• The first stage of the forum upgrades has now been completed but they remain in a degraded state and are still being worked on.
    Please read this thread for more details.
    New user registrations are currently disabled.

What has Speakman done to be so hated?

Been part of the recruitment team which brought in a whole host of foreign players with none at all standing out or first team regulars apart from Ekwah who came from an English club.

Signing British players is the way forward. They get it more than the foreign lads.
 

BumbleBee said:
Shitload of AM's
No CDM for about 18 months
No RW because Lihadji was not fit for purpose
No LW because Jewi isn;t ready
4 CF's 3 of which are development level

Go outside and give your head a shake lad.
Click to expand...

Thats nonsense, clarke and Roberts play left and right wing and they are two of our best players :lol: then you've got ba, aouchiche, pritchard, rusyn, benette and jobe who can all play on the wing. It's probably our position of least worry. And we sold Lihadji for a profit, was a good signing and sale even if he didn't do much on the pitch
 
Dodgy said:
Buying potential is all well and good but how many of the most talented youngsters fulfil their potential?
You only have to look at the England u19 squad that won the Euro under 19s tournament in 2017 who have made it at the highest level. The likes of Isaac Buckley-Ricketts who was one of our star players in the tournament is now playing for Warrington Town. Darnell Johnson who can't get a game for Fleetwood.

I think only three or four of the entire squad are currently playing Premier league football.
Click to expand...
And what you mention is one of the flaws of this project, so many young players on long length contracts, but how many will make it.
If they're going to continue with it, surely a 3 year contract maximum is enough.
 
sb022x1030 said:
Thats nonsense, clarke and Roberts play left and right wing and they are two of our best players :lol: then you've got ba, aouchiche, pritchard, rusyn, benette and jobe who can all play on the wing. It's probably our position of least worry. And we sold Lihadji for a profit, was a good signing and sale even if he didn't do much on the pitch
Click to expand...

Ba, Pritchard and Sneezy are AM's probably Jobe. Jobe on RW man :) Rusyn and Bennette are LW :lol:
 
HitchBerg said:
And what you mention is one of the flaws of this project, so many young players on long length contracts, but how many will make it.
If they're going to continue with it, surely a 3 year contract maximum is enough.
Click to expand...
Couldn't agree more. That said, if the majority of contracts are for peanuts, it'll probably only take one decent sale to cover the lot. If somebody "comes good" and they still be three years on their contract, they're going to be of more value than if they had just one year remaining. Probably a risk worth taking: time will tell.
BumbleBee said:
No LW because Jewi isn;t ready
Click to expand...
How do we know Jewi isn't ready? We've seen nowhere near enough of him to know if he's ready or not.

By the time he'd played the same amount of minutes here as Jewi has, Amad wasn't exactly pulling up trees. That turned out OK.

Jewi came on, did those three turns and put in a perfect cross. Has he played a single minute since? I'll stand corrected here if I'm wrong, but I can't recall it.
 
Last edited:
Dodgy said:
Couldn't agree more. That said, if the majority of contracts are for peanuts, it'll probably only take one decent sale to cover the lot. If somebody "comes good" and they still be three years on their contract, they're going to be of more value than if they had just one year remaining. Probably a risk worth taking: time will tell.

How do we know Jewi isn't ready? We've seen nowhere near enough of him to know if he's ready or not.

By the time he'd played the same amount of minutes here as Jewi has, Amad wasn't exactly pulling up trees. That turned out OK.

Jewi came on, did those three turns and put in a perfect cross. Has he played a single minute since? I'll stand corrected here if I'm wrong, but I can't recall it.
Click to expand...

Obviously the coaches don't think he is ready. Personally I like him and think he knows where the goal is.
 
Hongkongphooey said:
Hemir's on a 5 year contract, let that sink in
Click to expand...
Five years at, let's say £1000 a week (though I would imagine it'll be a little less than that). £250k over five years is a decent gamble. If he doesn't make it this season, we'll probably loan him out next season. If that goes well, we'll either bring him back to see how he does or maybe sell him to the club he was loaned to for £100k. If one in ten of these prospects comes good and we get just five million for them, we double our wages outlay for all ten. It's really no lose.

Probably doesn't help us to get where we want to be but there's very little risk involved.
 
Alfa said:
Sunderland don’t play with a number nine ….
Click to expand...
Has he said that?
HitchBerg said:
And what you mention is one of the flaws of this project, so many young players on long length contracts, but how many will make it.
If they're going to continue with it, surely a 3 year contract maximum is enough.
Click to expand...
Not sure. What if it takes a player a year to bed in, then they have a breakthrough year, they’re now 1 year out from leaving on a free and clubs will start approaching
 
Last edited:
Dodgy said:
Five years at, let's say £1000 a week (though I would imagine it'll be a little less than that). £250k over five years is a decent gamble. If he doesn't make it this season, we'll probably loan him out next season. If that goes well, we'll either bring him back to see his he goes or maybe sell him to the club he was loaned to for £100k. If one in ten of these prospects comes good and we get just five million for them, we double our wages outlay for all ten. It's really no lose.

Probably doesn't help us to get where we want to be but there's very little risk involved.
Click to expand...
It is when the squad is full of these youngsters that add very little to the first team squad and that are blocking the path for prospects coming through from the u23's, u18's. There are lots of if's in your summary tbf and even more assumptions on how much he is getting paid and his future value.5 years for an unproven young player is a ridiculous length of contract.
 
Hongkongphooey said:
It is when the squad is full of these youngsters that add very little to the first team squad and that are blocking the path for prospects coming through from the u23's, u18's. There are lots of if's in your summary tbf and even more assumptions on how much he is getting paid and his future value.5 years for an unproven young player is a ridiculous length of contract.
Click to expand...
If it's a three year contract and somebody comes in for him after two years, we'll get far less than if he's still got three years left.
I stand by what I say: the powers that be have decided that it's a risk worth taking. Time will tell, marra.
 
Dodgy said:
Seelt, Pembele and Triantis all came in in the last window. All look fairly decent to me. Mayenda? Who knows?
Click to expand...

Seelt looks like he could be a good signing - paid money for him. Pembele could be class IF he can overcome that injury, Triantis - no idea.
 
As You Were said:
The club isn’t going in the right direction though it’s going backwards and fast. We had half a season under alex neil where we got promoted and yes last season overall was a success but when we lost simms and stewart to injury around xmas time last January was the time when an ambitious or decent owner would have got us a decent striker and we probably would have made top two.
Click to expand...

That is the issue for me, we certainly had a really good spell bringing in decent enthusiastic young players and playing exciting football under Speakman. I am not sure what part Speakman had and what part Harvey had in spotting and recruiting those players but they definitely deserve credit for that.

Speakman is the Sporting Director aka Director of Football though and the football is definitely going backwards at the moment. We were a better team at this point last year.

The idea of bringing in young promising players and developing them so that a percentage of them become key first team players and/or get sold for a profit to sustain the club is fine, but is shouldn't be the be all and end all of it. We were also promised that the club would stick with the same exciting style of football when new Head Coaches came in and I am not seeing any evidence of that right now,
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top