Treading water

Adi_Dem said:
I hate what we are at the moment. A misfit rabble of journeymen players, a journeyman manager and a really poor team.

The club has no direction and no ambition. We are rudderless and seem to be going nowhere. Just nothingness.

What is it we are trying to do? Just stay up? Settle for mid-table in the Champo? Is that the sum total of our ambition?
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Who can be described as a journeyman? That means old and lots of clubs.

Today's starting XI:
Betinelli - only had one permenant club.
Dijksteel - at his second club, spent 4 1/2 years at his first club
Hall - Left Brighton at 19 for Spurs. Some loans from there, left for QPR where he spent 5 years. We are his 4th club in 10 years
McNair - 3rd club in 7 years, after failing to break through at Man Utd
Fry - home town boy
Bola - 3rd club after failing to break through at Arsenal
Howson 3 clubs in 15 years, the opposite of a jounreyman
Tav - first club
Watmore - 2nd club
Britt - 5th club in 10 years...possibly
NML - 5 in 12 years, yeah, jounreyman

Misfits - well absolutely there are some, but that's what happens when you chop and change managers and styles. There was talk just 18 months ago when Woodgate was given the job, about the 'golden thread' through the club, from U18s to 1st team, following a playing style and culture. But here we are playing kick and run again. We are suffering from having some players on the books that simply are not what our current manager wants, and arguably any manager. I know some people always big up Britt as a goal machine in the right team, but it's b0ll0x. He's a poor footballer and no top half championship manager would be happy for him to be their first choice. He will be at a bottom half side next year and in League One within 2.

Rudderless - I don't agree, we have leadership, but have made poor decisions. The main one being giving Monk the job and the cheque book

Going nowhere - Not sure I agree, we have had a poor decade, but there are some shoots of recovery. I think we bottomed out under Woodgate. We have some decent young players, Fry, Bola, Dijksteel, Tav. We have another crop coming through int he next 3 years, we have some more senior players who are building good experience McNair, Fisher, Watmore. We do lack permenant signings with serious quality, that is where our gap is, plus some leaders on the pitch. We defended much better today with Hall at the back, as we did 2 games ago with him. Morsy has had his moments too. We need a GK, some on the ball quality to help Tav and a couple of strikers that can hold the ball up. We're not a million miles from a play off side, in fact, I wouldn't rule us out this season.
 
Subbuteo_171 said:
Which is a model, is it not?

Brentford have spent 5 years in the top flight in their history. For the past few years they‘ve been run to a pretty successful, sustainable model - where is their academy as an example? Their recruitment has been a massive part of that - but it’s not a model? Don’t be silly.

We‘ve lurched from Monkball ( buy lots of players) to Pulisball (land of the giants and launch the ****** reversion to the 1980s, Bamford is **** and we’ll buy Aiden F***ing Flint and George £6.99m over his true value) to Woodgateball (buy from the lower leagues but then realise you haven’t got the players to play the way you want nor any intelligence in the coaching staff) to Warnockball (recruitment is **** and pass back to the keeper from 70 yards percentage utter turgid *****).

So yes, we do need a model if we want stop lurching from crisis to crisis, identity to identity, boom to bust.
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You've missed my point.
 
davidmills said:
Warnock has had 2 transfer windows to bring in a striker.
He has failed to address that problem.
Oh sorry forgot that’s recruitment’s fault isn’t it.
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Probably because we have two high earning strikers already on the books and splash a few million on another one in summer. Would guess Warnock was told he will need to work with what he already has until we get the two high earners off the books this summer. Bet we get two new strikers in the next window who Warnock wants.
 
This time last season relegation was a real possibility. I didn't expect much more this season but NW has made a difference. I certainly did not expect to be pushing for playoffs and I still think that is a pipe dream. But we can hope- we couldn't even do that last season. I don't know about anyone else but last season my backside was sore with having push the cheeks together due to the absolute shower of a team and backroom staff, and the low morale and even lower expectations of all of us.
No, I don't think we will trouble the play off positions, but we will not get relegated and I am grateful for that.
 
NYboro said:
He did and he has said it's the last time he will sign anyone without seeing him play in the flesh.
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Said at the time he knew him and he was decent. Probably from when he was at Arsenal. All the players we have brought in this season he said he knew about them. Even Hall although that was already agreed. He knew Betinelli and he is rubbish.
Not saying they have not been up to standard but he keeps having a go at the recruitment when clearly he is making decisions. If he is talking retrospectively he should make that clear.
 
With regards to a plan if there is a plan, it will never be a revolution but more of an evolution. This is due to the length of players contracts, the longer the contract with higher wages the harder it is to shift them from the books ie Britt and Gestede.

I believe we can see a continuation of what Woodgate was tasked to do. Woodgate brought in young fresh talent, however he wasnt able to develop them to an acceptable level. This is something that Warnock has been succesful in doing. He has also now signed these players up to longer term contracts. He has also brought out the best in players that we were criticising last year such as Fry, Johnson and Mcnair to be the first names on the teamsheet.
We are left with expensive and overpaid players who are not doing the job such as Britt and Saville, hopefully these will be moved on in the near future. Therefore we are creating a younger, cheaper team who need time to develop.

As we were in a position to look at promotion, he has attempted to use his experience to being in more experienced players. In the summer we had Hall and Morsy who are adding something to the team. Unfortunately it doesnt look as though Akpom is doing the job that we wanted, but a few years ago we said the same about Fletcher, now he is a player that we either love or hate depending upon the result.
In January he also bought in other players that he knew on loans and short term contracts. Yes they need to regain fitness and form, but I think that it was a good gamble to try to give us the boost.

So, I can see the direction is that we bring through younger players either from the academy or lower leagues, we may see more exciting players signing when we have cleared out Monks purchases, but we are restricted at the moment with expensive long term commitments that no one else will buy.
 
As for a plan I’d like to see a change in the recruitment structure at the club as some of our long term targets have been embarrassing. As they are not fit for purpose.
 
Haven't read whole thread but we tried to put long term plan in place when we appointed Woody. Any sane person could see that was clearly going to fail from the off. This season was all about stabilizing (as boring as that is) which Warnock has achieved (as would any other experienced championship manager would do with this squad).

If Warnock stays on I could see us challenging next year - at least serious play off challenge - but other than that I don't know what long term plan is.
 
Adi_Dem said:
I hate what we are at the moment. A misfit rabble of journeymen players, a journeyman manager and a really poor team.

The club has no direction and no ambition. We are rudderless and seem to be going nowhere. Just nothingness.

What is it we are trying to do? Just stay up? Settle for mid-table in the Champo? Is that the sum total of our ambition?
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I don't really agree with that. I think if we had had this squad last August we'd be winning games and be a serious contender for an automatic place. The new guys haven't had chance to bed in.
Warnock says we're light up top - he's right.
we are better than we were.
Playoffs? Not sure now...
 
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redblood said:
I'm confused.

I thought TeaCider was suggesting Adi to ignore you Nobby.

Mind you it is early here in Qld and I've just got up. :oops:
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Yes red blood I think Indeedido was being sarcastic but it was quite funny
I'm used to rolling with the punches.... Hahaa
 
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