G STAR RAM Posted December 9, 2019 Share Posted December 9, 2019 5 hours ago, Tyler Durden said: Waghorn Waghorn had an excellent season at Ipswich coming off the back of reasonable seasons at Rangers. 9 goals and 3 assists last season and 6 already this season. Wouldnt say we paid massively over the odds for him. 5 hours ago, Grumpy Git said: + Lawrence Had 3 decent loan spells in the Championship with Blackburn, Cardiff and Ipswich. Not sure on transfer fee but we've got a regular international so I am sure we could recoup a decent proportion of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoyMac5 Posted December 9, 2019 Share Posted December 9, 2019 9 hours ago, Andrew3000 said: I was listening to the Revisionist History podcast, and heard about David Sally's theory that in 'soccer' (as opposed to Basketball) what matters most in building a great team is how good your worst player is, not how good your best player is. But when Rowett got us to the top 6 wasn't that because of our best player Vydra, not the best worst player? Too many players for that theory in a 'soccer' team as opposed to basketball imo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CornwallRam Posted December 9, 2019 Share Posted December 9, 2019 7 hours ago, Ghost of Clough said: Spend your money of several first team players and you get limited quality and blocked progression routes for the youths. This was the problem we had starting from the Clement era. The plan changed to recruit in areas where we lack quality. Permanent signings in areas where we have little long term depth, and loans in areas where we do or where a suitable permanent signing cannot be found. From last season, we lost 1 CB, 1 LB, 1 DM, 2 CM, 1 W, 1 CF. Lowe and Martin returned from their loans meaning the losses of Cole and Nugent were negated. The signing of Shinnie was pre-arranged leaving CB, DM, CM and W positions. Carson going out meant another GK too. Our most talented academy players are judged to be CMs and wingers (Sibley, Knight, JML, Whittaker, Archie, Wilson, etc...). We also knew Rooney would be joining halfway through the season. So it was vital these positions were loans. So we're down to GK, CB, DM. Roos was judged to be first choice keeper going in to the season. We either needed to recruit someone better, or a solid backup on the cheap. I doubt we could get anyone better in, so a cheap loan made sense. Keogh needed a new partner at CB given Davies and Forsyth were both coming back from long-term injuries and weren't the most capable at playing out from the back. I doubt we able able to recruit our targets, so another loan deal was arranged to see us through another year. That left us with just a DM to sign. Our options here without any signings were Huddlestone, Evans and Bird. All three seemed to struggle with injuries, form or the pace of the game last season so it would have been a risk going into this one without recruiting. Huddlestone only had 1 year left on his deal and Evans may be needed at CB, so getting someone in on a permanent was logical. With no other positions to fill, we had a large budget to spend on a single player. I think it'll be a habit of us spending big on one or two players each season, plugging gaps with loans and promoting the youth. Over the next two windows we'll likely recruit at GK, CB (2), W and CF, spending big on a CB and CF. That's a very good post and I think sheds light on the club's thinking. The problem (with the philosophy, not the post) is that it won't work. It misses the point that football is a team game. We can have 11 or even 22 players who appear to have the right attributes, but that doesn't mean they can play together. It's the lesson that Nigel learned from his Dad. Nigel signed players with the qualities and temperament to blend into a team. It took time, but eventually we had a side which was greater than the sum of its parts. Sadly Nigel's natural negativity prevented him from getting the best out of his carefully and cheaply constructed team, but McClaren showed what Nigel had achieved, but couldn't maintain it because he had no idea how to build a team. I think that's also why few successful teams feature lots of youth team graduates. You can grow decent players and the odd one will be a match for the team, but it's unlikely that lots of them will. I can only think of the Beckham, Giggs etc Man U team, and even SAF couldn't repeat it. I wonder about Cocu. So much of what he's done looks wrong. Yet that could be incompetence, inexperience of the division or a necessary step in deciding exactly which players are going to eventually blend into a real team. I suspect that things would look very much like this at this stage if the manager was really building something special, but my gut feeling is that Cocu is actually just failing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curb Posted December 9, 2019 Share Posted December 9, 2019 Maybe no-one at the club has read the book? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew3000 Posted December 9, 2019 Author Share Posted December 9, 2019 27 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said: But when Rowett got us to the top 6 wasn't that because of our best player Vydra, not the best worst player? Too many players for that theory in a 'soccer' team as opposed to basketball imo. Interesting example that. We were quite solid too as I recall but were slow and lacked creativity. Of course Vydra was key, but according to this theory the players keeping the ball in the build up to goals or defending or not making mistakes go relatively unnoticed and are undervalued. I dunno really not read the detail but I've often been irked by our imbalance and fragility. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mucker1884 Posted December 10, 2019 Share Posted December 10, 2019 On 09/12/2019 at 13:12, Dethorn said: I thought it was can't polish a turd but you can put glitter on it, which kind of changes the sentiment Ah, but if you try to polish it first, it kind of goes all mushy, and is then extremely difficult to roll it in the glitter without getting all over your hands. Oh wait... I know too much! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheron85 Posted December 10, 2019 Share Posted December 10, 2019 On 09/12/2019 at 10:29, Andrew3000 said: I was listening to the Revisionist History podcast, and heard about David Sally's theory that in 'soccer' (as opposed to Basketball) what matters most in building a great team is how good your worst player is, not how good your best player is. This is built on stats which suggest that upgrading your poorest players is more influential to how many matches you win. This is the essence of the weak link argument (apparently in his book the numbers game). He covers it in his book The Numbers Game - I read it a few years ago and have been making this point to pretty much anyone who will listen ever since ? The argument is that you lose more points from a weak player than you gain from a great player - And the chances are it costs a lot less to replace 4/5 weak players than to buy 1 star player Review of the book here btw https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/may/24/numbers-game-everything-football-wrong Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew3000 Posted December 10, 2019 Author Share Posted December 10, 2019 26 minutes ago, cheron85 said: He covers it in his book The Numbers Game - I read it a few years ago and have been making this point to pretty much anyone who will listen ever since ? The argument is that you lose more points from a weak player than you gain from a great player - And the chances are it costs a lot less to replace 4/5 weak players than to buy 1 star player Review of the book here btw https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/may/24/numbers-game-everything-football-wrong Great, so you're convinced? Sounds like many owners of top clubs can't resist the pull to do otherwise. Ta. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheron85 Posted December 10, 2019 Share Posted December 10, 2019 14 minutes ago, Andrew3000 said: Great, so you're convinced? Sounds like many owners of top clubs can't resist the pull to do otherwise. Ta. In general I absolutely agree yes - Where it starts to get a little tricky is situations like the one we're in at the moment - Our biggest problem is creating chances and that's not something which is easy to address by replacing a weak link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimbo jones Posted December 10, 2019 Share Posted December 10, 2019 On 09/12/2019 at 10:49, Tyler Durden said: Wasn't it you can't polish a turd. Same meaning though When the inevitable text comes from my dad at the end of games at the moment, that’s the reply he gets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RammingStone66 Posted December 10, 2019 Share Posted December 10, 2019 So is the real weak link the scouting department or whoever has been signing off most of our transfers? As atm most of the players brought in to address weaknesses have been as bad if not worse than what we had. Obviously can't really blame them for not replacing Wilson, Mount and Tomori with 'like for like' quality but it needed to be better than Dowell and Paterson so far. And Bielik is definitely an upgrade I will give them that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ambitious Posted December 10, 2019 Share Posted December 10, 2019 A young good standard player in the Premier League, in form - teams want to start £30m A young good standard player in the Championship, in form - teams want to start £10m A young good standard player in League One, in form - teams want to start £5m A young good standard player in League Two, in form - teams want to start £2m Unless you can manipulate contract situations, you're stuck with buying players out of form or older players that people are expecting drop off. I personally feel that if we're going to restrict ourselves to the UK. Scotland and out-of-form Premier League/Championship players with age on their side is the way to go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Van der MoodHoover Posted December 10, 2019 Share Posted December 10, 2019 14 minutes ago, Ambitious said: A young good standard player in the Premier League, in form - teams want to start £30m A young good standard player in the Championship, in form - teams want to start £10m A young good standard player in League One, in form - teams want to start £5m A young good standard player in League Two, in form - teams want to start £2m Unless you can manipulate contract situations, you're stuck with buying players out of form or older players that people are expecting drop off. I personally feel that if we're going to restrict ourselves to the UK. Scotland and out-of-form Premier League/Championship players with age on their side is the way to go. You are our chief scout and I claim my fiver! ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ambitious Posted December 10, 2019 Share Posted December 10, 2019 34 minutes ago, Van der MoodHoover said: You are our chief scout and I claim my fiver! ? I'd be mortified to be associated with our transfer record. I know the club are proud of the detail that goes on behind the scenes for player recruitment, and I'm sure that a lot of hard work is being done, but that just makes it worse for me to stomach. I could've done a better job from my bed with the occasional toilet break. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.