January Reinforcements

[StaffsRam]

1 minute ago, Barney1991 said:

That’s where our summer window should have been. Getting players in at the right age to improve through coaching and sell with a profit to reinvest. Apart from bird or cashin we don’t have any saleable assets to sell and invest the money so we are reliant on clowes dipping into his pocket 

Going to take a while to fix that. If we're not recruiting players to profit from at some point then it puts even more onus on the Academy working and feeding talent through. There's some great prospects in the youth ranks at the moment but we're still rebuilding, even at that level, so it'll be a while before we see a constant line of players coming through. Even then, we need to work them into the squad, and then the team, to start ramping up their value. Players like Brown, Fapetu, Weston etc are the furthest forward but they're not ready yet. 

The club was saved but in many ways we're still having to start again from somewhere just north of "scratch".

[Barney1991]

2 minutes ago, StaffsRam said:

Going to take a while to fix that. If we're not recruiting players to profit from at some point then it puts even more onus on the Academy working and feeding talent through. There's some great prospects in the youth ranks at the moment but we're still rebuilding, even at that level, so it'll be a while before we see a constant line of players coming through. Even then, we need to work them into the squad, and then the team, to start ramping up their value. Players like Brown, Fapetu, Weston etc are the furthest forward but they're not ready yet. 

The club was saved but in many ways we're still having to start again from somewhere just north of "scratch".

Problem is with our current manager it doesn’t matter how good the academy players are he will not use them to improve. The efl trophy was a great time to get them some competitive football yet we still constantly use the older generation. Like with previous recruitment I have no idea what the actual plan is 

[Waghorny]

So frustrating reading some 'fans' opinions on Birds move,

The bloke stayed with us throughout everything whilst others jumped ship, he's moved on to a solid championship club, something that we can't offer at the moment,

Short memories on here, the unbeaten run of last season ended when he got injured - we're a worse team without him in it.

[Van der MoodHoover]

58 minutes ago, BramcoteRam84 said:

He’s made a statement about budget. Potentially it’s naive as clearly while there is a budget it’s restrictive, as demonstrated by the CBT transfer. At least in terms of transfer fees we can’t go and get the young talents our rivals are able to sign. And we can’t escape a fair chunk of our “competitive” budget is used up by players not signed by Warne, and either past it in the eyes of some (Hourihane) or surplus to requirements currently (Smith) 

Indeed any budget is by definition restricted and so given a chunk was used in the summer, January was going to be a residual.

 

I wasn't intending to pounce on your post, but a number of comments have been made about EFL restrictions, which hint at hopes of a future material uplift. I am merely questioning that really is the owner's intent.

 

Managing to the budget has to be the responsibility of all. We appear to have done so poorly imo. I understand that some players are not Warnes signings but he's been playing them nonetheless, rather than shipping out. It's the recruitment gambles and injuries which are draining the coffers as we're getting zilch for all the outlay.

 

The lot of them need to up their game significantly.

[Ghost of Clough]

17 minutes ago, CBRammette said:

This as with other youngsters

Exactly. If Thompson had been given opportunities last season, we wouldn't have needed to sign White last January. It may have been a factor in not needing to use up some of the budget on Fornah in the summer too. Same applies for Robinson.

I( think back to Cashin's introduction to the first team. Honestly, I wouldn't have put him above L2 standard at the time, which is where I feel Brown is at now. Would Warne have started him, when we still had Davies, Forsyth and Bielik as the other options at CB? 
Would have have given Plange his debut when we still had Jozwiak and Stearman on the bench?
Would he have played Williams at LWB and Forsyth CB and leave Stearman on the bench?

Put simply, Warne's mentality is wrong for this club. Wilson's the youngest player he's permanently signed for us and he's 23. Out of his Rotherham signings who joined at a younger age, 

22/23:
None used. A 21 yo keeper played 45 mins under the following manager and has been a free agent since the summer

21/22:
None used, but signed a keeper who has since retired

20/21:
20 yo keeper who has been a regular starter

19/20:
20 yo LB who featured for 622 mins in all competitions over 2 seasons before being moved on
19 yo LW who got 176 mins
22 year old Ogbene who was as squad player in his first season, then got just 606 mins in the Championship the following season before being a regualr starter in L1 aged 24.
21 year old Olusunde who was as squad player for 2 years and has only set foot on a football field 3 times since.

18/19:
None signed

17/18:
22 yo CM who got 1832 mins in all competitions over 2 seasons before being moved on
20 yo CB who got 180 mins before being shipped out to non-league sides.
22 yo winger who got 242 in all competitions over 2 seasons before being moved on

16/17:
19 yo LB who got 1756 mins in all competitions over 2 seasons before being moved on

That's only 1 succesful young signing!!!

[S8TY]

4 minutes ago, jimtastic56 said:

Fans are speculating that this years losses could be as low as £3 mill. Did the Knight fee go towards losses ? If we had not gone out of 3 cup competitions to lower teams as early as we did , a bit of cup money would have come in handy . But how on earth do tiny Burton , blow us out of the water , with signings ? Are we still drip feeding the taxman to pay off debt ?

Exactly this ….if we are losing so much money but yet being run so prudently are we ever going to get out of this mess 

we get fantastic attendances compared to most teams in L1 but it seems to count for nothing …

[Topram]

1 minute ago, Ghost of Clough said:

Exactly. If Thompson had been given opportunities last season, we wouldn't have needed to sign White last January. It may have been a factor in not needing to use up some of the budget on Fornah in the summer too. Same applies for Robinson.

I( think back to Cashin's introduction to the first team. Honestly, I wouldn't have put him above L2 standard at the time, which is where I feel Brown is at now. Would Warne have started him, when we still had Davies, Forsyth and Bielik as the other options at CB? 
Would have have given Plange his debut when we still had Jozwiak and Stearman on the bench?
Would he have played Williams at LWB and Forsyth CB and leave Stearman on the bench?

Put simply, Warne's mentality is wrong for this club. Wilson's the youngest player he's permanently signed for us and he's 23. Out of his Rotherham signings who joined at a younger age, 

22/23:
None used. A 21 yo keeper played 45 mins under the following manager and has been a free agent since the summer

21/22:
None used, but signed a keeper who has since retired

20/21:
20 yo keeper who has been a regular starter

19/20:
20 yo LB who featured for 622 mins in all competitions over 2 seasons before being moved on
19 yo LW who got 176 mins
22 year old Ogbene who was as squad player in his first season, then got just 606 mins in the Championship the following season before being a regualr starter in L1 aged 24.
21 year old Olusunde who was as squad player for 2 years and has only set foot on a football field 3 times since.

18/19:
None signed

17/18:
22 yo CM who got 1832 mins in all competitions over 2 seasons before being moved on
20 yo CB who got 180 mins before being shipped out to non-league sides.
22 yo winger who got 242 in all competitions over 2 seasons before being moved on

16/17:
19 yo LB who got 1756 mins in all competitions over 2 seasons before being moved on

That's only 1 succesful young signing!!!

Wow that’s eye opening that is, why would a young kid want to come here 

[StaffsRam]

1 minute ago, eddielewis said:

Which is why I think the sort of think the set up we kind of have with Warne greatly influencing the recruitment is kind of old fashioned. If you look at the modern examples of successful living within their means Luton, Brighton, Brentford (theres more examples these are the most successful) they have all had a common link in which the recruitment is taken away from the manager nearly entirely. They have had managers come and go and it's not fazed them one bit. They have never had replace a whole XI because the new manager can't work with them. Managers kind come third now with philosophy - players - coach just because they usually last less than the players nowadays.

What happens to the recruitment when we lose Warne be it a sacking or moving to another club. Do we hire another Manager that plays the same as Warne or do we go another route and have to sign players to match that Managers style. I just don't think our recruitment set up is future proofed.

I think DC was caught between a rock and a hard place, and that manifests itself in our general approach - Warne was appointed with a singular goal - get us out of this league and back into the Champ. Warne has a track record of being able to do that within narrow confines. I think DC has given Warne enough rope on the assumption that he'd know what to do with it. 

The problem is that the goal of getting out of the league at the earliest opportunity is at odds with rebuilding the club organically. DC pitched his tent and chose his poison when he appointed Warne. Now, we just have to hope it was the right way. There's definite benefit in getting us up, but if he doesn't then we're no further forward than we were two years ago.

[RoyMac5]

3 minutes ago, Topram said:

Wow that’s eye opening that is, why would a young kid want to come here 

Or our own youngsters want to stay here?

[StaffsRam]

4 minutes ago, Barney1991 said:

Problem is with our current manager it doesn’t matter how good the academy players are he will not use them to improve. The efl trophy was a great time to get them some competitive football yet we still constantly use the older generation. Like with previous recruitment I have no idea what the actual plan is 

Agree. This goes all the way back to the philosophy in appointing Warne, and our competing priorities at the time - Going up at the earliest opportunity vs Rebuilding the club for the future. Those goals aren't necessarily compatible in the short term and in appointing Warne we effectively gave him free rein to get us up at all costs. If it works, great. If it doesn't then we're effectively wasted two years.

[Ghost of Clough]

1 minute ago, Topram said:

Wow that’s eye opening that is, why would a young kid want to come here 

Then you look at Peterborough's squad. Only 6 squad members are over the age of 24. Only 1 of those is a regualr starter, 2 others are squad players, and the others are backup options.

From what I can see Warne also only managed to sell 4 players for over £500k when Rotherham manager - Ward (£1.6m to Cardiff), Ajayi (£1.5m to West Brom), Vaulks (£3m to Cardiff), Crooks (£1m to Boro). 

[TINMANTED]

10 hours ago, G STAR RAM said:

We have TJJ on loan.

 

we have jj on the wage bill,doubtful we will get any value out of him

[YorkshireRam]

8 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

Exactly. If Thompson had been given opportunities last season, we wouldn't have needed to sign White last January. It may have been a factor in not needing to use up some of the budget on Fornah in the summer too. Same applies for Robinson.

I( think back to Cashin's introduction to the first team. Honestly, I wouldn't have put him above L2 standard at the time, which is where I feel Brown is at now. Would Warne have started him, when we still had Davies, Forsyth and Bielik as the other options at CB? 
Would have have given Plange his debut when we still had Jozwiak and Stearman on the bench?
Would he have played Williams at LWB and Forsyth CB and leave Stearman on the bench?

Put simply, Warne's mentality is wrong for this club. Wilson's the youngest player he's permanently signed for us and he's 23. Out of his Rotherham signings who joined at a younger age, 

22/23:
None used. A 21 yo keeper played 45 mins under the following manager and has been a free agent since the summer

21/22:
None used, but signed a keeper who has since retired

20/21:
20 yo keeper who has been a regular starter

19/20:
20 yo LB who featured for 622 mins in all competitions over 2 seasons before being moved on
19 yo LW who got 176 mins
22 year old Ogbene who was as squad player in his first season, then got just 606 mins in the Championship the following season before being a regualr starter in L1 aged 24.
21 year old Olusunde who was as squad player for 2 years and has only set foot on a football field 3 times since.

18/19:
None signed

17/18:
22 yo CM who got 1832 mins in all competitions over 2 seasons before being moved on
20 yo CB who got 180 mins before being shipped out to non-league sides.
22 yo winger who got 242 in all competitions over 2 seasons before being moved on

16/17:
19 yo LB who got 1756 mins in all competitions over 2 seasons before being moved on

That's only 1 succesful young signing!!!

Given Rotherham's limited financial capacity, and the disparity between the quality of our respective academies, straight comparisons aren't necessarily fair given these differences. Players under 23 tend to be expensive to sign due to value added for potential; for a team constantly scrapping to keep its head above water, it makes sense they targeted players in their prime rather than youngsters that need developing before hitting their stride?

[ramit]

8 hours ago, StaffsRam said:

I think if we went up this season then we'd have a rebuild job on our hands over the summer either way.

Hearing that the recruitment team are focused on the summer window - hope they're covering both eventualities when identifying their targets. Knowing our luck, we'll get promoted and then spend half the summer having to re-assess when it becomes clear that we'd planned for another season in League One...

It's much cheaper to rebuild when players have left at no cost obviously.  The days of paying up players contracts are gone hopefully.

[Spanish]

10 minutes ago, StaffsRam said:

Agree. This goes all the way back to the philosophy in appointing Warne, and our competing priorities at the time - Going up at the earliest opportunity vs Rebuilding the club for the future. Those goals aren't necessarily compatible in the short term and in appointing Warne we effectively gave him free rein to get us up at all costs. If it works, great. If it doesn't then we're effectively wasted two years.

even with hindsight it is difficult to criticise the appointment.  He can't have had a big budget at rovrum and has a track record in Div1 second to none I guess.  Now the job looks too big for him regrettably

[Ghost of Clough]

9 minutes ago, YorkshireRam said:

Given Rotherham's limited financial capacity, and the disparity between the quality of our respective academies, straight comparisons aren't necessarily fair given these differences. Players under 23 tend to be expensive to sign due to value added for potential; for a team constantly scrapping to keep its head above water, it makes sense they targeted players in their prime rather than youngsters that need developing before hitting their stride?

Peterborough manage it with a similar budget to Rotherham

[Animal is a Ram]

7 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

Then you look at Peterborough's squad. Only 6 squad members are over the age of 24. Only 1 of those is a regualr starter, 2 others are squad players, and the others are backup options.

From what I can see Warne also only managed to sell 4 players for over £500k when Rotherham manager - Ward (£1.6m to Cardiff), Ajayi (£1.5m to West Brom), Vaulks (£3m to Cardiff), Crooks (£1m to Boro). 

To play devil's advocate here - it's harder for Rotherham to hold out for the bigger offers. Would it be beyond the realms of possibilty that if they were Derby players (in those seasons) you could have seen them go for 0.5m-1m more?

 

Then again, our track record hasn't been fantastic in getting the best value for players...

[eddielewis]

6 minutes ago, YorkshireRam said:

Given Rotherham's limited financial capacity, and the disparity between the quality of our respective academies, straight comparisons aren't necessarily fair given these differences. Players under 23 tend to be expensive to sign due to value added for potential; for a team constantly scrapping to keep its head above water, it makes sense they targeted players in their prime rather than youngsters that need developing before hitting their stride?

Yes a straight comparison isn't exactly possible with ourselves but Rotherham in my eyes are on par with Peterborough with their financial capacity yet they seem to do well with finding and improving young talent. Arguably Rotherham should be better placed with able to find young talent for their academy with bigger catchment of Sheffield/Yorkshire.

[Ram-Alf]

8 minutes ago, Spanish said:

even with hindsight it is difficult to criticise the appointment.  He can't have had a big budget at rovrum and has a track record in Div1 second to none I guess.  Now the job looks too big for him regrettably

Expectations Spanish, This will be his "millstone" if we fail to go up this season, There's isn't a standout team in league1, There is a lot of poor to ordinary teams in league1, We're sitting pretty good ATM, If he fails this season then for me he just wasn't good enough and another rebuild will be a job for someone else imo...tho DC may stick rather than twist

[CBRammette]

21 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

Exactly. If Thompson had been given opportunities last season, we wouldn't have needed to sign White last January. It may have been a factor in not needing to use up some of the budget on Fornah in the summer too. Same applies for Robinson.

I( think back to Cashin's introduction to the first team. Honestly, I wouldn't have put him above L2 standard at the time, which is where I feel Brown is at now. Would Warne have started him, when we still had Davies, Forsyth and Bielik as the other options at CB? 
Would have have given Plange his debut when we still had Jozwiak and Stearman on the bench?
Would he have played Williams at LWB and Forsyth CB and leave Stearman on the bench?

Put simply, Warne's mentality is wrong for this club. Wilson's the youngest player he's permanently signed for us and he's 23. Out of his Rotherham signings who joined at a younger age, 

22/23:
None used. A 21 yo keeper played 45 mins under the following manager and has been a free agent since the summer

21/22:
None used, but signed a keeper who has since retired

20/21:
20 yo keeper who has been a regular starter

19/20:
20 yo LB who featured for 622 mins in all competitions over 2 seasons before being moved on
19 yo LW who got 176 mins
22 year old Ogbene who was as squad player in his first season, then got just 606 mins in the Championship the following season before being a regualr starter in L1 aged 24.
21 year old Olusunde who was as squad player for 2 years and has only set foot on a football field 3 times since.

18/19:
None signed

17/18:
22 yo CM who got 1832 mins in all competitions over 2 seasons before being moved on
20 yo CB who got 180 mins before being shipped out to non-league sides.
22 yo winger who got 242 in all competitions over 2 seasons before being moved on

16/17:
19 yo LB who got 1756 mins in all competitions over 2 seasons before being moved on

That's only 1 succesful young signing!!!

The issue is even when he does play or pick them there doesnt seem to be a plan and it is erratic. They'll be on bench for a couple of games and then not at all for ages. Or one sub appearance for about 5 minutes then not in squad. Or uses only when really has no choice like Rooney. I would hope the communications behind the scenes with the younger players is managing this but it cant be doing anything for their confidence or transition up. 
 

Detest MM but he saw long term the way forwards for us was the Brentford/Southampton academy model of bringing them through and selling as needed to be sustainable. Saddest thing about admin was how that was decimated.  
 

As you say PW doesnt fit that model and hence not us as a club which is prob only way we will get back