Ghost of Clough

It's an improvement but it's hard to say how effective we'd be against the likes of Spain. Unfortunately, there are no games like that lined up during Carsley's interim period as head coach. Interestingly, I would say the style of play Carsley has implemented is very close to what Warne wasnts from us.

Transfermarkt gives an interesting trend in player values. If we include players to have left before reaching our first team (Delap, Gordon), and take their current values, then I think we gain a sense of what is possible. The following list is based on what scholar intakes they would have been part of: 2017: JBrown, Buchanan, Bird, Knight, Whittaker = £22.2m 2018: Cashin, Ebosele, ABrown, Sibley, LThompson, Stretton, Plange = £15.5m 2019: Bardell, Delap = £8.1m 2020: Williams, Draper = £0.5m 2021: DRobinson, Ebiowei, KGordon, Weston, Draper = £2.9m 2022*: Grant, Kellyman = £1.5m That list also shows how a couple of poor intakes coincided with a drop in U21 results (which coincidentally coincided with recovering from admin). * DBrown, Cox, KRobinson, etc don't currently have a Transfermarkt value But we aren't talking about putting these youngster in the first team squad. It's about giving them some first team minutes as part of their development programme - just like Chirewa and Ozoh have had at Wolves and Palace respectively. We even had the likes of Fapetu and Weston making an impression when they did have a rare first team appearance, only to be pushed back to the U21s for the following game and rarely making the first team squad again. This is when you want to keep them in the squad so they can ride that good form - they either claim a first team place, or they drop back down when their form drops off.

I'll never know how Jerome never won the Puskas award that year. Signed on a 1.5 year deal, but Lampard didn't want him so he left after 7 months at the club.

Ooh... forgot about Harness 😬 Warne will probably put him on the benchbin place of Brown.

Zetterström Nyambe Nelson Cashin Elder Ozoh Goudmijn Adams Jackson Yates Mendez-Laing Subs: Vickers, Phillips, Ward, Forsyth, Thomspon, Osborn, Barkhuizen, Collins, Brown

He played vs Man City U21s the night before. Didn't Osborn suffer a late injury ruling him out of the squad?

Remember, it's actually a 27 man squad with Rooney and Brown

22/23 should be included - we didn't lose all of our highly promising youngsters. In fact, in the 3 age groups under the likes of Sibley and Cashin, the only youngsters we lost during or after admin are Williams and Ebiowei. The next most promising is still with us - DRobinson. From the year below them, only Kellyman was lost. The same age group as DBrown, Hawkins, Cox, KRobinson. Either way, 3-1 up vs MK Dons and we only used 4 subs, leaving Aghatise and Oduroh on the bench. 4-0 vs Accrington and Stearman comes on instead of Rooney. 5-0 vs Torquay with Smith and Collins coming off the bench with Aghatise unused. Only 6 subs named in a 3-0 cup game vs Barnsley In 23/24, we beat Fleetwood 3-0 in the EFL Trophy. John-Jules and Nelson brought on with DBrown unused. 2-0 vs Lincoln in the same competition, and we only use 4 subs despite DRobinson and DBrown being on the bench. Losing 3-1 vs Crewe and we bring Bradley and Waghorn on, only use 4 subs, and leave Cox, DRobinson, DBrown and Weston on the bench. In the league, we were 3-0 up vs Burton and bring Elder and Wilson on but leave Rooney on the bench l. 2-0 vs Carlisle and only 3 subs used but left DRobinson on the bench. 3-0 vs Barnsley and only 4 subs used hut leave DRobinson and Weston on the bench. 3-0 vs Leyton Orient and we bring John-Jules on instead of Fapetu. 3-0 vs Exeter and Thomspon stays on the bench. 3-0 vs Port Vale but Thompson stays on the bench again despite only using 4 subs. 3-0 vs Bristol and DRobinson stays on the bench. There's enough evidence there for opportunities being there but not given. Fornah turned 24 2 weeks after we signed him, so I don't know why you've included him as an academy player. True..he missed a third of the season. Proportionally, he would have featured for 1062 mins if not for injury.

Why from January and ignoring the other season and a half under Warne?

Not good enough in our 1st season in L1 for more than the equivalent to two 90s? We loaned in White and gave him 539 minutes when we could have given them to Thompson (or Robinson). You can't tell me we would have been worse off. Why loan in Springett for 2.5 90s, when we could have given those minutes to one of our own youngsters?

So why hasn't Thompson had more minutes in the league? Why has Robinson been sitting in the U21s for 2 years, despite getting his league debut under Rooney? He's even been on the bench in league games where we've been 3-0 up. Why wasn't Weston rewarded for his good performance in the EFL Trophy? The opportunities have been there, Warne just opted not to use them. Edit: reply tagged on Unless you think bringing someone like Robinson on when 3-0 up with 30 mins to go is going to cost us points, then there has been several opportunities

The point made by @Tyler Durden (and many others, including myself), is that we could have done more in the foreign market to avoid competing with richer clubs for the same players. It has also been shown how Warne is reluctant to introduce yougnsters into the first team (odd minutes here and there). @jono chose to ignore those comments completely, and focus on the "Until we get extra financial backing..." part which preceded it. On the foreign market The club made an active decision not to look abroad for a forward. Instead, gambled on competing with other clubs for domestic based players. This was a gamble which ultimately failed, resulting in us to looking at other options. On producing home grown players Brown was an unused sub in 3 league games, then brought on in the last minute vs Bristol when 3-0 up. He also started on the bench vs Barrow, when it was the perfect opportunity for him to show the club what he can do. We gained nothing by giving Collins 60 minutes. We need to do better at giving our brightest talents more of an opportunity. In 21/22, Thompson got 1521 minutes across 23 league games under Rooney. He then got only 160 minutes under Warne across 10 games in L1 (22/23), and was effectively pushed out the door by bringing in White. His game time only increased to 708 league minutes in 23/24 Minutes to others has also been extremely limited. Excluding games vs U21 sides, these are the minutes given to academy players under Warne in all competitions: Cybulski - 90 Robinson - 45 Oduroh - 44 Aghatise - 14 Bardell - 14 Radcliffe - 11 Fapetu - 9 Weston - 6 For comparison, Ozoh got 183 mins for Palace before he got loaned to us. Chirewa got 152 mins for Wovles and Springett 240 mins for Norwich. All played the majority of those minutes in the PL. Whereas for us, Brown's the only academy player to have featured in the league under Warne (only 15 minutes!!!). Oduroh (19 mins) and Fapetu (7 mins) are the only other academy players to have featured in a competition other than the EFL Trophy. As demonstrated by pretty much every Cat 1 club, youngsters get a tast of the 1st team environment (100-300 mins), and are then either loaned out to continue their development, or they step up permanently to the first team. I'll reiterate a previous point - Warne needs to do better at bridging the gap.

Or you could read the whole sentence: "...start producing home grown strikers or start actually looking further afield then this tale of woe is going to be extended indefinitely"

Probably a tad harsh calling him a bad passer due to Cardiff's style of play.

It absolutely does show that. The lower down the leagues you go, the harder it is to get the 'ideal' players. As such, you make compromises and focus on what's most important - in Warne's case, that's athleticism. Afterall, if you want a team to play with a high press you don't want a 35 year old Rooney leading the line or Huddlestone in midfield.

Adams was a Warne signing to add pace and energy to our midfield - eventually knocking Hourihane out of the 11. Goudmijn's best attribute is breaking forward on the ball. Whilst not an 'athlete' in the sense of pace or power, his dribbling on the ball from midfield is something we've lacked since Knight left as is an attribute Warne values. Osborn has always been regarded as a hard working player with a good engine. Sheff Utd fans stated he lacks technical ability. All of our other permanent signings under Warne have at least one 'athletic' element to their game, some having multiple. Blackett-Taylor is a quick winger, with an ability to carry to ball forward. Ward, Elder and Wilson are all very fit full/wing backs, Wilson having a bit of pace and good at dribbling forward, whilst Elder wins a lot in the air of a LB. Nyambe is a strong and quick full back. Fornah is a CM who won a lot in the air, covered a lot of ground and drove forward on the ball. Bradley is dominant in the air. Nelson is good in the air and drives forward out of defence on the ball. Washington is/was a pacy/numble forward who drives forward on the ball and likes to break behind CBs. Waghorn was a hard working forward who won the ball back high up the pitch and offered a physical presence up front.

Smith, Hourihane and Bird to Ozoh, Adams, Goudmijn is a definite increase in athleticism. Overall, there is more pace, power, and ability to drive forward on the ball. Or are you claiming the latter 3 are better at neat/intricate passing than the former 3? For the system Warne wants (intense pressing and quick counters), then athleticism is top of the list for requirements - you need to be fit, quick, strong, and good at dribbling. Jackson and Mendez-Laing being as successful as they are also meet these criteria, whislt Elder and Wilson are the two fittest players at the club.

I would expect us to look at players in every position in an ongoing basis as circumstances can change at any point - injuries, sales, missing out on targets... I don't see any reason why we wouldn't at least have an analytical shortlist for every position.

The 26th man can only be registered as a replacement under extenuating circumstances (whether GK or not) - essenitally it won't happen. The guidance notes in the regulations state: "in other truly exceptional circumstances to include but not be limited to those set out in the note from EFL Player Admin found on the EFL Portal." However, if Zetterstrom and Vickers were injured (and Luthra not registered) an emergency keeper can be loaned in.

Good U21 free agents are very hard to find at this point in time - I doubt any would be an improvement on our 25 man squad, and few would even improve our U21 side. I wouldn't bother signing any of them. The best options who're available being: Marvin De Lima - Released from Bordeaux after making a few appearances last season mostly at LB but a couple also at RW. Potential to be a decent Championship LWB. Youns El Hilali - can play anywhere across the front 4 and had a pretty good record in AC Milan's academy, scoring 13 and assisting 3 in 22/23 for their U19 side. Last season, he struggled on loan at an Italian 3rd divisions side, then saw a small improvement at a Dutch 2nd division side.

The EFL release squad lists 7 days after the window closing.

7 goals and 4 assists in all competitions last season for Bristol so not far off the rate needed to get 10 a season.

How successful was the summer transfer window? Well, does anyone remember the interview with Warne, Barker and Hamshaw when they showed a board with what we believed were the targets? It's hard to make them all out, but the white counters on the left board indicated the target positions we wanted: GK, CB (x2), LB/LWB, CM (x4), AM/W (x2), CF (x2). Based on the list, we successfully signed 9 out of 12. The GK (Zetterstrom), a CB (Phillips), 4 CMs (Ozoh, Adams, Osborn and Goudmijn), the 2 AM/Ws (Chirewa and Harness), and a CF (Yates) We failed to sign a CB, LB/LWB, and a CF. The latter two positions presumably are where our focus will be for January. Given the apparent shift to a back 4 (at least for a primary formation), the CB and LB/LWB misses won't be felt so much. The CF miss has been talked about in quite a bit of depth in recent weeks, so I won't go into that any further. Overall, I think we were very close to our ideal transfer window. I'd even say our best since 2013. It's probably the first time since Lampard that we've had a well balanced squad, only missing a squad player in 1 position (with Cocu missing a winger and a CF, and then the fast decline in squad depth under Rooney). As we also know, we have 26 first teamers, so 3 will have to go out if we are to sign the two players we mostly need (LWB and CF). It means the players currently on the fringes need to do everything they can to fight for a squad place or they'll be out.

We won't be signing any free agents (at least until January) due to having a full squad - we can't make any changes outside of the window once registered, except for when we have vacant squad places (we don't)

There are a few players I would have in our squad, but I don't think any would be starting - Willock would be a rotation option on the wings, Robertson would battle with Goudmijn, maybe Al Ghazi (but he has barely played for over a year), and Deland looks like a tidy CB on the ball, but wouldn't get in over Cashin. I think they're the weakest side in the league. Plymouth have a couple of very good players who will get them points out of no where, whislt Portsmouth and Oxford are well coach and recruited smartly for their budgets. Only 3 sides conceded more and 3 sides had a worse GD last season too. It's no surprise to me they find themselves at the bottom of the table already.