free returns. … until you realise you haven’t got PayPal or a credit card. 

I'm not forgetting that at all, it's pretty much the entire point.  Players aren't fungible, you can't just buy them at random and drop them in and have it work, so you need to think about who you're signing and why.  We've signed a *lot* of players this season, and quite a few of them have struggled to make an impact (IMO anyway), so maybe we should be thinking about the process to try and stop that from happening next season?  You'll never get it right all the time of course, but that shouldn't stop the club trying to improve.  Just because we're second in the table doesn't mean we should shut down all critical analysis of the club, as some posters seem to think.

12 minutes ago, Comrade 86 said:

Yeh, but the defenders all look National League standard at best. Oh, hang on... 

If you think back to that Chorley FA cup game, where we had to put out the academy lads against non-league defenders, the big issue was our lack of physicality.  We just got out-muscled and couldn't let out superior technical skills shine.  When you watch Brown play against teams at this level, you see none of that, he looks big and strong and his better movement and technique is shining though.   Obviously that doesn't guarantee he'd be good enough at higher levels, but it's certainly a good start.

13 minutes ago, Srg said:

I don't think we're vastly far apart on our assessment, but I do think I'm placing a bigger emphasis on our restrictions than you perhaps are which is likely where we are differing on levels of "blame".

Clearly signing younger, athletic attacking talent costs the most money and that's where we've struggled. Even, seemingly, finding some on loan - whether that's due to loan fees, wage contributions or a minutes guarantee. My main gripe would be leaving the squad so threadbare in that department... as much of a good guy as Waghorn is, was he really all we could do? Collins plus old/injured players in Washington, Waghorn and TJJ never looked enough, and so it proved.

That's the weird thing about it all.  We have a big squad (somewhere between ~22-27 players, depending if/how you include the likes of Loach, Embleton, TJJ, Rooney, Gayle etc), yet we're threadbare in a lot of key areas, and have overplayed our starters again.  Maybe we'd have been better off focussing less on sheer number of players and tried to get in a few better ones, and trust the academy to pick up the slack.  It's almost like we decided we needed lots of players because we know the way we play causes fitness/injury issues, but the net result of that is that we've signed a bunch of unfit/injury-prone players and made the problem even worse.

32 minutes ago, Crewton said:

Ward lost about 3 months due to an opponent stamping on his heel. Washington damaged ligaments playing for Northern Ireland. Waghorn started 8 of the first 13 games, made the pitch in all the rest bar 1, scoring 6 goals, before first a hamstring injury and then a calf injury kept him out until recently. So there's 3 more who would have made more than 15 appearances had they not picked up injuries "at work". Even Elder has made 19 appearances including as substitute, Fornah 17 on the same basis. Only the two loan signings from the summer have made little or no impression thanks to injuries and you can blame the manager for accepting them as signings if you want to.

To me, it's fair to say that our recruitment has been patchy and it's taken time to bear fruit, but now all but those unfortunate young loanees and those we are awaiting a return from legitimate injuries are contributing and filling squad gaps when required. This year wasn't about signing a entire new first XI, it was about filling gaps left by departees in both first XI and squad and strengthening where possible. The lack of a direct replacement for Collins is for me the only real failure, but by happy accident we've signed a different kind of striker who may just fire us to promotion.

The question you asked was which players haven't made an impact.  They aren't making an impact if they're injured.  Yes some of it is unlucky, but if you sign a bunch of players who are old or who have had recent injury problems, it shouldn't be surprising when they get injured.

Joe Ward has been fit since the end of October so it's not like he's missed the whole season.  He didn't even make the bench 3 and 4 games ago, and has 1 assist in 16 appearances.  He's supposed to be a specialist crosser in a team that crosses a lot.  In fact, Craig Forsyth has more goals+assists than Ward, Wilson and Elder combined.  Washington has scored 3 goals, that's not the impact you'd expect from a striker.  Fornah has played 28 minutes of league football this calendar year.  I could go on.   We signed 11 outfield players, and Nelson is the only one who has really established a place in the team.  That's not good enough.

6 minutes ago, Srg said:

About as many were not as were. I already called out Washington and Bradley as being old and having injury issues. Elder has been a little unlucky here (although, can't say I've rated him on what I've seen). Nelson has played most games.

Having checked, 8 of the 11 played in the Championship last year.  Ward and TJJ were both in League one, but had played in the Championship the season before.  Wilson played 5 games in the Championship for Bristol City last season, but has only really had regular football at League one or below.  So almost all of the signings have played recently at a higher level than we're at.

The post I was replying to was basically implying that most of the summer signings had made a good impact on the team, so the fact you're calling out Washington, Bradley, aren't impressed with Elder, and think the rest are bargain bin signings, suggests we aren't too far apart.

The issue for me is the whole transfer policy seems to be all over the place.  We know Warne wants to play gas-out, high-intensity football, so signing so many over-30s and players who had injuries last seasons seems questionable.  And then we have stuff like seeming to recruit for a back 3 over the summer, then immediately switching to a back 4.  And then signing an expensive winger in January before immediately switching back to playing wingbacks.  I'm not necessarily blaming Warne for everything, but there's clearly something going wrong somewhere in the process.  And given we're going to have a major rebuild in the summer, no matter what league we're in, that needs serious thought IMO.

2 minutes ago, Srg said:

We needed a squad of players, and we were shopping in the bargain bin for the most part. Do I think he tried some things which didn't really work? yes, Washington, for one example wasn't a great idea. I'd also say Bradley likely hasn't been worth what we're probably paying him, But given our restrictions, and I'd also make a good guess that some of those signed the previous summer are eating up a fair chunk of budget (Hourihane, Smith, Collins, Barkhuizen etc) which also likely made it tougher, especially when we really needed to get younger. Some of it has been slightly unlucky with injuries to Ward, Elder etc too which cut short any run in the team.

Shopping in the bargain bin, yet the majority of those signings were playing in the Championship last season.  Only Ward and Wilson playing at this level, I think?

5 minutes ago, Crewton said:

So accepting that CBT is yet to make an impact, how many more on this list do you believe are struggling to make an impact?

Just Fornah, Embleton and TJJ in my view. Waggy and Wash are coming back from injuries sustained in the line of work but have generally made an impact when fit and selected, Vickers has done Ok as back up keeper, but every one of the others is proving their value now IMO.

What kind of success rate were you expecting when none of them cost a transfer fee?

We signed 11 outfielders in the summer, only 3 of them have started more than 15 league games (Nelson, Nyambe and Wilson).  Bradley is next on 12 and Ward on 10.  You aren't making an impact if you aren't getting on the pitch.  The players we've signed either seem to have persistent injury/fitness issues, or they aren't being selected over the players that were already here (most of whom also signed on frees).  Obviously you're not going to get every signing right, and not every player is signed with the intention of being a regular starter (I deliberately didn't include Vickers, for example) but if you get to mid-March and less than half your summer signings have hit double figures for starts, then that's really not a good sign.

1 minute ago, Caerphilly Ram said:

You replied specifically to my point that people’s bias against the manager was colouring their judgment, raising a counter point that people who support the manager do the same. Which is fair enough.

My initial point, the one you replied to, was informed by a couple of posts last night that focused on the wording of press conference answers in what I don’t think is a measured and balanced manner.

In simple terms I think some people who dislike Warne (and by extension his staff) will genuinely look for any stick to beat him with.
 

I’m not defending Warne here, I’m saying I think in my personal opinion it is odd to bring up the wording of press conferences as a point of contention when we’re 9 games out from the end of the season, with the possibility of promotion very much in our hands, having equalled our away wins record, outscoring most of the league, conceding less than most of the league, with another big game on the horizon tonight…. But yeah let’s have a dig about what Barker said in reply to a question about CBT before last Saturday’s game…

There’s more positive to focus on than negative in my view, irrespective of Warne. Each to their own I guess 🤷🏻‍♂️ 

Ahhh, so you're moaning about people bringing up unrelated stuff out of context in other threads, by bringing up unrelated stuff out of context in another thread... 😉 FWIW I haven't seen the press conference you're referring to, or seen people talking about it, so I have no clue what the issue is.

I do think it's more than reasonable to be talking about why we are barely playing our major January signing though.  And Radio Derby certainly thought it was a significant enough answer from Barker to snip it out and post it on social media.  It's not like it's some random comment amongst a load of other stuff either, it's a a near-3 minute clip just talking about that one issue.

56 minutes ago, Caerphilly Ram said:

All fair and reasonable observations, but bringing up one comment without context relating to a pre match interview from last week and posting in another thread with the implication that Warne is looking to blame a failure that has yet to transpire on the fan base strikes me as less than balanced in view.

Im not saying Barker answered in the best possible terms, but I don’t think it’s as bad as was implied. Just my opinion of course. However I stand by my observation that some posters cannot or will not see past their disproval of Warne and his staff to the point where their posts on the back of two good wins and before a big game tonight are focused on the wording in press conferences rather than the football team. 

I have no clue what you're on about there, the posts in this thread are all about CBT, as was the post I replied to 🤷‍♂️.

It's maybe not as bad as the first poster made it out to be, but it's certainly not as fine and dandy as some other posters appear to be making it out either.  And I would certainly hope there's some kind of thought process going in the club as to why so many of the players we've signed recently have struggled to make an impact.

44 minutes ago, YorkshireRam said:

Please could you post some examples of this as I genuinely can't recall seeing anything like this? I'm aware confirmation bias could be at play so just wanna weigh up the evidence before commenting properly

I really can't be bothered naming names and starting arguments with people on here, but you'll find them in the match threads for games we've lost.  I'm talking about the "it's not Warne's fault at all, the players just don't want it enough" type stuff posted in response to any kind of query about tactics or game management.  There probably aren't that many of them, but I don't particularly think there are many in the opposite camp either.  The majority of people posting anti-Warne stuff are trying to make well-reasoned arguments about what they think is going wrong and why.  And of course if you don't like the kind of football a manager plays it's going to colour how you think about their performance, but I think the same is true for the other side too.  IMO there is definitely a group on here that absolutely detest the Cocu/Rosenior-style possession football and the fact that we have a manager that doesn't really want to play that way is colouring their opinion of him too.

7 minutes ago, Srg said:

He was injured when we signed him (he'd missed a game or two prior), then got injured again. It's not some kind of conspiracy theory.

Ritchie Barker is crystal clear in that interview that it goes beyond just a few niggles and injuries, and that while they haven't helped, he's struggling to adapt to the training levels so they aren't really playing him until he does.  

And even beyond that, why are we signing players carrying injuries?  Washington and Elder both had injuries when we signed them in the summer too, and they've both struggled to contribute too.  Embleton and TJJ as well, coming off the back on injuries last season.  If Warne's training intensities are so high that players are struggling to adapt to it, we have to be better at recruiting players.

1 hour ago, Caerphilly Ram said:

It’s got everything to do with pre-determined bias against the coaching staff and very little to do with objectively considering the content of the interview. Similar posts on other threads with a similar perspective shared last night. 
Your own observations are pretty much how I heard it as well, it’s potentially a bit of a challenge to the lad to show us what he’s about. If others see it another way that’s up to them 

You could make the exact same argument about the pro-Warne lot as well.  There are a group of people on here (not saying you are one of them) that will refuse to accept any criticism of Warne at all, will defend even the most dreadful decisions to the hilt, immediately start blaming everyone else when we lose etc.  

It would have been very easy for Barker to basically say that CBT has been unlucky with injuries, has struggled to get his fitness up and they're working on it and leave it there.  But he goes well beyond that, saying CBT has struggled with training intensity, found it a shock, "he's going to have to adapt to us, we can't adapt to him", "if he doesn't adapt he'll fall by the wayside" etc.  None of that is normal stuff.  When you spend money on someone for the first time in 4 years, to have the coaching staff using the phrase "charity minutes" about him playing only 2 months later, it's clear something has gone very, very wrong.  To be clear, I'm not necessarily saying Warne or the coaching staff are at fault, it could be the recruitment staff, the medical staff, whoever negotiated with CBT (it they made promises about starting games or whatever), we don't know from the outside looking in.  But I can't believe we intended spending £400k on the guy just to have him twiddling his thumbs on the bench while he built his fitness up.

1 hour ago, Srg said:

Looks like he’s going to be latest in a long line of players at this club where there’s a section of the fan base who slate him if he doesn’t score or assist whenever he’s on the pitch, even if it’s only 10 mins off the bench. 

I'm not sure many people are really doing that here.  I think more than anything, we're all confused as to why a player that was playing and contributing every week at another League One club, is suddenly barely fit enough to get on the pitch here.

32 minutes ago, trappatoni said:

Be interesting to see the next set of accounts.   Given Keiran Maguire reckoned the average league 1 loss is ~£1m and our income is massive - think he said Portsmouth were at £13m ish ?? - and we are nowhere near the limits on player wages spending as a proportion of income - you'd think we shouldn't be losing money let alone £10m.   

I'm guessing the academy  and exceptional circumstances account for that. 

That £10m loss is more than accounted for by the £13m to Quantuma.  If my understanding is right (and I'm not an expert at this stuff), turnover without player trading is about £18.9m.  Operating costs were about £19.2m.  So that's pretty much break even in actual money terms.

29 minutes ago, Poynton ram said:

Trying to get my head around player valuations within intangibles. Are the accounts saying the whole squad is only worth @ £2m after allowing for payments due on certain players? I know our valuation of players was one of the things that got us into a mess but that figure seems low particularly in the context of Cashin’s “value” and what fee we have received for Bird. Or perhaps I am misunderstanding the numbers

For accounting purposes, the players "value" is what you've cost to acquire him (transfer fees, agents fees etc) amortised (i.e. spread out) over the length of his contract.  Cashin will be valued at near £0m in the accounts because we've not really paid anything to get him.  The same with Bird, and any other player who has come through our academy.  The £2m is basically the remainder of Bielik's contract, plus a few other bits and bobs.

11 minutes ago, Rich84 said:

Nearly £2m of the £10m is Social security and pensions from @Ghost of Cloughbreakdown above.

Also, the wages for all of the academy players and coaches will be in there and with the academy being cat 1 I suspect that would be a decent chunk, plus the staffing costs for PP with the bigger crowds should be factored in.

Is there likely to be pay offs when the staff left with PW coming in? Darren Walsall etc?

Bolton are actually employing significantly more people than we are though (Bolton first, us second):

I suspect we're subcontracting the matchday staff out or something, so they possibly aren't even appearing as club employees on our count at all.  Obviously the academy staff are going to cost more at a Cat 1 academy vs Bolton's Cat 3, but again I find it hard to believe that out academy staff cost more in wages than our first team players do.  

49 minutes ago, CornwallRam said:

c£10m on non player wages seems very high. Especially as a lot of staff were made redundant during admin. Is there any detail on that?

There's not much detail in the accounts, other than this section: 

So confirmation that Clowes and co aren't taking anything from the club themselves.  It's not clear who is covered by the £624k - presumably Stephen Pearce is in there, possibly some of the other management too.

The £10m difference does seem very high though.  I just looked at Bolton's last set of accounts (2021/22) for comparison, and their entire wage bill (including players) was only ~£10m and that appears to be including the wages of 120 staff in their stadium hotel.  It seem *very* unlikely that we're spending the same on non-playing staff that Bolton are spending on everyone.  There must be something else going on - is it including part of that £13m we paid Quantuma to cover player wages during the admin season or something?

Presumably the £2.1m is for Bielik and Knight?  Possibly Bird too, although I suspect that might be too far in the future to count for this section.

4 minutes ago, Papahet said:

Why did we get so little for the 3 players at tribunal? Awful if that's the case and no wonder we cashed in on Max Bird before his deal expired.

I seem to recall that the tribunal deals are quite heavy on staged payments and sell-on fees etc, so it may well be the case that we get more as they play more games or move on to other clubs.

You almost don't realise what a freakishly good season he's actually having until you look at the stats:

He's 4 clear of anybody else for assists, and if my maths is right, 4 clear of anybody else for combined goals + assists as well. 

It's almost like by giving him minutes in senior football, he's starting to find his feet and earn himself more minutes.  Amazing.  Who'd have thunk it...

1 minute ago, Caerphilly Ram said:

Fair enough. They are however what we’ve got, so Wilson and Ward as wing backs down the right and Sibley or Foz/Elder down the left is what I’m expecting to see during the run in if we play a back 3. If it’s a back four then it’ll likely be the more defensively robust options of Forsyth and Nyambe if and when they’re both fit. 

That's the key bit though.  None of them are really suited to playing wingback, or if you don't want to go that far, I think they're definitely all better as outright wingers or fullbacks.  The whole point of 352 is basically declaring that you think your 2 wingbacks are sufficiently good to cover for 2 players jobs, so you can get overloads somewhere else in the team.  If those players aren't good enough to cover 2 players jobs, then you simply shouldn't be playing 352.

6 minutes ago, Caerphilly Ram said:

Opinions are opinions, fair enough you’ve got yours. You say that Ward isn’t a wingback or that he wasn’t during his time there but Posh as a club and their local press referred to him as a wing back and he played games there for them. Wilson played predominantly as a wingback for FGR in their promotion season before joining Bristol City.
 

If your opinion is that both Ward and Wilson aren’t good enough to be wing backs for us then you’re entitled to that, but let’s not reinvent history when both of them have proved they can do the job in that role.

I'm saying it doesn't matter if previous clubs played them there or not - plenty of players get played out of position, it doesn't magically make them able to play it.  Neither of them are good enough defensively to play there every week for us IMO.

11 minutes ago, Caerphilly Ram said:

Ward is a wing back isn’t he? I thought that was where he played for Posh, contributing 6 goals and 10 assists from that position last season, and 5 goals with 13 assists in the 20/21 season. He only had 3 assists in their championship season in between though. 
And didn’t Wilson played as a wing back for Forest Green?

From what the Peterborough fans said when we signed him, he mostly played as a winger for them, and when he did play at wingback he wasn't as good.  It doesn't really matter though where he played for them though - he's clearly not good enough defensively to play wingback IMO.  And it's the same with Wilson - AFAIK he did play there for them, but he's not good enough defensively to play wingback every week for a team that wants to be getting promoted from this league.  It's like describing Louis Sibley as a wingback by trade because he's played there a bunch of times for us - he clearly isn't one either.  NML and Barkhuizen both played as wingbacks at their previous clubs  - again they clearly aren't wingbacks.

If you want to play wingbacks, you *have* to have players that can play that position properly - it's the most important part of that setup - and if you don't have them you are going to get killed on one side of the game or the other (defensively or offensively).  There will be games where you can get away with it (like yesterday), but you can't get away with it every game if you want to be winning things.