McCabes Pledge

[Fiery Blade]

At the Fans Forum at the start of the season our esteemed chairman Mr McCabe and his sidekick Trevor Birch categorically stated that 'Sheffield United would not go down the same road as the previous season as regards Loan Players'
I am not sure wether I have missed any out but:
Parrino, Bartley, Nosworthy, De Laat, Calve, Batthe, Reid, Bent, Lowry, Philliskirk, Mattock,
Is ONLY 11 loan players in half a season the norm or is it that McCabe and Birch don't care what sh!t they feed the fans - we will put up with it!
Micky Adams has a massive job to do - he doesn't need lying, cheating conniving gits to work for! ands as far as I can see that probably sums up McCabe and all his hangers on!
I will support Micky and his team 100% McCabe and Birch deserve each other!

 

[Micalijo]

Top stuff Fiery. Needs stressing just how disgraceful McCabe's utterances have been. Fortunately, although some choose to ignore it, I think pretty much everyone agrees with you deep down.

 

[broomhillblade]

All fine in theory, but he could not have foreseen the injuries to Morgan, and Taylor and Jordan. Some of these happened outside the transfer window so the club had little option but to use loans since we had no cover at all and were forced to use players out of position. With hindsight, the club should have bought an experienced centre-back in the summer, but good ones would probably want a 3-year contract and high wages.

The current position is that there is a risk of relegation and the club clearly don't want to be tied down to long-term contracts. Hopefully, we'll stay up and Adams can do some serious long-term team building in the summer.

---------- Post added at 12:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:23 PM ----------

Top stuff Fiery. Needs stressing just how disgraceful McCabe's utterances have been. Fortunately, although some choose to ignore it, I think pretty much everyone agrees with you deep down.

Fiery provides the 'assist' and Mic gets the tap-in!

 

[norfolkblade]

All fine in theory, but he could not have foreseen the injuries to Morgan, and Taylor and Jordan. Some of these happened outside the transfer window so the club had little option but to use loans since we had no cover at all and were forced to use players out of position. With hindsight, the club should have bought an experienced centre-back in the summer, but good ones would probably want a 3-year contract and high wages.

The current position is that there is a risk of relegation and the club clearly don't want to be tied down to long-term contracts. Hopefully, we'll stay up and Adams can do some serious long-term team building in the summer.

True, but we did sell Kilgallon without replacing him, and sold Bromby as well, where was the sense in that?! Now we have 3 centre halves who are fit, none of whom belong to us, brilliant.

 

[SwissBlade]

I'd agree to an extent.

But... The loans this season have almost all (except Reid I think) been season loans most if not all without recall clauses

To me thats as good as signing a player on a years contract, but gives us the freedom to perhaps get better players that we could sign on permanent deals, but without the fees.

So whilst the culture of loans is still there, the playing staff are more stable than last season.

How many players played for us last season? How many have played this season.

The loans have all been necessary especially with long term injuries to players like Morgan, Hendo, Willo and perhaps with academy players not being deemed ready for first team action yet.

 

[Fiery Blade]

Apart from the injuries it was total mismanagement - you cannot run a team with just 11 or 12 players - in todays game yellow and red cards are waived about like confetti
With players like Morgan (hard) - he's going to collect at least 5 yellows and the odd red, Quinn & Ward (arseholes) - won't stop bickering, back chatting - both likely for 5 yellows and the odd red,
Montgomery (inept) - at least five yellows for mistimed tackles and generally poor tackling, Henderson (thug) - misses generally at least 50% of games due to injury and suspension, Bartley (inexperienced) - at least five yellows for niaive or late tackles, France - never plays, Ward see above plus injury prone, Nosworthy (see Montgomery)
With a crew like that in tow it was total idiocy to believe we wouldn't need back up replacements!

 

[Bladesman]

All fine in theory, but he could not have foreseen the injuries to Morgan, and Taylor and Jordan. Some of these happened outside the transfer window so the club had little option but to use loans since we had no cover at all and were forced to use players out of position. With hindsight, the club should have bought an experienced centre-back in the summer, but good ones would probably want a 3-year contract and high wages.

The current position is that there is a risk of relegation and the club clearly don't want to be tied down to long-term contracts. Hopefully, we'll stay up and Adams can do some serious long-term team building in the summer.

True, but we did sell Kilgallon without replacing him, and sold Bromby as well, where was the sense in that?! Now we have 3 centre halves who are fit, none of whom belong to us, brilliant.

Exactly we have not replaced the players we have sold.

If they abolished the loan system tomorrow we really would be buggered. Thankfully that wont happen but it does mean regardless of how well or crap the 11 loaned players perform they will just bugger off at the end of the season regardless of what shit the club finds itself in.

Sure we couldnt have forcast a lot of injuries but we know from the experiences of last season what can happen and we had the summer to make perminant signings and chose not to. Also over the last 2 seasons we have also started signing players we know are prone to long term injuries e.g Jordan and Williamson. Then we are surprsied when they get injured!

 

[Jim Chimmerney]

At the Fans Forum at the start of the season our esteemed chairman Mr McCabe and his sidekick Trevor Birch categorically stated that 'Sheffield United would not go down the same road as the previous season as regards Loan Players'
I am not sure wether I have missed any out but:
Parrino, Bartley, Nosworthy, De Laat, Calve, Batthe, Reid, Bent, Lowry, Philliskirk, Mattock,
Is ONLY 11 loan players in half a season the norm or is it that McCabe and Birch don't care what sh!t they feed the fans - we will put up with it!
Micky Adams has a massive job to do - he doesn't need lying, cheating conniving gits to work for! ands as far as I can see that probably sums up McCabe and all his hangers on!
I will support Micky and his team 100% McCabe and Birch deserve each other!

Whilst not defending McCabe, let's look at the loan deals.

Bartley and Nos were both long term targets agreed up by KB pre season. KB is then sacked, another story and yes, McCabe / Birch were at fault here.
De Laet, brought in on short term at short notice to cover injuries
Calve, maybe would have signed pre-season if KB had fancied him, brought in by Speed on a season long in a position most agreed we needed to cover
Parrino, part of the Argie link, maybe commercial, who knows
Reid, great signing, no-one can fault this one
Batth, brought in short term for cover due to more injuries
Philliskirk was probably signed by Pembo to look at in the development squad
Lowry, Mattock, we had to bring a couple in due to further injuries
Bent, again, with Hendo out, we need another experienced body in and a loan is probably the cheapest / best option

So basically, we brought in two long terms at the start of the season, have three more to cover us for the rest of the season and have had three filling in on short term.

Too many, probably yes but it's not the same as last season (just yet) and given the circumstances, the change (and timing) of managers, the injuries, not totally unexpected, and more to the point, definitely not planned.

 

[parisblade]

Bartley and Nos were both long term targets agreed up by KB pre season. KB is then sacked, another story and yes, McCabe / Birch were at fault here.
De Laet, brought in on short term at short notice to cover injuries
Calve, maybe would have signed pre-season if KB had fancied him, brought in by Speed on a season long in a position most agreed we needed to cover
Parrino, part of the Argie link, maybe commercial, who knows
Reid, great signing, no-one can fault this one
Batth, brought in short term for cover due to more injuries
Philliskirk was probably signed by Pembo to look at in the development squad
Lowry, Mattock, we had to bring a couple in due to further injuries
Bent, again, with Hendo out, we need another experienced body in and a loan is probably the cheapest / best option

So basically, we brought in two long terms at the start of the season, have three more to cover us for the rest of the season and have had three filling in on short term.

Too many, probably yes but it's not the same as last season (just yet) and given the circumstances, the change (and timing) of managers, the injuries, not totally unexpected, and more to the point, definitely not planned.

Good post Fleety. It also seems to be the way things are in football outside the top 6 in the prem. How many of those above still with us will be looking for permanent contract at the end of their loans? We made a mistake is shelling out serious cash for Ched without really knowing how he would settle in at BDTBL, this way Micky can assess them and offer them more if they perform.

 

[Oreyt]

But... The loans this season have almost all (except Reid I think) been season loans most if not all without recall clauses. To me thats as good as signing a player on a years contract, but gives us the freedom to perhaps get better players that we could sign on permanent deals, but without the fees

What he said.

 

[Eskimo]

Another interpretation is that one of the reasons Blackwell was sacked was because he had not been successful in assembling a good enough squad of players with the appropriate mix for the season of contracted players and loanees sufficient to allow Kev to keep to his 'pledge'. The accusation you make of lying is ridiculous. What would be the purpose?

 

[Flatulent_Bob]

You can't count the development squad players.

While its far from ideal how many of us would have wanted us to sign Nos on the £3 million that was offered in the summer?

Personally I'm glad we decided on loans rather than deals for him.

 

[Fiery Blade]

Another interpretation is that one of the reasons Blackwell was sacked was because he had not been successful in assembling a good enough squad of players with the appropriate mix for the season of contracted players and loanees sufficient to allow Kev to keep to his 'pledge'. The accusation you make of lying is ridiculous. What would be the purpose?

The purpose was to deflect criticism of his management of the club prevalent at the forum. He outlined the huge costs of loan arrangements and fees and stated that the money received from the Killgallon sale had all gone plus extra on loan fees for the replacements for the rest of the season.
When a man pubicly states that there would not be anywhere near the same level of loanees as they do not have total commitment to the cause and then loans over 10 players in the following half season the man was lying!

 

[Jim Chimmerney]

Another interpretation is that one of the reasons Blackwell was sacked was because he had not been successful in assembling a good enough squad of players with the appropriate mix for the season of contracted players and loanees sufficient to allow Kev to keep to his 'pledge'. The accusation you make of lying is ridiculous. What would be the purpose?

The purpose was to deflect criticism of his management of the club prevalent at the forum. He outlined the huge costs of loan arrangements and fees and stated that the money received from the Killgallon sale had all gone plus extra on loan fees for the replacements for the rest of the season.
When a man pubicly states that there would not be anywhere near the same level of loanees as they do not have total commitment to the cause and then loans over 10 players in the following half season the man was lying!

And there haven't been the same level of loanees (yet).

The situation could have been different if KB had been sacked in the Summer which makes the decision to sack him when they did all the more bizarre. Speed's hands were tied taking over when he did and MA has the same problem now. As I said on another thread, it's patch up and make do until the Summer and the easiest way to do that is with loans.

 

[SwissBlade]

The purpose was to deflect criticism of his management of the club prevalent at the forum. He outlined the huge costs of loan arrangements and fees and stated that the money received from the Killgallon sale had all gone plus extra on loan fees for the replacements for the rest of the season.
When a man pubicly states that there would not be anywhere near the same level of loanees as they do not have total commitment to the cause and then loans over 10 players in the following half season the man was lying!

If so, then it worked, it fooled people like you... (and me)

Hmmm and I don't think you can say that McCabe was lying, he's just gone back on what he said - perhaps as bad or worse, but i'm not losing sleep about this one. If at the end of the season McCabe says "I didn't say that last season" then he's lying, but he won't say that, he'll hold his hands up (i'm sure of it) and say "yep i fucked up"

We don't really know why we've ended up with so many long term loanees this season, but the fact is that we've got them and its against what McCabe promised. Fair enough Fiery.

But its not lying, just poor judgement, broken promises and bad planning. But so was commmitting yourself to a manager and firing him after two games. So was going through 4 team managers before Christmas.

The questions we really need to be concerned with on the loans are things like:
Have the loans been effective?
Could we have filled the slots with Academy lads?
Could we have got permanent signings of the same quality?

Most of these will only be answered at the end of the season - fortunately or unfortunately.

And by then Fiery, I fully expect that you will put the question of the loans back to McCabe, whether they are successful or not. Because you asked the question and you need the answers to this.

 

[Sothall_Blade]

You can't count the development squad players.

Great. Does this mean we can sign and play as many loanees as we want and when the League cry foul we'll say "It’s ok, he might be on loan but he’s just a development player!”

I’m going to float an unpopular theory now and that is that “Development player” is just Adam’s way of saying “I didn’t sign him, he’s nothing to do with me”.
The first time I heard the expression used was when Adam’s was questioned about the two Norwegian blokes he was signing.
Despite being given their names, he clearly didn’t have a clue who they were and so said “Oh yeah, I think we’re signing some players for the ‘Development squad’ but I’m trying to sign players for the first team.

The Irish and Norwegian lads are older than Lowry and Mattock but because Speed/Pembo lined them up they’re “Development” players while Adam’s younger signings are straight in the first team.
Apparently we’ve spent an undisclosed fee on the Irish lads while Adams hasn’t been allowed to spend a penny on transfer fees yet.
Shouldn’t the first team manager have an input (or at least some knowledge of) all players being signed by the club, especially when they’re taking money out of the transfer kitty?

If the "Development Squad" is a grand plan rather than a convenient way of dismissing Speed's signings, how come United haven't lined up a batch of fixtures for them to start learning their trade and proving their worth in?

 

[Flatulent_Bob]

Great. Does this mean we can sign and play as many loanees as we want and when the League cry foul we'll say "It’s ok, he might be on loan but he’s just a development player!”

I’m going to float an unpopular theory now and that is that “Development player” is just Adam’s way of saying “I didn’t sign him, he’s nothing to do with me”.
The first time I heard the expression used was when Adam’s was questioned about the two Norwegian blokes he was signing.
Despite being given their names, he clearly didn’t have a clue who they were and so said “Oh yeah, I think we’re signing some players for the ‘Development squad’ but I’m trying to sign players for the first team.

The Irish and Norwegian lads are older than Lowry and Mattock but because Speed/Pembo lined them up they’re “Development” players while Adam’s younger signings are straight in the first team.
Apparently we’ve spent an undisclosed fee on the Irish lads while Adams hasn’t been allowed to spend a penny on transfer fees yet.
Shouldn’t the first team manager have an input (or at least some knowledge of) all players being signed by the club, especially when they’re taking money out of the transfer kitty?

If the "Development Squad" is a grand plan rather than a convenient way of dismissing Speed's signings, how come United haven't lined up a batch of fixtures for them to start learning their trade and proving their worth in?

They are playing in the ressie's and are under Pembo's umbrella. They are all young and unlikely to be in immediate contention for the first team squad.

Also the league won't cry foul unless you try and put them all on the pitch together, which we aren't.

 

[Sothall_Blade]

They are playing in the ressie's and are under Pembo's umbrella. They are all young and unlikely to be in immediate contention for the first team squad.
Also the league won't cry foul unless you try and put them all on the pitch together, which we aren't.

Except that they aren't playing in The Reserves because the Reserves haven't played since 14th Dec 10. The Irish pair were signed in early January and aren't due to make their first appearance until early February. What kind of Development strategy is that?

Likewise Philliskirk and the Norwegian pair although I haven't seen their deal confimed by the club. Maybe Adams questioned the wisdom of spending money on players not good enough for the first team?

 

[bartman]

The purpose was to deflect criticism of his management of the club prevalent at the forum. He outlined the huge costs of loan arrangements and fees and stated that the money received from the Killgallon sale had all gone plus extra on loan fees for the replacements for the rest of the season.
When a man pubicly states that there would not be anywhere near the same level of loanees as they do not have total commitment to the cause and then loans over 10 players in the following half season the man was lying!

Down to the McCabe lying routine are you,Fiery ? Maybe the intention was less loans but sometimes circumstances dictate otherwise (e.g. new manager(s),injuries etc). If KM said no loans after the August window,it would mean that ,in the current circumstances,we would not be able to afford permanat signings of any decent quality and would have to play the kids from the academy. I wouldn't be happy to accept relegation due to a 'no loans' policy. would you ?

 

[raul]

JTW....bottom of a division.....signing players for the future.......is deja vu the reason for your concern Sothall?

 

[bartman]

Except that they aren't playing in The Reserves because the Reserves haven't played since 14th Dec 10. The Irish pair were signed in early January and aren't due to make their first appearance until early February. What kind of Development strategy is that?

Likewise Philliskirk and the Norwegian pair although I haven't seen their deal confimed by the club. Maybe Adams questioned the wisdom of spending money on players not good enough for the first team?

the irish pair were signed in December by Speed and one of them has already played for the first team. They are both on contracts so aren't loanees. The lad from Chelsea is on loan for a month and will be coached at the academy. If any good,we will probably sign him. Low risk strategy so I cannot see a problem with this.

We have a new manager approximately 3 weeks into the job. He has to assess all the players and either play them or kick them out. What has happened before under previous management with regards to decision making is now irrelalvant. And the the end of the 2011/2012 season,all the high wage earners will be off the books and we can rebuild.

In terms of the development players,clubs can look at players in training and in behind closed door friendlies(as has happened recently against Chesterfield and Rotherham) and not just in reserve games.

Re reading the thread,I can't really see the point that is trying to be made....unless it is an excuse to have a go at Mccabe.

 

[JohnDenver]

While its far from ideal how many of us would have wanted us to sign Nos on the £3 million that was offered in the summer?

Holy macaroni, Flatman!

£3m that we'd have to pay? To them? For him?

*gulp*

 

[Flatulent_Bob]

working on that he is currently on £20-23K/week (reliable source). Sunderland wanted a deal around the £500K mark which we wouldn't pay and he wanted similar for a signing on fee.
We wanted Sunderland to drop their fee and give it to the player they wouldn't.

So wages over a three year contract, plus signing on fee and 500K to sunderland. £3 Million is a low guesstimate.

 

[Grecian2000]

More than TWENTY GRAND a week for Nosworthy???????

I repeat even more increduously. MORE THAN TWENTY FUCKING GRAND A WEEK on Nosworthy.

I suggest someone gives McCabe this URL: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com. He fucking needs it.

 

[mall]

If the "Development Squad" is a grand plan rather than a convenient way of dismissing Speed's signings, how come United haven't lined up a batch of fixtures for them to start learning their trade and proving their worth in?

My feeling is that there is a definate gap between the young players in the club and the first team.
Therefore these players are more experienced and can if successful be utilised before the real talent emerges from Shirecliffe.
But anyway why shouldn't we tap overseas markets.

 

[Flatulent_Bob]

More than TWENTY GRAND a week for Nosworthy???????

I repeat even more increduously. MORE THAN TWENTY FUCKING GRAND A WEEK on Nosworthy.

I suggest someone gives McCabe this URL: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com. He fucking needs it.

Calm down Grecian, that is his Sunderland contract. I'm sure we aren't picking most of that up.

 

[alcoblade]

I will bare my arse on the town hall steps if it's proved we're paying Nosworthy over £20K per week. We've established that McCabe lost the plot. I don't believe he lost his marbles.

UTB

 

[Sothall_Blade]

My feeling is that there is a definate gap between the young players in the club and the first team.
Therefore these players are more experienced and can if successful be utilised before the real talent emerges from Shirecliffe.
But anyway why shouldn't we tap overseas markets.

I've no problem with us signing players who can challenge for the first team within a year or two, from overseas or otherwise.
I do think that the First Team Manager should be aware of and approving any signings. Particularly where transfer fees are involved (the Norwegians were reportedly costing up to £80K)
At the moment our recruitment policy seems to be all over the place with the board signing players (Wright), Adams signing players on loan, Pemberton (or is it Mark Smith!?) signing players for small fees. I can't imagine a situation where Ron Reid was spending money on players while Warnock was in charge.

 

[Revolution]

JTW....bottom of a division.....signing players for the future.......is deja vu the reason for your concern Sothall?

It"s certainly mine. I cannot understand why, when we allegedly have no money to spend, we are wasting fees and wages on people who will not play in the first team this year. It's fiddling while Rome is burning.

 

[Flatulent_Bob]

I will bare my arse on the town hall steps if it's proved we're paying Nosworthy over £20K per week. We've established that McCabe lost the plot. I don't believe he lost his marbles.

UTB

We had fans climbing the walls pre-season because we wouldn't pay the £500K to make it permanent.

I think we might be picking up a large chunk of it.