| 1st / 2nd XI's comparison (based on minutes played) 23/24 & 24/25 08:41 - May 1 with 714 views | BlueBoots |
Thought this might be an interesting exercise, as read a few posts claiming our recruitment this year hasn't been great. I firmly believe the opposite...if you compare the players we signed with those we moved on, can't see how anybody could claim we haven't improved the squad. Those arguing that our new signings aren't much better than the players we kept on are doing a disservice to how good the old players are.
Other than a couple of exceptions, nearly all our players had very little Prem experience going into this season. It was always going to be a difficult task for them to adapt to that level (add to that the squad churn, with effectively 12 new players added to 12 old ones, and the difficulties of getting a team to gel off the back of that)
We could have gone down the route of looking for experienced Prem players in the hope of keeping us up first time around; probably would have meant looking at players who are on their way down rather than up, the higher wages they would expect, and no guarantee that would have worked anyway.
I'm struggling to think of a single player we've had at the club who hasn't improved under our current set up - KMcK is obviously a very good coach as well as manager, so recruiting young players with a view to developing them as we have done is in my view the correct policy. Obviously gutting that everything didn't fall into place this season, but that will be easier (although not easy) to achieve in the Championship.
Key points I noticed from this...
* Other than Hladky, if we were willing / able to offer new contracts to Burgess and Luongo (and barring departures), we would be starting from a base of our first-choice XI from the promotion season, even before we include the signings we've made this season (plus any signings we make in the summer)
* Based on minutes played, apart from Cajuste our other loanees haven't really played enough to be a big miss going into next season.
* Ogbene and Philogene are going to be like new signings (to use the old cliche) for us next season, based on how little they've played this season.
1st XI: 24/25 (23/24)
Muric (Hladky)
Tuanzebe (H. Clarke)
Davis (Davis)
O'Shea (Woolfenden)
Greaves (Burgess)
Morsy (Morsy)
Cajuste (Luongo)
Johnson (Hutchinson)
Hutchinson (Chaplin)
J. Clarke (Broadhead)
Delap (Hirst)
2nd XI: 24/25 (23/24)
Palmer (Walton)
Burns* (Tuanzebe)
Townsend (Williams)
Woolfenden (Edmundson)
Burgess (Baggott)
Phillips (Ball)
Taylor (Taylor)
Broadhead (Burns)
Chaplin (Jackson)
Szmodics (Harness)
Hirst (Moore)
* Burns included at right-back as Johnson has played RB/RM/RW role
Other players:
24/25: Walton, Enciso, Philogene, Luongo, H. Clarke, Godfrey, Ogbene, Al-Hamadi, Harness
23/24: Sarmiento, Ladapo, Humphreys, Evans, Travis, Donacien, Al-Hamadi, Aluko, Scarlett, Leigh
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| 1st / 2nd XI's comparison (based on minutes played) 23/24 & 24/25 on 08:57 - May 1 with 640 views | surreyblue |
I know it's a bit cliche to say that there is no room for nuance these days but I think that an absolutist assessment of our transfer activity misses some nuance.
The following things are all true IMO:
- The transfer activity modestly improved the strength of the starting XI - and modest strengthening wasn't enough
- The transfer activity significantly improved the strength of the squad
- The players brought in who were expected to strengthen the XI the most underperformed over the season
- The profile of the players signed on permanent deals embeds some sustainability into the team (unlike Luton last year with Barkley and Townsend) |  | | |
| 1st / 2nd XI's comparison (based on minutes played) 23/24 & 24/25 on 09:09 - May 1 with 585 views | PioneerBlue |
Decent starting point for discussion, I will include the additional follow up comments. The thing I’m focusing on is that we and I do expect us to be in a significantly better place (infrastructure, coaching, squad, academy) come Aug 2025 compared to where we would have been had we had that one extra season in the Championship. We have there been able to accelerate big improvement all round and in some cases secured players we’d never have been able to buy even with several seasons in the champ.
The next step is to actually realise this one time investment because it is short term unless we can yo-yo back to the PL inside 1-3 years. The half life of the energy source is short and burns bright but quickly. | |
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| 1st / 2nd XI's comparison (based on minutes played) 23/24 & 24/25 on 18:53 - May 1 with 304 views | BlueBoots |
| 1st / 2nd XI's comparison (based on minutes played) 23/24 & 24/25 on 09:09 - May 1 by PioneerBlue |
Decent starting point for discussion, I will include the additional follow up comments. The thing I’m focusing on is that we and I do expect us to be in a significantly better place (infrastructure, coaching, squad, academy) come Aug 2025 compared to where we would have been had we had that one extra season in the Championship. We have there been able to accelerate big improvement all round and in some cases secured players we’d never have been able to buy even with several seasons in the champ.
The next step is to actually realise this one time investment because it is short term unless we can yo-yo back to the PL inside 1-3 years. The half life of the energy source is short and burns bright but quickly. |
Club will definitely be in a better place thanks to the finances that came with promotion (and the parachute payments of course) Everything seemed to click for us last season, so hopefully we can work towards a repeat.
We've been competitive in most of the games we've played this season, but when you're up against clubs nearly every week who have had years to evolve squads that are able to survive comfortably in the division, it was always going to be struggle. The important thing now is that the club, management and players will have a better understanding of what it takes at that level, so we can be better prepared for it next time around. | |
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