Ghost of Clough

As has been mentioned, there are some gems to find up in Scotland who would be willing to join us. The problem here is, you're getting close to 50 suggestions on 50 different posts, followed up by "Scotty McScotface is playing tonight vs Bonnyrigg Rose. He's a quality player" for every suggestion. Some of your suggestions wouldn't even get into Carlisle's side, never mind one which will either be opening for romotion from L1, or looking to finish lower mid-table in the Championship. There's so many suggestions in a short space of time that people are bored of your suggestions and won't even bother looking them up to see if they are any good or not. They're now just going straight to the ignore list. My suggestion for you is to take your time and compile your own list maybe limit it to the best 2 players in each position where we have a gap in our squad for next season. Assume we'll be promoted if you want, or state if they'd be a L1 signing, a Champ signing, or a someone we should sign no matter which league we're in. Maybe explain why they're better than someone we already have, and maybe explain how they suit Warne's style.

Reading the suggestion thread takes up all our time so no opportunity to post here

Played in the last game. He's DM from Southampton, so will be someone the academy staff will know well.

Doesn't seem like it. They haven't even announced the lineup and kick off in 40 mins. Team now announced:

Which debts are those?

Only 5 and a half months until the summer window ends 🤣

He's done nothing at the 6 English league clubs he's played for: 1 goal in 15 games for Burton 8 goals in 40 games for Preston 2 goals in 17 games for Northampton 0 goals in 5 games for Accrington 1 goal in 15 games for Bradford 0 goals in 3 games for Stoke The Scottish Championship is a poor league with the odd gem of a player in it.

Dundee Utd's top scorer was released by Burton in the summer after only scoring 1 goal for them. That tells you about the current level of the Scottish Championship.

You seriously aren;t using sites such as SalarySport to state definitely what certain players are on, are you? 🙈

Anyone playing regular men's football should not be signed for our U21 squad. Even those who are 20 years old in our academy should be sent out for experience. I do think he's a good suggestion though. As a winger with 12 goals and 7 assists in 33 games this season, he is someone to keep an eye on. His stats are exceptional, albeit in the Scottish 2nd division.

Our L1 club wage budget would be around 19th in the Championship. Our Championship wage budget would still be lower midtable (over £25m to be top half, with £35m not even top 6). In terms of budget we would be slightly lower than Blackburn. I'll use them as an example due to them also having a Cat 1 academy, so non-playing staff busgets will be closer than most. Their wage structure will be such that the average player will be on around £10k, top earners around £15k, and fringe players down near the £5k mark - each being about 50% higher than the equivalent in a L1 promotion side (top players on £10k, average just below £7k..) It doesn't make sense to splurge a large chunk of budget on a £20k a week player. Firstly, it it disrupts the wage structure in place and results in spiralling wages (existing players wanting a proportionate amount more than they're currently on). Secondly, it's a high risk strategy, as you need to ensure that player stays fit - you could get a top end player for £15k and a younger promising player on £5k instead.

Well, our accounts showed a wage bill of £17.2m for 22/23 (13 months). Bolton's most recent accounts (21/22) showed they had a 10.2m wage bill

To be fair, he bought Reading in 2017, with Roeselare folding in 2020, and Beijing Renhe in 2021

Yet a player who almost joined a PL club in the summer wouldn't be good enough to step up to the Championship? Or the player who leads the goals and assists chart in League 1? But you suggest a forward with half as many goal involvements in the same league, another forward who has failed to score in 2 out of his 3 league seasons at his current club (43 apps in total), another who hasn't scored this season, with a season high of 8 goals, and another who would destroy our summer transfer budget. You suggested 5 different RWBs despite us already having 2 contracted for next season, with strong 3rd choice as cover - clearly not a position we'll be recruiting. Then there's also a number of others who will be massively outside of our wage structure, such as McKenna, Worrall and McBurnie.

Sign players who are used to playing in the sytem we're trying to implements and stick to that system. We'll then have a higher success rate with signings. Signing wingers, wing-backs, or full backs, then not playing with wingers, wing-backs, or full backs, is a recipe for failure. So too is signing slower defenders to play in a high line, orleavijg them exposed by pushing the other CBs high up the pitch. Flip flopping between formations and having a mish-mash of players who prefer different formations (including the ones signed by Warne) were probably bigger reasons. We're looking better now because this formation suits the majority of our fit squad members. We had Mendez-Laing and Barkhuizen contracted for the season, but Warne wanted to play a system which didn't use them so didn't sign anyone to play out wide. Except, a few weeks into the season we decided we now did want to play with wingers, but only had 2 players who were comfortable playing there. On to January, we finally sign a winger, only to change to a system which doesn't use wingers the very next day. With him back from injury and getting opportunities off the bench in a more settled system, he's starting to look better. We signed Elder to play a fairly unfamiliar LWB role and he struggled early on. He then picked up an injury which kept him out for a while. He returned when we were playing a back 4 and looked settled after a couple of games. Picked up another injury and we've gone back to wing backs. Where will he fit in long term? Wilson and Ward were signed for the RWB role but had niggles. Nyambe came in and we shifted away from a setup which used RWBs. Upon their return, we stuck with 4 at the back, which meant Ward/Wilson had to either play at RB where they have at times struggled defensively, or further forward where Ward doesn't have to pace to beat a man, and Wilson lacks consistent end product. Which brings us back to Nyambe. Where will he fit in? He's good 3rd choice cover at RWB (behind Ward and Wilson), but you don't want him playing there too often due to his poor end product. He doesn't get in at RCB over Nelson, so would we drop one of our highest earners (Bradley) to put him in? Or do we go back to a back 4, drop Bradley and waste Ward/Wilson? We're then onto the truly bad buys... Fornah was always a bad buy who will cost us a few hundred thousand eventually. When we already had Bird, Hourihane, Smith, Thompson, and Sibley, with DRobinson coming through, Fornah wasn't the right type of player to sign. We needed either an out and out DM (such as Adams), or an AM with end product. Embleton and John-Jules were high risk signings we should never have taken. With a number of other injury risks in the squad (Forsyth, Elder, Wilson, Waghorn, Washington) we couldn't afford to take on more. Embleton had only just returned to training after being out since December, and John-Jules was signed injured, having been out since the previous October.

I seriously doubt your judgement of ability when you think a 28 year old forward with zero goals in 27 appearances this season would be a "quality" signing. He has 7 goals in 73 league appearances for Livingston, following on from 4 goals in 20 games for Arbroath. Your suggestions just come accross as naming any player you've heard of without actually looking into whether they would be a good signing for us or not.

I included all of your suggestions. Why would I take into account other people's opinions when you even said "they would all be coming in to play" in a follow up to me asking how many we should sign.

Forsyth can stay as he's Scottish. Hourihane and Collins can too as they're Irish. The rest don't meet the requirements I'm afraid.

Appologies if I misread what you posted then. It's hard to keep up when only you have suggested players over the past 8 pages of this thread. Your post suggested we go in for him if Blackburn aren't interested in him anymore, but didn't directly state waiting for him to run down his contract. This is also the summer suggestion thread, so you can see why I got mixed up. However, your squad, assuming all out of contract players leave and all of your suggestions join: GK: Vickers, Kelly, McCrorie, Slicker, Wickens RCB: Nelson, Nyambe, Rooney, Welsh CB: Bradley, Souttar, McKenna, Mayo, Hamilton LCB: Cashin, Worrell, Wood, Deas RWB: Ward, Wilson, Strain, Ralston, Mulligan, Johnston LWB: Elder, Beck CM: ACampbell, Watson, Barron, Miller CM: Fornah, Baccus, Irving, JCampbell, Jack RW: Armstrong, Cameron, Doak, Poveda LW: Mendez-Laing, Blackett-Taylor CF: Washington, Bair, McBurnie, Nouble, Bowie, Hornby, McGuire Only a respectable 48 man squad. A couple more and we'll have as many as Forest.

We're undefeated under this ref: Morecambe, November 2022 - 1-1. The ref awarded us 2 penalties and both were saved. Oxford, March 2023 - 3-2 win Bolton have won 2, drawn 3 and lost 1. 1 penalty awarded for and 1 against.

Bolton have only won 2 out of their last 6 games. Interestingly, they have won both of the games against sides who fielded 4 at the back, drawing 2 and losing 2 against sides with 3/5 at the back. In fact, since New Year, they have only beaten a 3/5 at the back side on three occasions (Burton, Cheltenham and Carlisle), all of which are in the bottom 6 of the table. Their only other wins being Wycombe, Cambridge (twice), and Oxford on Tuesday. All wins agaisnt weaker sides, including Oxford who have picked up just 14 points in 13 games since we beat them.

Further proof you don't know what you're talking about. You're using a small 4 game period to justify your argument. Your argument is like saying Kane will go 6 games without a goal to "even out" his xG and actual goals. Why can't you see some players are better at finishing than others?

I always thought the only way their owner will leave is by putting them into administration first. I think this makes that even more likely to happen

But he will cost a sum of money if a club wants to sign him in the summer, hence why Blackburn had agreed a sum of money to pay in the summer. he won't be a free signing.

Where does that say what Blackburn had agreed to pay prior to the deal falling through?