Recruitment-Scott

I thought the model was Carrick tells him what he wants and Scott provides a list of 3 players and they take it from there. If that is so then I cant think of many better options other teams have got in the attacking third than we have managed to get. Recruitment is fine. Coaching isnt and thats possibly been acknowledged by us going for so many loans. The core of what we have is fine. We just needed to keep some money back to allow a new coach in the summer to put his stamp on things.
 
The scariest thing is just look at our squad once our loan players go back, assuming we don’t go up, we will look extremely average, poor in fact imo. And a whole new building the team starts again.

Gk - no doubt dieng will leave if rumours this season are anything to go by. So will need a good keeper

Full backs - this is a key area to upgrade on both sides, blatantly obvious this season it needed sorting but after 3 LB’s we still don’t have any that can defend.

Centre backs - obv Edmundson our player now but a baffling signing, started off great but gradually got worse, then we bizarrely buy him, why?
Fry for me is only decent cb because rvb looks shadow of himself last season

Midfield - if we manage to keep Hackney and Morris that’s a good start, Morris is key imo.
But our back up players just aren’t good enough. Azaz if he’s to improve he needs to get to the gym, lightweight, when we don’t have the ball he’s anonymous.

Wingers - Burgzog is hot and cold and Whitaker has a lot to do, are either of these players enough for a promotion push next season, debatable. Mcgree isn’t a winger imo, better as a 10 I would say but mc doesn’t think that.

Forwards - would leave us with Conway whom I like. Sell Forss as made of glass despite him working hard yesterday he never looks happy. Coburn isn’t the answer.

So imo a massive rebuild required.
 
I thought the model was Carrick tells him what he wants and Scott provides a list of 3 players and they take it from there. If that is so then I cant think of many better options other teams have got in the attacking third than we have managed to get. Recruitment is fine. Coaching isnt and thats possibly been acknowledged by us going for so many loans. The core of what we have is fine. We just needed to keep some money back to allow a new coach in the summer to put his stamp on things.
That’s a bit black and white. It’s a team effort and the team is not performing at the moment from recruitment through to the players on the pitch. We always seem to blame the manager, we get rid and the cycle starts again. I believe the problem is deeper than just the manager.
 
‘The Model’

It’s becoming a bit daft this.
Ok - I get ‘buy cheap’ and ‘sell high’ as a plan.
But, it gets us where we are.

Le Bris has been in Sunderland less than a year.
No time to build a so called ‘model’.
He has them well organised and has developed players in that short time.
(Commentators words, not mine).

That’s what good managers do.

We have a hotch potch of a team and we are putting sticking plasters on it to try and get into the top 6 of a port league.
 
That’s a bit black and white. It’s a team effort and the team is not performing at the moment from recruitment through to the players on the pitch. We always seem to blame the manager, we get rid and the cycle starts again. I believe the problem is deeper than just the manager.
Not saying I am right. Just my opinion but when the headline in the echo this morning says that Carrick is not concerned with our form I am just a little frustrated with the spin and lack of public responsibility forthcoming
 
‘The Model’

It’s becoming a bit daft this.
Ok - I get ‘buy cheap’ and ‘sell high’ as a plan.
But, it gets us where we are.

Le Bris has been in Sunderland less than a year.
No time to build a so called ‘model’.
He has them well organised and has developed players in that short time.
(Commentators words, not mine).

That’s what good managers do.

We have a hotch potch of a team and we are putting sticking plasters on it to try and get into the top 6 of a port league.
The manager doesn't build the model, the club does, Sunderland have had the same model as us for years.
 
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The recruitment team have a lot to answer for. Kieran Scott was adamant that after Carrick's first season we would do things differently and would no longer rely on loans as we were just developing other teams' players and it left us needing a major rebuild at the end of the season. Those comments were made off the back of having a team made up of 5 loan players.

We're now in a position, two years later, where 5 of our likely starting 11 are loans, having just sold our best player again in January. If we don't get promoted, which looks unlikely, we'll have another summer where a major re-build is required. The squad is hugely unbalanced and a large number of the permanent signings just don't look to anywhere near good enough for a top end championship team (Hamilton, Gilbert, Engel, Borges, Barlaser, Ayling, Edmundson, Silvera etc).

Finding a couple of gems in Rogers and Lath has been great financially, but he's failed to build a squad capable of achieving promotion in one of the weakest championships for a long time. This is after coming out in the summer and declaring we were buying 4/5 players of real quality to improve the first team.
 
Is it time to be asking questions of Scott and if this is actually working?
Not denying the signings made are overwhelming good, but what a sorry state this squad currently is.
Relying on Ayling who has shown for months he is finished at this level
Only having 3 CBs at the club, including the signing of Edmundson which is very questionable
Not signing another midfielder and likely having to use Barlaser at some stage this season
Arguably a poor replacement for ELL

We knew 1st January that we desperately needed to upgrade RB, CB and CM have haven’t signed a single player for these positions.
Totally agree, our frailties are all there to see, we look so weak out of possession.

Its easy to rant and rave after another poor result, but Plymouth, Portsmouth, Preston, Bristol City, Sheff Wed, Blackburn to name a few poor results.

Too many teams this season have carved us open at will, and nothing has been done in the window to address it.

Last night, RB Ayling half the player he once was, CD Edmundson dear me, I will mention our lets go missing LB later.

Midfield Morris is the only player who gets a foot in. (If he gets injured or suspended we are fooooked)

The club had 5 weeks to address this problem, we have an ex international midfielder as manager and ex international CD as his number two, surely they could see we were weak at the back and in midfield?

so January arrives. "good we can sort out our weak points" need to replace LL, also will need a RB and a box to box midfielder.

Jones sold and replaced by Whittaker, Ok makes sense. like for like.

Sign Giles, why ? we didn't need a LB who cannot defend) we needed another RB.... Giles still doesn't pick up his runners when defending, teams will target both our RB and LB areas.

We sign another left sided attacking midfielder, why? we have Burgzorg, and just signed Giles, Whittaker both could play there? we needed a box to box midfielder.

Replace LL with another striker .

So, Thats it, we have sorted out fooook all, we still look weak as Pi$$ at the back and light in midfield, and about 10 players who can play on the left.

Sunderland looked like a proper well balanced team last night... and we again looked unbalanced and all over the place....Wow that hurts to say it...
 
His buying of individuals has been by and large excellent. His squad building has been poor. There has been gaping wholes at RB and CM that remain. The quality at CB remains poor, and now light on numbers. The left back recruitment has been a struggle, with costly mistakes made.
 
Finding a couple of gems in Rogers and Lath has been great financially, but he's failed to build a squad capable of achieving promotion in one of the weakest championships for a long time. This is after coming out in the summer and declaring we were buying 4/5 players of real quality to improve the first team.
It's far better than what we were previously though. As long as we are turning players for profit we can keep going until we crack it. Of course in an ideal world you'd get them all right straight away and win the league but it doesn't work like that when you buy low.

Gibson will be very happy with Scott's work I imagine.
 
It's far better than what we were previously though. As long as we are turning players for profit we can keep going until we crack it. Of course in an ideal world you'd get them all right straight away and win the league but it doesn't work like that when you buy low.

Gibson will be very happy with Scott's work I imagine.
Yeah, it's great financially, but a large part of his remit is to build a squad capable of gaining promotion. He's seemingly failed in that respect over a 4? year period. Unless of course you think the squad is capable and then he has failed in his manager selection.
 
The manager doesn't build the model, the club does, Sunderland have had the same model as us for years.

Can you tell me what the model is and how the club have defined it?
Other than buy low sell cheap?

Genuine question, btw - just wondering if ‘the model’ has become a bit of fan term
 
The priority seems to be buy players with potential, bring them in for Carrick to develop and then sell at a profit. If that's the case I think its working really and it allows the club to reinvest that money towards future signings.

The secondary objective is to build a squad capable of promotion, i think this is where we're failing. We lack depth in CM, we are light at CB and we don't have a no9. It seems like Carrick believes that if we control possession and outscore the opposition then we don't need to worry too much about our defence.

We're not good enough at the moment, that's a fact. Last night showed that Sunderland were more of a team, they're better organised, they had more quality in the final 3rd and they make less mistakes at the back.

I'm sure that Gibson, Scott and Carrick believe that if we keep doing the same thing eventually it'll all come together but whether the fans will stay patient I'm not sure.
 
Yeah, it's great financially, but a large part of his remit is to build a squad capable of gaining promotion. He's seemingly failed in that respect over a 4? year period. Unless of course you think the squad is capable and then he has failed in his manager selection.
He will have failed when we get lumbered with crap players we can't shift who run their deals down because no one else wants them. As long as we can keep going and are financially healthy then I think Gibson will be happy enough. The days of us launching money at "sure things" are gone, it's not the way to do it any more.

Sunderland do exactly what we do, they got to the playoffs like we did, last season they were dreadful and then this season everything has fallen into place for them and they look like they could have a right go at going up.
 
I've pointed this out several times on here before but it took Brentford 4 years to finish in the play-offs again after we beat them under Karanka. Doing what we're doing does not guarantee short term success. It's ideally 2 steps forward 1 step back. But sometimes it might just be 1 and 1.

We're still a work in progress and as has been pointed out by others it's hard to do business in January.

The recruitment has been fine in terms of allowing us to turn over players and reinvest.

There are obviously gaps in the squad that need addressing. The squad looked pretty balanced in the summer mind.

Even with those gaps it's significantly under performing. Feels like Carrick is now auditioning the job of head coach next season.

The issues are pretty obvious. If he can't improve us off the ball between now and then, hard to see how he keeps his job.

Worryingly it was his biggest weakness as a player too. Brilliant with the ball, but relied on the likes of Anderson to do the dirty work for him.
 
His buying of individuals has been by and large excellent. His squad building has been poor. There has been gaping wholes at RB and CM that remain. The quality at CB remains poor, and now light on numbers. The left back recruitment has been a struggle, with costly mistakes made.
Has it been that good?
Hoppe
Hamilton
Edmundson
Four, yes Four left backs in 18 months.

Forss injury prone
Conway, potentially another crock

A couple of massive successes. Some absolute dross too
 
‘The Model’

It’s becoming a bit daft this.
Ok - I get ‘buy cheap’ and ‘sell high’ as a plan.
But, it gets us where we are.

Le Bris has been in Sunderland less than a year.
No time to build a so called ‘model’.
He has them well organised and has developed players in that short time.
(Commentators words, not mine).

That’s what good managers do.

We have a hotch potch of a team and we are putting sticking plasters on it to try and get into the top 6 of a port league.
Absolutely spot on.
 
Has it been that good?
Hoppe
Hamilton
Edmundson
Four, yes Four left backs in 18 months.

Forss injury prone
Conway, potentially another crock

A couple of massive successes. Some absolute dross too
Every recruitment model, especially when buying unproven players is going to have misses. We've just got to have enough lathes and Rodgers to balance out the Engles and Borges.

On an individual basis id say criticism of Hamilton and Conway is harsh, far too early in his career to judge Hamilton and before last night Tommy Conway had the best minutes to goal ratio of any player in the championship!
 
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