Our Premier League recruitment has been crap

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FMBlade1

FMBlade1

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Of course that isn't a surprising statement but its worth looking back at just how bad its been.

I'm being extremely generous with some of my assessments, based on how they performed for us in the Premier League and not noting what they cost:

For the 2019/2020 season:

Callum Robinson: Failure
Iliman Ndiaye: N/A, huge success in the championship and financially in that we made a profit, but wasn't signed to play in the PL
Luke Freeman: Failure
Phil Jagielka: Ok
Ravel Morrison: Failure
Lys Mousset: Ok in that he scored some vital goals to begin with but eventually a failure
Ben Osborn: Failure in the PL, ok in the championship
Oli McBurnie: Ok
Michael Verrips: Failure
Femi Seriki: N/A, not signed to play in the PL
Jack Rodwell: Failure
Jack Robinson: Ok
Sander Berge: Ok


For the 2020/2021 season:

Wesley Foderingham: Ok
Kacper Lopata: N/A, not signed to play in the PL
Aaron Ramsdale: Eventually ok in that we made a small profit on him, but he contributed significantly to our relegation.
Max Lowe: Failure
Jayden Bogle: Failure in PL but understandable signing as was signed in mind to play well in the championship which he did
Oliver Burke: Failure
Rhian Brewster: Massive failure

For the 2023/2024 season:

Anis Ben Slimane: Failure but understandable signing as sort of player who should do well in the championship to help us get back up, TBC on that
Benie Traore: Failure but understandable signing as sort of player who should do well in the championship to help us get back up, TBC on that
Auston Trusty: Failure in the PL but understandable signing as sort of player who should do well in the championship to help us get back up, TBC on that
Gustavo Hamer: Failure in the PL but understandable signing as sort of player who should do well in the championship to help us get back up, TBC on that
Tom Davies: Failure so far but not anyone's fault
Cameron Archer: Just about ok
Ryan One: N/A, not signed to play in the PL
Sam Curtis: N/A, not signed to play in the PL
Ivo Grbic: Unknown

Yasser Larouci: Failure (though think he has potentially to become a PL player)
James McAtee: Success
Luke Thomas: Failure
Ben Brereton: Success so far but very early days

---

So out of roughly 26 signings who were brought in to have a positive impact for us in the PL, barely a handful have done ok or can be considered a success at that level.

I appreciate its a difficult market and we've tried to be creative but that's just crap, someone has to be held accountable for this in the scouting/recruitment department and we must improve in this area if/when we are next back in the PL.
 
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FMBlade1 said:
Of course that isn't a surprising statement but its worth looking back at just how bad its been.

I'm being extremely generous with some of my assessments, based on how they performed for us in the Premier League and not noting what they cost:

For the 2019/2020 season:

Callum Robinson: Failure
Iliman Ndiaye: N/A, huge success in the championship and financially in that we made a profit, but wasn't signed to play in the PL
Luke Freeman: Failure
Phil Jagielka: Ok
Ravel Morrison: Failure
Lys Mousset: Ok in that he scored some vital goals to begin with but eventually a failure
Ben Osborn: Failure in the PL, ok in the championship
Oli McBurnie: Ok
Michael Verrips: Failure
Femi Seriki: N/A, not signed to play in the PL
Jack Rodwell: Failure
Jack Robinson: Ok
Sander Berge: Ok


For the 2020/2021 season:

Wesley Foderingham: Ok
Kacper Lopata: N/A, not signed to play in the PL
Aaron Ramsdale: Eventually ok in that we made a small profit on him, but he contributed significantly to our relegation.
Max Lowe: Failure
Jayden Bogle: Failure in PL but understandable signing as was signed in mind to play well in the championship which he did
Oliver Burke: Failure
Rhian Brewster: Massive failure

For the 2023/2024 season:

Anis Ben Slimane: Failure but understandable signing as sort of player who should do well in the championship to help us get back up, TBC on that
Benie Traore: Failure but understandable signing as sort of player who should do well in the championship to help us get back up, TBC on that
Auston Trusty: Failure in the PL but understandable signing as sort of player who should do well in the championship to help us get back up, TBC on that
Gustavo Hamer: Failure in the PL but understandable signing as sort of player who should do well in the championship to help us get back up, TBC on that
Tom Davies: Failure so far but not anyone's fault
Cameron Archer: Just about ok
Ryan One: N/A, not signed to play in the PL
Sam Curtis: N/A, not signed to play in the PL
Ivo Grbic: Unknown

Yasser Larouci: Failure (though think he has potentially to become a PL player)
James McAtee: Success
Luke Thomas: Failure
Ben Brereton: Success so far but very early days

---

So out of roughly 26 signings who were brought in to have a positive impact for us in the PL, barely a handful have done ok or can be considered a success at that level.

I appreciate its a difficult market and we've tried to be creative but that's just crap, someone has to be held accountable for this in the scouting/recruitment department and we must improve in this area if/when we are next back in the PL.
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This. Emphatically this.

It becomes apparent that our top transfer targets are not in the slightest bit interested in joining our club, leaving whichever manager we have in situ to have to make do with 4th / 5th choice options from the compiled list of targets.

Until this changes, and I guess what I’m saying is until some money laundering sugar daddy with an ego as big as his bank balance comes along to “play”, this is just how it’s gonna be.

Sad fucking state of affairs whichever way you dress it up !!!!

UTB
 
DronnieBlade said:
This. Emphatically this.

It becomes apparent that our top transfer targets are not in the slightest bit interested in joining our club, leaving whichever manager we have in situ to have to make do with 4th / 5th choice options from the compiled list of targets.

Until this changes, and I guess what I’m saying is until some money laundering sugar daddy with an ego as big as his bank balance comes along to “play”, this is just how it’s gonna be.

Sad fucking state of affairs whichever way you dress it up !!!!

UTB
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Players don’t want to play for dinosaur managers.
 
SUFCinks said:
you’re forgetting some other absolute howlers.

Uremovic
Retsos
Zivkovic
Goode
Guedioura
Olsen

I wouldn’t trust Wilder with £10 let alone millions of pounds.
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At least half of these weren’t Premier League signings and Wilder had nothing to do with them.
 
We spent £3mil on Osborn, £6mil on Freeman, £8mil on Robinson and £10mil on Mousset. That's £27mil. For that money we should've signed two players, not four. That's why we failed. You can't bargian hunt and rely on quantity over quality in the Premier League.

The problem was that by the time we were willing to spend that kind of money, all it got us was Berge, Brewster and Ramsdale.

Half our problem is that we bought too many failures last time and were stuck with them due to the lengths of contracts. As they proved to be failures we went back to the old tried and trusted players, but they failed too. Instead of having a mass clear out a rebuild, we kept renewing their contracts, albeit on reduced terms. When they continued to fail we stuck with them but bolstered them with loan signings.

This team needs to forget promotion next season. Firstly why bother when we'll just stink the Premier League out with our uncompetitive mediocre approach like we have done this season and the last time we got relegated. Secondly, we might as well take time to recruit well and build for the future.

We have Trusty, we have Hamer, Brooks and Arblaster, we have Osula. We should build a team, formation and tactics around them and bring in 3-4 quality players. We can attract quality if we spend more on less. Why spend £15k per week on two average players on £7.5k each, when you can spend £15k per week on one decent player?

Fair play Villa have a bigger budget than us, but they also have 7 less players in their squad than us.
 
LJBlade said:
At least half of these weren’t Premier League signings and Wilder had nothing to do with them.
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My bad, you are correct a couple of them were Hecky signings from champ season.
 
SUFCinks said:
My bad, you are correct a couple of them were Hecky signings from champ season.
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Looking at today.

Foderingham - Wilder
Bogle - Wilder
Holgate - Wilder
Anel - Hecky
Trusty - Hecky
Norrington-Davies - Academy
McAtee - Hecky
De Souza - Hecky
Brooks - Academy
Osula - Academy
Brereton-Diaz - Wilder

So that's 4 Hecky signings, 4 Wilder signings and 3 academy players.

Coming off the bench.

Archer - Hecky
Osborn - Wilder
Robinson - Wilder
Hamer - Hecky
Davies - Hecky
 

IdLiketoRogerMoore said:
Yet the hard of thinking still blame the Prince....
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Other than Guedioura the players in that list were fairly cheap loan signings weren’t they? And Guedioura was a cheap permanent.

Which bit of that is the Prince supposed to be praised for?
 
Our recruitment team is the same as the League one days.

It’s just terrible.
 
SUFCinks said:
Uremovic hecky
Olsen jokanovic
Guedioura jokanovic
Goode hecky
Retsos wilder
Zivkovic Wilder
Woodburn wilder
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So just as much Jokanovic than anyone else. Weird you’ve added Woodburn though.

I’m not sure there’s a single club on the planet who haven’t signed players that have turned out badly
 
Bladezz said:
Our recruitment team is the same as the League one days.

It’s just terrible.
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Isn’t that the same recruitment team that got us to 9th in the Prem? It isn’t the same recruitment team that saw us end up in League One, as you seem to be suggesting.
 
Two domestic loans at any time. One was Luke Thomas. A player who wasn't good enough for Leicester in the Championship. After we sent him back we've taken on Mason Holgate. A player deemed not good enough by a team sat two places above us in the relegation zone. It beggars belief, it really does. What scouting do we have? Any at all?

The overall recruitment over the last five seasons has been awful. So much money wasted on mediocrity that we've had to settle and over rely on players who have outstayed their welcome and are past their sell by dates.

I am genuinely worried about next summer. Not so much which useless muppets will our inept recruitment team sign this time (late in the transfer window with lame excuses and no pre-season for them no doubt, unlike everyone else who seem to manager to do business on day one and throughout pre-season), but more which of the out of contract players will be offered new deals. I fear that 27 goals in 5 seasons worth every penny of his £17mil fee McBurnie will be one. Osborn seems to have some kind of clause that he'll always get a new deal.
 
We just seem to sign players because we can.

It’s like we all get very giddy in the recruitment team and decide we need to do something.

Traore, €4.6m - why? In the summer, we’d got Osula, Jebbison, Oné and would be committed to a big signing to replace Ndiaye. We also had Brewster coming back in. So what was the actual purpose of this signing? PL players are strong and athletic on the whole. Look at Watkins. If you could pick a player you’d say was not suitable for this league, he’d look like Traore!

Slimane, €2.7m - he had a small, reasonable cameo as sub, once. Otherwise I really done see where he fits. What formation do we play where he gets a game?

We bemoan not having Cat A status and I know it is not logistically straight forward to achieve this. But it needs money. We spent €7.3m on two players that in the course of the season we have already shown they cannot displace two young lads who were already here - Osula and Brooks.

If the approach is sef-sufficiency then why waste money on muddling dross?

Just get 2-4 marquee signings per season and develop. Don’t waste money on players who add nothing at all and who will leave at a loss.

I mean, we simply don’t help ourselves, do we?
 
I'm pretty sure someone I know mentioned that Paul Mitchell used to be on sites a few years back now he's our chief scout. Wouldn't mind it if we got our kop developed and not signing fxkin 4 ft 8 children to play for us.

Said it before the networking needs a complete overhaul.
 
LJBlade said:
So just as much Jokanovic than anyone else. Weird you’ve added Woodburn though.

I’m not sure there’s a single club on the planet who haven’t signed players that have turned out badly
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Theses are in addition to the others mentioned. He’s shit in the transfer market. If you think otherwise please feel free to list them all out and suggest which ones have been good. He’s had a handful of successful ones. The majority are punts on naff players. You are rightt that it happens at all clubs but with wilder it happens more than it should.
 
Every club has good and bad transfers. But over the recent years ours are predominantly bad.
 
Champagneblade said:
We just seem to sign players because we can.

It’s like we all get very giddy in the recruitment team and decide we need to do something.

Traore, €4.6m - why? In the summer, we’d got Osula, Jebbison, Oné and would be committed to a big signing to replace Ndiaye. We also had Brewster coming back in. So what was the actual purpose of this signing? PL players are strong and athletic on the whole. Look at Watkins. If you could pick a player you’d say was not suitable for this league, he’d look like Traore!

Slimane, €2.7m - he had a small, reasonable cameo as sub, once. Otherwise I really done see where he fits. What formation do we play where he gets a game?

We bemoan not having Cat A status and I know it is not logistically straight forward to achieve this. But it needs money. We spent €7.3m on two players that in the course of the season we have already shown they cannot displace two young lads who were already here - Osula and Brooks.

If the approach is sef-sufficiency then why waste money on muddling dross?

Just get 2-4 marquee signings per season and develop. Don’t waste money on players who add nothing at all and who will leave at a loss.

I mean, we simply don’t help ourselves, do we?
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Isn’t this how Brentford and Brighton achieve success. You’ve hit the nail on the head with this. It’s not rocket science.
 
LJBlade said:
Isn’t that the same recruitment team that got us to 9th in the Prem? It isn’t the same recruitment team that saw us end up in League One, as you seem to be suggesting.
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The recruitment didn't see us finishing 9th. For the majority of the season our team was Henderson, Stevens, O'Connell, Egan, Basham, Baldock, Fleck, Norwood, Lundstram, McGoldrick, McBurnie.

That's two summer signings and one of them was with us the previous season on loan. One of the reasons we went down the following season is because we recruited so poorly in our first season. Everyone else signed players who went straight into their starting line ups. We signed bench warmers. We couldn't even sell to buy as we had no stand out players to sell for big money other than O'Connell.

Half our players lost form after the restart and we the recruitment the following summer was even worse.

Our recruitment has been terrible for five seasons with an over reliance on loan signings leaving the squad we do own woefully inadequate. Loan signings should supplement your squad, they shouldn't be relied on as your main players as it leaves huge holes when they go back to their parent clubs.

That said our loan signings have been awful this season.
 
At their peak, Ferguson and Man Utd used to buy the best player in the PL outside of the top 4 (which invariably was Tottenham or Leeds best player) but meant there was a nailed on starting calibre player joining every Summer. Meant their side evolved year on year. He also wasn't afraid to let players go a year early (think Stam, Keane, Beckham etc). We hold on until at least a year (sometimes two or three - Fleck, Stevens, Sharp)too long ...

Someone needs to be sat above Wilder and next to Bettis doing all this stuff. It's how others are doing it. We're still operating like it's 1997....
 

Edinblade said:
Isn’t this how Brentford and Brighton achieve success. You’ve hit the nail on the head with this. It’s not rocket science.
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Wilder was right with his wording around the approach in January. I.e. players to get in the first team. BUT, this should have been the approach in the summer.

I know you end up releasing guys who are out of contract, but that’s because they’ve generally been so peripheral that they are not needed. This is the slot the young lads need to occupy on such a model. This is where Arblaster or Brooks comes in and you don’t buy Slimane, it’s where you back Jebbo and Osula and don’t bother with Traore.

We just don’t get it. We seem to think we wheel and deal and unearth gems but in the main, we’re just buying crap. Robinson and Burke examples from last time, rubbish signings, neither fit for purpose.

We say we cannot compete on wages but that’s because we buy so much cheap crap in large quantities.

I’d rather have bought Doyle and Akpom and loaned McAtee and done none of the other deals. Maybe we would have had to accept Doyle not having a relegation clause.

I’d rather invest in good players on good wages and risk being susceptible to injury than have a team that is nowhere near the standard when fit or not.
 
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