Forum | Have we learned from transfer windows? by itfcjoe

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Have we learned from transfer windows? 15:33 - Jun 6 with 9091 views

I think it has been a little bit lost in the wash after the success of the last season, that last summers transfer window was pretty poor......the January window was absolutely superb. What lessons are learned?

Summer
Ladapo (8/10) - good striker, did well for us, but felt was always signed to be a back up

Ball (2/10) - 4 league starts, couldn't get in team ahead of Evans, then when we needed him was injured

Leigh (5/10) - was a very good back up, but ultimately started 3 league games in the season

Harness (6/10) - started the season very well, didn't seem to recover well from injury and then was replaced by end of seasonwhich after spending a decent sized fee surely wasn't the plan

Davis (9/10) - fantastic signing. Nuff said.

Keogh (3/10) - paid a fee for him, started 4 league games. Released at end of season.

Ahadme (1/10) - paid a fee, looked terrible, ended up outside team at Burton

Camara (1/10) - paid a decent fee, 1 league minute

John-Jules (4/10) - looked good at times, but missed over half the season

Some of these ratings may look harsh, I don't think they are, and obviously the players who missed time through injuries may come good in the future so this isn't a writing off of their Ipswich career.

But ultimately out of the 9 players we signed, 6 of them started less than 10 games for us so that is a pretty terrible hit rate. Out of the 3 who did make 10 starts, one of them ended up out of the team despite paying a relatively big fee for him. A pretty poor hit rate and the success of the January window covered at how poor a window we'd had.

January window

Luongo (8/10) - a superb addition who improved us as soon as he was fit. One point deduction for taking a couple of weeks to get fit.

Broadhead (9/10) - The difference maker

Clarke (7/10) - Ended up as big upgrade with room a lot of room to grow into

Hirst (8/10) - Gave us a new dimension up front, and also allowed Ladapo to play less minutes as we were so reliant on him

So for me transfer business this season
9/10 - Davis, Broadhead
8/10 - Ladapo, Luongo, Hirst
7/10 - Clarke
6/10 - Harness
5/10 - Leigh
4/10 - TJJ
3/10 - Keogh
2/10 - Ball
1/10 - Camara, Ahadme

What did we get right in January that we didn't in summer? What are the mitigating factors?

Business done quicker in Jan - targets identified earlier? Recruitment team more in place and with more time to prepare?

January traditionally harder to do business in - why did we buck that trend?

Less risks on signings - Camara was injured, Ahadme was a panic buy

Luck? TJJ and Ball suffering injuries

More aggressive? SIgnings of Clarke and Broadhead shouldn't have been possible for a L1 club.

Interested to know what people think - and what they think we need to do to ensure we have a repeat of January 2023, opposed to Summer 2022.

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Have we learned from transfer windows? on 12:17 - Jun 7 with 1179 views

xrayspecs

Have we learned from transfer windows? on 12:07 - Jun 7 by chicoazul
But Ashton is ultimately in charge, that’s what being CE means. You have final responsibility.

Sorry, I disagree.

MA employs a range of experts to run different departments within the football club. He will hold them to account for performance.

KM, coaching team and recruitment team will identify transfer targets. If this is not working well, then those individuals will be held to account and potentially replaced.

MA role is to performance manage those who report to him. If he is not doing this sufficiently well, then at this point the Chairman will hold MA to account.

Have we learned from transfer windows? on 12:40 - Jun 7 with 1101 views

xrayspecs

If you are rating their total on field contribution, then I would largely agree. But that does not make some of the lower rated players bad signings.

Injuries had a significant impact on Ball, Camara, JJ and Ahadme. Leigh also broke his leg at Sheff W (?) but was always going to be back up to Davis.

Ahadme had something about him early last season and was more of a project than a nailed on starter. I also understand we did not pay a fee for Camara, although there may be monies owed on promotion. Both were late additions as we had space in the squad and/or had been unable to secure our first choices, so feel to be more in the punt range.

Harness started brightly but am unsure whether his second half of the season performance was a failure to recover from injury or that he had a hot patch when he first joined. Broadhead was a very significant upgrade. Broadhead and Hirst were signed at a time where KM was happy with the chances we were creating but bemoaned our failure to take enough of these. Harness finishing and ability to retain possession has been a bit hit and miss, his missed effort at Chelthenham an example of maybe a lack of quality that we needed.

Keogh was always going to be back up and here to be a senior voice in the changing room.

As others have said, Town's momentum on and off the pitch and KM growing reputation are likely to have made it easier to sell the club to better players. I listened to Harry Clarke's dad on Life's a Pitch, and he recalled telling Harry to not rule Ipswich out as an option, after Clarke senior attended a game at PR for the first time in years and was impressed by what he saw.

Have we learned from transfer windows? on 13:15 - Jun 7 with 1060 views

Vegtablue

Have we learned from transfer windows? on 08:58 - Jun 7 by Garv

You make it sound like we planned to do all our business in the summer and that we didn't think we would need to do anything in January. I imagine they were always going to go hard in January.

Do you think they planned for Keogh to play many games? Surely not. McKenna would probably tell you he was an important signing anyway.

'Leigh was a very good back up' and never let us down (the opposite) yet only gets 5/10?

You've got a case with Ahadme, Harness and Ball.

Wasn't Luongo a risk in January?

Hear hear, Leigh provided all we asked of him without dropping a beat.

Broadhead also arrived with muscle tightness if I remember rightly and didn't start training with the first team until his second week. Given his injury record + reputation, in company with Luongo's signature a week or so later, it could be argued we made no policy changes between the two windows in respect to injured players. We got our business done in good time in January but it wasn't lightning quick. Our summer business was concluded in good time, much of it on the first day, apart from the deadline day duo, and it was enough to place us 2nd in the table when the January window opened.

I think what we learnt was simply where in the squad we needed to improve. We then had the purchasing power to make movements that other teams couldn't. Hirst's Blackburn spell was a failure, Clarke was in a bottom third Stoke side, Broadhead was in a rock bottom Wigan side and Luongo was an unfit free agent. If any of the four were enjoying the seasons they would have hoped for then we wouldn't have landed them, but this can't instruct summer transfer business because it's once more a clean slate.

Have we learned from transfer windows? on 14:16 - Jun 7 with 991 views

Luggworm

Have we learned from transfer windows? on 19:12 - Jun 6 by Illinoisblue
The “net spend of zero” still doesn’t quite ring true, given we spent over 3million in January alone. I get we don’t pay transfer fees all at once (and likewise don’t receive them all at once either), so exactly how far are we looking back/forwards to get to net zero?

Ashton said it's going back 2 years and forward 1, So that 21-22, 22-23 and 23-24.
It includes the sales of Downes (plus sell-on), Dozzell, Bishop, Gibbs, Simpson and Frazer.

Have we learned from transfer windows? on 15:06 - Jun 7 with 953 views

Kropotkin123

Ratings come across a bit silly in places. Leigh was bought in as back up. He did everything we wanted. Never found wanting when he came on, despite not playing regularly. I'd be more concerned if he played more regularly, given the money spent on Davis.

With Ball, Evans was arguably our best player prior to his injury. It was not Ball's fault he got injured. He demonstrated he had the skills to help us see out games.

January traditionally harder to do business in - why did we buck that trend?

We finished 11th last season with a young unproven manager with half a season to his name. By January we were playing good football, sitting third and needed a bit more quality. It was an easier sell. We were also somewhat fortunate that Hirst was available and didn't have better options (which he did in the summer).

We were looking for squad players (Keogh to bring experience into the training, Leigh to be a back-up, Ladapo to be back-up).

Business done quicker in Jan - targets identified earlier? Recruitment team more in place and with more time to prepare?

I don't agree with this narrative. Eg Hirst was identified at the end of last summer and we pursued him in both windows. I think we were still in a position of a lot of change.

I think this transfer window we will look to target areas where our back-up is the weakest with players that can compete at the top end of the Championship.

Walton/Hladky
Clarke/Donacien
Davis/Leigh
Woolfenden/Edmundson
Burgess/Keogh (gone)
Morsy/Ball
Evans/Humphreys
Burns/Jackson
Broadhead/Harness
Chaplin/Edwards
Ladapo/Ahadme

To me, that is...
Tier one: CB, S, CM
1. Replace Keogh
2. Replace Ahadme
3. Replace Humphreys

Tier two: RM, CM2
4. Replace Jackson
5. Replace Ball (although, more likely Evans, as we're would likely look for his type of player than Balls)

Tier three: ...
6. Replace anyone. We're always in a position where if a very good player becomes available we will replace our back up with someone we feel can provide us with competition for places

EDIT: Loving this and the last piece you posted. Feels good to discuss football and appreciate you putting your thoughts out there

[Post edited 7 Jun 2023 15:09]

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Have we learned from transfer windows? on 15:10 - Jun 7 with 929 views

xrayspecs

Have we learned from transfer windows? on 14:16 - Jun 7 by Luggworm
Ashton said it's going back 2 years and forward 1, So that 21-22, 22-23 and 23-24. It includes the sales of Downes (plus sell-on), Dozzell, Bishop, Gibbs, Simpson and Frazer.

So what would we have got in 21/2 from deals signed in previous seasons?

No sales of note in 20/21 as Covid hit transfer market

We sold Bart to Milwall and Harrison to Portsmouth in 19/20, albeit I think we still owed money from when we bought the latter, so that may net out.

We sold Waghorn to Derby for £5m in 18/19, along with Webster to Bristol City for £4-8m and Joe Garner to Wigan for £1m. Could there still ne monies owed from these deals or sell-ons? Webster possibly?

Have we learned from transfer windows? on 15:14 - Jun 7 with 891 views

burnbudgiesburn

I honestly don't see us buying back-up/squad players except in the event Hladky doesn't want the bench for another season.

I think whoever we buy will be first team ready better (or different to) than what we already have.

Have we learned from transfer windows? on 15:31 - Jun 7 with 859 views

itfcjoe

Have we learned from transfer windows? on 15:06 - Jun 7 by Kropotkin123

[Post edited 7 Jun 2023 15:09]

I wasn't sure whether to go numbers for the ratings as it then just becomes the talking point and easy to say one should be higher or a bit lower but hard to fire the discussion up otherwise and did agonise a bit over them - think problem is someone can see 5/10 as being adequate where to others it looks poor but hard to differentiate between the signings otherwise

I don't think you are far off what I would be doing with regards to the improvements, and hope it is another window where we aim to just buy players who will start for us and allow the squad filler to filter down, opposed to just picking up some gap fillers.

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