Before you start reading, this will probably be quite long winded, but I’m aiming to keep it as fair as possible.
Ridsdale Comments:
“By the time we get to the summer we will be strong, healthy and able to go for the targets we are looking for.”
“We've stocked a number of loan players, which means we will have a lot of free space in the 25 to try and target our first choices on a permanent basis; I think we'll be in great shape.”
“But if we can find the right player that can add value to our strike force, we will do so”
“Everyone says we need a striker and we know that.”
“There has always been a massive gap in terms of wages between the Premier League and Championship, what I’m finding now is there is an even bigger salary gap between the Championship and Leagues One and Two.”
Analysis:
The above are all comments from Ridsdale over the last 6 months or so. If you were to read these comments, you could be easily swayed into believing that this summer transfer market would be busy, regardless of any distrust that may have existed before. The message I got from these words were that January was somewhat of a trial run, we’ve loaned players to have a look at them, and that we will have a number of available positions to fill and we will be in a strong financial position to do that. The last quote is incredibly worrying if true, he should have known long before the 6th August 2021 that those teams below us in the league pyramid would struggle to pay the wages of our unwanted players. It is also worrying that our owner would rather have a player rot on the sidelines potentially damaging club morale rather than playing week in week out with a portion of his wages covered over what seems like principle.
Summer Incomings:
Daniel Iversen – Loan – Leicester City
Sepp Van Den Berg – Loan - Liverpool
Liam Lindsay – Undisclosed (Rumoured to be less than £100k) – Stoke City
Matthew Olosunde – Free - Rotherham
Ali McCann – Undisclosed (Rumoured to be around £1m) – St Johnstone
Josh Murphy – Loan - Cardiff
Izzy Brown – Free - Chelsea
Jamie Thomas – Free – Bamber Bridge
Kindly, I’ll add Greg Cunningham – Free – Cardiff and Ched Evans – Free – Fleetwood to the list as well, although they were really signed before the window started.
Analysis:
Absolutely delighted with the first two on the list, and exactly what PR promised in terms of seeing who we like from the January loans and getting them on board, two quality players who drastically improve the starting eleven.
Liam Lindsay is the opposite. We saw over the second half of last season that LL was incredibly limited. Rather than let him return to Stoke and replace with better quality we have gone forward with the transfer simply because we can get him for a fraction of the price of the other targets. Disappointing.
With Olosunde, the club has been rather unlucky. The player was high up on my personal recommendations for Fisher replacements and I think he is a very good player at this level. However, his record of being substituted from right back is rather troubling, especially now his fitness is being questioned due to injuring himself after 30 minutes in a friendly. Hopefully one that comes good.
Izzy Brown was a risk that predictably backfired, feel sorry for the lad but the club knew exactly all the risks involved and still went ahead with the deal, even though we were apparently in a strong position and shouldn’t have been needing to take those sorts of risks at all.
Jamie Thomas – Good luck to the lad but this is another example of surely we had better alternatives already in the pipeline. Another cheap punt hoping for a positive outcome, rather than scouting a target and beating others to their signature.
Greg and Ched really helped at the back end of last season but both seem to have drastically deteriorated over the summer. Was to be expected with Greg who has been plagued by injuries throughout his career, but hope we can put Ched’s opening day horror show down to playing through injury. Worryingly, they were only signed permanently because we signed 7 players on loan in January and couldn’t fit them all in the squad. We then proceeded to not bother playing either Molumby or Gordon, so it proved a pointless exercise.
McCann and Murphy – To me, they were panic signings to appease fans on deadline day. I can’t see where Murphy fits in, and think he will be like a fish out of water when playing upfront with Riis. McCann I don’t know anything about apart from everybody raving about him on here and on social media. I hope he can be a superb signing, but do think it is worth mentioning he’s probably played about 10 games in his career against comparable opposition to who he will now be facing.
Where on earth was the new striker we were told we were looking for? Why did it take until the last day of the transfer window to put some bids in for players? These are questions that must be answered.
Squad Depth:
As we look to be playing 5-3-2 this season, I thought I’d assess the depth to suit. I’ve included two players for every position where possible and tried to not include any player twice.
GK: Iversen, Rudd
RWB: Olosunde, Rafferty
RCB: VDB, Storey
CB: Bauer, Lindsay
LCB: Hughes
LWB: Earl, Cunningham
RCM: Ledson, Browne
LCM: Whiteman, McCann
AM: Johnson, Potts
ST: Riis, Sinclair
ST: Maguire, Evans
Analysis:
Very strong in the goalkeeping and midfield departments. We look incredibly poor at the back and think we will regret not improving that area. If Hughes or Bauer get injured, we’re going to seriously struggle replacing them. What is worrying is that only three players from the summer incomings automatically get into the starting eleven, and we finished last season with two of them already in there. Even more worrying is that there are a number of summer signings that don’t fit into the 23/24 and therefore just contribute more to the bloated squad we have. A number of players in the list above also are poor replacements. The drop off in right back, centre back and forward quality when players are out is very worrying. We have, however, when fit, an incredibly competitive starting eleven.
Final Comments:
Overall, I think it has been another disappointing window without a plan or a direction. We have so obviously set our stall out with 5-3-2 and then have signed players ad hoc without care for what formation we want to play (Murphy, Izzy Brown) as well as taking punts on low cost players (Lindsay, Thomas) instead of finding out and out quality. The window started very positively retaining the services of two key loan players and bringing in Olosunde, but has limped on since then, and came to action last night in an attempt to appease the fans.
It’s hard to direct criticism at a man putting millions into the club on a yearly basis, but those responsible for how it is spent need to address some issues. What’s the plan? How do we go forward? But most importantly, we had a squad a few years ago that finished 7th containing the likes of Robinson, Hugill, Pearson, Davies, Fisher, Cunningham etc who were all under 24/25 and improving on a yearly basis. How the hell have we gone so far backwards from there that relegation is a serious threat? How is the squad value now less than those 6 players combined?
To suggest that this window has been a success is a stretch in my opinion. To say that those who disagree with PR have egg on their face this morning is a joke. Its time for fans to make a decision. Are you going to be continually appeased by those in charge doing the bare minimum, or are you going to stand up and demand accountability? Unfortunately, it appears like its going to be the former. We’ve only got ourselves to blame when we get another “I know best” lecture from our advisor.
PRs been here over a decade. I’m still not sure what the plan is.
Ridsdale Comments:
“By the time we get to the summer we will be strong, healthy and able to go for the targets we are looking for.”
“We've stocked a number of loan players, which means we will have a lot of free space in the 25 to try and target our first choices on a permanent basis; I think we'll be in great shape.”
“But if we can find the right player that can add value to our strike force, we will do so”
“Everyone says we need a striker and we know that.”
“There has always been a massive gap in terms of wages between the Premier League and Championship, what I’m finding now is there is an even bigger salary gap between the Championship and Leagues One and Two.”
Analysis:
The above are all comments from Ridsdale over the last 6 months or so. If you were to read these comments, you could be easily swayed into believing that this summer transfer market would be busy, regardless of any distrust that may have existed before. The message I got from these words were that January was somewhat of a trial run, we’ve loaned players to have a look at them, and that we will have a number of available positions to fill and we will be in a strong financial position to do that. The last quote is incredibly worrying if true, he should have known long before the 6th August 2021 that those teams below us in the league pyramid would struggle to pay the wages of our unwanted players. It is also worrying that our owner would rather have a player rot on the sidelines potentially damaging club morale rather than playing week in week out with a portion of his wages covered over what seems like principle.
Summer Incomings:
Daniel Iversen – Loan – Leicester City
Sepp Van Den Berg – Loan - Liverpool
Liam Lindsay – Undisclosed (Rumoured to be less than £100k) – Stoke City
Matthew Olosunde – Free - Rotherham
Ali McCann – Undisclosed (Rumoured to be around £1m) – St Johnstone
Josh Murphy – Loan - Cardiff
Izzy Brown – Free - Chelsea
Jamie Thomas – Free – Bamber Bridge
Kindly, I’ll add Greg Cunningham – Free – Cardiff and Ched Evans – Free – Fleetwood to the list as well, although they were really signed before the window started.
Analysis:
Absolutely delighted with the first two on the list, and exactly what PR promised in terms of seeing who we like from the January loans and getting them on board, two quality players who drastically improve the starting eleven.
Liam Lindsay is the opposite. We saw over the second half of last season that LL was incredibly limited. Rather than let him return to Stoke and replace with better quality we have gone forward with the transfer simply because we can get him for a fraction of the price of the other targets. Disappointing.
With Olosunde, the club has been rather unlucky. The player was high up on my personal recommendations for Fisher replacements and I think he is a very good player at this level. However, his record of being substituted from right back is rather troubling, especially now his fitness is being questioned due to injuring himself after 30 minutes in a friendly. Hopefully one that comes good.
Izzy Brown was a risk that predictably backfired, feel sorry for the lad but the club knew exactly all the risks involved and still went ahead with the deal, even though we were apparently in a strong position and shouldn’t have been needing to take those sorts of risks at all.
Jamie Thomas – Good luck to the lad but this is another example of surely we had better alternatives already in the pipeline. Another cheap punt hoping for a positive outcome, rather than scouting a target and beating others to their signature.
Greg and Ched really helped at the back end of last season but both seem to have drastically deteriorated over the summer. Was to be expected with Greg who has been plagued by injuries throughout his career, but hope we can put Ched’s opening day horror show down to playing through injury. Worryingly, they were only signed permanently because we signed 7 players on loan in January and couldn’t fit them all in the squad. We then proceeded to not bother playing either Molumby or Gordon, so it proved a pointless exercise.
McCann and Murphy – To me, they were panic signings to appease fans on deadline day. I can’t see where Murphy fits in, and think he will be like a fish out of water when playing upfront with Riis. McCann I don’t know anything about apart from everybody raving about him on here and on social media. I hope he can be a superb signing, but do think it is worth mentioning he’s probably played about 10 games in his career against comparable opposition to who he will now be facing.
Where on earth was the new striker we were told we were looking for? Why did it take until the last day of the transfer window to put some bids in for players? These are questions that must be answered.
Squad Depth:
As we look to be playing 5-3-2 this season, I thought I’d assess the depth to suit. I’ve included two players for every position where possible and tried to not include any player twice.
GK: Iversen, Rudd
RWB: Olosunde, Rafferty
RCB: VDB, Storey
CB: Bauer, Lindsay
LCB: Hughes
LWB: Earl, Cunningham
RCM: Ledson, Browne
LCM: Whiteman, McCann
AM: Johnson, Potts
ST: Riis, Sinclair
ST: Maguire, Evans
Analysis:
Very strong in the goalkeeping and midfield departments. We look incredibly poor at the back and think we will regret not improving that area. If Hughes or Bauer get injured, we’re going to seriously struggle replacing them. What is worrying is that only three players from the summer incomings automatically get into the starting eleven, and we finished last season with two of them already in there. Even more worrying is that there are a number of summer signings that don’t fit into the 23/24 and therefore just contribute more to the bloated squad we have. A number of players in the list above also are poor replacements. The drop off in right back, centre back and forward quality when players are out is very worrying. We have, however, when fit, an incredibly competitive starting eleven.
Final Comments:
Overall, I think it has been another disappointing window without a plan or a direction. We have so obviously set our stall out with 5-3-2 and then have signed players ad hoc without care for what formation we want to play (Murphy, Izzy Brown) as well as taking punts on low cost players (Lindsay, Thomas) instead of finding out and out quality. The window started very positively retaining the services of two key loan players and bringing in Olosunde, but has limped on since then, and came to action last night in an attempt to appease the fans.
It’s hard to direct criticism at a man putting millions into the club on a yearly basis, but those responsible for how it is spent need to address some issues. What’s the plan? How do we go forward? But most importantly, we had a squad a few years ago that finished 7th containing the likes of Robinson, Hugill, Pearson, Davies, Fisher, Cunningham etc who were all under 24/25 and improving on a yearly basis. How the hell have we gone so far backwards from there that relegation is a serious threat? How is the squad value now less than those 6 players combined?
To suggest that this window has been a success is a stretch in my opinion. To say that those who disagree with PR have egg on their face this morning is a joke. Its time for fans to make a decision. Are you going to be continually appeased by those in charge doing the bare minimum, or are you going to stand up and demand accountability? Unfortunately, it appears like its going to be the former. We’ve only got ourselves to blame when we get another “I know best” lecture from our advisor.
PRs been here over a decade. I’m still not sure what the plan is.
