Our Recruitment Is To Blame

[DCFC Kicks]

11 minutes ago, Gee SCREAMER !! said:

That loss over 8 years  is less than I thought to be honest . Less than 1 parachute payment for a relegated team.  Therein lies the issue when chasing promotion.

I thought the loss would be more as well. I think the main problem was the 15/16 spend which messed up FFP.

[duncanjwitham]

The recruitment isn’t directly to blame, it’s just another symptom of the real problem - a lack of vision of what we actually want to be as a club.  Do we want to develop academy players, do we want to sign cheap players and add value before we sell them on, do we want to make big name signings, do we want a young hungry squad, or an experienced one, do we want to play attacking football, do we want to be hard to beat, do we want to play possession football and so on.  Until someone, somewhere is making those decisions, we’ll be stuck in a cycle of making random signings, random managerial appointments and year-on-year decline.

[oldtimeram]

3 hours ago, DCFClks said:

I've been comparing Derby to Brentford over the last 8 seasons since the 13/14 season as we've almost completely swapped league positions in that time. In 13/14 Brentford won promotion from League 1 and Derby were in the Champ play-off final.

Total spend on transfers from 13/14 - 20/21:

      Derby: £84.9 mil

Brentford: £73.6 mil

Total income from transfer sales from 13/14 - 20/21:

      Derby: £57.8 mil

Brentford: £176.8 mil

Both clubs had a season where they had a push for promotion and spent 30m but the difference is when Derby did it we sold £0 worth of players the same season and had a -2 mil from the previous season, when Brentford did it they sold £36m worth of players the same season and had profit of £26m from the previous season. This is how you make a push for promotion. Brentford also didn't get promoted in there 30m spend season, but they had the cushion of previous profits and high value in there squad to cope. While Derby are still suffering from the effects of our 30m spend season now.

Our general recruitment has been poor, with players with little sell on value. We've also sold players at the wrong time.

Derby clearly gambled everything on the 15/16 season, hence why Clement was sacked despite being 4th. Why did we feel the need to do this? I know owning a Championship club is very unsustainable, but this was reckless. This terrible transfer policy added with our poor recent managerial appointments is why we're in the mess we're in now.

 

Only one man to blame.  It's the head honcho that should accept the blame and fall on his sword

[Patrick Rams]

1 hour ago, Chilwellram said:

I have often wondered how Jack Marriott would have done if Brentford had bought him. 

If Brentford had signed Marriott and we'd had signed Toney you could guarantee Marriott would have scored 25 goals for the Bees and Toney would have struggled to score about 6 goals for us.. he'd have been played out of position...he'd have been in and out of the team and our fans would be complaining about our recruitment process.

[SSD]

That 15/16 season although results wise was a decent year, business wise it was an absolute disaster. The boom or bust model has caused the club to be financially restricted and I think will cost our league status.

The instability off the field has caused this mess. Rooney and his arrogance believing in his abilities has shot him in the foot, however the awful management in recruitment and financial issues is the base to all the problems. I've always thought Norwich was a shining example of a well run club. They even went down to league one and it didn't cripple them financially, because they had the rainy day money in the bank for a worst case scenario. Their owners aren't exactly rich but they've been smart enough to spend within their means. Derby on the other hand have been on the crest of a wave towards utter implosion from within. Like any business, if you don't fix the issues short term, it will ruin it long term. How many years have the supporters been calling for the recruitment to be overhauled? We've done nothing to change anything. Buying dross season after season. 

There's a fine line between being competitive and splashing the cash. And unfortunately we've just been spending money on players wlth zero resale value. The Waghorn fee was ridiculous at the time and now we're giving him away for nothing. Spending big money on players in their prime with long expensive contracts in this division with FFP rules has not work, unless the club has dropped out of the Premier League. We haven't learnt our lessons. It is the same mistakes every season. Our recruitment policy has been dreadful for years. Everyone makes mistakes. You have to learn quickly and the club done nothing to correct the problems under Mel's tenure. I respect the man for his large investment. It does not make you on pedestal to be invincible though. We've become a tabloid gossip column under his tenure and I have had enough of being this back page drama club. 

This club needs a complete rebuild from top to bottom. I know everyone says this but it is so true. The recruitment needs to be high on the new owners list of priorities because we will slip further down the ladder if this does not change in the summer.

 

[Jase116]

The problem with the recruitment is that there hasn’t seemed to be any plan, overspending on average players. I also think we all thought that Marriott would score lots of goals and ironically if he was still here think being partnered by big Kaz , think he would have scored a few and we would have been in a better position, he is obviously suited more to playing with a target man.

[Abu Derby]

Re-employ Simon Clough. He makes our current recruitment department look really stupid. 

[MrPlinkett]

2 minutes ago, Abu Derby said:

Re-employ Simon Clough. He makes our current recruitment department look really stupid. 

Do we have a current recruitment department ?

[Abu Derby]

2 minutes ago, MrPlinkett said:

Do we have a current recruitment department ?

If we have, they’re probably on furlough since we can’t sign anyone (not even one of the usual duds) until the ownership is sorted. 

[CornwallRam]

I think Brentford's time may be over if they don't go up this season. Brexit has cut off the supply of European players. Without them making a big profit on players, they won't be able to sustain Championship football for long, and the new rules are going to make it much harder for them.

Although I've been critical of the prominence of our academy, it may prove to be a fantastic asset going forward, if we can just avoid relegation and get an owner willing and able to fund it.

[DCFC Kicks]

1 hour ago, oldtimeram said:

Only one man to blame.  It's the head honcho that should accept the blame and fall on his sword

I don't want to agree but I have to. How can apparent fan of the club and such a successful businessman be so reckless with the club and his own money?

[Chris_Martin]

3 hours ago, sage said:

He didn't score in the final.

statistically no, but to me it was Marriott's. 

[Chris_Martin]

Even if we had a good recruitment team in place, how would they know what type of player to go for now. We have no style of play and nobody has a clue what our identity is. 

[DCFC Kicks]

2 hours ago, duncanjwitham said:

The recruitment isn’t directly to blame, it’s just another symptom of the real problem - a lack of vision of what we actually want to be as a club.  Do we want to develop academy players, do we want to sign cheap players and add value before we sell them on, do we want to make big name signings, do we want a young hungry squad, or an experienced one, do we want to play attacking football, do we want to be hard to beat, do we want to play possession football and so on.  Until someone, somewhere is making those decisions, we’ll be stuck in a cycle of making random signings, random managerial appointments and year-on-year decline.

I agree but isn't the primary way Championship clubs make money through player sales? weren't the changes in vision for the club down to necessity because we messed everything up in 15/16? Mel's vision seems to have gone:

14/15 - Trust Mac to go one step further than last season with a few signings

15/16 - Gamble everything and spend 30m with a rookie manager while continuing Mac's 4-3-3 style.

16/17 Part 1 - Throw the 4-3-3 out the window and hire Pearson while we still haven't been hit with the consequences of the 15/16 spend.

16/17 Part 2 - Sack Pearson then desperately try and replicate 13/14 by rehiring Mac, even though Pearson ruined Mac's old team.

17/18 - Abandon any form of footballing philosophy and hire Rowett to try and grind out promotion as the consequences of 15/16 begin to catch up.

Mel's had enough after his gamble fails and has decided to sell and can't/won't spend much more money.

18/19 - Gamble again with rookie Lampard and use his links in the loan market to paper over the cracks that are now in the squad

19/20 - The 15/16 season has now caught up fully and we're forced to rely on the academy players and hire Cocu to try and get the best out of them

20/21 - Mel has no visions left as Cocu fails and allows the club to drift under an "impending takeover"

The sad thing is we've been unlucky and these plans have almost worked on numerous occasions. The root of all our problems come from the 15/16 spend, Mel had no long term vision for the club then and every following seasons plans have been a reaction to that. 

[duncanjwitham]

36 minutes ago, DCFClks said:

The sad thing is we've been unlucky and these plans have almost worked on numerous occasions. The root of all our problems come from the 15/16 spend, Mel had no long term vision for the club then and every following seasons plans have been a reaction to that

The really sad thing is that Mel seemingly did have a vision for the club at that time with the whole a “Derby way” thing, but then (for whatever reason) did everything he could to make sure it never ever happened.

[BondJovi]

11 minutes ago, duncanjwitham said:

The really sad thing is that Mel seemingly did have a vision for the club at that time with the whole a “Derby way” thing, but then (for whatever reason) did everything he could to make sure it never ever happened.

Hiring Cocu, then signing Rooney being the best example. One to do the plan, one to shaft it.

[bcnram]

16 hours ago, Rammy03 said:

Marriott did well in his first season, especially when he had a run in the team in October/November.

Got us through the playoffs, scoring in the final even though he was on the losing side.

We destroyed him after that.

I suspect he destroyed himself. 

[DCFC Kicks]

Another example of why Moneyball is the way, even a team like Barnsley with a small budget can prosper from it. They have one of the smallest recruitment teams in the top 3 divisions but focus on analytics. They've only spent £18m overall since the 13/14 season and it's got them into the play-offs. We've spent £85m since the 13/14 season, imagine where we could have been if we'd spent it like them.

Some of there signings:

Conor Hourihane - £200th - Sold for £3.m

Alfie Mawson - free - Sold for £5.3m

Ethan Pinnock - £500th - Sold for £3m

Kieffer Moore - £700th - Sold for £2.5m

Marc Roberts - free - Sold for £3.5m

Liam Linsday - £300th - Sold for £2m

Alex Mowatt - £500th - Market Value: £4m

Michal Helik - £700th - Market Value: £3m

Daryl Dike - loan with option to buy - 9 goals in 19 games

They also sign more overseas players than us. What do our recruitment team actually do?

 

[The Scarlet Pimpernel]

On 03/05/2021 at 17:48, oldtimeram said:

Only one man to blame.  It's the head honcho that should accept the blame and fall on his sword

Can  you explain what you mean by that exactly?

[Rev]

Isn't Mowatt out of contract soon?