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Post by phillistine on Jul 19, 2014 7:40:33 GMT
There are so many threads berating DC's inability to sign players but they may just be missing the point.
It may indeed be because DC lacks negotiating skills but I dont believe that. I think back to my mum's oft used saying that " if something is worth having its worth waiting for !"
Perhaps DC is standing his ground and is not lowering his expectations but is trying only to sign players who he feels can do a good job for us. There are quite a few trialists playing for us at the moment and it would only be too easy to sign a couple of these and fill our books . This may placate certain people but it would mean that if better players become available we no longer have the budget to employ them.
So hats off to him if he is standing his ground and refusing to panic buy. The guy deserves some credit for strength of mind rather than berating for not reducing his standards or expectations
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Post by Jon the Stripe on Jul 19, 2014 7:51:40 GMT
I see your point Philly.
I would say that a lot of fans would view " something worth waiting for...." analogy as one of the pivotal reasons we were relegated last season. WE NEEDED A STRIKER everyone knew it and we used the quote you mentioned, then waited too long and missed out.
I take your point, but so many fans are desperate for us to not start the season lacking on a few fronts , as we've already been told WE MUST hit the ground running.
It's just worrying times for all Gasheads and different people have different views and different levels of patience.
UTG
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Post by gasincider on Jul 19, 2014 7:58:26 GMT
The difference is that JW never believed we needed a striker. DC will tell anyone who will listen that we do and is looking as we speak, together with a centre back and two wide midfield players.
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Post by stevek192 on Jul 19, 2014 7:58:57 GMT
My opinion is that he has made 5 good signings but that without another 4 or 5 we will be severely lacking in the creative stakes which will hold back the players we do have signed. I think he has brought the criticism on himself but IMO should have spent the past week trying to find the players we need and leaving the coaching to Marcus Stewart and Steve Yates. We are now a further week down the line with NO wingers or creative midfielders brought in and it seems he is now satisfied with the central midfield area and is only looking at wide players, a striker and a defender. We are short of competition for both full backs and IMO the central midfield is too lightweight. We have two very inexperienced wingers in Harrison and Gosling and definitely need a couple of capable wingers. We do need a replacement for Harrold as we have no guarantees that Brunt will be back to his best. It is OK refusing to panic buy but if you leave it too long it does become exactly that!!
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Post by lympstonegas on Jul 19, 2014 8:03:07 GMT
I see your point Philly. I would say that a lot of fans would view " something worth waiting for...." analogy as one of the pivotal reasons we were relegated last season. WE NEEDED A STRIKER everyone knew it and we used the quote you mentioned, then waited too long and missed out. I take your point, but so many fans are desperate for us to not start the season lacking on a few fronts , as we've already been told WE MUST hit the ground running. It's just worrying times for all Gasheads and different people have different views and different levels of patience. UTG Not sure I agree with your analogy... Don't actually think Ward was waiting for the right striker to come along at all unlike the fans ... I think he believed foolishly we had what he needed already ..,very different to DC thinking perhaps for this season... I do think that a lot will depend on Brunts fitness .. He's holding him back to make sure he gives him every chance of being totally fit and ready for the season unlike Ward that rushed obviously unfit players back too early.
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Post by Jon the Stripe on Jul 19, 2014 8:11:40 GMT
I see your point Philly. I would say that a lot of fans would view " something worth waiting for...." analogy as one of the pivotal reasons we were relegated last season. WE NEEDED A STRIKER everyone knew it and we used the quote you mentioned, then waited too long and missed out. I take your point, but so many fans are desperate for us to not start the season lacking on a few fronts , as we've already been told WE MUST hit the ground running. It's just worrying times for all Gasheads and different people have different views and different levels of patience. UTG Not sure I agree with your analogy... Don't actually think Ward was waiting for the right striker to come along at all unlike the fans ... I think he believed foolishly we had what he needed already ..,very different to DC thinking perhaps for this season... I do think that a lot will depend on Brunts fitness .. He's holding him back to make sure he gives him every chance of being totally fit and ready for the season unlike Ward that rushed obviously unfit players back too early. Conflicting stories from the club here Lympstone......We were told at least SEVEN players turned us down in the Jan. Transfer window and JW was tirelessly looking, then when relegated the club said we needed a striker but "John said we'd be ok" Lets just hope whatever happens - We get it right this time. UTG
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Post by Jon the Stripe on Jul 19, 2014 8:14:21 GMT
The difference is that JW never believed we needed a striker. DC will tell anyone who will listen that we do and is looking as we speak, together with a centre back and two wide midfield players. Why did he look to sign one then if this is true, we were told at least SEVEN turned us down, he either thought we needed one or he didn't. Purely out of interest, has anyone ever heard John Wards side of all this? Good debate by the way. UTG
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2014 8:16:36 GMT
The best players are signed up quickly. Whilst we were arseing about calculating budgets and the financial impact of relegation due to our incompetent financial director players were getting signed up.
DC made statements of intent he hasnt lived up to which for me was a mistake on his part. The reality of non league football as he should know is lots of players are part time and would not move to us for a tiny wage. In addition full time players are unlikely to relocate for a 1 year deal and small wages. Decent offers should have been submitted the first week after relegation.
He needs a plan b and fast. Either we need to adjust our wage structure or we need to sign a few older league players. Get on the phone to Jamie Cuteton. As for his comments about contacts for loan players, if thats true why are they not here now gelling with the squad ?
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Post by lympstonegas on Jul 19, 2014 8:25:02 GMT
In my opinion we do... All successful teams usually operate with a choice of 4 strikers so they can mixed to work in tandem depending on them complimenting each other as a duo alongside form fitness or suspension. An experienced mobile striker ( don't care if ex league or conference proven) that can comfortably play with their back to goal to bring others into the game and can run the channels I think is the missing piece up front.
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Post by lympstonegas on Jul 19, 2014 8:26:22 GMT
In my opinion we do... All successful teams usually operate with a choice of 4 strikers so they can be permutated to work in tandem depending on them complimenting each other as a duo alongside form fitness or suspension. An experienced mobile striker ( don't care if ex league or conference proven) that can comfortably play with their back to goal to bring others into the game and can run the channels I think is the missing piece up front.
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Post by RD on Jul 19, 2014 8:26:23 GMT
What a lot of people need to remember as well, is that our transfer activity has been largely f**ked due to the incompetence of the BoD.
DC couldn't start signing players as soon as he'd have a liked because there was no budget in place whatsoever.
To have not done the budgeting for a "worst case scenario" (i.e. relegation) was completely and utterly inexcusable. Some of us seen it coming as early as October.... but to have not even done it by March should never be forgiven.
How Watola remains in a job is unbelievable. Easily the most incompetent finance director I've ever heard of.
I'm sure DC fully intended to have his squad in place by now (as per his early comments) but if you haven't got a budget, what can you do? I wouldn't be the least it surprised if he still hasn't been given an official, finalised budget to date!!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2014 8:40:09 GMT
Maybe DC has identified plenty of players but has been turned down by the money men?
As for JW not believing we needed a striker? If that is even true, I would agree. What we needed was a couple of players to supply the forwards. Gow was beginning to look decent but we needed a winger desperately imo.
RD. Your 3rd paragraph is spot on. What the he'll were they thinking?
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Post by RD on Jul 19, 2014 8:48:19 GMT
Maybe DC has identified plenty of players but has been turned down by the money men? As for JW not believing we needed a striker? If that is even true, I would agree. What we needed was a couple of players to supply the forwards. Gow was beginning to look decent but we needed a winger desperately imo. RD. Your 3rd paragraph is spot on. What the he'll were they thinking? Agreed - fact is, we may have even avoided relegation if the budgeting had been done. I.e. if we had done the budgeting by November/December, we could of said "right, looks like it could cost us £1.5m if we went down. Therefore, if we spend £300k now guaranteeing we won't, we could still be £1.2m better of if we do survive". Obviously completely made up figures on my part, but you get the point. If you don't do the budgeting, you can make scenario based decisions. Utterly shocking and I will never forgive the BoD for that. Shambolic beyond belief - if you've got a finance director who doesn't budget, what exactly is he there to do?? Unbelievable.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2014 8:57:05 GMT
Maybe DC has identified plenty of plaI ers but has been turned down by the money men? As for JW not believing we needed a striker? If that is even true, I would agree. What we needed was a couple of players to supply the forwards. Gow was beginning to look decent but we needed a winger desperately imo. RD. Your 3rd paragraph is spot on. What the he'll were they thinking? Agreed - fact is, we may have even avoided relegation if the budgeting had been done. I.e. if we had done the budgeting by November/December, we could of said "right, looks like it could cost us £1.5m if we went down. Therefore, if we spend £300k now guaranteeing we won't, we could still be £1.2m better of if we do survive". Obviously completely made up figures on my part, but you get the point. If you don't do the budgeting, you can make scenario based decisions. Utterly shocking and I will never forgive the BoD for that. Shambolic beyond belief - if you've got a finance director who doesn't budget, what exactly is he there to do?? Unbelievable. I believe this comment by roversdrive is spot on. Too many managers failing at our club for it to be called bad luck, DC, who I presume is not a stupid man, made a public statement early on which he has had to deviate from, most likely because the information from the BoD changed. Then of course, the most alarming thing, this is the same senior management team that are overseeing the contract negotiations for the proposed new stadium.
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Post by Wembley_Gas on Jul 19, 2014 9:08:21 GMT
Good points He has clearly got 2 strategies a) fix up meet and greets with players he KNOWS could do a job for us . b) get in triallists who either he or members of his team/scouts THINK might do a job for us. In both cases players are going to drop out of the process at different stages .
The second one (and it's lack of results to date is easy to deal with) Darrell has stated categorically he wants consistency and players with the right attitude. So no player gets signed on the basis of one tryout game. They are all free agents and have a short time to get fixed up so at any point they could move on to something else. However, if they do stick around it shows that they are beginning to tick the boxes Darrell has in mind and the set up is not troubling them either - fair play to Mitchell and Higgins I hope they both make it as they seem to be made of the right stuff.
In the first one the player or his agent may choose to not even bother to meet, if they do meet then either party might think they don't want to take it further and it stops there. If the player ticks the boxes for Darrell the negotiations can go a bit further ... But ultimately if the player does not like the offer, has a choice where ours is less tempting or did not like what he saw (or read when doing some research) then even though we may have invested a lot of time in the deal we are going to be disappointed and Darrell has voiced his frustration at those. People have suggested it is inexperience in the negotiating stage or the picking a player to go through the process stage that is the problem but I don't necessarily think this is the case. We all love the club and think it would sell itself to any player but we know there are some serious flaws here - not just in the governance but clearly on the pitch too. You have got to want to roll your sleeves up, rally round, get something going that clearly is not here and some players will not have the desire to do that. Imagine if their other offer was at a club that finished top half that decided they needed to freshen things up by clearing out 3 first teamers and bringing in like for like. All a player has to do there is fit in and at least be as good as your predecessor and most players are confident in the footballing part of their game....it is getting the player that wants to lift the others , to instil a different mentality, to pull a team and club up by the bootstraps and say The past is past - we can and will do this. That is the hard part ....and I think a lot of players have shied away from that because they cannot workout how much of themselves ( the non-football skills part) they have to give in order for "the tanker to be turned around". In that respect maybe I have got my rose tinters on for I believe the remaining rump of the squad plus the five additions have been assembled because they have the "clubman" attitude not the "player" attitude. Lee Brown remarked on the connection that can be made here, both with the club employees and with its supporters. Parkes, Mildenhall, McChrystal have all seen how this club can get in your blood, and even if your game goes off the boil a bit (not that SMs ever has) then the CLUB rallies round you and is actually more understanding and less critical than some other places. Smudger of course is the prime example, he is quietly loyal to a club that took in the raw talent, never turned on him when that inexperience allowed free running on our goal from forty or fifty yards, supported his progress throughout that year and 2 pre seasons until we could bask in the glory of an excellent footballing product that twice won our standout player award - one of the most reliable in breaking up attacks and in starting off our own. We probably have come to a parting of the ways because whilst his stellar talent is on the rise and deserves a bigger stage our fortunes have nosedived to a point where only misguided loyalty would keep him here .....and even then it took him the whole summer to decide - because of what this CLUB can mean to players who buy in to it. The rebuilding job is coming along, we should not keep undermining it with observations about how small the squad is and what pieces are obviously missing. We need to just understand that the next acquisitions are key and that is why they are taking time. A creative midfielder is going to value their talent highly. They often aren't your all in it together muck and bullets type player too. So several won't fit and get past the interview process, some of those that do will have other options and unless we strike gold I can honestly see that key cog in the team being a three month or season long loan acquisition from a higher club with an embarrassment of creative talent. I would not mind the "battering ram" centre forward being a loanee either - although when we have made our best transfer deals it is when we've gambled a bit on making the forward pivot our player (Hayles, Roberts, Ellington, Lambert).
I am more than encouraged that we have the right calibre of player here now, the gelling process is continuing and DC is continuing to explore the best way of filling the squad gaps and we need to be more supportive rather than critical and derisory in terms of the efforts in that direction.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2014 9:18:52 GMT
Good points He has clearly got 2 strategies a) fix up meet and greets with players he KNOWS could do a job for us . b) get in triallists who either he or members of his team/scouts THINK might do a job for us. In both cases players are going to drop out of the process at different stages . The second one (and it's lack of results to date is easy to deal with) Darrell has stated categorically he wants consistency and players with the right attitude. So no player gets signed on the basis of one tryout game. They are all free agents and have a short time to get fixed up so at any point they could move on to something else. However, if they do stick around it shows that they are beginning to tick the boxes Darrell has in mind and the set up is not troubling them either - fair play to Mitchell and Higgins I hope they both make it as they seem to be made of the right stuff. In the first one the player or his agent may choose to not even bother to meet, if they do meet then either party might think they don't want to take it further and it stops there. If the player ticks the boxes for Darrell the negotiations can go a bit further ... But ultimately if the player does not like the offer, has a choice where ours is less tempting or did not like what he saw (or read when doing some research) then even though we may have invested a lot of time in the deal we are going to be disappointed and Darrell has voiced his frustration at those. People have suggested it is inexperience in the negotiating stage or the picking a player to go through the process stage that is the problem but I don't necessarily think this is the case. We all love the club and think it would sell itself to any player but we know there are some serious flaws here - not just in the governance but clearly on the pitch too. You have got to want to roll your sleeves up, rally round, get something going that clearly is not here and some players will not have the desire to do that. Imagine if their other offer was at a club that finished top half that decided they needed to freshen things up by clearing out 3 first teamers and bringing in like for like. All a player has to do there is fit in and at least be as good as your predecessor and most players are confident in the footballing part of their game....it is getting the player that wants to lift the others , to instil a different mentality, to pull a team and club up by the bootstraps and say The past is past - we can and will do this. That is the hard part ....and I think a lot of players have shied away from that because they cannot workout how much of themselves ( the non-football skills part) they have to give in order for "the tanker to be turned around". In that respect maybe I have got my rose tinters on for I believe the remaining rump of the squad plus the five additions have been assembled because they have the "clubman" attitude not the "player" attitude. Lee Brown remarked on the connection that can be made here, both with the club employees and with its supporters. Parkes, Mildenhall, McChrystal have all seen how this club can get in your blood, and even if your game goes off the boil a bit (not that SMs ever has) then the CLUB rallies round you and is actually more understanding and less critical than some other places. Smudger of course is the prime example, he is quietly loyal to a club that took in the raw talent, never turned on him when that inexperience allowed free running on our goal from forty or fifty yards, supported his progress throughout that year and 2 pre seasons until we could bask in the glory of an excellent footballing product that twice won our standout player award - one of the most reliable in breaking up attacks and in starting off our own. We probably have come to a parting of the ways because whilst his stellar talent is on the rise and deserves a bigger stage our fortunes have nosedived to a point where only misguided loyalty would keep him here .....and even then it took him the whole summer to decide - because of what this CLUB can mean to players who buy in to it. The rebuilding job is coming along, we should not keep undermining it with observations about how small the squad is and what pieces are obviously missing. We need to just understand that the next acquisitions are key and that is why they are taking time. A creative midfielder is going to value their talent highly. They often aren't your all in it together muck and bullets type player too. So several won't fit and get past the interview process, some of those that do will have other options and unless we strike gold I can honestly see that key cog in the team being a three month or season long loan acquisition from a higher club with an embarrassment of creative talent. I would not mind the "battering ram" centre forward being a loanee either - although when we have made our best transfer deals it is when we've gambled a bit on making the forward pivot our player (Hayles, Roberts, Ellington, Lambert). I am more than encouraged that we have the right calibre of player here now, the gelling process is continuing and DC is continuing to explore the best way of filling the squad gaps and we need to be more supportive rather than critical and derisory in terms of the efforts in that direction. Nice essay, i guess when you have had about 12 managers come in promising the world and delivering naff all its easy to believe the next one will do the same. After all its the same board and set up that has failed since we returned to the mem and the only real difference is a lot less money. If DC gets us promoted it will be a miracle and a huge achievement.
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Post by Wembley_Gas on Jul 19, 2014 9:45:09 GMT
Trying to workout how far back twelve managers goes - used to be about twenty or thirty years ... Now I think it might be five seasons? That might have something to do with it! Maybe you're right let's not back this one or the next 22 either that's a sure fire winner.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2014 9:56:44 GMT
Nobody is suggesting we sack him just that he needs to pull his finger out.
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Post by Wembley_Gas on Jul 19, 2014 10:15:19 GMT
Nobody is suggesting we sack him just that he needs to pull his finger out. And as I was saying in my "nice essay" there is more to it than just pulling his finger out.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2014 10:47:35 GMT
I know , you made a lot of good points.
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