Recruitment has killed us

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ancientblade said:
we pay championship salaries
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Salary is important, but it wasn't a problem until we started struggling.

Wilder has that Warnockesque trait of being wasteful with money when he's been given a pot of money to spend.

For every JOC or Egan there is a Robinson, Rodwell, Bryan or Heneghan.

For every Fleck there is a Leonard, Carruthers or Evans.

For every Duffy there's a Holmes, Freeman and C.Robinson.

People making the case that he had to cut his cloth accordingly do not mention how we've wasted good money on players who have hardly played or inexplicably do not play in a position that fits our system.
 
Bottom line is we’ve signed championship players which is where we’re going to end up.
Our supposedly outstanding transfer window has been an absolute disaster.
Yes we needed a goalkeeper but Bournemouth are laughing all the way to the bank.
Did we need Lowe and Bogle? The latter hasn’t even made the bench.
We needed to sign a premier league goal scorer and a premier league creative midfielder. Yes Brewster has potential, but potential isn’t going to keep us in the premier league.
 
Didn’t want to start another thread so thought this question was most suited in here. And apologies if this has been covered elsewhere.
We are in need of cover at the back. We have a young lad in Norrington-Davies out on loan and playing for his national team. How’s he doing? Could he do it at our level? Do we have a recall option?
Having him, if good enough, would enable us to experiment with Ampadu in midfield and give us another option etc.
Haven’t heard a lot about how he’s doing out on loan or how his development is going.
 
DronnieBlade said:
Do people honestly think that our wage ceiling is in the £20k - £25k per week bracket ?

Im telling you now it ain’t !!

At least one player is north of £50k per week and several that start with 3s and 4s.

UTB
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Dragging this back up, but just seen a tweet from Kieran Maguire about average Premier League wages (our accounts aren't out yet so these are based on season before last), but Christ the averages are high. Still makes even these numbers look like peanuts.

Even small teams averages are astonishingly high. Likes of West Ham averaging 63k, Palace 55k, Relegated Bournemouth average was over £50k, Brighton's £47k even low spending Burnley is over £40k.

If these are the averages for those teams, just shows that we really are still quite a way behind our rivals pay structures. If even our very highest earner is on about that same as Bournemouth'a average, we really are shopping at the bottom end. Our numbers must still be relatively small. Just all the numbers are way higher than I realised. I knew the top end of the market was ridiculous, but no idea that bang average players were pocketing so much..
 
Foody said:
Dragging this back up, but just seen a tweet from Kieran Maguire about average Premier League wages (our accounts aren't out yet so these are based on season before last), but Christ the averages are high. Still makes even these numbers look like peanuts.

Even small teams averages are astonishingly high. Likes of West Ham averaging 63k, Palace 55k, Relegated Bournemouth average was over £50k, Brighton's £47k even low spending Burnley is over £40k.

If these are the averages for those teams, just shows that we really are still quite a way behind our rivals pay structures. If even our very highest earner is on about that same as Bournemouth'a average, we really are shopping at the bottom end. Our numbers must still be relatively small. Just all the numbers are way higher than I realised. I knew the top end of the market was ridiculous, but no idea that bang average players were pocketing so much..
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the premier league is just a bit too rich for us we got here a couple of years too early and i do think our signings have been made with a mind that we could be back in the championship sooner or later looks like being sooner know chris has wasted some money on transfers but hes also lost out on some really good players simply because we couldnt pay the salaries its something we need to learn for when we come back up
 
ancientblade said:
the premier league is just a bit too rich for us we got here a couple of years too early and i do think our signings have been made with a mind that we could be back in the championship sooner or later looks like being sooner know chris has wasted some money on transfers but hes also lost out on some really good players simply because we couldnt pay the salaries its something we need to learn for when we come back up
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It's such a hard balance to strike though. Do you willingly pay several players over £65k, in the hope these keep you up. Knowing you'll be buggered if you do go down, especially if said players stock has dropped, as a result of your own failure.

How do you not risk the future of the club, and still build a Premier league squad?
Some sort of relegation wage slash combined with release clauses? Maybe, but I don't know how attractive this would be.
 
Foody said:
It's such a hard balance to strike though. Do you willingly pay several players over £65k, in the hope these keep you up. Knowing you'll be buggered if you do go down, especially if said players stock has dropped, as a result of your own failure.

How do you not risk the future of the club, and still build a Premier league squad?
Some sort of relegation wage slash combined with release clauses? Maybe, but I don't know how attractive this would be.
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Ultimately I think it’s the same as moving up any division just on steroids. You identify players on the up with enough time and ability on their side to have plenty of room for development coupled with some older heads with experience of the division. You hope this group keeps you in the division long enough for you to establish yourself so you’re infrastructure is on a par with the rest of the league. You also hope these players will develop as a group that you can keep together long enough that you are going into a summer transfer window not needing to plug holes and fight fires but rather make one or two luxury signings aswell as allocate funds to gradually improving wage budget. IMO we haven’t lost money on all but one signing of the prem era I think freeman is the only standout flop thus far.
 
Yogi said:
Ultimately I think it’s the same as moving up any division just on steroids. You identify players on the up with enough time and ability on their side to have plenty of room for development coupled with some older heads with experience of the division. You hope this group keeps you in the division long enough for you to establish yourself so you’re infrastructure is on a par with the rest of the league. You also hope these players will develop as a group that you can keep together long enough that you are going into a summer transfer window not needing to plug holes and fight fires but rather make one or two luxury signings aswell as allocate funds to gradually improving wage budget. IMO we haven’t lost money on all but one signing of the prem era I think freeman is the only standout flop thus far.
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Callum Robinson and Freeman have been loss makers. Moose is a loss maker, but it’s yet to be crystallised. That’s circa £25m worth of expenditure that we’ve reduced down to about £8m of asset value, probably less.

Leaving Ramsdale to one side.

We’ve wasted £8m to £10m on the Derby duo.

We’ve spent £25m on Brewster.

In the summer, we could’ve had an international quality (not top table) LCB from the continent for between £8m to £10m that fitted into our wage structure, Ivan Toney (a player that has played under Wilder) for £5m who would’ve fitted into our wage structure & not sent RND out on loan. And had £20m in the kitty for a JTW splurge.
 
Nicolaus_Copernicus said:
Callum Robinson and Freeman have been loss makers. Moose is a loss maker, but it’s yet to be crystallised. That’s circa £25m worth of expenditure that we’ve reduced down to about £8m of asset value, probably less.

Leaving Ramsdale to one side.

We’ve wasted £8m to £10m on the Derby duo.

We’ve spent £25m on Brewster.

In the summer, we could’ve had an international quality (not top table) LCB from the continent for between £8m to £10m that fitted into our wage structure, Ivan Toney (a player that has played under Wilder) for £5m who would’ve fitted into our wage structure & not sent RND out on loan. And had £20m in the kitty for a JTW splurge.
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think the 2 derby lads were signed with one eye on a championship campaign if the worst was to happen which looks likely now we would probably been better mixing it up a bit by bringing a couple of experienced premier league players in but its done now still think we will probably have the best squad in the championship if the worst happens and will have every chance of coming straight back up just hope when we do get back we will play a more positive and attacking system
 
Nicolaus_Copernicus said:
Callum Robinson and Freeman have been loss makers. Moose is a loss maker, but it’s yet to be crystallised. That’s circa £25m worth of expenditure that we’ve reduced down to about £8m of asset value, probably less.

Leaving Ramsdale to one side.

We’ve wasted £8m to £10m on the Derby duo.

We’ve spent £25m on Brewster.

In the summer, we could’ve had an international quality (not top table) LCB from the continent for between £8m to £10m that fitted into our wage structure, Ivan Toney (a player that has played under Wilder) for £5m who would’ve fitted into our wage structure & not sent RND out on loan. And had £20m in the kitty for a JTW splurge.
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Robinson is a hard one to quantify given the fee was a player and “some cash” but yeah we’ve lost almost all of freeman’s fee I’d argue. I’m not arguing that the money we spent couldn’t have been invested elsewhere in hindsight but I’m just not sure we’ve lost money on them.

Granted Lowe doesn’t look up to standard but he was by far the cheaper of the two derby boys in terms of Bogle because he hasn’t made an appearance his value might have dipped slightly but it is only slightly his age will keep his base value high as any prospective buyer would have plenty of time to develop him and his baseline ie what he showed at Derby is still very valuable that being an exciting championship attacking fullback. I get that him not playing means people are starting to assume he isn’t good enough but he wasn’t fit when he arrived and right now keeping that right hand side of Basham and Baldock intact is probably high on wilders list of priorities with the left hand side being like a game of musical chairs.

Brewster is trickier to quantify as his body of work is smaller but the last few games I’ve seen him particularly the West Ham game when he’s come on I’ve seen some clever things enough to suggest to me that his baseline is closer to what he did at Swansea to how he’s playing now when I don’t think he’s fully fit and in a system he doesn’t fully know yet. If that Swansea type form is his baseline and we do drop next year he’d be 21-22 and we’d be expecting a goal return in the high teens low twenties in a division where you’d expect us to create far more chances. This summer showed that if you want to buy that player then 20 mill is probably the minimum fee in terms of a prem side wanting to buy that player.

So whilst I don’t dispute with hindsight that money could’ve been better invested in different positions. I don’t think that money has been wasted to the extent that we couldn’t recoup a significant portion of it should we choose to liquidate those playing assets.
 
if the lad wants to stay with us brewster will be an outstanding goalscorer in the championship if we go down i would back him to get 20 plus goals
 
Nicolaus_Copernicus said:
Callum Robinson and Freeman have been loss makers. Moose is a loss maker, but it’s yet to be crystallised. That’s circa £25m worth of expenditure that we’ve reduced down to about £8m of asset value, probably less.

Leaving Ramsdale to one side.

We’ve wasted £8m to £10m on the Derby duo.

We’ve spent £25m on Brewster.

In the summer, we could’ve had an international quality (not top table) LCB from the continent for between £8m to £10m that fitted into our wage structure, Ivan Toney (a player that has played under Wilder) for £5m who would’ve fitted into our wage structure & not sent RND out on loan. And had £20m in the kitty for a JTW splurge.
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Robinson, freeman and mousset were all part of a squad that stayed up and finished 9th last season, thus generating us £150m? I don't know the exact figures. I get that their specific value in terms of if/when we sell them might be lower than what we paid, but we haven't lost money on them.
 



ancientblade said:
if the lad wants to stay with us brewster will be an outstanding goalscorer in the championship if we go down i would back him to get 20 plus goals
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Case in point being Dom solanke who looked like he couldn’t hit a barn door with a banjo last year but looks to be seriously coming into his own this year.
 
All this talk about not paying the wages...but how come our highest paid player never sets foot on the pitch?
 
Yogi said:
Case in point being Dom solanke who looked like he couldn’t hit a barn door with a banjo last year but looks to be seriously coming into his own this year.
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exactly there is a big gap between the 2 leagues now strikers in the premier league are up against international defenders every week im sure weve got the strikers that would do very well in the championship our biggest problem is midfield just now but might not be if we go down at least we wont have to watch this system anymore
 
Foody said:
It's such a hard balance to strike though. Do you willingly pay several players over £65k, in the hope these keep you up. Knowing you'll be buggered if you do go down, especially if said players stock has dropped, as a result of your own failure.

How do you not risk the future of the club, and still build a Premier league squad?
Some sort of relegation wage slash combined with release clauses? Maybe, but I don't know how attractive this would be.
Click to expand...

it depends who you are paying the wages too.

If we were paying hendo 65k a week, it would have been worth it. If we were paying someone home grown as good as grealish 100k a week it would probably be worth it... as they get you results.

Our issue is too few of our signings have justified the fees or the wages spent already.
 
Thought I’d give this a re run seen as though was predicted at the start of the season.
 
Never has so much been spent on so much crap ....
There isn't one player recruited since arriving in the PL that you could honestly say looks like he could be a PL footballer.
Even if you gave me the transfer budget and I made signings with my eyes closed the law of averages means I couldn't have done any worse.
And now the money's gone and we're stuck with some expensive duds.
 
Three of the four big money signings Wilder has made are obviously not good enough for the EPL:

McBurnie will never ever be a prolific goal scorer, in fact I can't imagine how he's ever made it as a footballer!
Scoring goals for Swansea doesn't make him suitable for the EPL!
There's just something about his persona, they he runs, the way he jumps....
Scottish fans have him sussed - Dugshite!

The same can be said for Brewster, just because he scored for Swansea... and although he's still young and has potential, the potential needs more time outside the EPL, which ironically he'll be doing next season!

Ramsdale, sorry but he's just not good enough at this or Championship level!

Only Berge has looked like he has something, but he's what I would call a Rolls Royce player and he'll develop and do well in a better team than ours and will no doubt be the only one of our current squad who'll be playing in the EPL next season!

As for the rest.....some are good enough for the Championship and due to some of the stupid long term contracts Wilder had awarded them e.g. Sharp, Norwood, we'll be stuck with them again next season anyways, despite the desperate need for new blood!

Next season, having over achieved last season and somewhat underachieved this, we'll see the Blades back at their natural level and hopefully this truly embarrassing season will be forgotten and eventually, a distant albeit painful memory, once we remember how to win a game or two, or three, or four.........

We are not and in the current financial circumstances, never will be, an established EPL team because we simply cannot compete with the big boys financially and attract the quality of players required to stay in the top league.
 
Tynemouth Blade said:
Three of the four big money signings Wilder has made are obviously not good enough for the EPL:

McBurnie will never ever be a prolific goal scorer, in fact I can't imagine how he's ever made it as a footballer!
Scoring goals for Swansea doesn't make him suitable for the EPL!
There's just something about his persona, they he runs, the way he jumps....
Scottish fans have him sussed - Dugshite!

The same can be said for Brewster, just because he scored for Swansea... and although he's still young and has potential, the potential needs more time outside the EPL, which ironically he'll be doing next season!

Ramsdale, sorry but he's just not good enough at this or Championship level!

Only Berge has looked like he has something, but he's what I would call a Rolls Royce player and he'll develop and do well in a better team than ours and will no doubt be the only one of our current squad who'll be playing in the EPL next season!

As for the rest.....some are good enough for the Championship and due to some of the stupid long term contracts Wilder had awarded them e.g. Sharp, Norwood, we'll be stuck with them again next season anyways, despite the desperate need for new blood!

Next season, having over achieved last season and somewhat underachieved this, we'll see the Blades back at their natural level and hopefully this truly embarrassing season will be forgotten and eventually, a distant albeit painful memory, once we remember how to win a game or two, or three, or four.........

We are not and in the current financial circumstances, never will be, an established EPL team because we simply cannot compete with the big boys financially and attract the quality of players required to stay in the top league.
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I'll play devil's advocate here and say Messi and Ronaldo would struggle in front of our current midfield!

Stick Brewster in front of our championship midfield and/or the marauding efforts from last Autumn and he bags goals...

We're just reaping the benefits of not investing in the engine room and are left with a Forest reserve and Chelsea reject holding the fort as 20 B&H Norwood, sulky teenager Lundstram and kebab loving Fleck have gone seriously backward!
 
The Prince has backed Wilder on every player he’s wanted.

The summer was a perfect opportunity to attract some real quality players to the club and really kick on.

Instead we went back to the championship for Lowe and Bogle of which we didn’t need, and wasted £10 million or so.
Yes Brewster has potential and he might eventually come good but potential doesn’t win you games and score you goals.

Our midfield is woeful for this level, there isn’t an ounce of pace/creativity in it and it’s got championship wrote all over it.
 
Lengthy article about our recruitment strategy (or lack of) by The Athletic yesterday.

How Sheffield United recruit players
https://theathletic.com/2249495/202...uitment-transfers/?source=user_shared_article

Picked out a couple of quotes from Wilder that are quite telling.

“Our recruitment is tailored to the way we play. We don’t switch formations. It is a very small (recruitment) group we work with here. We have not got scouts here, there and everywhere. We go down a different road to others.

“I am very hands-on. It is not a head coach set-up with a recruitment team who sign players for the manager. Mitch knows what I am after in terms of character, position-specific qualities and so on.”

Little goes on at Sheffield United without the input of Chris Wilder. “I have my fingerprints on a lot of things,” he says. “Both on and off the pitch.”

This considerable reach includes transfers, with Wilder very much leading the search for fresh blood and then trying to get them to Bramall Lane.

“It has not been possible to get out and see players,” Wilder reveals when asked by The Athletic about the complications of scouting amid a pandemic. “You are only allowed domestically to watch your next three games (opponents). Unless we have a decent relationship, there is no stipulation that we are allowed into Championship games.The Athletic about the complications of scouting amid a pandemic. “You are only allowed domestically to watch your next three games (opponents). Unless we have a decent relationship, there is no stipulation that we are allowed into Championship games.

“But (watching targets) abroad? Totally impossible. I don’t like it because every player we have signed in the past I have had the ability to watch two or three times. They have been flagged up, made available and I have seen them live.

“Domestically, (when assessing possible targets) we can still use the experience of most likely having seen a couple of them live. But, when talking abroad and internationally, any signing will have to be done off a screen and (video) footage.”
 



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