duncanjwitham

Thank god that distraction is over and we can go back to talking about accountancy regs and whether Mel Morris is the messiah or just a very naughty boy.

Thank god that distraction is over and we can go back to talking about accountancy regs and whether Mel Morris is the messiah or just a very naughty boy.

Thank god that distraction is over and we can go back to talking about accountancy regs and whether Mel Morris is the messiah or just a very naughty boy.

Thank god that distraction is over and we can go back to talking about accountancy regs and whether Mel Morris is the messiah or just a very naughty boy.

Thank god that distraction is over and we can go back to talking about accountancy regs and whether Mel Morris is the messiah or just a very naughty boy.

Thank god that distraction is over and we can go back to talking about accountancy regs and whether Mel Morris is the messiah or just a very naughty boy.

Thank god that distraction is over and we can go back to talking about accountancy regs and whether Mel Morris is the messiah or just a very naughty boy.

Thank god that distraction is over and we can go back to talking about accountancy regs and whether Mel Morris is the messiah or just a very naughty boy.

I'll skip over the horrendous contradiction I've highlighted there...
The big issue wasn't just the fact we kept sacking managers and kept letting them rebuild the squad, it's the fact we kept appointing managers with a radically different style to the previous one.  If we'd gone the equivalent of like McLaren->Lampard->Cocu we'd have been in much better shape. They all play vaguely similar styles of football, with similar players in similar systems.  They're not identical obviously, but there's more similarity that not.  Instead we basically alternated between managers who wanted to play possession and managers who wanted to be very direct.
Looking from the outside, the whole thing just screamed reactionary thinking, with no clear sign of having an actual plan.  Players wilted second half of the season, get a manager in to kick up the backside. Bryson got injured, sign the most expensive midfielder we can find.  We need more goals, sign the top scorer in the league, even though he plays in a different position in a different system and hasn't scored for 3 months.  Our promising young left back isn't quite ready for the first team yet, so spend £3m+, prem wages and a long contract on Malone.  Just endless random decisions that don't tie up with any other decision being made at the club.
And the really frustrating thing is, Mel described the right plan almost exactly when he took over (the Derby Way stuff). He either never had the balls to follow through on it (being willing to say no to managers etc), or the knowledge to know why it wasn't working. 

I don't think they necessarily need to be "decided by the manager". Obviously, the manager should have the final call on whether to sign them or not, but I don't think they always have to be involved from the start.  If Morris was dead-set on making this Derby-Way stuff work, it shouldn't really matter if the manager is involved anyway - everyone should be pulling in the same direction.  We should have a style of play in mind and be appointing managers that play that way, signing players that play that way, and developing academy players to fit too.
I genuinely have no idea who was in charge of transfers in those early Morris days, and I'm not sure it was one single person.  We seem to know Blackman was a Clement request.  We know Weimann and a few others were lined up (but not confirmed, obviously) before Clement was given the job.  There's various suggestions/allegations about Sam Rush's approach to transfers.  A few of the signings honestly feel like Morris either wanting to get the boys back together(Ince, Shackell, Wisdom), or basically have a new train set to play with (Johnson).  There was definitely a too-many-cooks problem somewhere there.
I have no idea what McClaren's job actually entails, but I think someone like him in charge of making sure the Derby-Way happens is absolutely what we need.  Someone that actually understands football, understands youth-development and is willing to make hard decisions ("we are *not* signing Malone when we have Buchanan and Lowe in line, you can have a loan for a year if we need it" etc).

IIRC Gibson’s argument was that we had used our extra financial headroom to outbid them on buying Waghorn. And apparently having Waghorn, for reasons that science can not yet explain, gave us an advantage ?‍♂️.

Those 3 are also the ones for me that really epitomise everything that went wrong.  I remember a Norwich fan coming on here as we signed Johnson, who basically said he's divisive - half your fans will love him for his effort etc, but the others will get wound up by his lack of technical ability, and how often he gives the ball away.  That was an immediate red flag for me, because we had a team that had spent the last few seasons playing pass-and-move football through midfield, and you just can't do that if your main midfielder can't pass the ball consistently.  If a random fan from Norwich could spot the problem, why couldn't we?
Exactly the same with Shackell. I'm pretty sure Clough bombed him out because he wasn't good enough on the ball for a team that wanted to play possession football, yet we go straight back and get him.  And we never really understood what Butterfield was good or bad at. We used him in the same way 'Boro used him (where he struggled), not in the way he was used at Huddersfield (where he was very good).  He played much further forward for Huddersfield and had mobile guys running off him, we sat him in front of the back 4, with a massive gap to the forwards and just hoped something would happen.
At no stage in that early rush of signings did we ever seem to stop and think about what players where good and bad at, whether they could do what we needed from their position, and whether they were going to replicate what they had done well at previous clubs when they got here.  

I'll skip over the horrendous contradiction I've highlighted there...
The big issue wasn't just the fact we kept sacking managers and kept letting them rebuild the squad, it's the fact we kept appointing managers with a radically different style to the previous one.  If we'd gone the equivalent of like McLaren->Lampard->Cocu we'd have been in much better shape. They all play vaguely similar styles of football, with similar players in similar systems.  They're not identical obviously, but there's more similarity that not.  Instead we basically alternated between managers who wanted to play possession and managers who wanted to be very direct.
Looking from the outside, the whole thing just screamed reactionary thinking, with no clear sign of having an actual plan.  Players wilted second half of the season, get a manager in to kick up the backside. Bryson got injured, sign the most expensive midfielder we can find.  We need more goals, sign the top scorer in the league, even though he plays in a different position in a different system and hasn't scored for 3 months.  Our promising young left back isn't quite ready for the first team yet, so spend £3m+, prem wages and a long contract on Malone.  Just endless random decisions that don't tie up with any other decision being made at the club.
And the really frustrating thing is, Mel described the right plan almost exactly when he took over (the Derby Way stuff). He either never had the balls to follow through on it (being willing to say no to managers etc), or the knowledge to know why it wasn't working. 

Good posts @duncanjwitham.  The problems we have now stem from the signings made when Clement was appointed and Mel took sole control.  We gambled on going up and it didn’t pay off.  It was a here and now approach rather than a strategic plan.  And moving between managers and style of play at a rate of knots.
From what we know of the meeting a few weeks back is that one of the things Mel said is that he couldn’t understand why managers wanted to sign players rather than give chances to our own talent.  When Johnson signed I seem to remember in the January time (?) Mel saying it was too good an opportunity to miss.  Three signings summed up the change in attitude - Shackell, Butterfield and Johnson.  Previously we’d never have signed a player for >£3M let alone a 32 year old centre half who’ll you’ll never get your money back on.  And when Hughes and Bryson were injured, previously we’d have dipped in the loan market (e.g. replacing Thorne with Mascarell).
The only manager who really aligned with Mel’s view of bringing your own through was Cocu.  He even said he’d rather loan a player for a year to let a player develop rather than buy someone, give them, a 3 or 4 year contract and end up losing the academy player because they don’t get a chance.
We can blame the EFL, Gibson or whoever for our current plight but ultimately that’s pointing the finger at the symptom.  The cause started a few years ago because we gambled and lost.

I don't think they necessarily need to be "decided by the manager". Obviously, the manager should have the final call on whether to sign them or not, but I don't think they always have to be involved from the start.  If Morris was dead-set on making this Derby-Way stuff work, it shouldn't really matter if the manager is involved anyway - everyone should be pulling in the same direction.  We should have a style of play in mind and be appointing managers that play that way, signing players that play that way, and developing academy players to fit too.
I genuinely have no idea who was in charge of transfers in those early Morris days, and I'm not sure it was one single person.  We seem to know Blackman was a Clement request.  We know Weimann and a few others were lined up (but not confirmed, obviously) before Clement was given the job.  There's various suggestions/allegations about Sam Rush's approach to transfers.  A few of the signings honestly feel like Morris either wanting to get the boys back together(Ince, Shackell, Wisdom), or basically have a new train set to play with (Johnson).  There was definitely a too-many-cooks problem somewhere there.
I have no idea what McClaren's job actually entails, but I think someone like him in charge of making sure the Derby-Way happens is absolutely what we need.  Someone that actually understands football, understands youth-development and is willing to make hard decisions ("we are *not* signing Malone when we have Buchanan and Lowe in line, you can have a loan for a year if we need it" etc).

I'll skip over the horrendous contradiction I've highlighted there...
The big issue wasn't just the fact we kept sacking managers and kept letting them rebuild the squad, it's the fact we kept appointing managers with a radically different style to the previous one.  If we'd gone the equivalent of like McLaren->Lampard->Cocu we'd have been in much better shape. They all play vaguely similar styles of football, with similar players in similar systems.  They're not identical obviously, but there's more similarity that not.  Instead we basically alternated between managers who wanted to play possession and managers who wanted to be very direct.
Looking from the outside, the whole thing just screamed reactionary thinking, with no clear sign of having an actual plan.  Players wilted second half of the season, get a manager in to kick up the backside. Bryson got injured, sign the most expensive midfielder we can find.  We need more goals, sign the top scorer in the league, even though he plays in a different position in a different system and hasn't scored for 3 months.  Our promising young left back isn't quite ready for the first team yet, so spend £3m+, prem wages and a long contract on Malone.  Just endless random decisions that don't tie up with any other decision being made at the club.
And the really frustrating thing is, Mel described the right plan almost exactly when he took over (the Derby Way stuff). He either never had the balls to follow through on it (being willing to say no to managers etc), or the knowledge to know why it wasn't working. 

I don't think they necessarily need to be "decided by the manager". Obviously, the manager should have the final call on whether to sign them or not, but I don't think they always have to be involved from the start.  If Morris was dead-set on making this Derby-Way stuff work, it shouldn't really matter if the manager is involved anyway - everyone should be pulling in the same direction.  We should have a style of play in mind and be appointing managers that play that way, signing players that play that way, and developing academy players to fit too.
I genuinely have no idea who was in charge of transfers in those early Morris days, and I'm not sure it was one single person.  We seem to know Blackman was a Clement request.  We know Weimann and a few others were lined up (but not confirmed, obviously) before Clement was given the job.  There's various suggestions/allegations about Sam Rush's approach to transfers.  A few of the signings honestly feel like Morris either wanting to get the boys back together(Ince, Shackell, Wisdom), or basically have a new train set to play with (Johnson).  There was definitely a too-many-cooks problem somewhere there.
I have no idea what McClaren's job actually entails, but I think someone like him in charge of making sure the Derby-Way happens is absolutely what we need.  Someone that actually understands football, understands youth-development and is willing to make hard decisions ("we are *not* signing Malone when we have Buchanan and Lowe in line, you can have a loan for a year if we need it" etc).

I don't think they necessarily need to be "decided by the manager". Obviously, the manager should have the final call on whether to sign them or not, but I don't think they always have to be involved from the start.  If Morris was dead-set on making this Derby-Way stuff work, it shouldn't really matter if the manager is involved anyway - everyone should be pulling in the same direction.  We should have a style of play in mind and be appointing managers that play that way, signing players that play that way, and developing academy players to fit too.
I genuinely have no idea who was in charge of transfers in those early Morris days, and I'm not sure it was one single person.  We seem to know Blackman was a Clement request.  We know Weimann and a few others were lined up (but not confirmed, obviously) before Clement was given the job.  There's various suggestions/allegations about Sam Rush's approach to transfers.  A few of the signings honestly feel like Morris either wanting to get the boys back together(Ince, Shackell, Wisdom), or basically have a new train set to play with (Johnson).  There was definitely a too-many-cooks problem somewhere there.
I have no idea what McClaren's job actually entails, but I think someone like him in charge of making sure the Derby-Way happens is absolutely what we need.  Someone that actually understands football, understands youth-development and is willing to make hard decisions ("we are *not* signing Malone when we have Buchanan and Lowe in line, you can have a loan for a year if we need it" etc).

I'll skip over the horrendous contradiction I've highlighted there...
The big issue wasn't just the fact we kept sacking managers and kept letting them rebuild the squad, it's the fact we kept appointing managers with a radically different style to the previous one.  If we'd gone the equivalent of like McLaren->Lampard->Cocu we'd have been in much better shape. They all play vaguely similar styles of football, with similar players in similar systems.  They're not identical obviously, but there's more similarity that not.  Instead we basically alternated between managers who wanted to play possession and managers who wanted to be very direct.
Looking from the outside, the whole thing just screamed reactionary thinking, with no clear sign of having an actual plan.  Players wilted second half of the season, get a manager in to kick up the backside. Bryson got injured, sign the most expensive midfielder we can find.  We need more goals, sign the top scorer in the league, even though he plays in a different position in a different system and hasn't scored for 3 months.  Our promising young left back isn't quite ready for the first team yet, so spend £3m+, prem wages and a long contract on Malone.  Just endless random decisions that don't tie up with any other decision being made at the club.
And the really frustrating thing is, Mel described the right plan almost exactly when he took over (the Derby Way stuff). He either never had the balls to follow through on it (being willing to say no to managers etc), or the knowledge to know why it wasn't working. 

I'll skip over the horrendous contradiction I've highlighted there...
The big issue wasn't just the fact we kept sacking managers and kept letting them rebuild the squad, it's the fact we kept appointing managers with a radically different style to the previous one.  If we'd gone the equivalent of like McLaren->Lampard->Cocu we'd have been in much better shape. They all play vaguely similar styles of football, with similar players in similar systems.  They're not identical obviously, but there's more similarity that not.  Instead we basically alternated between managers who wanted to play possession and managers who wanted to be very direct.
Looking from the outside, the whole thing just screamed reactionary thinking, with no clear sign of having an actual plan.  Players wilted second half of the season, get a manager in to kick up the backside. Bryson got injured, sign the most expensive midfielder we can find.  We need more goals, sign the top scorer in the league, even though he plays in a different position in a different system and hasn't scored for 3 months.  Our promising young left back isn't quite ready for the first team yet, so spend £3m+, prem wages and a long contract on Malone.  Just endless random decisions that don't tie up with any other decision being made at the club.
And the really frustrating thing is, Mel described the right plan almost exactly when he took over (the Derby Way stuff). He either never had the balls to follow through on it (being willing to say no to managers etc), or the knowledge to know why it wasn't working. 

IIRC Gibson’s argument was that we had used our extra financial headroom to outbid them on buying Waghorn. And apparently having Waghorn, for reasons that science can not yet explain, gave us an advantage ?‍♂️.

IIRC Gibson’s argument was that we had used our extra financial headroom to outbid them on buying Waghorn. And apparently having Waghorn, for reasons that science can not yet explain, gave us an advantage ?‍♂️.

IIRC Gibson’s argument was that we had used our extra financial headroom to outbid them on buying Waghorn. And apparently having Waghorn, for reasons that science can not yet explain, gave us an advantage ?‍♂️.

IIRC Gibson’s argument was that we had used our extra financial headroom to outbid them on buying Waghorn. And apparently having Waghorn, for reasons that science can not yet explain, gave us an advantage ?‍♂️.

IIRC Gibson’s argument was that we had used our extra financial headroom to outbid them on buying Waghorn. And apparently having Waghorn, for reasons that science can not yet explain, gave us an advantage ?‍♂️.