Nagging regrets from the season

[Keen Blade]

I don't think there were enough time for a re-think, after we sold him him it all seemed a bit kick bollock and rush, can't believe the club didn't have a back up plan in case he left anyway.

Club run by amateurs whilst owner abroad turns a blind eye

 

[TheGregBlade]

Verbal agreement means nothing. Unless a contract is signed, we were at risk.

Illi - "Yes, I'll sign a contract"
Club- "Cool, we will look for your replacement in case you don't"
Illi - "The fuck are you doing that for? If you are looking to replace me I'll leave anyway"
Rest of club & fans - "Why did you force Illi out when he had agreed to stay?"

Cue absolute meltdown due to club completely fucking up something we almost had.

Sometimes it's better and wiser to let the other party be the one that makes the bad decision.

 

[Rodley]

Illi - "Yes, I'll sign a contract"
Club- "Cool, we will look for your replacement in case you don't"
Illi - "The fuck are you doing that for? If you are looking to replace me I'll leave anyway"
Rest of club & fans - "Why did you force Illi out when he had agreed to stay?"

Cue absolute meltdown due to club completely fucking up something we almost had.

Sometimes it's better and wiser to let the other party be the one that makes the bad decision.

Most clubs will be continuously scouting and talking to Agents about potential replacements. It’s good practice.

 

[Keen Blade]

Doyle would have been perfect for us, however he wouldn't agree to a wage deduction on relegation.
Having been burnt with this with Brewster we clearly didn't want to repeat the risk of Doyle getting injured and be stuck with a higher earner doing nowt.

Fuckinell don't tell me that Brewster lad never had a relegation reduction in 2021

 

[Keen Blade]

Verbal agreement means nothing. Unless a contract is signed, we were at risk.

Club run by amateurs

 

[Champagneblade]

Yes but right at the start he was saying he’s unsure as he didn’t know what players he was going to have. This isn’t digging Hecky it’s just how there’s little play in its entirety.

Counter attacking and signing Archer doesn’t add up properly. We didn’t sign pace which is the number one thing to counter.

He would have been better playing 5-4-1 and having pace out wide to hit teams on the break.

As you say, signing a number 9, not even a 10, did nothing to achieve his goal.

 

[Champagneblade]

I've said it before, but it was absolutely criminal how we were scrounging around for signings 3 games into the season when we had sealed promotion with 3 games to spare and gave us a head start to sort out contracts and signings.

That set the tone for the season, the first 2 games were absolutely winnable and we shouldn't have come out of those with 0 point. We were still assembling a team at that point which fucked up any pre season plans in terms of gelling new signings into the squad, giving them our fitness regime (though probably best they skipped that) and meant we were experimenting in games that mattered instead of using friendlies to try out different systems and formations.

It's promising that Wilder has come out and said he's already been talking to agents and targets, we should already have made plans of who is going, who is getting a contract, and what positions need strengthening so that we can have a good pre season and start next season in the best possible shape, especially as we're already starting bottom.

That’s the frustrating thing for me regarding Doyle.

We lost him by waiting too. Yet he seemed very sold on a move to us and could have been the first through the door had we shown intent. Not signing him has put us back a few years IMHO.

As I mentioned if down or not, him, Hamer and Arblaster is a decent midfield for us in the critter of the top two divisions!

 

[Champagneblade]

That we didn't beat Villareal to the punch on Brereton in the summer and managed to get Archer on a proper permanent.

It would have been (a little more) interesting if we’d had him come in the door instead of Traore, wouldn’t it?

 

[petcharlie]

Good post in as much as I agree with every word. But it’s just made me relive our summer business again and now I’m livid!
Doyle was the absolute #1 target last summer for me. He fit the club perfectly and was an ideal Norwood replacement. Remember when he changed his profile picture back to him in a Blades shirt? I was so excited!
Instead we fucked around and brought in Souza! Big Vini!! A player who couldn’t be any further from what we were looking for if we had tried!

I thought Slimane looked decent in pre season tbh but that’s as far as it went.
Troare was a pointless signing and that money should’ve been used on big athletic striker loan.
I had no problem with the Trusty signing and I personally think we’ll need him next season.
Larouci and Thomas again were just awful business by our recruitment team.

Sell: Ndiaye and Berge
Buy: Doyle, Hamer, Trusty (LWB & GK if possible)
Loan: (domestic or foreign) McAtee, Striker, (LWB & GK)

Yes our recruitment team were shocking .What a load of shite we signed ,might as well thrown those millions in the bin .What is the point buying 3 or 4 players that wont do anything other than weaken the squad . Might as well just sign one decent one than 4 crap ones who would never get in the squad apart from making the numbers up . Hopefully we have sorted the recruitment dept out but don't hold your breath . Wish we had Coventry's scouting system or Bretfords they always seem to pick up gems from nowhere.

 

[Bladesman]

It concerns me how poorly we read the room regarding our promotion and it’s a real regret we didn’t make more of a fist of it.

Whilst Hecky seems a decent guy and a decent coach, it doesn’t make him a good leader and feels like he was resigned to his fate as soon as Ndiaye left and was passive in reacting to it.

Ndiaye was not only our best attacker, but he was also our best defender and arguably our best midfielder, but the way we went about moving on from his departure was almost child like in its naivety.

Under Wilder, despite it feeling far more swashbuckling, even he noted that we would have to be more robust. Under Hecky, he went the other way!

I don’t know why we didn’t draw a line in the sand and say “ok, we’ve lost Iliman, we need a re-think”. It is clear we entered the season with no clear identity and chasing players we liked, e.g. Archer, rather than players that fitted to a plan.

We could have played McAtee off a striker and gone for Hamer and Doyle as the two main targets. Both would have held their value if relegated even if the latter would not have accepted a wage clause. There was a period before Wolves and City started talking that he was clearly waiting on us.

This lack of leadership and decisiveness really cost us.

Imagine if we could have finished the season with a midfield of Arblaster, Doyle and Hamer, with McAtee off a main striker.

That’s not to say the defence and keeper didn’t need some work but it is really poor how bad the club got it wrong. The disjoint between manager and recruitment was such a gulf and can’t be allowed to happen again.

How much Hecky was involved in recruitment wasn’t clear but the fact him and Paul Mitchell have both not lasted the season says it all. Roygbiv in his view from outlined early on Souza was blamed for a lot of his prior club’s plight. Slimane was highlighted as inconsistent even in a weak league. One visual on Traore would tell you he’d need to be exceptional to get over his slight frame in such a competitive league. I can accept the rationale on Trusty, he got Player of the Year at Brum. But the complete lack of desire to forge an identity for the team and then to recruit appropriately only added to such an abject season.

I just wonder, if our time came again, and if those were the known finances, what would we have done differently?

Have we learned from this experience?

Where Hecky and the club got it wrong was and still is not being able to get to get on top the injury problems. No club will survive with nearly 40% of the first team squad missing over the course of a season.

Take 40% of Arsenal's first team away and see if they are still challenging for the title.

 

[Oreyt]

That there was a season.

 

[Proper Blade]

The writing was on the wall as soon as we sold Ndiaye. We were never ever going to be able to replace him and Bettis admitted as much in his most recent car crash interview.

It left us desperately scrambling around for replacements after the season had already started. None of whom were anywhere near good enough.

It's difficult for the recruitment team when you're asked to build a side capable of survival for less than the cost of one player for a top club. But the recruitment still needed to be far better. Traore, Slimane, Larouci and Thomas in particular were all disastrous signings that were just not what we needed at all.

 

[BigBed]

Buying a season ticket!!

 

[Keen Blade]

Illi - "Yes, I'll sign a contract"
Club- "Cool, we will look for your replacement in case you don't"
Illi - "The fuck are you doing that for? If you are looking to replace me I'll leave anyway"
Rest of club & fans - "Why did you force Illi out when he had agreed to stay?"

Cue absolute meltdown due to club completely fucking up something we almost had.

Sometimes it's better and wiser to let the other party be the one that makes the bad decision.

We don't tell him we're looking out for who might be available to replace him - if gossip circulates that we're after another striker , and he challenges it , we say we're looking for a partner for him.
Have you never played poker ?

 

[IdLiketoRogerMoore]

I've said it before, but it was absolutely criminal how we were scrounging around for signings 3 games into the season when we had sealed promotion with 3 games to spare and gave us a head start to sort out contracts and signings.

That set the tone for the season, the first 2 games were absolutely winnable and we shouldn't have come out of those with 0 point. We were still assembling a team at that point which fucked up any pre season plans in terms of gelling new signings into the squad, giving them our fitness regime (though probably best they skipped that) and meant we were experimenting in games that mattered instead of using friendlies to try out different systems and formations.

It's promising that Wilder has come out and said he's already been talking to agents and targets, we should already have made plans of who is going, who is getting a contract, and what positions need strengthening so that we can have a good pre season and start next season in the best possible shape, especially as we're already starting bottom.

That's a great point. We were promoted with over two weeks of the season left, yet 3.5 months later started the next season like it was a big surprise! Both from a (lack of) transfers perspective but also from a physical conditioning standpoint. To this day, I'm still staggered that a sporting programme that will turnover nine- figures can churn out such unfit, slow, undynamic players.

If you look at what Jim Ratcliffe has done at Man Utd - bring in Dave Brailsford to review the sporting programme. The clues are there if we're unsure what to do next.

 

[TheGregBlade]

We don't tell him we're looking out for who might be available to replace him - if gossip circulates that we're after another striker , and he challenges it , we say we're looking for a partner for him.
Have you never played poker ?

The point about poker is that you convince other people you have a lot more than you do.

Doesn't tend to work that way when everyone knows you actually have fuck all to start with.

 

[Wizard]

For me I think we just had too much to do with a lack of funds

Promotion last year was a pretty remarkable achievement. Our squad was ok but ended up looking quite thin due to injuries and we had very little investment. There were 4 loans = 2 good (Doyle & McAtee) + 2 bad (Clark, Khadra). We hit the jackpot with Anel as our only purchase because there was weirdness meaning we could get him at a cut-price deal. And obviously Ndiaye, we were very fortunate to have him come through and revitalise our attack at a time when we couldn't have afforded to get anyone close to his level of ability. The rest of the squad was pretty proven at Champ level but was generally ageing out of it's prime.

This was the 22/23 squad with all players who played at least 1+ 90mins. Youngsters who missed out were Arblaster & Gordon (0.8), Osula (0.6!) and some others who played a handful of minutes. We were heavily reliant on Ndiaye, McBurnie and Sharp in attack with Khadra/Brewster/Jebbison being ineffective bit part players. And the left side of defence was thin with Clark and Stevens missing for long periods.


So we came into this season with a squad like this

• Ndiaye and Berge sold as they were in the last years of their contracts and wouldn't resign.
• McAtee, Doyle, Clark and Khadra's loans finished
• Stevens and Sharp leaving on frees due to declining performances.
• RND, Brewster and Jebbison out with injury

Trying to bring that up to Premier League standard with basically no investment other than the funds recouped for Ndiaye and Berge is really tough. Especially when Egan and Basham suffer major injuries early on and we can't rely on the fitness of Baldock/Lowe/McBurnie. Also doesn't help when Anel's level drops off a cliff and Wes starts dropping clangers. The likes of Brooks, Arblaster, Osula etc. were as yet untested and you don't really want to just throw them into the premier league. We could've kept Arblaster this summer but would he have performed as well without his loan to Port Vale?

There were things we could've done. I don't think Souza is awful but we could've spent that money better and Benie was a baffling signing in hindsight. Archer is good but maybe a different profile would've been better suited, Hamer was a good buy but would we have been better off buying 3/4 players to fill out the squad instead of one good one? I'm not sure, e.g. Trusty is one of those kind of players and he's been far from convincing. Slimane has been an as yet unsuccessful gamble. Thomas and Larouci were unquestionably failures but I guess it's hard to find a wing-back for next to no money. Not sure why we spent a fee on Grbic. Strange to give Tom Davies a 3 year deal with his recent injury history despite his pedigree. Holgate is a meh and BBD has been good.

Whatever route we took it was going to be a massive change from 22/23 and even if we'd made better decisions it's very unlikely that every move would be successful and the squad would need time to gel together. In hindsight I'd maybe have been even less bothered about trying to keep some consistency as there was already so much change. Maybe we could've got a better loan than McAtee and we definitely shouldn't have resigned Fleck.

 

[IdLiketoRogerMoore]

I don't think Souza is awful

A great post undermined by one line....