It amazes me how many of these signings/decisions we have made. What is even more worrying is the amount of them that managed to get a regular starting place in our team.
Thuram
Nego
Charles-Cook
Lennon
Sarr
Fox
Ba
Etheridge
Makeinok
Aherne-Grant
Bergdich
Tudgay
Wood
Sordell
Church
Onyewu
Piggott
Cook
Evina
Kok
Polish Pete
Kerkar
Frimpong
McAleny
Lepoint
Pritchard
There are 26 names there - all in my opinion are either A) no where near good enough for championship football or
Thrown into the first team too young and clearly not ready.
to have 26 players that fall into that category in 5 years is a truly shocking number and what it equates to is about 5 players per year that we are paying the wages of. I don't even want to know how much money the above 26 players have cost us to have on the wage bill - but surely we could have spent it on 3-5 players of much higher quality to try and pen down to long-term contracts to try and build a play-off contending squad instead of one that is always battling to stay in the division.
To have success in the championship you need to build a squad of quality players to able you to compete and this is our biggest failing - we never seem to learn from our mistakes from the quality of player that whoever is in charge (roland/katrien/manager) select to be in our starting XI.
On the flip side, over the past 5 seasons I believe we have had 20 players that are of the required quality to make a squad good enough to compete with the best in this division. Granted that now some of them are now injured, older or the sale of them was unpreventable, but if our player recruitment is consistently this good and we built a squad around these players then we would have a totally different situation at our club.
Ademola Lookman
Ahmed Kashi
Alou Diarra
Ben Hamer
Bradley Wright Phillips
Chris Solly
Dale Stephens
Diego Poyet
Freddie Bulot
Igor Vetokele
Joe Gomez
Johann Berg Gudmundsson
Johnnie Jackson
Leon Cort
Michael Morrison
Rhoys Wiggins
Stephen Henderson
Tal Ben Haim
Tony Watt
Yann Kermorgant
- we have also had numerous players in my opinion who neither fit into the category of 'not good enough for the championship' or 'top end championship squad' and those I haven't included in the two lists...either because the jury is still out in terms of my opinion of them or that they are mid-low level championship players. Again, this is my opinion which may be completely wrong in many people's eyes! - these players should always have been squad players who are not in your first XI but would be useful to have as cover or on the substitutes bench - The problem is that we constantly play these types of players in our starting XI and again, that equates to poor results because the 11 players as a whole are never going to be good enough to win more games than they lose with this formula.
My point really is to highlight what in my opinion is the biggest contributing factor to our failure under the current regime. To be successful in this league, the number of 'top end championship players' must outweigh the 'not good enough for the championship players' and over the past 5 seasons we have not been able to do that. With Roland's strategy of gambling on cheaper talent from lower standard leagues and youth products, this is never going to be the case. The results and success of the team wont change unless we address this, so a change in strategy is needed.
The board do not get this message, do not understand that this is the problem.
The number 1 criteria for success at a football club is first team talent. Not the academy, not the ground, not the pitch, not the finances, not trying to attract supporters. SUCCESS IS DICTATED BY THE QUALITY OF YOUR FIRST TEAM. yes all of the other things mentioned are important, but not as important as the squad that takes to the field on the match day. The target 20,000 bs is lunacy because everybody knows that football attendance correlates with how well the team is doing and playing - nothing will ever change that, so stop spending time trying to attract fans and start spending time working on putting together a competitive squad which, in turn, will take care of getting your target of 20,000 fans.
Someone needs to explain this to our board before league 1 next year, otherwise we won't get out of that league and back to where we want to be.
Comments
Pritchard / Wood / Kerkar / Fox / Lennon should not be in the first list!!!
Whilst its crazy you've put Diego Poyet on the group of players who should be around seeing he cant even get on the bench with our current lot!!
We all know the facts, they've ruined our club with a constant revolving door of people who aren't good enough with the odd one in a few who come in who are.
You can't run a business, let alone a football club like that.
This is why relegation was always a matter of time under this regime.
(And Roland could build some flats in the corners of the Camp Nou).
Don't underestimate the power of bad management.
The point you were trying to make however is right, way too many players brought in who aren't good enough and too many Youngsters thrown into the first team before they're ready.
Those signings were - in part - due to Powell having to fish players out from the bargain bin in his last two seasons. This is unfortunately not a situation we should be currently in now.. alas, we're throwing away bigger amounts of money with a much smaller return.
So much for a sustainable model, eh Roland?
Saying RCC was thrown in too early, he was given maybe two or three matches, then brought back. Lennon was thrown in a bit prematurely but had done well at Gillingham, had an okay run in the side, then dropped for more experienced players. Church did alright, was a decent signing for this level, not great not terrible not often amongst the goals. Sordell had scored at Championship level before coming to us.
I digress, could probably pick at about half of each list but above all what it shows is high turnover and seemingly no long term thinking or vision. The kind a Football Director would give...
RD shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a football club.