Roland's network idea was actually pretty shrewd. If the FA had showed some balls and enforced financial fair play it could have worked.
An idea that could work (see Watford) but for me it was poorly researched with the wrong choice of clubs. At least from our point of view. Only Standard Liege could provide us with players that were good enough, and even then there were mixed results.
There was no proper understanding of the levels the clubs were playing at. It should have been obvious that players such as Polish Pete, Koc and Nego weren’t going to be up to it. I saw the first two in an u21 game v Brighton and it was clear in 90 my minutes they weren’t Championship players.
It then worked for a season as we finished in mid table with the likes of Buyens, Ben Haim and Watt coming from Standard Liege and doing well. Once RD sold them we had to rely even more on network scouting and signed Sarr, Ba, Bergdich etc.
It could have worked for us, just not with those clubs and Roland running it.
Roland's network idea was actually pretty shrewd. If the FA had showed some balls and enforced financial fair play it could have worked.
An idea that could work (see Watford) but for me it was poorly researched with the wrong choice of clubs. At least from our point of view. Only Standard Liege could provide us with players that were good enough, and even then there were mixed results.
There was no proper understanding of the levels the clubs were playing at. It should have been obvious that players such as Polish Pete, Koc and Nego weren’t going to be up to it. I saw the first two in an u21 game v Brighton and it was clear in 90 my minutes they weren’t Championship players.
It then worked for a season as we finished in mid table with the likes of Buyens, Ben Haim and Watt coming from Standard Liege and doing well. Once RD sold them we had to rely even more on network scouting and signed Sarr, Ba, Bergdich etc.
It could have worked for us, just not with those clubs and Roland running it.
I feel that your well reasoned analysis is violating my unpopular opinions safe space.
Comments
There was no proper understanding of the levels the clubs were playing at. It should have been obvious that players such as Polish Pete, Koc and Nego weren’t going to be up to it. I saw the first two in an u21 game v Brighton and it was clear in 90 my minutes they weren’t Championship players.
It then worked for a season as we finished in mid table with the likes of Buyens, Ben Haim and Watt coming from Standard Liege and doing well. Once RD sold them we had to rely even more on network scouting and signed Sarr, Ba, Bergdich etc.
It could have worked for us, just not with those clubs and Roland running it.
I feel that your well reasoned analysis is violating my unpopular opinions safe space.