Is this season a write-off already?

[BBG83]

On ‎13‎/‎07‎/‎2018 at 14:05, Bris Vegas said:

A season of transition I can fully get behind, but that term is generally used when you’ve bought porential and you’re gradually bedding them in.

Other than a change of style of play, it’s difficult to see this as a season of transition when we haven’t bought anybody, and we have so few academy products coming through.

With so many players out of contract next summer and expected to leave, a change in style of play isn’t a transition for them. They have no long-term future at DCFC.

And any decent player we sign on loan isn’t likely to return here, so it’s not like we’re putting any building blocks in place.

I see very few players at the club now who will likely be here in three or four years time, and it’s going to take us that long to undo the mess which has been made and challenge for promotion again.

Without signing any youngsters or bringing any through, this season is going to be totally pointless and it’s not until the following season where phase 1 of the rebuild can begin.

Oooops, premature post that eh.

[Alph]

You've got to remember that the season is about the squad and not just the first team.

I think Frank has transformed the starting 11 quite a bit and I'm excited for that. But the depth isn't there imo and I would be cautious about shouting "promoted" from the rooftops just yet. Injuries and suspensions prevented Thorne, Hughes and Martin from playing many games together. Always 1 of the 3 was out at some point and going into 2014 we thought we had 3 players down the spine with such a range of skills that the league was won.

I think what we can take from pre season is that we like what Frank wants to do. His plan looks good. But in the thick of the season there's so many hurdles.

[RIMBAUD]

2 minutes ago, Alpha said:

You've got to remember that the season is about the squad and not just the first team.

I think Frank has transformed the starting 11 quite a bit and I'm excited for that. But the depth isn't there imo and I would be cautious about shouting "promoted" from the rooftops just yet. Injuries and suspensions prevented Thorne, Hughes and Martin from playing many games together. Always 1 of the 3 was out at some point and going into 2014 we thought we had 3 players down the spine with such a range of skills that the league was won.

I think what we can take from pre season is that we like what Frank wants to do. His plan looks good. But in the thick of the season there's so many hurdles.

Dead right. And we must not underestimate the impact Jody Morris has had on this. I suspect that his input is crucial and will continue to be so throughout the coming season. 

I’m really looking forward to us playing with some vigour and attacking intent. 

[Bob Gnarly]

On 18/07/2018 at 04:32, Bris Vegas said:

If we had just signed Mount and Wilson on permanent deals then I may start warming to the idea that this season isn’t a write-off already.

We would have two excellent young players to build around and have them as the building blocks in Lampard’s new regime, style and philosophy.

But, the truth is, we’ve just signed two players who are plugging gaps and won’t be with us beyond this season.

That's true, however there's nothing to say that f we get promoted we can try and sign them on a perm. Only struggle is that they are both on long term deals with their parent clubs.

Worked before with different clubs, why wold it be any different for us? We managed it with Ince even though we didn't get promoted. Also it's not like they are seen in the clubs immediate future.

[Duracell]

21 minutes ago, Alpha said:

You've got to remember that the season is about the squad and not just the first team.

I think Frank has transformed the starting 11 quite a bit and I'm excited for that. But the depth isn't there imo and I would be cautious about shouting "promoted" from the rooftops just yet. Injuries and suspensions prevented Thorne, Hughes and Martin from playing many games together. Always 1 of the 3 was out at some point and going into 2014 we thought we had 3 players down the spine with such a range of skills that the league was won.

I think what we can take from pre season is that we like what Frank wants to do. His plan looks good. But in the thick of the season there's so many hurdles.

Completely agree. That’s why I queried who rotates or covers Mount and Bryson. If it’s BJ, we won’t finish top 2 gauranteed. If one of them are injured and he plays regularly, we won’t finish top 6 because one tenth of our outfield players will be playing a different system to everyone else.

We’ve got reasonable to decent cover everywhere else across the pitch, but that’s a very important area of the team to effectively have no one like-for-like outside your starting XI. One thing when your second choice LB is suspect because that’s true of most of the league, quite another when there’s effecting no cover in the most athletically demanding parts of the spine of your team.

[McRainy]

12 minutes ago, Duracell said:

If it’s BJ, we won’t finish top 2 gauranteed

What if it's George Evans?

[Duracell]

8 minutes ago, Lambchop said:

What if it's George Evans?

Don’t know much about him, so maybe he’ll play further forward, but as far as I can tell that would be new to him. I thought he was brought in as competition or cover for CDM.

[DCFC27]

1 hour ago, Alpha said:

You've got to remember that the season is about the squad and not just the first team.

I think Frank has transformed the starting 11 quite a bit and I'm excited for that. But the depth isn't there imo and I would be cautious about shouting "promoted" from the rooftops just yet. Injuries and suspensions prevented Thorne, Hughes and Martin from playing many games together. Always 1 of the 3 was out at some point and going into 2014 we thought we had 3 players down the spine with such a range of skills that the league was won.

I think what we can take from pre season is that we like what Frank wants to do. His plan looks good. But in the thick of the season there's so many hurdles.

Depth isn’t there? We have enough players for 3 teams? 3 good teams... 

The only positions where we don’t have lots of cover is CB where we have Pearce RB where we have Bogle. Everywhere else we have players that would be in the first team for most other clubs in the championship. If they weren’t all sat on massive wages then they might be at another club. 

Just think to yourself how many strikers do we have? How many wingers and midfielders? If we are honest with ourslefs whatever views on Butterfeld/Anya/Martin/Fozzy/Thorne etc there are a lot of sides that would love to have the depth of players we have... 

 

[Andicis]

23 minutes ago, DcfcJB said:

Depth isn’t there? We have enough players for 3 teams? 3 good teams... 

The only positions where we don’t have lots of cover is CB where we have Pearce RB where we have Bogle. Everywhere else we have players that would be in the first team for most other clubs in the championship. If they weren’t all sat on massive wages then they might be at another club. 

Just think to yourself how many strikers do we have? How many wingers and midfielders? If we are honest with ourslefs whatever views on Butterfeld/Anya/Martin/Fozzy/Thorne etc there are a lot of sides that would love to have the depth of players we have... 

 

We don't have adequate depth. We have no good cover for Bryson or Mount. Considering how often they'll be kicked during a championship season, this is a valid concern. 

[Casio]

10 minutes ago, Andicis said:

We don't have adequate depth. We have no good cover for Bryson or Mount. Considering how often they'll be kicked during a championship season, this is a valid concern. 

Don't agree with this at all. 

Butterfield is decent back up player at championship level at CM, if you have anyone better they will want to start on Saturday and earn more money than we can afford to pay a player each week to sit on the bench waiting for Bryson or Mount to get an injury. Can't have it all at this level. 

[Andicis]

3 minutes ago, Casio said:

Don't agree with this at all. 

Butterfield is decent back up player at championship level at CM, if you have anyone better they will want to start on Saturday and earn more money than we can afford to pay a player each week to site on the bench waiting for Bryson or Mount to get an injury. Can't have it all at this level. 

I honestly couldn't disagree with you more. Butterfield hasn't got any of the vision or ability of Mount, nor the energy and forward thinking of Bryson. He'd slow our tempo right down, and ruin our slick one touch passing moves. I'm not saying I want an old player on big wages, I'd quite like Tom Bayliss as a backup. 

[DCFC27]

6 minutes ago, Andicis said:

We don't have adequate depth. We have no good cover for Bryson or Mount. Considering how often they'll be kicked during a championship season, this is a valid concern. 

 Not that it would be ideal but we do have solid replacements in the form of Johnson/Butterfield although the latter I have reservations over, though FL style may suit him. Wilson also dropped into midfield against wolves in the second half as we made changes and looked very good there. I think we will be fine in midfield but if we get a serious injury then we can look again in Jan. If we could get rid of a couple of players then we should look to bring in a modfielde but comfortable with the squad depth we have at the moment. 

[Andicis]

1 minute ago, DcfcJB said:

 Not that it would be ideal but we do have solid replacements in the form of Johnson/Butterfield although the latter I have reservations over, though FL style may suit him. Wilson also dropped into midfield against wolves in the second half as we made changes and looked very good there. I think we will be fine in midfield but if we get a serious injury then we can look again in Jan. If we could get rid of a couple of players then we should look to bring in a modfielde but comfortable with the squad depth we have at the moment. 

We have nobody similar to Mount in midfield, even if you could argue that you could replace Bryson with Johnson (a huge downgrade already), if we lost Mount to injury I'd say it would end any faith I had in us going up.

[Casio]

1 minute ago, Andicis said:

I honestly couldn't disagree with you more. Butterfield hasn't got any of the vision or ability of Mount, nor the energy and forward thinking of Bryson. He'd slow our tempo right down, and ruin our slick one touch passing moves. I'm not saying I want an old player on big wages, I'd quite like Tom Bayliss as a backup. 

All I'm saying is how can we expect to pay for a Tom Bayliss and his wages when we already have a Butterfield at the club? The only way we will be able to sell these players that people have decided are ready for the bin is have them show other teams that they can play. 

As we haven't seen Butterfield/Johnson play in Franks system yet, we don't know how effective they may or may not be.

 

[Andicis]

Just now, Casio said:

All I'm saying is how can we expect to pay for a Tom Bayliss and his wages when we already have a Butterfield at the club? The only way we will be able to sell these players that people have decided are ready for the bin is have them show other teams that they can play. 

As we haven't seen Butterfield/Johnson play in Franks system yet, we don't know how effective they may or may not be.

 

Yes we have. In preseason friendlies. Frank also very evidently doesn't rate Butterfield, and I'd trust his eye for a midfielder. I think if we can offload Butterfield we absolutely will, he isn't good enough. 

[Casio]

1 minute ago, Andicis said:

Yes we have. In preseason friendlies. Frank also very evidently doesn't rate Butterfield, and I'd trust his eye for a midfielder. I think if we can offload Butterfield we absolutely will, he isn't good enough. 

I quite agree in the highlighted, but no-one will make an offer when he has shown 'he isn't good enough'.

Also, don't think you can make relevant assessments in pre-season alone, competitive season is a different thing entirely.

[Andicis]

1 minute ago, Casio said:

I quite agree in the highlighted, but no-one will make an offer when he has shown 'he isn't good enough'.

Also, don't think you can make relevant assessments in pre-season alone, competitive season is a different thing entirely.

It's not too much of a leap, with this preseason, and all of the other times I've seen Butterfield and Johnson play at Derby. Johnson has no ball control, and struggles with passing massively. Butterfield has no forward tempo, takes too long on the ball and goes backwards too often. Neither fits Frank's style. 

We might be able to loan Butterfield out, if we cover some of his wages.

[DownTheWing]

Butterfield would suit somebody like Millwall/Wigan down to the ground, make him subject to a £1m price tag and take the money. Perhaps a little bit of being scared to cut your losses is creeping in at the club. 

He's not the player Paul Clement paid for that's for sure, we've got to accept that we'll be selling him as the worst player Sheffield Wednesday fans have seen wear their shirt in the modern era.

[DCFC27]

12 minutes ago, Andicis said:

We have nobody similar to Mount in midfield, even if you could argue that you could replace Bryson with Johnson (a huge downgrade already), if we lost Mount to injury I'd say it would end any faith I had in us going up.

We aren’t going to have two Mason Mounts, were fortunate to have one seeing as he was touted for so many other big clubs and trained with England before WC. 

Likewise City don’t have someone capable of replacing DeBrune and Wolves didn’t have another Neves....

If he gets a bad injury then that’s life, however FL has already shown us that Wilson can play his position too... 

[Andicis]

1 minute ago, DcfcJB said:

We aren’t going to have two Mason Mounts, were fortunate to have one seeing as he was touted for so many other big clubs and trained with England before WC. 

Likewise City don’t have someone capable of replacing DeBrune and Wolves didn’t have another Neves....

If he gets a bad injury then that’s life, however FL has already shown us that Wilson can play his position too... 

From less than 45 minutes in a friendly, Wilson can do that long term? I have doubts. 

I get that you're not going to get two Mason Mounts, but we should have a similar type of player for backup, and we don't. I accept Johnson can back up Bryson. A midfield of Ledley, Bryson and Johnson however, has no creativity.