Message From Gio

[Devil's advocaat 1,541]

Omnishambles?.

 

The issues at a club, or any business, rarely lie in isolation, there's generally always more than one.

 

However, your average fan struggles to get their head round this, and cannot see past what their chosen root cause is.

[Sutton_blows_goats 5,335]

8 minutes ago, buster. said:

Trying to be Big with a relatively Small budget.

The aim should not be 'lets be big' but to scale up in terms of quality and potentially sellable assets.

 

Putting all your eggs in the Kent and Morelos baskets then letting them walk out the door for nothing will hopefully be something we learn from. Not selling Kamara when he was in top form is something we will regret.

 

Having players around the 30 mark as your top earners, who as a result of age have little resale value will prove to be ill judged. Its ok to have one or two like Goldson who is definitely worth it. But having a bunch (Tav, Goldson, Lundstram, Lawrence & Roofe) means that if we fail to make Europe one year we cant sell to make up the shortfall and cut the wage bill at the same time.

 

I also dont agree with the approach of going in heavy on Bosman players unless its a profile like Bassey/Aribo. Sakala/Lundstram/Lawrence are expensive and have little resale value.

[Frankie 8,562]

Agree with much of that but it's always a lot easier with hindsight.

 

If we'd sold Morelos, Kent and Kamara in summer 2021, I doubt many fans would have been pleased even with an obvious rationale for it. Of course a quality core needs to be retained for continuity reasons but clearly timing is everything if player trading is our model. Unfortunately because of poor timing, we're already struggling now with that strategy.

 

I suspect Kamara will go soon enough but at nowhere near the value we could have got 18-24 months ago. Kent and Morelos may also bring in a few million each in January but again that's a lot less than before.  If we manage £10-12m for those three when the window opens, that may be as good as we can hope but all that and more will need to go towards their replacements.  That's not good news when we could perhaps have achieved £50m if the timing had been right.

 

Like I say though, we're all experts with hindsight. 

[Sutton_blows_goats 5,335]

2 minutes ago, Frankie said:

Like I say though, we're all experts with hindsight. 

Absolutely, perhaps its something we as a support need to see play out in order to set expectations. And our board are still learning about running a football club. Successful businessmen in thier own right but running a football club (especially one in our situation) I'm sure is a massive learning experience for them.

[ascender 352]

I still think there might be a way back for Kamara under Beale, but who knows.

 

I'd definitely take whatever we can get for Morelos in January and finally move on from that chapter. I saw a couple of articles over the weekend saying that Kent really loved working with Beale, so not sure if that means he might be persuaded to stay?

[Frankie 8,562]

2 minutes ago, ascender said:

I still think there might be a way back for Kamara under Beale, but who knows.

 

I'd definitely take whatever we can get for Morelos in January and finally move on from that chapter. I saw a couple of articles over the weekend saying that Kent really loved working with Beale, so not sure if that means he might be persuaded to stay?

I think Morelos is done - he seems to have given up and fans increasngly annoyed him him.

 

I guess argument is there to retain all three under new manager and increase their value via new contracts if they're interested. That will come down to the manager who may wish for a fresh start squad wise but that will become very expensive, very quickly.

 

And the Swiss Ramble report shows just how reliant we remain on European football.  It's very much spinning plates.

[Devil's advocaat 1,541]

6 minutes ago, ascender said:

I still think there might be a way back for Kamara under Beale, but who knows.

 

I'd definitely take whatever we can get for Morelos in January and finally move on from that chapter. I saw a couple of articles over the weekend saying that Kent really loved working with Beale, so not sure if that means he might be persuaded to stay?

Absolutely spot on.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if Morelos doesn't ever acheive the levels that we seen him at for the rest of his career.

Edited November 28, 2022 by Devil's advocaat

[Sutton_blows_goats 5,335]

3 minutes ago, Frankie said:

I guess argument is there to retain all three under new manager and increase their value via new contracts if they're interested. That will come down to the manager who may wish for a fresh start squad wise but that will become very expensive, very quickly.

That's an important point, renewing a players contract isn't just a case of giving them a pay rise or similar terms. There will be a likely large signing on fee for the player and agent which wont fall short of a fee for some players we have bought recently. Its ok to increase the players value but its only really adding value to us if they perform well or we sell them on for a decent fee.

[Sutton_blows_goats 5,335]

6 minutes ago, Devil's advocaat said:

Absolutely spot on.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if Morelos doesn't ever acheive the levels that we seen him at for the rest of his career.

I wouldn't be surprised to see him in the MLS, Mexico or South America. I dont think a decent profile team in Europe will touch him given his recent form and conditioning.

[der Berliner 3,744]

55 minutes ago, Devil's advocaat said:

Omnishambles?.

 

The issues at a club, or any business, rarely lie in isolation, there's generally always more than one.

 

However, your average fan struggles to get their head round this, and cannot see past what their chosen root cause is.

Very much so. As you see above, quite a few posters go into board-room problems et al, when the most obvious and the most grievous thing clearly were injuries to a host of players, especially our central defenders. IMHO, this is what Gio refers to ahead of anything else.

 

We've not seen Hagi this season, neither Helander. Souttar has been missing since 1st of August, Lawrence since 29th August, Goldson since 12th October, Roofe has played 26 mins this season, Morelos being a bit-part player too, mainly due to lack of fitness and form. Jack missed 12 games and didn't average more minutes than Morelos on the park.

 

If fit, Hagi, Helander, Lawrence and Roofe would start every game for me, maybe even Jack.