| Season of Struggle 17:46 - Apr 26 with 2752 views | itfcsuth |
A season defined by our mistakes, both on and off the pitch.
A club is defined by its recruitment/squad building - and something we had done so well, but ultimately when we needed it most, to bridge the gap and uphill battle of the PL, we needed to identify really good players at really good prices - we didn’t get it right.
We can dissect it until the cows come home, but it’s far from complex, we simply didn’t build a good enough squad, and despite KMc incredibly abilities, even he could not perform this miracle.
We go back to the Championship, but we have hopefully learnt a lot of lessons about how to bridge that step to PL.
I’m excited to see how the summer unfolds, how we now reset the group a little and build for the next phase of the journey, which is to ultimately be a top 10 self sustainable PL side.
Players need to depart, players will arrive, with KMc remaining, it still excites me the journey ahead to our ultimate ambitions.
COYB! |  | | |  |
| Season of Struggle on 18:03 - Apr 26 with 2155 views | Cheltenham_Blue |
I think, retrospectively, much will be made of our lack of international recruitment.
The key thing is to retain as much of the squad as possible, but I think many of our L1 'heroes' will depart this summer in order to add quality. |  |
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| Season of Struggle on 07:12 - Apr 27 with 2000 views | itfcsuth |
| Season of Struggle on 18:03 - Apr 26 by Cheltenham_Blue |
I think, retrospectively, much will be made of our lack of international recruitment.
The key thing is to retain as much of the squad as possible, but I think many of our L1 'heroes' will depart this summer in order to add quality. |
I think our international recruitment was the biggest factor - so much better value for money overseas - just not sure we had that infrastructure in place this time - hopefully that is being worked on as we speak in the background for the future.
Domestically it’s an expensive market - I think ultimately we were backed with budget, but I don’t think we bought in enough quality with that budget.
We will need to sell though where possible, financially we will need to balance the books a little - would imagine, Delap, Davis, Philogene & Omari will be the most likely sellable assets. [Post edited 27 Apr 7:13]
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| Season of Struggle on 09:16 - Apr 27 with 1902 views | Churchman |
| Season of Struggle on 07:12 - Apr 27 by itfcsuth |
I think our international recruitment was the biggest factor - so much better value for money overseas - just not sure we had that infrastructure in place this time - hopefully that is being worked on as we speak in the background for the future.
Domestically it’s an expensive market - I think ultimately we were backed with budget, but I don’t think we bought in enough quality with that budget.
We will need to sell though where possible, financially we will need to balance the books a little - would imagine, Delap, Davis, Philogene & Omari will be the most likely sellable assets. [Post edited 27 Apr 7:13]
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Of course we didn’t have infrastructure in place to recruit effectively from abroad. We barely had a domestic scouting network three years ago. It takes time and investment to build this sort of thing in the way say Brighton have done it.
The idea of buying domestic talent is actually sound. You have a far better chance of integrating domestic players and if any footballer can be, they are a known quantity. Recruiting players at that level requires several things. A lot more money than many seem to realise. £20m is squad player/punt level for most PL clubs.
What ‘enough quality’ could we have bought with our budget, given that recruitment rarely has 100% success rate? Should we have paid £43m for Onana who was brilliant against us? Shame he put Teflon gloves on for the rest of the season.
If you say buy two midfielders like Newcastle have, even if you splash £100m on the two how are you going to pay them? Will they want to play here for a relegation threatened club with primitive training facilities and tie themselves to it? If you pay them say £150k a week, how does that work with the rest of the squad and how committed will they actually be?
If you are asking me if we fell short in recruitment I’d say yes. With the gift of hindsight, I’m sure some decisions would have been different. Midfield, which was abject, and an additional striker to name two areas. But it’s easy in the armchair, Fantasy Football and FM24 or whatever to find solutions. Bit harder for real, just as it is in real life.
In terms of needing to sell where possible to balance the books, what are your sources; what are the figures? Your post has such certainty to it and I’m genuinely interested to know how much of a financial hole/FFP hole we are in as that will affect what price we get for players under firesale and of course recruitment. [Post edited 27 Apr 9:25]
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| Season of Struggle on 10:35 - Apr 27 with 1833 views | Blue_Heath |
| Season of Struggle on 07:12 - Apr 27 by itfcsuth |
I think our international recruitment was the biggest factor - so much better value for money overseas - just not sure we had that infrastructure in place this time - hopefully that is being worked on as we speak in the background for the future.
Domestically it’s an expensive market - I think ultimately we were backed with budget, but I don’t think we bought in enough quality with that budget.
We will need to sell though where possible, financially we will need to balance the books a little - would imagine, Delap, Davis, Philogene & Omari will be the most likely sellable assets. [Post edited 27 Apr 7:13]
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Delap 100% won't be here, I'd say 10% chance Omari stays but only if KM is here.
Why would anyone buy Philogene?, we only bought him a few months back there were no rivals and he hasn't improved. Davis has some of the worst stats as defender in the league, other than Leeds I don't see anyone coming in for him.
I think we will see Broadhead go and possibly O'Shea plus a few minor sales like Walton. |  | | |
| Season of Struggle on 14:11 - Apr 28 with 1646 views | itfcsuth |
| Season of Struggle on 09:16 - Apr 27 by Churchman |
Of course we didn’t have infrastructure in place to recruit effectively from abroad. We barely had a domestic scouting network three years ago. It takes time and investment to build this sort of thing in the way say Brighton have done it.
The idea of buying domestic talent is actually sound. You have a far better chance of integrating domestic players and if any footballer can be, they are a known quantity. Recruiting players at that level requires several things. A lot more money than many seem to realise. £20m is squad player/punt level for most PL clubs.
What ‘enough quality’ could we have bought with our budget, given that recruitment rarely has 100% success rate? Should we have paid £43m for Onana who was brilliant against us? Shame he put Teflon gloves on for the rest of the season.
If you say buy two midfielders like Newcastle have, even if you splash £100m on the two how are you going to pay them? Will they want to play here for a relegation threatened club with primitive training facilities and tie themselves to it? If you pay them say £150k a week, how does that work with the rest of the squad and how committed will they actually be?
If you are asking me if we fell short in recruitment I’d say yes. With the gift of hindsight, I’m sure some decisions would have been different. Midfield, which was abject, and an additional striker to name two areas. But it’s easy in the armchair, Fantasy Football and FM24 or whatever to find solutions. Bit harder for real, just as it is in real life.
In terms of needing to sell where possible to balance the books, what are your sources; what are the figures? Your post has such certainty to it and I’m genuinely interested to know how much of a financial hole/FFP hole we are in as that will affect what price we get for players under firesale and of course recruitment. [Post edited 27 Apr 9:25]
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Financially I would imagine we will be sound - broadcast/commercial income will rocket towards the £150m barrier, transfers paid will be around £110m (£20m Hutchinson was in previous accounting period) - that will naturally be amortised over the player contracts though, imagine will look something like £25m per accounting year. Would imagine operating cost inc transfers will be between £90m-£100m.
We will be financially sound in the next set of accounts, but of course you have to think about the amortisation cost over the coming years on top of future fees, and continued operating costs - for that we need to balance the books a little with transfer fees in - it's an element of common sense to know that the books will need be balanced a little to run a continued sustainable club. | | | |
| Season of Struggle on 14:29 - Apr 28 with 1604 views | portmanking |
| Season of Struggle on 07:12 - Apr 27 by itfcsuth |
I think our international recruitment was the biggest factor - so much better value for money overseas - just not sure we had that infrastructure in place this time - hopefully that is being worked on as we speak in the background for the future.
Domestically it’s an expensive market - I think ultimately we were backed with budget, but I don’t think we bought in enough quality with that budget.
We will need to sell though where possible, financially we will need to balance the books a little - would imagine, Delap, Davis, Philogene & Omari will be the most likely sellable assets. [Post edited 27 Apr 7:13]
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We were playing Forest Green at home 12 months prior to those big games against Coventry and Huddersfield last year. How did you expect us to have a fully functioning global recruitment network up and running having been a League 1 club for 3-4 years? | | | |
| Season of Struggle on 14:38 - Apr 28 with 1554 views | Dyland |
"We can dissect it until the cows come home, but it’s far from complex, we simply didn’t build a good enough squad..."
Without wishing to state the bleeding obvious, there are reasons beyond our best recruitment efforts why we 'failed' here.
"... we needed to identify really good players at really good prices..."
Easier said than done, especially when you're competing for these sigs. |  |
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| A lot of imagining going on here on 14:41 - Apr 28 with 1541 views | Dyland |
| Season of Struggle on 14:11 - Apr 28 by itfcsuth |
Financially I would imagine we will be sound - broadcast/commercial income will rocket towards the £150m barrier, transfers paid will be around £110m (£20m Hutchinson was in previous accounting period) - that will naturally be amortised over the player contracts though, imagine will look something like £25m per accounting year. Would imagine operating cost inc transfers will be between £90m-£100m.
We will be financially sound in the next set of accounts, but of course you have to think about the amortisation cost over the coming years on top of future fees, and continued operating costs - for that we need to balance the books a little with transfer fees in - it's an element of common sense to know that the books will need be balanced a little to run a continued sustainable club. |
In your own words I might add :) [Post edited 28 Apr 14:41]
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| Season of Struggle on 14:41 - Apr 28 with 1541 views | jayessess |
This was my take: https://bluewhitenotes.beehiiv.com/p/new-post
I think ultimately even if we had somehow managed to put together an adequate squad to survive, the injury record would have relegated us anyway.
The big challenge for us is that you're looking to build a £250m squad from £125m spending. You either need it to be half done already or you need pretty much every transfer to be 50% under their true value. [Post edited 28 Apr 14:53]
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| Season of Struggle on 15:24 - Apr 28 with 1474 views | itfcsuth |
| Season of Struggle on 14:29 - Apr 28 by portmanking |
We were playing Forest Green at home 12 months prior to those big games against Coventry and Huddersfield last year. How did you expect us to have a fully functioning global recruitment network up and running having been a League 1 club for 3-4 years? |
Championship clubs have good Euorpean networks - with the access to data online in the modern game, I think it is naïve to say we couldn't have been in a better position with our scouting network. | | | |
| A lot of imagining going on here on 15:26 - Apr 28 with 1467 views | itfcsuth |
| A lot of imagining going on here on 14:41 - Apr 28 by Dyland |
In your own words I might add :) [Post edited 28 Apr 14:41]
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Not entirely, a lot of it is from our accounts, the notes within our accounts, and from other clubs accounts in a similar position (Sheff Utd).
It's far from 100% of course, but it's also not finger in the air either. | | | |
| Season of Struggle on 15:56 - Apr 28 with 1413 views | ReusersTown |
| Season of Struggle on 10:35 - Apr 27 by Blue_Heath |
Delap 100% won't be here, I'd say 10% chance Omari stays but only if KM is here.
Why would anyone buy Philogene?, we only bought him a few months back there were no rivals and he hasn't improved. Davis has some of the worst stats as defender in the league, other than Leeds I don't see anyone coming in for him.
I think we will see Broadhead go and possibly O'Shea plus a few minor sales like Walton. |
Who is going to offer us enough that we are going to want to sell Omari? Bearing in mind we just spent £20 mill, and that isn't a dig at Omari. I also believe David has some of the best attacking stats for a defender in the league. | | | |
| Season of Struggle on 16:10 - Apr 28 with 1376 views | Nthsuffolkblue |
| Season of Struggle on 15:24 - Apr 28 by itfcsuth |
Championship clubs have good Euorpean networks - with the access to data online in the modern game, I think it is naïve to say we couldn't have been in a better position with our scouting network. |
We could have ... had it been in place when we were previously a Championship club. To expect it to be put in place while we were in League 1 or within less than a year of being in the Championship is probably rather optimistic.
One thing I see in the way the club is run now is that it is over long term planning rather than short term success. That is why McKenna is backed and they didn't get rid of him in December for a Sam Allardyce type. |  |
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| Season of Struggle on 16:14 - Apr 28 with 1361 views | itfcjoe |
The season is defined by the chasm between the bottom 3 and the other 17 - we could have done everything right, got every break of the ball, bought 4 Liam Delap equivalents but we wouldn't have got more than the 40 points needed |  |
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| Season of Struggle on 16:22 - Apr 28 with 1304 views | Nthsuffolkblue |
| Season of Struggle on 16:14 - Apr 28 by itfcjoe |
The season is defined by the chasm between the bottom 3 and the other 17 - we could have done everything right, got every break of the ball, bought 4 Liam Delap equivalents but we wouldn't have got more than the 40 points needed |
I think it needed something out of our control like West Ham or Wolves (or even Everton) having a very poor season in conjunction with everything going well for us. Unfortunately for us, it was Man Utd, Tottenham and Man City having poor seasons and that was never going to be any good to us. Wolves and West Ham had very poor half seasons but not full ones and too much didn't work out for us. | |
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| Season of Struggle on 16:38 - Apr 28 with 1271 views | shady |
Concerning Recruitment this season
Players sentiments/calculations need to be factored in.
Joining a NPC(newly promoted club) agents are able to highlight a number of issues.
As their player will be in for a season of the teams struggles,
very few win bonuses, small chance of European adventures
and a probable relegation wage drop.
I salute the brave warriors who chose this path.
All rather too tough and challenging
as the alleged smartest man in the world might say
‘we have no cards’
Remember the Greek striker who didn’t want to swap an easy life at his leagues’ top club and champions league qualification.
This we couldn’t promise. |  | | |
| Season of Struggle on 17:41 - Apr 28 with 1197 views | Tractor_Boy333 |
Lots of people have been critical of our transfers. But what else could we do.
A newly promoted team need to attract seasoned premiership players to give themselves a chance. But they just don’t want to come to newly promoted teams.
I honestly thought Phillips was the sort of player we wanted but he just couldn’t stay fit long enough to make a difference. He showed glimpses of the good play but wasn’t on the pitch consistently enough. We got overrun in midfield in the championship at times so was always worried about stepping up a league. The good thing is most of our transfers were for players with potential to develop so still time for them to come good.
Also players like Omari, Jack Clarke, Greaves etc….haven't shown enough to make an established premiership team pay enough to make selling them worthwhile and I’m convinced they will be excellent in the Championship.
Midfield is the area we really need to improve in. | | | |
| Season of Struggle on 18:23 - Apr 28 with 1102 views | portmanking |
| Season of Struggle on 15:24 - Apr 28 by itfcsuth |
Championship clubs have good Euorpean networks - with the access to data online in the modern game, I think it is naïve to say we couldn't have been in a better position with our scouting network. |
No, it is you that's the naive one. To think that a club that's been in League One and criminally underfunded for 10+ years would suddenly have global knowledge and contacts on par with your Brightons and Brentfords. Laughably out of touch. It simply doesn't happen overnight. Unless you're a Bloom or Benham that has access to the cold, hard data. | | | |
| Season of Struggle on 18:35 - Apr 28 with 1042 views | TheBoyBlue |
| Season of Struggle on 17:41 - Apr 28 by Tractor_Boy333 |
Lots of people have been critical of our transfers. But what else could we do.
A newly promoted team need to attract seasoned premiership players to give themselves a chance. But they just don’t want to come to newly promoted teams.
I honestly thought Phillips was the sort of player we wanted but he just couldn’t stay fit long enough to make a difference. He showed glimpses of the good play but wasn’t on the pitch consistently enough. We got overrun in midfield in the championship at times so was always worried about stepping up a league. The good thing is most of our transfers were for players with potential to develop so still time for them to come good.
Also players like Omari, Jack Clarke, Greaves etc….haven't shown enough to make an established premiership team pay enough to make selling them worthwhile and I’m convinced they will be excellent in the Championship.
Midfield is the area we really need to improve in. |
Completely this.
I'm intrigued by what players that we needed were going to come to a team that was in League 1 a year earlier. In the end we were sensible with our recruitment, which as you rightly say are with the long-term in mind. | |
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| Season of Struggle on 19:27 - Apr 28 with 940 views | itfcsuth |
| Season of Struggle on 18:23 - Apr 28 by portmanking |
No, it is you that's the naive one. To think that a club that's been in League One and criminally underfunded for 10+ years would suddenly have global knowledge and contacts on par with your Brightons and Brentfords. Laughably out of touch. It simply doesn't happen overnight. Unless you're a Bloom or Benham that has access to the cold, hard data. |
Nope, afraid you’re wrong there imo.
Would have to have limited knowledge of the footballing world to think we couldn’t have been in a better position with our recruitment. | | | |
| Season of Struggle on 19:35 - Apr 28 with 923 views | itfcsuth |
| Season of Struggle on 17:41 - Apr 28 by Tractor_Boy333 |
Lots of people have been critical of our transfers. But what else could we do.
A newly promoted team need to attract seasoned premiership players to give themselves a chance. But they just don’t want to come to newly promoted teams.
I honestly thought Phillips was the sort of player we wanted but he just couldn’t stay fit long enough to make a difference. He showed glimpses of the good play but wasn’t on the pitch consistently enough. We got overrun in midfield in the championship at times so was always worried about stepping up a league. The good thing is most of our transfers were for players with potential to develop so still time for them to come good.
Also players like Omari, Jack Clarke, Greaves etc….haven't shown enough to make an established premiership team pay enough to make selling them worthwhile and I’m convinced they will be excellent in the Championship.
Midfield is the area we really need to improve in. |
We don’t need to bring in seasoned premiership players - our two best players this season in Delap & Cajuste are far from seasoned.
You need to bring in quality at the right price - a Cajuste for £10m is the perfect model example. Hutchinson, Philogene, Clarke & Greaves for £80m probably is at the other end of the spectrum - it’s vastly overpaying. | | | |
| Season of Struggle on 19:44 - Apr 28 with 892 views | SuffolkPunchFC |
| Season of Struggle on 19:35 - Apr 28 by itfcsuth |
We don’t need to bring in seasoned premiership players - our two best players this season in Delap & Cajuste are far from seasoned.
You need to bring in quality at the right price - a Cajuste for £10m is the perfect model example. Hutchinson, Philogene, Clarke & Greaves for £80m probably is at the other end of the spectrum - it’s vastly overpaying. |
This is just another example of armchair fantasy football fans who are completely deluded about how ‘easy’ it is to recruit as a newly promoted team. Especially one that has dragged itself back from near obscurity only 3 years ago. | | | |
| Season of Struggle on 19:49 - Apr 28 with 889 views | Nthsuffolkblue |
| Season of Struggle on 19:44 - Apr 28 by SuffolkPunchFC |
This is just another example of armchair fantasy football fans who are completely deluded about how ‘easy’ it is to recruit as a newly promoted team. Especially one that has dragged itself back from near obscurity only 3 years ago. |
With a huge dollop of hindsight too. I am not sure anyone could have been certain that Delap and Cajuste would have been better signings than Hutchinson, Philogene and J Clarke.
As it turns out, Phillips was probably the most disappointing signing but had he proved to be a Barkley type of signing, we would have had a far better season. | |
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| Season of Struggle on 20:18 - Apr 28 with 821 views | itfcsuth |
| Season of Struggle on 19:44 - Apr 28 by SuffolkPunchFC |
This is just another example of armchair fantasy football fans who are completely deluded about how ‘easy’ it is to recruit as a newly promoted team. Especially one that has dragged itself back from near obscurity only 3 years ago. |
It’s not easy, it’s easy to pay big fees and wages to get Championship players down to L1, but this was the reversal of that - this is when you earn your crust in the market.
It’s a tough task, to identify real talent and undervalued prices is the art of good transfer dealing - but to suggest that it is not possible, imo it just lacks any knowledge of the wider footballing world, and the transfer markets. | | | |
| Season of Struggle on 20:24 - Apr 28 with 806 views | portmanking |
| Season of Struggle on 19:27 - Apr 28 by itfcsuth |
Nope, afraid you’re wrong there imo.
Would have to have limited knowledge of the footballing world to think we couldn’t have been in a better position with our recruitment. |
No, I'm absolutely not wrong, otherwise every promoted League 1 club would be cherry-picking the next Moises Caicedo or Julio Enciso in the Championship.
This isn't Football Manager 2025.
We had to pay Brighton to access *their* database in 2023/24 - that's how hard it is to build your own recruitment databases. Tony Bloom has been honing his for the best part of a decade. It's really not hard to grasp. | | | |
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