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Post by Lofty on Aug 18, 2023 11:36:19 GMT
Been on a Teams call this morning so thought I'd put my time to good use and go back through our transfers over the last few seasons to see how many were a hit and how many were a miss. A hit is defined as playing a number of games for us and/or being talented. e.g. Gilly is a hit because he's featured regularly not because he's a world beater. A miss is defined as somebody who is simply shit (Hope Akpan) or someone signed and not played (Bola) or signed and bombed out (Young). Between the 17-18 season and the 22-23 season we have signed 128 players of whom I believe only 35 can be classed as a hit. I've attached the horror show lists of each season. Available in colour not black and white and I'll add a swear in soon just for the kids reading the site. How the fuck is our recruitment so fucking shit and how do we keep getting away with signing absolute garbage?
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Post by Lofty on Aug 18, 2023 11:36:59 GMT
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Post by Hobhead on Aug 18, 2023 12:42:23 GMT
That’s with a generous definition of ‘hit’. There’s plenty in the hit column that could easily be moved over without much argument.
I’ve been banging this drum a bit lately but if the fans want transparency then we could start with the recruitment process. Let us see the working out. Show us how the fuck it is that we sign utter dross like Ash Taylor or is it too embarrassing?
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Post by Hobhead on Aug 18, 2023 12:46:58 GMT
Off the top of my head I’m moving GiIIead, Pereira, J Walker, Bass and A O’Connor from hit to miss so that’s five more down.
It really ought to be a source of huge shame to the club that year after year they squander so much if our budget on players that are shite. They ought to be embarrassed but there’s never been so much as a squeak from the club to indicate that they are. It’s basically a marketing scam at this point.
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Post by Lofty on Aug 18, 2023 13:00:39 GMT
I agree there are some very dubious hits, I didn't want to be accused of being too negative!
Some absolute shite on there.
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Post by Hoochy on Aug 18, 2023 13:56:09 GMT
How do we compare to other L2 clubs in the hit/miss stakes?
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Post by Dick on Aug 18, 2023 14:17:45 GMT
Unfortunately with a lot of clubs there is a common approach of having huge outgoings and incoming of players and hoping it just clicks, certainly the lower down the league you go.
It's something we never sorted 25-30 years ago when we should have started to build it. When admin 1&2 came along then Julian 'anyone got change for a button?' Rhodes it killed off the chance of any investment away from the immediate first team.
We've made a whole load of managerial cock ups which just made things worse. Then the owner who doesn't spend any money.
It's just often been a case of here's £5, who can we get for that?
In a similar vein we can't even develop our own players. I can think of about 12 in 27 years of going to City who have come into the first team and had good careers here then elsewhere, another handful who dropped down the leagues and a load more who made a few appearances then dropped out of the game altogether.
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Post by Lofty on Aug 18, 2023 15:01:27 GMT
How do we compare to other L2 clubs in the hit/miss stakes? U wot m8?
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Post by Hoochy on Aug 18, 2023 15:03:24 GMT
How do we compare to other L2 clubs in the hit/miss stakes? U wot m8? Clear your cache brother.
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Post by Hobhead on Aug 18, 2023 17:40:22 GMT
How do we compare to other L2 clubs in the hit/miss stakes? If all the clubs are as bad then it’s a glaring missed opportunity to get an edge on our competitors. And even if they are we still need to drastically improve. Not just player recruitment either, our record at recruiting managers is just as bad. We’re wank and I’m bored of it.
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goddeano
Due Diligence Bantam
Posts: 271
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Post by goddeano on Aug 18, 2023 18:36:04 GMT
Bonus game: How many of the misses were hit's before or after us. Bonus bonus: How many were hits before AND after? correct me if I'm wrong but I think Eoin Doyle would be considered a hit before and after and in the miss column for us.
I'm still bitter about that. How did we bugger that up? I know he's a prolific poacher and just hoofing it and expecting him to be on the end was daft, but he had more goals in him doing that than we got.
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Post by Hoochy on Aug 18, 2023 18:40:15 GMT
Bonus game: How many of the misses were hit's before or after us. Bonus bonus: How many were hits before AND after? correct me if I'm wrong but I think Eoin Doyle would be considered a hit before and after and in the miss column for us. I'm still bitter about that. How did we bugger that up? I know he's a prolific poacher and just hoofing it and expecting him to be on the end was daft, but he had more goals in him doing that than we got. We had Vaughn at the same time too. That should have been a guaranteed 40-50 goals between them.
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goddeano
Due Diligence Bantam
Posts: 271
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Post by goddeano on Aug 18, 2023 18:43:31 GMT
Bonus game: How many of the misses were hit's before or after us. Bonus bonus: How many were hits before AND after? correct me if I'm wrong but I think Eoin Doyle would be considered a hit before and after and in the miss column for us. I'm still bitter about that. How did we bugger that up? I know he's a prolific poacher and just hoofing it and expecting him to be on the end was daft, but he had more goals in him doing that than we got. We had Vaughn at the same time too. That should have been a guaranteed 40-50 goals between them. James Vaughn and Eoin Doyle in the same squad, both of them wasted, treat like shit and then fucked off in January, Vaughn remained top scorer and we finished 9th.
The laughing stock of the league.
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Post by Hobhead on Aug 18, 2023 18:44:53 GMT
Bonus game: How many of the misses were hit's before or after us. Bonus bonus: How many were hits before AND after? correct me if I'm wrong but I think Eoin Doyle would be considered a hit before and after and in the miss column for us. I'm still bitter about that. How did we bugger that up? I know he's a prolific poacher and just hoofing it and expecting him to be on the end was daft, but he had more goals in him doing that than we got. We had Vaughn at the same time too. That should have been a guaranteed 40-50 goals between them. That was a title-winning front line and what do we do? Kick it hard and high in their general direction and expect goals. That’s the sort of deep-thinking, tactical genius we’ve become embarrassingly accustomed to. God, everything we do is half-arsed, retarded or just pointlessly shit.
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Post by Hobhead on Aug 18, 2023 18:46:05 GMT
So in summary, ninety percent of our signings are shit and, of the rest, we waste the rare good ones.
Honestly can’t understand why we seem to be stuck in this league.
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goddeano
Due Diligence Bantam
Posts: 271
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Post by goddeano on Aug 18, 2023 18:49:57 GMT
We had Vaughn at the same time too. That should have been a guaranteed 40-50 goals between them. That was a title-winning front line and what do we do? Kick it hard and high in their general direction and expect goals. That’s the sort of deep-thinking, tactical genius we’ve become embarrassingly accustomed to. God, everything we do is half-arsed, retarded or just pointlessly shit. The same season we went in balls deep for Chris Taylor. Multiple times.
The same Chris Taylor we tried to sign but couldn't because it transpired he'd played in some non-league tinpot game
Undeterred, we went back in and got him later. Can't remember if it was mid season or the same window we despatched Doyle and Vaughn
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Post by benitocarbone on Aug 18, 2023 18:53:57 GMT
That tactic of lumping it long in the air to Doyle and/or Vaughan was one of the most inept pieces of tactical management that I’ve ever seen and believe me it’s a pretty low bar. Those two should have guaranteed us promotion if used properly. Bowyer for you.
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Post by Mossley Bantam on Aug 18, 2023 19:45:47 GMT
And we started that season playing Doyle as a 10 behind Vaughan and 'The Don'.
Wtf was Bowyer sniffing?!
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Post by Dick on Nov 12, 2023 9:03:07 GMT
Stephen Gent...
Aside from the actual players he's brought in, those interview clips someone put on twitter yesterday are damning.
It's pofessionally digging your own grave when since them he's had 3 transfer windows and brought in 35 players - we're 18th in League 2, played 4 of the 6 sides below us and racked up just 4 points.
Long term plan, 5 year strategy... nevermind that, what was the direction for the summer transfers based on how we finished last season?
A complete mess, led by Leslie and Gent who clearly had no respect or understanding of L2 and thought, 'Yeah, let's just sign any old shite, this league's crap - it'll be fine'...
And separately, going back further...
I recalled Mark Lawn having a Sparks' moment some 15 years ago - remember that link up with that 4th division Belgian side (who don't even exist anymore...) which turned out to be us being sold a load of magic beans and quietly binned off. Then we signed Willy Topp, made a huge fuss then found out a year later his muscles were too short or something. Then we brought in Archie Christie and the weirdness that came with that.
Even in that era, 10-15 years ago, you can see again just how poor the footballing strategy and direction was.
Just since 2007 we've gone through hundreds of players, dozens of managers and staff, changes all over the club but the underlying problems are still the same.
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Post by jose on Nov 12, 2023 9:28:39 GMT
The Archie Christie (RIP) times were bizarre.
I remember someone checking his back story to see if it stood up.
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