Ghost of Clough

The club have stated the aim is to get promoted. No L1 club has a ready made squad for the Championship, but we have a summer transfer window to prepare. Hull are chasing promotion, so what they're spending is of insignificance to our first season back in the Championship. What are mid-table sides spending? What about those battling relegation?

They can be good players (in the right system) and bad players (in Warne's system). For example, you could get Huddlestone and Ledley to bomb up and down the pitch and they'll tire quickly, get caught out of position defensively and leave large gaps in the middle of the field (sound familiar?), or you could have them sitting deep, leave very little gap between themselves and the defence and they'll look very good.

Gellaw 202 (the stadium) and The Club are both owned by Clowes Developments. The £750k is essentially moved from the left hand to the right hand. I believe a 'real rent' has to be paid for P&S purposes.

Wheeldon only just stepped up to U21 football a few games before Christmas. Give him 12 months at that level before judging where to send him on loan. I don't think he's ready for first team game time. Fapetu also only stepped up to U21 football his season. He's been a regular starter (helped by the occasional absence of DRobinson and Radcliffe being out for several months). He was regular contributor of goals and assists for the U18s last season, but has so far failed to contribute to a goal this season. Just like Wheeldon, he'll need another year or so at U21 level before he's loaned out. I wouldn't expect him to be involved in first team games until next season.

For the last few games I've tried to guess what lineup Warne would pick. Just in case Warne has been looking at my team to help him with his own selection, this time I'm going with my own team... Wildsmith Wilson Nelson Cashin Elder Bird Thompson Sibley Mendez-Laing Blackett-Taylor Collins Subs: Vickers, Bradley, Ward, Hourihane, DRobinson, Barkhuizen, Weston 433 because it gives us the control in midfield we need (and we havent got another senior striker to play alongside Collins). The front 3 ince chosen are our biggest goal threats available. Wilson starts at RB but gets moved to RW when Mendez-Laing and Blackett-Taylor have tired - Ward on at RB and Barkhuizen LW. Wildsmith in goal will instill more confidence in the defence and the crowd. A youthful midfield 3 to provide energy, with Bird at the base to actually link our defence and midfield together. Hourihane to find a new role as super-sub... coming on late to shut games down or to provide something different from set-pieces. Meanwhile, DRobinson is eased into L1 football.

In the example you give it was because Pearson signed him for his 442. We then sacked him and hired McClaren who wanted to play 433 - Vydra is neither a lone forward or a winger. The following season was under Rowett who played him with a strike partner. What's the excuse for Warne when he's made these signings himself?

How many of Warne's 12 signings from this season (not including Embleton) are starters in a fully fit squad? Only Nyambe, Nelson and Blackett-Taylor? Maybe Wilson too depending on formation. Only Neson and Wilson have played in more than 50% of the total minutes this league season. The only other signing to be on the pitch more than Sibley is Nyambe. Maybe if Warne spent what he did more wisely, he would have improved our starting 11 more than we have. How much are we paying Washington, Waghorn and John-Jules? Collectively, they've been on the pitch 400 mins less than our 8th most used player. Wages wasted on Embleton who only featured for 52 minutes. High end wages for the likes of Bradey and Wardcand barely playing.

There's a difference between 10-20 minutes at the end of games or 1/2 starts over a season versus starting every week. The likes of John O'Shea and Wes Brown were good squad players for Man Utd, but were only good enough to be regular starters in a side battling relegation. Fabio Carvalho was playing infrequently for Liverpool last season, now he's on loan at Hull to play regularly. Freddie Ladapo from Ipswich to Charlton...Springett from Norwich to Northampton... the list goes on... Other Cat 1 teams like Reading are using players in their first team who I wouldn't even put in our U21 side. If I were manager, I absolutely would have used Brown and Robinson a lot more than they have been. Weston would have had a few appearances following on from his good form in the U21s and brief appearance in the first team 9when he grabbed a goal and an assist). I would have given Cox a few outings at the end of games as a LCB in a back 3 - he's much better suited to that role than Cashin who would be better in the middle of a back 3 than on the left. However, I wouldn't expect them to be starting a run of games unless their perfomances when given a shot meritted it. The U21 squad is deplated due to a couple of bad years in terms of scholar year groups passing through and not making the grade as well as 4 players who would have been good enough being snapped up by PL clubs. The U18s have stepped up early to fill that void. We also had to recruit lower potential players to help boost the numbers - Ridd, Oduroh, Bartley, Jeffcott, Radcliffe, Lindsay, Gibson-Hammond, Nto, Nunn, Weston, Oseni... In terms of 1st year scholarship groups following on from Cashin, Sibley, etc in 2018, there is only Delap and Bardell who are at our club or a higher level from 2019, Gordon and Williams from 2020. This 2020 groups would ordinarliy be our senior players in the U21 squad now, however the rest of them have been released. From the 2021 group, Ryan moved to Brighton, Eze to Norwich, Ebiowei to Palace, whilst 4 others were released at the end of their scholarships (after 2nd year at U18 level). This is a big reason behind fewer U21 players being ready to step up than we would have liked. In summary, there are a lot of youngsters coming through, but it's a bit soon for most of them. A few of them are ready for infrequent game time in our first team, but Warne doesn't like taking risks. If they aren't getting game time here, then loans out to clubs where they will play regularly is important.

Hugill only has 1 more goal that Brown in PL2 this season. He also plays in a side which are the 2nd top scorers in the country, having scored twice as manay as our U21 side. If we're at the point where we think Hugill is a good signing for us, then why haven't we given Brown a serious run in the first team beforehand?

I think only 1 win in 4 is a factor - we didn't score a single goal in the other 3. In that one game we did win, we needed a 93rd minute goal to take all 3 points. This was against a team in L2, a team in the releation zone, a team who were only 2 points clear of the releagation zone, and a team who had gone 8 games without a win.

People keep stating they have a good squad and a good budget, but they won't even have a top 10 budget this season. For reference, only 2 years ago (in the Championship) their wages were under £13m... a figure no too dissimilar to our wage bill in this league. Whilst their wage bill since then would have shot up it would still be a modest wage bill compared withthe rest of the division. Their transfer expenditure is also on the back of selling Lewis-Potter for £16m last season.

Warne has opted to only use Robinson in the EFL Trophy. Last season he got 45 minutes against Mansifeld - coming on as a half-time sub at 1-1, withthe game finishing 1-1 This season, he got a full 90, but only against Wolves U21s. He's been fit for most of the season and has been an unused sub in 9 games, including games where we won 2-0 (we only used 3 out of 5 subs) and 3-0 (we only used 3 out of 5 subs)

It's definitely too soon to smash the panic buttons. However, the way Warne sets the team up means we struggle when we're lacking squad depth - we saw it at the start of this season, we had it when we didn't rotate the squad as much as Warne would have liked last season, and we're seeing it now (6-8 players had been unavialble). It doesn't help that a significant number of signigns are injury prone or have a recent history of not playing much. Warne needs to trust the players on the fringes of his squad more (we said the same last season). There's no reason for players such as Ward to have just 30 minutes of football over a 4 week period when he's fully fit and other players are starting to struggle with fatigue a little bit. The use of players such as DBrown and DRobinson at the end of games needs to happen more frequently in periods when we do have a mini injury crisis as it helps keep the senior player fresher. More games for Brown earlier in the season would have meant he'd now feel comfortable playing more of a part now when we only have 1 fit forward. Instead we'll now have to rely on Collins playing full 90s or move Mendez-laing upfront and weaken ourselves on the wings.

Excluding our mortgage, our household expenditure is roughly £28k per year (2 adults, 2 toddlers). About £4k of that is the cost of having a single car and another £3k for childcare (I know some people who are spending in excess of £10k on childcare)

I think everyone at the club knows this squad would struggle in the Championship. In fact, I there isn't a L1 squad which wouldn't. Any side getting promotion this season will make at least 7 signings in the summer, as is always the case for promoted sides.

I think even Phill Brown would struggle to not finish top 2 with this squad. Someone like Warnock would jump at the chance of managing us thhrough to the end of the season, and it's easy to see him gettting a lot more out of us than we've seen

I didn't intend to imply it's all down to Warne. Mereley, a focus on situational passing in training and working on when to make the runs and when not to will improve the success of our passing during matches. If training wasn't a factor, then why do teams bother doing it? The best passing teams in the world rehearse how they're going to pass it from back to front, so much so they can almost do it blind-folded during games. It's no different at our level - the more practice put towards something, generally the better you are at it...

DRobinson's the only player who I think is ready for regular football at this level (lower end L1 level). I would trust his ability to play (and start) the odd game for us at this end of the table. He isn't yet ready for several starts. However, infrequent appearances throughtout the rest of the season would be enough to earn him a loan move for next season. He needs to improve his end product, but otherwise he's another safe and reliable player on the ball. DBrown is next in the pecking order. He too would be good enough for seeing games out and the rare start. His level (in my opinion) is L2. However, the benefit of a National League loan is our ability to recall him in an emergency whilst a L2 loan would be fixed until the season has ended. The exposure to men's football will be a big boost from him, as I think it could be the difference between him mentally beign ready to play regularly for us next season. Radcliffe and Weston have shown at other clubs that they are capable at handling themselves in men's football. Radcliffe played in the National League North last season, so a step up this season would have been a fair assupmption - he's been injured since October. Weston played infrequiently in the Scottish Championship last season for Partick and Cove Rangers. He's National League North or even National League level. Oduroh, who spent the first half of this season in and out of a National League side, is a bit behind Weston.

Warne opted to use Mendez-Laing in the middle rather than playing John-Jules there. What hope does an academy player have?

I think Nyambe is a better RCB than RB as his attacking output is minimal We'd also have a second 11 (with everyone fit) of: Vickers Rooney Bradley Forsyth Ward Thompson Fornah Sibley Barkhuizen Washington Mystery-new-forward Which leaves John-Jules, Waghorn and Smith in reserve.

To be honest, I'm expecting a shift to 343/523 sooner or later: Wildmith Nyambe Nelson Cashin Wilson Bird Hourihane Elder Mendez-Laing Baclkett-Taylor Collins

Some simple passes going astray are from the passer expecting the wide player to continue his run down the line. Others are from being caught under pressure. Both of these are a direct result from alack of coaching those aspects of play

That depends on which highlights you watched. The first was our 5-2 win over Lincoln earlier in the season in the Central League Cup. The 2nd was yesterday's 4-2 loss in the Central League

Defensively, Wilson's making just as many tackles as Nyambe at RB (dribbled past a fraction more. He's also making more interceptions and commiting fewer fouls. The big difference is the number of crosses Nyambe blocks compared with Wilson (he blocks crosse 3 times more often). Given Smith's contribution in his 1 game at RB was lower than what we've seen from Ward there this season (although less liekly to give away penalties), I would be reuctatnt to use him there either. It's less about Wilson's attacking output being wasted and more about trying to stay as defensively solid as possible. It hasn't helped that we've relied on just Barkhuizen and Mendez-Laing on the wings for the past few games with no-one on the bench to freshen it up - a factor mitigated with the Blackett-Taylor signing. It'll hopefully be just 1 more game of Wilson at RB before Nyambe.

Based on the effort he put in vs Bradford, especially defensively, I can't see him getting another start for a while