Wilders best signing so far

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Fleck, O'Connell, Duffy in whatever order people prefer. I am factoring in value for money as a criteria here, and to think only 1 of these commanded a transfer fee is outrageous.

Honourable mentions for Baldock and Wright too (I won't forget how immense he was in League 1, and for a while in this league)

Others I think could prove to be even better are Norwood and Henderson, if we are counting loans that it.
 
I would say Fleck.

Free transfer, brilliant quality and when he does eventually get sold we should get a fair chunk of change for him.
 
It's quite clearly Fleck, with an hounrable mention for O'Connell.

Players like Duffy and Clarke were great signings, but the difference is that Fleck and O'Connell will continue to improve and serve the club for coming years, until we sell them for a profit.

All those players above get a 10/10 for impact, but not necessarily for longevity
 
Fleck-JOC-Duffy in that order, for long term players.
Norwood looking good for the next stage, and now there's another to keep an eye on in Washington.

Henderson and Blackman have been brilliant loans also.
 
Leonard,we chased him for long because he was that good and eventually sold him because he was too good for us.........
 
John Fleck is our best signing (especially given he came on a free). He’s been simply outstanding at both levels, I really don’t understand how he’s gone under the radar of other clubs, particularly in this division. Last season, in his first season playing regularly at this level, I saw less than a handful of better midfielders than him (Wolves and Fulham’s pairings and Maddison of Norwich). He’s an absolute all rounder, good at dribbling, good at tackling, box-to-box. Only critique has to be that he hasn’t developed a knack for goalscoring yet. If he had this the Premiership would have snapped him up for around £15m already.

Jack O’Connell is probably second, believe he only cost around £250k (could be wrong?) and it sounds like we turned down close to £10m for him this Summer. I don’t particularly like the noises coming out at the moment that perhaps his attitude has gone downhill since the Brighton interest and the scenes with Wilder at the end of the Norwich game weren’t great. However, a left footed, ball playing centre half, as adept at defending as he is going forward, are very hard to come by. At his best he is strong, great in the air (defensively - not offensively) and comfortable with the ball at his feet, marauding forwards and not got a bad delivery. The critiques - I haven’t seen him perform well in a 4 man defence yet, his positional awareness is still occasionally lacking (maybe due to the protection he’s always had in a 3) and his offensive headers are dreadful (he wins so many and so rarely scores). These are all things that could be easily improved. Despite his indifferent form this season, he is our player whom possesses the greatest potential, he’ll be gone soon.

Third place, hard to call between Mark Duffy and Leon Clarke. I don’t think anybody expected either of them to give us as much as they have. I expected both do quite well in League 1, their records down there told me this would be likely. I expected little to nothing from them in the Championship. Leon Clarke doesn’t get much slack off our fans, but in the first half of last season there wasn’t a striker in the Championship I would have traded him with. It wasn’t just that he scored 15 before Christmas, his work rate and defensive work were incredible. The goals have dropped off since then sadly, but he still does a remarkable job for us. He cost £50k. Strikers that score 20 goals in the Championship cost upwards of £10m these days.
 
Danny04 said:
Fleck/Duffy. Can’t seperate them. As Chali 2na rightly says above, Fleck probably shades it because of his longevity. If Duff was five years younger... :eek:
Click to expand...
If Duffy had been moved to the role he’s playing now when he was 25/26 rather than plying his trade as a winger he’d be in the Prem. I’ve no doubt about it.
 



Danny04 said:
Fleck/Duffy. Can’t seperate them. As Chali 2na rightly says above, Fleck probably shades it because of his longevity. If Duff was five years younger... :eek:
Click to expand...

Eric Cartman said:
If Duffy had been moved to the role he’s playing now when he was 25/26 rather than plying his trade as a winger he’d be in the Prem. I’ve no doubt about it.
Click to expand...

I don't often like to brag about "spotting" a player because in all honesty, I get my fair share wrong.

However, I remeber seeing Duffy play for Scunthorpe in our first season in league 1 at the lane. He had a great game, and scored a lovely goal. I said at that point it would be criminal if we don't try and sign him.

A year later he went to Doncaster, we opted to invest our money in Lyle Taylor and Joe Baxter that summer instead.

Hindsight eh?:rolleyes:


Edit: He would have been 27 at the time.
 
Leon has to be up there. Bought for peanuts with a question marks over his attitude and a reputation as being a journeyman striker. I’m pretty sure he was signed purely as a backup to Billy to help get us out of League 1. I very much doubt even Wilder expected him to be our main striker a couple of years later in the Championship. There have been more talented players to sign under Wilder but none have surprised me to the extent Leon has.
 
Ŵithington Blade said:
Leon has to be up there. Bought for peanuts with a question marks over his attitude and a reputation as being a journeyman striker. I’m pretty sure he was signed purely as a backup to Billy to help get us out of League 1. I very much doubt even Wilder expected him to be our main striker a couple of years later in the Championship. There have been more talented players to sign under Wilder but none have surprised me to the extent Leon has.
Click to expand...

Last week at Bolton, he cleared a clear cut goal off the line, he tracked back to defend against free kicks (using his height, I seem to think he headed a dangerous ball away), he jumped over Freeman's ball to wrong foot the keeper for the second goal. He is big, strong, still a bit of pace despite his years, and his goal down at Bristol, last game of the season was a scorcher.

I think he can come good once again this season, maybe not to last seasons level, but he is a handful and defenders always know he is around.
 
Think Ched just edges Fleck and Norwood out :)

To be fair to Wilder he's signed some gems on a budget to make up for the mistakes.
 
Chali 2na said:
I don't often like to brag about "spotting" a player because in all honesty, I get my fair share wrong.

However, I remeber seeing Duffy play for Scunthorpe in our first season in league 1 at the lane. He had a great game, and scored a lovely goal. I said at that point it would be criminal if we don't try and sign him.

A year later he went to Doncaster, we opted to invest our money in Lyle Taylor and Joe Baxter that summer instead.

Hindsight eh?:rolleyes:


Edit: He would have been 27 at the time.
Click to expand...
United were in for him that summer but he chose Donny. It's in the book :D #plug
 
Danny04 said:
United were in for him that summer but he chose Donny. It's in the book :D #plug
Click to expand...

I don't blame him to be honest. We had Weir in charge and some of our other summer signings were McGinty, Johns and Febian Brandy.

Can't wait to read it in the book mate
 
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