Caesium137
Well-known member
Maybe nearer once in a millenia for us..........
Fry, Hackney, Coburn and Bangura nearing return from injury
- Thread starter TeaCider
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Laughing
Well-known member
It was mart and that rarely happens even with experienced perm signings do they have that kind of impact in such a short period.
Although, it still wasn't quite good enough. 29 goal striker another 25 million in loanees. Although to be fair it remains to be seen if those loanees fulfil their potential.
But that's my point. Your initial question was, "The mooners who think we have to replace 4,5 or 6 players for next season, how do you explain being very close to the playoffs this season?"
We ultimately came up slightly short last year when we were much stronger. As you correctly point out we have lost around £35m talent across 4 or 5 players. We haven't really replaced that quality hence we are still short of it.
Giles to Engel
Akpom to Azaz
Ramsey to Silvera
Archer to Lath
are all massive downgrades, whichever way you dress it up. On top of that we have McNair and Howson out of contract in the summer with Howson really coming to a point we shouldn't be relying on him. McGree/Hackney/VDB all transfer risks.
But just to try and expand on my point that scraping into 6th doesn't really give you a good chance and we should be really using the top 4 as a yard stick to how far we are away from achieving promotion or maybe how close we got to 80 points.
The last 15 play-off winners
2023 - Luton - 3rd - 80 Points
2022 - Nottingham Forest - 4th - 80 Points
2021 - Brentford - 3rd - 87 Points
2020 - Fulham - 4th - 81 Points
2019 - Aston Villa - 5th - 76 Points
2018 - Fulham - 3rd - 81 Points
2017 - Huddersfield - 5th - 81 Points
2016 - Hull - 4th - 83 Points
2015 - Norwich - 3rd - 86 Points
2014 - QPR - 4th - 80 Points
2013 - Crystal Palace - 5th - 72 Points
2012 - West Ham - 3rd - 86 Points
2011 - Swansea - 3rd - 80 Points
2010 - Blackpool - 6th - 70 Points
2009 - Burnley - 5th - 76 Points
3rd Place - 6
4th Place - 4
5th Place - 4
6th Place - 1
Average Points Total - 79.9 (11 play-off winner out of the last 15 achieved a minimum of 80 points). That is the minimum standard we should be aiming for to give us a realistic chance of promotion. A team scraping into 6th hasn't gained promotion for 14 years. 9 out of the last 10 play-off winners achieved 80+ points during the season and 8 out of 10 of them finished in the top 4.
The mooners who think we have to replace 4,5 or 6 players for next season, how do you explain being very close to the playoffs this season?
My response to this would be that we don't really need a team capable of scraping into 6th, we need one capable of getting 80+ points to give us a good shot at the play-offs or ideally 90+ points and getting into the top 2 and we look a fair distance from that.
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Is it purely luck or did we go for a different strategy to that we have done in other years? Danks seemingly knew these players and their qualities and we were prepared to pay the money. We took lads on the fringes of PL squads. We could have taken Giles in January if we were prepared to pay the money instead we took Thomas,
This season we have took 3 players from Championship competitors that were deemed surplus to their requirements. We weren't taking players from Sheff Utd and Burnley last season, The only one I would say that followed the same sort of strategy is O'Brien. that hasn't worked out mainly due to his injury.
The clubs above us have all taken loans from PL clubs and paid the money. That's how you get £35m worth of talent in your squad without actually spending it. I don't get why people are so against it.
BoroMart
Well-known member
It's a bit of luck that three loanees all came good and bought into the system. Giles had had a good 6 months then a poor 6 months in the champo, Ramsey had a poor 6 months at norwich and Archer was untested at mens football. We got lucky that it all slotted in seemlessly. It's rare to get so many loan players to actually integrate into the system and but into the club
Or did just get our recruitment right. We put a few good players in a team together which made them all thrive? We had the right players in the right system. Good players will make each other look even better.
BoroMart
Well-known member
To a degree but you can never know with a signing how they integrate. Psychologically as much as anything else. We had good recruitment, yes, but we got lucky that their personalities, and ambitions fitted at that time precisely. We may sign better technical players that have less impact in the future.
I think we were also lucky that that calibre of premier league player was available to loan.
Look at the top goal scorer / assists table this season - there’s no prem loans at all.
So I don’t believe it’s just that we didn’t WANT any high quality prem loans last summer, more a case that there weren’t any available.
Look at the top goal scorer / assists table this season - there’s no prem loans at all.
So I don’t believe it’s just that we didn’t WANT any high quality prem loans last summer, more a case that there weren’t any available.
Bruce
Well-known member
Agreed and we are definitely a long way off that presently. You can say yes but injuries, yes but massive rebuild, yes but bad luck, dodgy reffing and so on but that bottom line is that a team usually ends a season on the points it's worth. The issue around injuries and massive recruitment overhaul are whole club issues that you have to hope are being addressed but, fundamentally, you look at the players we bought and think that 65-70 points this season would be a decent return.
It all comes down to what's next. If we keep on buying and loaning players of the same quality as last season then odds are we'll end up roughly where we are now.
Of our new arrivals, Dieng has performed to expectation, RVDB well above expectation and Latte Lath below given what we paid. Glover and Ayling have done ok as back-ups/short term fixes. Rogers was coming good but got sold. Azaz is early days but he's struggling to adapt for some reason. The rest, whether due to injuries or not have underwhelmed at best. Engel and Silvera have improved but, let's face it, if they were playing for Rotherham we wouldn't be queueing up to sign them.
The Rotherham test is a good one. If Rotherham had signed any of the following this year, I doubt we would be interested in signing any of them next year, even on a free:
Glover, Engel, Bangura, Thomas, O'Brien, Greenwood, Silvera, Gilbert.
With the possible exception of Bangura, none of those look even remotely close to being a good enough 1st choice for a team looking to hit a minimum of 80 points next season. Glover is probably ok as a back-up keeper, Engel as a back-up left back.
Do you think Archer or Ramsey would have been on the top scorer/assists table this time last season?
He scored 11 from 20 in the Championship last season. At that this point in the season, 20th March, he had 6 from 12.
I doubt he would have been on the Championship top scorers list with that total.
He scored 7 in 20 the season before with Preston which is where I'm guessing you got your total of 18 from. That was his total over two seasons and two separate loans.
Kieffer Moore has 6 in 10 for Ipswich so has the same tally as what Archer did last season for us at this point from two less appearances. So maybe there were PL Striker available for loan that could score goals.
BoroMart
Well-known member
I think that is the right decision, especially if Coburn will be fit very soon. Promotion chances at the end of January were probably 10% at best, they haven't improved, even with Kieffer Moore it wouldn't be higher than 15%
Akpom has a better goals/minute ratio in Eredivise than he did for us in the Championship last season. Even in a struggling Ajax side. He's just not getting as many minutes as he should for whatever reason. He's got the best conversion rate by a mile out of the Ajax forwards.
Ramsey and Archer are playing in very poor teams. I think both players are better than they have shown this season.
I think a lot of people expected Giles to struggle at Premier League level as it was always likely to expose his weaknesses and get less opportunity to show his strengths. He's still a very good Championship player. Watched Hull twice since he went there and he was very good in both matches.