Wilder's Overall Transfer Record

[Rollerball]

Signings or not, 3 seasons ago we were about to start a new season under a new manager after the most forgettable season in my memory (I'm 53 and watched my first game aged 8) even the drop to league division 4 at least had interest, fast forward to may, the end of that season points, goals, fantastic play and won the league 1 title,.
August that year begins another season, with a manager that's never managed at championship level, with a group of, by all accounts journeymen, misfits and lower league players, after what seems to be the norm, while messers wilder and knill, get their collective heads round the problems, we start pretty shit, fast forward to April that season and the blades with 3 games left are in with a shout at the playoffs, huge gap between us and our neighbor with the huge budget, top class players and a continental manager, though we ultimately failed to reach the playoffs, a very good season .
The next season, still starting pretty poor, few signings that no one really got excited about, including a 4th or 5th choice keeper no one had heard of on loan from manure, and a few others including a £4million defender, and we were again written off by all, we all know how that ends,
So considering where we were and where we start this season, can anyone in all honesty say wilder and knill are anything but an unmitigated and amazing success in the transfer market having spent a fraction of the cash, WBA, Villa, wolves, Norwich, Leeds and even Wednesday have spent and some are still languishing in the mid reaches of the championship.
I'd say the management, the squad, the club as a whole (chairmen excepted) are a Fucking HUGE success in every department.
UTB and COYRAWW.

 

[8lade]

I like evaluation threads like this but people need to look at the signings irrespective of success (or failure) otherwise we may as well say 2 promotions 3 years everything's good. As others have pointed out the OP didn't include enough categories and still missing was a 'jury's out' category, obviously I'm thinking of Bryan for this one. As ever we won't all agree on who sits in which category but have 2 additional points to add:
Never understood the signing of Holmes, after he had signed on for Charlton.
Madine and Hogan were only insurance in case of injuries. I don't think either produced anything that our current strikers couldn't have done.

 

[Sheffsteel]

Agree with 8blade,

It’s not so simple to say x was a good signing whilst y was a poor signing.

You need to consider the cost (transfer fee and wages) and the purpose of that signing.
Some are bought just as insurance, back up cover for 1st teamers (Stearman).
Some are bought as tactical options just in case we need to use those tactics against certain teams (Madine)
Some are bought as prospects....players for the future (Bryan)
Some are cheap gambles that CW knows may not work but decides that it’s a worthwhile risk (Ched Evans, Ravel Morrison).

 

[Charlieblade]

Like everyone else, I’m a huge Wilder fan.
It is worth projecting forward however. With player transfer costs up by 3 or 4 times the fees paid outside the premier league, and the whole squad wage scale increases, he cannot afford to make any major errors of judgement in the current transfer market.
Wilder and his management team have done really well, just by buying hungry young players from the league below. The cost of any that don’t work out is much lower. Needs much greater skill and focus to avoid past mistakes at the next level.

Having said all that, given his activity so far, I’m pretty confident his standards will prove to be high enough for premier league success.

 

[10-0 win]

Some of the signings seems strange two years on, but keep in mind, we've had close to no injuryspells bar Coutts . 5-6 players out and some of the players would have been much more in the frame. Plan B that never was tested, credit to CW/AK for doing the basics in back ups.

 

[Scooter_mcgavin]

In 3 seasons he made a net profit on players.

In those three seasons he's had 2 promotions and a promotion attack.

It's not difficult to deduce if his xfers have been successful or not.

 

[grafikhaus]

Without wanting to dismiss your work, which is in its very nature subjective when you analyse players like this...

However, from you conclusion, you could've probably saved yourself a lot of work and just concluded that Wilder gets a hell of a lot right as we have had two promotions in 3 seasons to make it to the top division.

You could also conclude that CW is constantly 'growing into the job' and has the ability to adapt in a way few other managers can. Looking back on the few signings that didn't work out is like looking back when CW first arrived - one point out of twelve, 0-3 down at home to Southend after 15 minutes. But he gets it right - usually very quickly.

Even if we go down this coming season and CW departs, he'd have left us in a fantastically better place than when he arrived.

 

[SwissBlade]

You could also conclude that CW is constantly 'growing into the job' and has the ability to adapt in a way few other managers can. Looking back on the few signings that didn't work out is like looking back when CW first arrived - one point out of twelve, 0-3 down at home to Southend after 15 minutes. But he gets it right - usually very quickly.

Even if we go down this coming season and CW departs, he'd have left us in a fantastically better place than when he arrived.

Agreed, he's constantly adapting things - from League one to Championship, Championship second season, when our neighbours and others thought we'd get found out and now, no doubt to the Premier League...

I saw a video on twitter last night, Eddie Howe at Bournemouth was 'miked-up' for their training session in La Manga. Lots of words of encouragement, coaching of the players, fully involved. Everything you'd expect really from a coach.

However, i get the impression from what people have said, that the coaching is mainly done by Knill and the boys, Wilder pulls everything together. So in this respect the individual parts of the management team are 'modularised' (can't think of a better word), we can replace individuals with specialists in each area - Fitness coach, Sports science, Data Analyst, Coaches etc.

Replacing Wilder would be hard... but i think the set up allows to replace him with a manager, rather than a jack of all trades.

If Bournemouth lost Eddie Howe, if he is so involved, it makes it harder (only basing this on a 2 min video as an example)

 

[Nicolaus_Copernicus]

How can you say Bryan not good enough when the lad has only played a total of 100 minutes for us

From the fact that he’s only played 100 minutes of football and from witnessing what he has done in those minutes?

 

[PaulHalfway]

Every signing is s gamble, I thought Woodburn was a brilliant signing and then he seemed massively out of his depth.
We have moved so fast up the leagues in the the last 3 years many players on 3 year contracts have been left behind
Overall if you analyse the cost in signings and sales and loan fees over the last 4 years it’s an amazing achievement and 4 years ago no one would have ever thought the transition from poor L1 side to PL would even be a distinct possibility

 

[guancheblade]

Want to start by saying this is absolutely not intended to be any sort of criticism of the man/the management team as he is a God in my eyes and has all the credit in the bank. I just thought it might be interesting as the majority of us say "Trust in CW/AK with a new signing when we are on the fence" that i'd try and weigh up all of his signings and whether they worked or not.

Will try and split into 3 rough categories:
1) Successful
2)Not worked for various reasons
3)Poor signing/poor player

Hussey - 3) Awful
James Wilson Defender 2) Outgrew him quickly/Jake Wright was better
O'Connell 1) Immense
Fleck 1) Still my favourite Blades player
Duffy 1) Another beauty of a signing
Moore 1) Just what we needed for a keeper
Jake Wright 1) Magic in the league 1 season
Lafferty 1) Again worked well in league 1
Ebanks Landell 1) See Lafferty
Lavery 2) Was okay and did a job occasionally.
Chapman 1) Not loads of game time but thought was useful when he played
Carruthers 1/2) Looked great in some league 1 games, but quickly became a bit surplus after promotion
Clarke 1) Did a great job in league 1 and brilliant in 1st champ season
Hanson 1) Did the job required in 2nd half of season
O'Shea 1) Same as Hanson was a good addition, wouldn't have minded signing.

Blackman 1) A good addition for the champ, kept Moore out
Stevens 1) Quality
C Evans 2/3) Always felt a rogue re-signing
Henegan 2) Barely any minutes, felt an odd signing can't judge to say if poor or not
L Evans 2) Could argue 1 but felt he made us worse generally and was shipped out pretty quick which raised questions over his personality.
Lundstram 1/2) Good squad player and still here so should have a role to play
Leonard 2) Bizarre after chasing for so long, looked okay when he played but think our growth passed him by.
Holmes 2) See Leonard
Stearman 1) Hasn't ever really let us down and still a good part of the squad
J Wilson striker 3) Awful (mainly his own attitude)
Baldock 1) Big fan
Donaldson 1) Another one who did the job required of him really
Carter-Vickers 2/3) Played a lot of games due to necessity but felt like he was quite poor

Henderson 1) Brilliant
Woodburn 2) Load of hype just didn't see him much for whatever reason
Norwood 1) Masterful signing
McGoldrick 1) See Norwood after initial critics too
Egan 1) Slow first couple games, then rock.
Dowell) 1) Wasn't blown away but again another who did a decent job and worth it for the WBA goal.
Madine 1) Basically the championship Hanson signing and think proved to be vital in going up
Hogan 1/2) Limited minutes but falls into that similar category of did a job and filled out the squad at a vital time.

May have missed a few out there, but essentially with my opinions I tally that as:

Successful - 24 (2 or 3 inbetweens)
Didn't really work - 12 (2 or 3 inbetweens)
Poor signings - 4

What I have I learnt from this time consuming process - No one is perfect but Wilder gets a hell of a lot right! So will indeed continue to trust in CW when I have any doubts over future incomings!

I appreciate the effort you've taken but you've completely shot yourself in the foot by putting players such as Leonard and Holmes (who haven't started 8 games between them) in the middle category and players like Donaldson (only had 3 decent games) and Hansen in the top category.

By my reckoning you've got 16 x (1), 8 x (2) and 12 x (3) which puts CW's transfer record much more towards hit and miss territory.

 

[HackeyBlade]

James Wilson was a fucking disgrace. For a player who's never done anything of note he certainly believed he was too big for us. I genuinely hope he rots on the bench somewhere as he was unbelievably arrogant for someone so shit.

 

[guancheblade]

James Wilson was a fucking disgrace. For a player who's never done anything of note he certainly believed he was too big for us. I genuinely hope he rots on the bench somewhere as he was unbelievably arrogant for someone so shit.

Bit harsh. It's thanks to him Wilder got his first victory for the Blades and kick started our L1 promotion campaign

 

[Cerberus Blade]

Bryan was also chronic illness as well as injury. He hasn’t had a chance to show us anything yet.

I’ve not seen him play, but I remember reading on here that he looked like he’d never played football before! Which is a tad disturbing.

Is his prolonged absence from the first team squad due to injury/illness or is he just not making the grade I wonder?

I suppose we’ll find out this season. I’d be surprised if he stays with us, I think he’ll go out on loan or be sold.

 

[HackeyBlade]

Bit harsh. It's thanks to him Wilder got his first victory for the Blades and kick started our L1 promotion campaign

He was the laziest, most uninterested player I have ever seen in a Blades shirt. I wouldn't mind an established player getting the face on because he was shipped out to lowly Sheff Utd but he's done absolutely fuck all so far career wise and his arrogance showed.