CBT has constant niggles and injury issues. Which means Campbell and Rak-Sakyi having to play every minute of every game.
Unless Leaburn goes out on the wing. But then we only have Bonne up front. And Chuks, but can't count on him.
Once again stretched thin.
I'd imagine Payne will feature down the wing, possibly Penney or Sess too. I'm not condoning it, we're a winger short but we do have a few options there.
Back to playing people out of position then. I'm sure that'll be a roaring success.
Does that make EOC the second player that Gallen has turned a profit on in his 4-5 years at the club? The only other I can think of is Bonne.
Craig Mac, however small that will be. Lockyer, Williams and Bogle?
Lockyer left ona free. Pretty sure same for Bogle. Williams we may have got a tiny fee for.
So Williams tiny profit
Mac tiny profit
Bonne £2m EOG £350k
Forgot Lockyer was a free. I thought Bogle was undisclosed, likely to be pennies, but could be wrong.
Accept the recruitment hasn't been good enough but it's not like he's had millions to squander. We'd turn a profit on Dobson, obviously lost Taylor on a free who we could have sold previously for a decent profit. There's been some errors but the majority of his signings have been freebies and loans, asking to turn a profit from that isn't reasonable.
CBT has constant niggles and injury issues. Which means Campbell and Rak-Sakyi having to play every minute of every game.
Unless Leaburn goes out on the wing. But then we only have Bonne up front. And Chuks, but can't count on him.
Once again stretched thin.
I'd imagine Payne will feature down the wing, possibly Penney or Sess too. I'm not condoning it, we're a winger short but we do have a few options there.
Back to playing people out of position then. I'm sure that'll be a roaring success.
Agreed, although playing the wingers we did have wasn't particularly successful either.
Tyreece Campbell is in my opinion a much better footballer than DJ, but he is still very young and young players can be inconsistent and a lot of variables can come into play. Actually I would suggest the Tyreece is on a par with JRS, might end up as better than him as well. I think about the progression of Lookman to get some hope about how Tyreece might progress. There are other decent youngsters too coming through, which is why I think the very last cut should be to the academy. Can you imaging letting Avory go but retaining Keohane? Unthinkable.
I'm not sure if you've seen any games but putting Campbell on a par with JRS is ludicrous.
Ludicrous? I have seen Campbell in every first team appearance and a huge number of development games. I don’t believe it is ludicrous to say he is better than DJ, but of course I accept that others think JRS is better. I don’t believe the gap between Rak Saki and Campbell is huge, and Campbell has very good ball control and balance, as well as the courage to work in confined situations where he treats the touchline as his friend. I suppose this is an area of opinion more than fact, either way does anybody think DJ is better than Campbell? JRS is a year older than Campbell and at that stage in development it can be significant.
Tyreece Campbell is in my opinion a much better footballer than DJ, but he is still very young and young players can be inconsistent and a lot of variables can come into play. Actually I would suggest the Tyreece is on a par with JRS, might end up as better than him as well. I think about the progression of Lookman to get some hope about how Tyreece might progress. There are other decent youngsters too coming through, which is why I think the very last cut should be to the academy. Can you imaging letting Avory go but retaining Keohane? Unthinkable.
I'm not sure if you've seen any games but putting Campbell on a par with JRS is ludicrous.
Ludicrous? I have seen Campbell in every first team appearance and a huge number of development games. I don’t believe it is ludicrous to say he is better than DJ, but of course I accept that others think JRS is better. I don’t believe the gap between Rak Saki and Campbell is huge, and Campbell has very good ball control and balance, as well as the courage to work in confined situations where he treats the touchline as his friend. I suppose this is an area of opinion more than fact, either way does anybody think DJ is better than Campbell? JRS is a year older than Campbell and at that stage in development it can be significant.
CBT has constant niggles and injury issues. Which means Campbell and Rak-Sakyi having to play every minute of every game.
Unless Leaburn goes out on the wing. But then we only have Bonne up front. And Chuks, but can't count on him.
Once again stretched thin.
I'd imagine Payne will feature down the wing, possibly Penney or Sess too. I'm not condoning it, we're a winger short but we do have a few options there.
Back to playing people out of position then. I'm sure that'll be a roaring success.
Payne on the wing certainly isn't out of position.
Does that make EOC the second player that Gallen has turned a profit on in his 4-5 years at the club? The only other I can think of is Bonne.
Craig Mac, however small that will be. Lockyer, Williams and Bogle?
Lockyer left ona free. Pretty sure same for Bogle. Williams we may have got a tiny fee for.
So Williams tiny profit
Mac tiny profit
Bonne £2m EOG £350k
Forgot Lockyer was a free. I thought Bogle was undisclosed, likely to be pennies, but could be wrong.
Accept the recruitment hasn't been good enough but it's not like he's had millions to squander. We'd turn a profit on Dobson, obviously lost Taylor on a free who we could have sold previously for a decent profit. There's been some errors but the majority of his signings have been freebies and loans, asking to turn a profit from that isn't reasonable.
We paid Boggle to go. Nice few months work for him.
CBT has constant niggles and injury issues. Which means Campbell and Rak-Sakyi having to play every minute of every game.
Unless Leaburn goes out on the wing. But then we only have Bonne up front. And Chuks, but can't count on him.
Once again stretched thin.
I'd imagine Payne will feature down the wing, possibly Penney or Sess too. I'm not condoning it, we're a winger short but we do have a few options there.
Back to playing people out of position then. I'm sure that'll be a roaring success.
Payne on the wing certainly isn't out of position.
It's out of his normal position. Whether or not we think he can do a job there is another question.
If someone has to come from another position to fill that slot, that leaves their position shorter, something else to consider. We know this from years and years of injury crises!
Deadline day is always interesting as it really doesn't take much to go from optimism and surprise to devastation. I'd say yesterday we had one outgoing that was uncomfortable and missed out on one incoming that we should have completed. Other than that, objectives pretty much met for the window, definitely in terms of positions, remains to be seen in terms of the players themselves.
We needed a full back on each side to cover for injury and a gap and we got both, though Kane's injury complicates things. We needed quality above Morgan in the middle and hopefully Kilkenny is that. We needed a first team striker to compete with Leaburn, Bonne came in. We also clearly needed to have better options at CB and we brought in Hector. We should have brought in another winger after letting two go and should have had back up options to Edwards
In terms of outgoings, we had three first team keepers and one wasn't very good; we resolved that. We had a highly paid striker who didn't score or contribute; he's gone. We had a winger who has made 7 L1 appearances this season, dropped to 5th choice and has mostly been injured; gone. We had a centre back who was truly the most lost player we've had in years; Burtoned. Two central midfielders with two league starts between them, an under-delivering winger the manager clearly didn't rate, all gone. These were all moves that needed to happen. The curve ball was O'Connell. There was a point yesterday where we had 6 first team centre halves and we got that back down to 4 by the end. It's clear that it would have been Thomas and Lavelle if not for EOC going, but it's uncomfortable that the player we just signed who would have been worth keeping in the squad is the one who went. He wasn't playing under Holden but there's something off about it for sure, and I wonder if it says a lot that Wrexham knew they could come calling at the 11th hour and get what they wanted off Charlton. Beyond that though, Wrexham are weird, they'll get the players they go for.
Bottom line is now everything depends on a takeover. If we get bought by an ownership that can spend some money then the deck clearing is good. We can see if Hector and Bonne are worthy of longer contracts, we've put the players we don't want in the shop window for the summer, we can rebuild. If there's no takeover or it's a penniless farce then we're screwed, but we're screwed anyway right now, so no massive change there.
The outs were good, the ins were in the right places so hopefully they're also the right players. It's not that good, it's not all bad. The real time breakdowns some posters had on here in the hours following the deadline though? A+, thank you for your service. A genuine delight to read through
Thanks for the voice of sanity and reason.
Agree about A+ for the meltdown and I include myself in that, sometimes.
Anyone who thinks TS has been our saviour needs their bumps felt. Said it before but RD was the better owner out of the 2. At least he brought in players.....and some were even quality like JBG,Bulot, Watt, Holmes......
Just hope we have enough points with that 3 game winning run for us not to get dragged back into a relegation fight. We have learnt nothing from the summer, still are so lightweight upfront. An injury to Leaburn doesn't bear thinking about. But that's all ok because we shipped out Kirk,DJ & Lavelle who will all be back in the summer.
Gah !
RD separated the club from its assets, refuses to be reasonable around the sale of the assets, has put off a number of decent sounding purchasers by moving goal posts and sold us for a £ to Southall/Number who I would wager he knew were wrongun's given his snide comment of "enjoy it whilst it lasts".
He was the worst owner this club has ever had and remains the key and biggest threat to our long term existence. Whilst he was here he shrunk and destroyed our fan base with his brand of "it doesn't matter if you win" football. His best period in charge was when he had lost all interest and left it to Bowyer to run. That says it all.
TS is a wealthy fool with a delusional opinion of his talents who now wants to get out.
RD was and remains the worst owner. End of.
Good post. There's a lot wrong with Sandgaard and some of the behaviour towards non-playing staff has been disgraceful and comparable to the RD regime, but there's a big difference between the ego-driven incompetence of Sandgaard and the focused, nasty deliberate attempt to break the system regardless of the risk to the club by Roland. Both are deluded in their own way but there was always an undercurrent with Roland that you knew every criticism and slight was being stored up and remembered until he just started doing his best to tear down the parts he hadn't already destroyed. Even now he's causing more harm than TS because he's keeping the main assets away and insisting that the money a con artist promised him he'd definitely, definitely pay later is a valid valuation of what he has. We're all but unsaleable to any serious investors because anyone who would be a sensible owner isn't spending £50m on the stadium and the training ground. The fact some of the players RD brought in (generally when we were a Championship club that he took back down to L1) are better than the ones TS brought in doesn't make him a better owner.
Tyreece Campbell is in my opinion a much better footballer than DJ, but he is still very young and young players can be inconsistent and a lot of variables can come into play. Actually I would suggest the Tyreece is on a par with JRS, might end up as better than him as well. I think about the progression of Lookman to get some hope about how Tyreece might progress. There are other decent youngsters too coming through, which is why I think the very last cut should be to the academy. Can you imaging letting Avory go but retaining Keohane? Unthinkable.
I'm not sure if you've seen any games but putting Campbell on a par with JRS is ludicrous.
Ludicrous? I have seen Campbell in every first team appearance and a huge number of development games. I don’t believe it is ludicrous to say he is better than DJ, but of course I accept that others think JRS is better. I don’t believe the gap between Rak Saki and Campbell is huge, and Campbell has very good ball control and balance, as well as the courage to work in confined situations where he treats the touchline as his friend. I suppose this is an area of opinion more than fact, either way does anybody think DJ is better than Campbell? JRS is a year older than Campbell and at that stage in development it can be significant.
True, but you said they were on a par now.
If you read what I said you will see it was a suggestion. Given the fact that JRS has had more experience than Campbell, and that he is a year older I don’t believe my point of view is all that ‘ludicrous’.
Do we have any else in the u-21's close to a breakthrough
I think the transfer activity will mean more first team sightings of Kanu during the rest of the season. We have seen Chinn and Mitchell and Henry have a look in, as well as others like Elewere and Barker and Bakrin and Harness have been seen. There are others such as Adigun, Kedwell, Lapado and Asimwe who are developing well, and Patrick Casey might even get a look in before the end of the season. There are other decent prospects I haven’t mentioned.
Negatives: 1. I’ve been calling for more athleticism in midfield, and our new key signing is only 5‘7“. Fraser, Dobson and Kilkenny are arguably vulnerable against some of L1’s more physical sides.
2. O’Connell was one of our best centre backs, - although if a player really wants to leave, there’s arguably not a lot you can do about it. An injury to Ness or Inniss (and it’s just a matter of time) will leave us exposed at the back. Hector may be a decent replacement, but he’s not fit apparently.
3. Jayesimi is a decent option at wingback, and hasn’t been replaced.
4. We are definitely light up top with only Leaburn, Bonne, and Aneke. An injury to Bonne or Leaburn leaves us exposed, as Kanu may not be ready for men’s football. This is less of a problem if we stick to 433.
Positives: 1. We’ve had a clear out. Although as fans we’d rather have a large squad than a small one it’s undeniable that ours was bloated and full of (sometimes expensive) dead wood. It isn’t now. 2. Kilkenny is supposed to be pretty decent, comfortable playing at a higher level. If he’s a step up from Morgan, that can only benefit the team.
Hmm, I thought the positives list would be longer.
Treble Chance: 1. Hector is a complete unknown to many of us. It’s just possible he’s got a couple of good years left in him? ‘He has played 177 Championship matches in a nomadic career which has taken him from the Hellenic League right the way up to England’s top tier… He had previously been a huge hit for the Owls, winning their Player of the Season award in 2018-19.’ So I’m not writing him off yet. 2. Kane and Penney are total unknowns to most of us. Will wait and see how they get on. 3. I personally quite like Bonne who’s a bit more street-wise than many of our players. Has plenty of energy. Not putting him in the positives column because he needs to prove himself at this stage.
4. There are probably going to be opportunities for younger players to show what they can do, although this can be beneficial to some players, confidence sapping for others. Henry, Kanu, Mitchell and perhaps others could get minutes, maybe others too, if we stay clear of the relegation zone. Hopefully that prove to be a good thing.
Overall it’s not really the window we were dreaming of. Too many unknowns, too little cover in key positions. It certainly wouldn’t be any good if we were in with a shout of the playoffs.
Much hinges on whether there is or isn’t a billionaire behind the takeover bid. It seems unlikely, although I’m not sure it’s impacted on the window, as Sandgaard is still paying the bills.
DJ as been replaced by Campbell .. how many times as DJ even been on the bench compared to Campbell
Campbell isn’t a wingback as far as I’m aware. I said DJ is a decent option at wingback.
Some of the kids being mentioned should be out of loan next season for a full season not flitting in and out of our 1st team squad.
Don’t disagree. I don’t think it will happen, but for example with Aaron Henry, I would love to see his contract situation sorted, he stays our player, but has a solid whole season on loan at somewhere like Colchester.
AMB - Very good, but injury prone. Could be a top keeper. Ness - Inexperienced but lots of potential. Egbo - Injured/injury prone, but looked decent when fit. Morgan - Very inconsistent/not very good. CBT - Very inconsistent/not very good. Only USP is speed. Rest of his game is poor. Leaburn - Inexperienced but lots of potential. Fraser - Key player Dobbo - Key player Kanu - Inexperienced
Good enough to try to compete with Bolton But we'd still lose... probably - Definitely
We need 10 players as good, but probably better than the above to get promoted next year.
Totally agree @supaclive - need a major rebuild again. AMB, Ness, Fraser, Dobson and Leaburn the only ones I would definitely want to keep for next year.
Bit harsh on CBT. His crossing has improved, and his shooting is slightly better than it was. He’s still a weapon at this level.
We will not pay a fee under the tenure of TS. He is someone who will sell the crown jewels and not reinvest, solely working with youth players coming through. He has stopped now stopped investing in the academy stopping the youth system that we have been admired within football for years. If we are pinning our hopes on the youth players coming in then he is in for shock. One maybe two you can get away with at the same time, the facts are that the league is full of seasoned pros who know every trick in the book and is not a league to play a team of kids. If young players have a dip in form this could affect them more so than a player who has played at this level for 5 years and knows how to handle the pressure. I am confident if the club is not sold by the summer we will see the departures of Dobson, Fraser, Leaburn to balance the books been replaced with sub standard players for this league. Its not nice reading and will no doubt depress a few, but this is how runs this club, stripping asse
Comments
Accept the recruitment hasn't been good enough but it's not like he's had millions to squander. We'd turn a profit on Dobson, obviously lost Taylor on a free who we could have sold previously for a decent profit. There's been some errors but the majority of his signings have been freebies and loans, asking to turn a profit from that isn't reasonable.
I have seen Campbell in every first team appearance and a huge number of development games.
I don’t believe it is ludicrous to say he is better than DJ, but of course I accept that others think JRS is better.
I don’t believe the gap between Rak Saki and Campbell is huge, and Campbell has very good ball control and balance, as well as the courage to work in confined situations where he treats the touchline as his friend.
I suppose this is an area of opinion more than fact, either way does anybody think DJ is better than Campbell?
JRS is a year older than Campbell and at that stage in development it can be significant.
If someone has to come from another position to fill that slot, that leaves their position shorter, something else to consider. We know this from years and years of injury crises!
Given the fact that JRS has had more experience than Campbell, and that he is a year older I don’t believe my point of view is all that ‘ludicrous’.
We have seen Chinn and Mitchell and Henry have a look in, as well as others like Elewere and Barker and Bakrin and Harness have been seen.
There are others such as Adigun, Kedwell, Lapado and Asimwe who are developing well, and Patrick Casey might even get a look in before the end of the season.
There are other decent prospects I haven’t mentioned.
I don’t think it will happen, but for example with Aaron Henry, I would love to see his contract situation sorted, he stays our player, but has a solid whole season on loan at somewhere like Colchester.
He has stopped now stopped investing in the academy stopping the youth system that we have been admired within football for years.
If we are pinning our hopes on the youth players coming in then he is in for shock. One maybe two you can get away with at the same time, the facts are that the league is full of seasoned pros who know every trick in the book and is not a league to play a team of kids.
If young players have a dip in form this could affect them more so than a player who has played at this level for 5 years and knows how to handle the pressure.
I am confident if the club is not sold by the summer we will see the departures of Dobson, Fraser, Leaburn to balance the books been replaced with sub standard players for this league.
Its not nice reading and will no doubt depress a few, but this is how runs this club, stripping asse