Ghost of Clough

Omari Kellyman’s little brother has left the academy to move to Villa. 

The 14/15 season was before MM decided to through money at promotion. He saw injuries to the squad stop us earning promotion in 14/15, so tried to prevent that happening again.
Let's look at why we did so bad at the end of that season...
Defence
Buxton missed the final 11 games of the season leaving just Shotton (also covering RB) and Albentosa as options. Forsyth had to cover CB for the one game too.
Whitbread was already out injured since October, was rushed back into the side in April due to our injury crisis, played only 1 full games before picking up another injury 27 minutes into his 2nd start
Christie was out for the final 6 games. Due to Shotton also being injured at the time, Keogh filled in at RB for 2 games and Albentosa 1 until Shotton was rushed back in to the side.
Midfield
Thorne was injured in pre-season, and was only fit enough to play 29 minutes in the first team during this 12 game spell before returning to the treatment table.
Mascerall, his replacement, picked up an injury for the final 9 games.
Eustace, cover for both, picked up a career ending injury in the middle of January
Despite Hanson playing there for a couple of games, we struggled to find the right balance, even playing Dawkins and Warnock in midfield.
Forward
Martin was only fit enough to start 1 of the final 16 games, playing a total of 220 minutes during that spell.
Bent, our backup for Martin, was injured for the first 4 games of your 12 game run and for the penultimate game of the season.

The 14/15 season was before MM decided to through money at promotion. He saw injuries to the squad stop us earning promotion in 14/15, so tried to prevent that happening again.
Let's look at why we did so bad at the end of that season...
Defence
Buxton missed the final 11 games of the season leaving just Shotton (also covering RB) and Albentosa as options. Forsyth had to cover CB for the one game too.
Whitbread was already out injured since October, was rushed back into the side in April due to our injury crisis, played only 1 full games before picking up another injury 27 minutes into his 2nd start
Christie was out for the final 6 games. Due to Shotton also being injured at the time, Keogh filled in at RB for 2 games and Albentosa 1 until Shotton was rushed back in to the side.
Midfield
Thorne was injured in pre-season, and was only fit enough to play 29 minutes in the first team during this 12 game spell before returning to the treatment table.
Mascerall, his replacement, picked up an injury for the final 9 games.
Eustace, cover for both, picked up a career ending injury in the middle of January
Despite Hanson playing there for a couple of games, we struggled to find the right balance, even playing Dawkins and Warnock in midfield.
Forward
Martin was only fit enough to start 1 of the final 16 games, playing a total of 220 minutes during that spell.
Bent, our backup for Martin, was injured for the first 4 games of your 12 game run and for the penultimate game of the season.

The 14/15 season was before MM decided to through money at promotion. He saw injuries to the squad stop us earning promotion in 14/15, so tried to prevent that happening again.
Let's look at why we did so bad at the end of that season...
Defence
Buxton missed the final 11 games of the season leaving just Shotton (also covering RB) and Albentosa as options. Forsyth had to cover CB for the one game too.
Whitbread was already out injured since October, was rushed back into the side in April due to our injury crisis, played only 1 full games before picking up another injury 27 minutes into his 2nd start
Christie was out for the final 6 games. Due to Shotton also being injured at the time, Keogh filled in at RB for 2 games and Albentosa 1 until Shotton was rushed back in to the side.
Midfield
Thorne was injured in pre-season, and was only fit enough to play 29 minutes in the first team during this 12 game spell before returning to the treatment table.
Mascerall, his replacement, picked up an injury for the final 9 games.
Eustace, cover for both, picked up a career ending injury in the middle of January
Despite Hanson playing there for a couple of games, we struggled to find the right balance, even playing Dawkins and Warnock in midfield.
Forward
Martin was only fit enough to start 1 of the final 16 games, playing a total of 220 minutes during that spell.
Bent, our backup for Martin, was injured for the first 4 games of your 12 game run and for the penultimate game of the season.

I think Vickers (GK), Bradley (CB), Nelson (RCB), Ward (RWB) and Elder (LWB) were his top priorities in each of their positions.
I think we missed out on several CM, AM and CF (for either 3412 or 3421) targets before settling on Fornah, Washington, Waghorn and John-Jules.

I refer back to comments made by Wildsmith. He had to leave Sheffield Wednesday because it's easy to drop the academy graduate no matter how he performed.
Sibley and Thompson appear to fall in the same category.

Jury still out on Cashin? The player Brighton were willing to spent multiple millions on, and had a loan to a top half Championship club lined up?
Waghorn with 6 goals in 558 league minutes.
Sibley who has an average strike rate in general (1 goal contribution every 323 minutes), but actually has a very good record when actually played in his best position (1 per 219 minutes). For comparison, Hourihane has averaged 1 per 229 minutes. Sibley is nowhere near his peak yet either.

I refer back to comments made by Wildsmith. He had to leave Sheffield Wednesday because it's easy to drop the academy graduate no matter how he performed.
Sibley and Thompson appear to fall in the same category.

Point is, it takes a balanced approach. We don't seem to have one at the moment. It's all in the Championship players dropping a division basket, pretty much. I'm guessing we are paying Bradley a fair whack for this league, and that money could go on a couple of players from a lower league. Buy more raffle tickets.

I mainly drink at the pub too.

Jury still out on Cashin? The player Brighton were willing to spent multiple millions on, and had a loan to a top half Championship club lined up?
Waghorn with 6 goals in 558 league minutes.
Sibley who has an average strike rate in general (1 goal contribution every 323 minutes), but actually has a very good record when actually played in his best position (1 per 219 minutes). For comparison, Hourihane has averaged 1 per 229 minutes. Sibley is nowhere near his peak yet either.

I think our players are good enough. 
I wouldn't swap our squad for any other in the division..
Warne hasn't got to reduce the wage bill. 

I thought a couple of years. Last season with how late everything was sorted and with a brand new squad I expected us to start slowly and build. I still think autos this year has to be what we measure success against because financially we have a huge advantage.

We more or less couldn't give it to him due to the EFL's embargo restrictions (prior to administration!) limiting us to so many players with first team experience. Playing him in a first team game would have stopped us signing someone else (such as Jagielka). In my opinion, he was ready for first team football, which will be why he left to get it.
In terms of players we should have done better financially out of, other than the two you mentioned, there's only really Buchanan, Ebosele, and Ebiowei as things stand, all due to not being able to offer them new deals during administration.

Washington has managed 142 games at Championship level (predominantly in his preferred position,  CF), scoring 18 goals.
Sibley is at 97 games, scoring 7 goals. The majority of those games played on the wing, yet the majority of goals scored when playing central. It would only take a season and a bit to play more games at the highest level Washington has ever managed, and if played central consistently, he'd easily score more too.

Yes.  Wigan were bought out of admin on 30 March 2021 and sacked Leam Richardson some 20 months later on 10 November 2022.  Can't be bothered to look into the circumstances of any other clubs that have been in admin but sacking managers is part and parcel of football no matter what a clubs circumstances.  
Why would you give someone a four year contract if you weren't sure you could end if if they under-performed?
 

I'll be honest say I'd based my comment on how long I remember it taking to develop the academy post 2008-9 without really knowing what i was talking about and thinking it had been wiped out during the admin. I'm happy to wrong.

We seem to have had a tricky start to the season. The 4 teams the U18s have lost to occupy the top 4 places in the table, with a narrow 3-2 defeat vs Wolves. The other 3 (Man Utd, Man City and Liverpool appear to be a level above all others this season. We don't play any of those until the New Year now, so I'm hopeful the U18 squad will settle down and put a good run together even without the likes of Brown being an option.

Time for a reality check...
We CAN pay fees, but our manager has so far opted to not pay anything upfront - Washington, Fornah and Wilson will all cost us if we get promoted and/or sell them for a fee ourselves.
Our wage bill is definitely top 6, highly likely top 3, and possibly even top of the whole list. Our top 5 earners will be earning more than Cheltenham's entire squad!

What are you expecting a fully rebuilt academy to look like? How many more academy staff are we short? Players through the squads of what level?
The best academy seasons at U18 and U21 level was arguably 18/19 (when the U18s won the league and 19/20 (U21s finished 4th). We were fortunate to get a high number of good quality youngsters through at the same time who will have good EFL careers. Even prior to administration, we didn't have 2 consecutive batches matching those seasons. That U21 squad was often boosted by senior pros dropping down to help out - Bennett, Evans, Holmes, Wisdom, Shinnie, Forsyth, Martin and Anya all featured in that season.
2017 scholars - JBrown, Buchanan, Bird, Knight, Whittaker
2018 scholars - Cashin, Ebosele, Thompson, Sibley, Stretton
That's excluding a few who had a good impact at youth level too - French, Foster, Minkley, Dixon, McDonald, Archie Brown, and Wilson.
The highlights from the 2019 and 2020 batches (prior to admin impact) being Bardell, Solomon, Cybulski, and Williams. Delap (2019) and Gordon (2020) left prior to being first year scholars and before administration was a real possibility.
I'm not denying there will be in impact from the youngsters we lost during administration, but it's only really a couple from each age group, with the impact below the first year scholars being minimal.
2020 - Williams
2021 - Ryan, Kellyman, Ebiowei
2022 - Sharpe, Scanlon
2023 - Kaba
I can already see the quality of the squads we have left as matching that from the 2019 and 2020 intakes, despite the youngsters who did leave us, with just as many making the grade. 
The current issue I see is the stability of youngsters progressing through. We're missing an entire batch of youngsters from the U21s. That 2020 group was needed to ensure we had enough depth at that level, without the need to fast track U18s through or recruit from outside. We also made a decision to loan out some of the depth we had (Oseni, Nunn, Oduroh). It's 1 or 2 seasons to address that problem.

5-8 years for the academy?!! We have youth internationals in our U18 and U21 squads. I hope it doesn't take 8 years to get them in the first team 😮 

What are you expecting a fully rebuilt academy to look like? How many more academy staff are we short? Players through the squads of what level?
The best academy seasons at U18 and U21 level was arguably 18/19 (when the U18s won the league and 19/20 (U21s finished 4th). We were fortunate to get a high number of good quality youngsters through at the same time who will have good EFL careers. Even prior to administration, we didn't have 2 consecutive batches matching those seasons. That U21 squad was often boosted by senior pros dropping down to help out - Bennett, Evans, Holmes, Wisdom, Shinnie, Forsyth, Martin and Anya all featured in that season.
2017 scholars - JBrown, Buchanan, Bird, Knight, Whittaker
2018 scholars - Cashin, Ebosele, Thompson, Sibley, Stretton
That's excluding a few who had a good impact at youth level too - French, Foster, Minkley, Dixon, McDonald, Archie Brown, and Wilson.
The highlights from the 2019 and 2020 batches (prior to admin impact) being Bardell, Solomon, Cybulski, and Williams. Delap (2019) and Gordon (2020) left prior to being first year scholars and before administration was a real possibility.
I'm not denying there will be in impact from the youngsters we lost during administration, but it's only really a couple from each age group, with the impact below the first year scholars being minimal.
2020 - Williams
2021 - Ryan, Kellyman, Ebiowei
2022 - Sharpe, Scanlon
2023 - Kaba
I can already see the quality of the squads we have left as matching that from the 2019 and 2020 intakes, despite the youngsters who did leave us, with just as many making the grade. 
The current issue I see is the stability of youngsters progressing through. We're missing an entire batch of youngsters from the U21s. That 2020 group was needed to ensure we had enough depth at that level, without the need to fast track U18s through or recruit from outside. We also made a decision to loan out some of the depth we had (Oseni, Nunn, Oduroh). It's 1 or 2 seasons to address that problem.

5-8 years for the academy?!! We have youth internationals in our U18 and U21 squads. I hope it doesn't take 8 years to get them in the first team 😮 

5-8 years for the academy?!! We have youth internationals in our U18 and U21 squads. I hope it doesn't take 8 years to get them in the first team 😮 

5-8 years for the academy?!! We have youth internationals in our U18 and U21 squads. I hope it doesn't take 8 years to get them in the first team 😮