Transfer Window - COMPLETE. Where’s Gregg?

[bluebruce]

28 minutes ago, neophox said:

Reading got some descent players.... 

Well we certainly fell to them.

[garnersfags]

3 hours ago, Exiled_Rover said:

Sorry, which players have gone backwards?

According to many on here, Dolan, Pickering, Buckley, and possibly others haven't kicked on under JDTs stewardship. 

I know this sounds a bit provocative, and my personal view is that all 3, and others, are playing as they have been playing since January. Averagely. 

I've already given my thoughts on Buckley, that he is covering and running too much for Szmodics, Dolan, and our threadbare defence to be able to perform more effectively and progressively. 

Our passing and ball retention in the last 2 games has been poor, and JDT, under pressure due to a heat exhausted and threadbare squad, picked the wrong side at Reading, so we lost.

I hope this is short lived, as most managers would struggle to win games with so few quality defenders, so big big pressure on the management to pull a lot of very talented rabbits out of the transfer hat, who are able to hit the ground running, as if we lose Ben, we lose our source of goals and assists. 

My view is that our season could still go either way, and I thought the JDT love-in was premature, and have said this since Sunday evening, after seeing my 1st live 90 minutes of the season.

I hope JDT is a good young manager that keeps us in the top 7 all season, but so far it's 50/50, and the transfer activity is only part of the story....

3 hours ago, toogs said:

Wow. 
The tide turns quickly on this site. 
 

 

....see above, it's just comment on what we see and feel.

We all want JDT to succeed, and until that happens we'll sing our hearts out home and away, and express our ongoing, considered thoughts on here.

[BigBar]

10 hours ago, Miller11 said:

I see it differently. Pickering was anointed by many fans and the local press long before he kicked a ball for us. We were told he was the answer to all our problems and someone who would be worth 8 million in a couple of years and a future Premier League star, all of which was clearly massively hyperbolic.

He showed some promise early on, mainly going forward as he has a pretty good left foot, that headed goal where he made a great run from deep got a lot of deserved plaudits. But the cracks have been there defensively from day one and we’re extremely evident away at Huddersfield where he was pathetic. The questions of his defensive capabilities were often countered with claims that defending isn’t as important as creating for full backs, and comparisons were made to Nyambe.

I have seen nothing to suggest he is competent defensively, and I don’t agree in the slightest that defending shouldn’t be a fullbacks primary concern.

That is spot on. Summed up perfectly, it happens all the time, I mean at every club. I have alot of united fans as mates and every one they sign is always amazing as soon as they arrive in the door. It's wishful thinking and desperation just willing any player to be the answer to whatever position.

We were just all excited and hopeful because we paid a fee and he was a "specialist" left back. He isn't the answer and that's no knock on the lad, we need a strong, athletic, capable left back. It seems for the last while every teams message seems to have been "get at their left back at every opportunity" and that simply cannot continue.

Defence and midfield and crying out for improvement. We can't wilt the way we have been under Mowbray at times and that mentality seems to still live inside the squad as was evidant last night.

Fresh faces, few mentality, experienced tough, gritty championship proven players to add to the existing squad with a new manager and we can achieve big things, we just can't continue to plod along never seriously challenging for promotion and performing inconsistently.

Edited August 18, 2022 by BigBar

[Tricky]

9 minutes ago, BigBar said:

I have seen nothing to suggest he is competent defensively

Dat goal line clearance last night though 😎

[Gav]

2 hours ago, JHRover said:

Because offering money isn't backing. 

Come September we will know which way it has gone but it won't count as backing if we've signed a few loans and 'tried' to sign some others and were knocked back.

No prizes or credit for trying, failing, talking, offering, struggling etc. Just doing.

I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to work out JDT is working with no budget, or at least no budget worth shouting about.

Several managers before him turned the job down, the budget wasn’t what they wanted, the ambition wasn’t there.

We are a mid table side with a mid table budget waiting for crumbs off the Premiership table.

Edited August 18, 2022 by Gav

[BigBar]

Lads do you not get what @RV Blueis saying? Those replying with "we lost 7-0 to Fulham last season", you do realise you can get absolutely battered and lose 7-0 and also lose 1-0 with both performances being equally appalling yeah? Point being the scoreline doesn't always reflect the display of the team, we lost 3-0 which doesn't stand out as disgraceful but don't be fooled at all, the performance was was bad as the Fulham one only Fulham had more quality and we're ruthless.

[tomphil]

The remit though at this club isn't promotion as a priority that much is abundantly clear and has been for years.  Promotion or the play offs would be a by product, a bonus on the way they operate.

First and foremost it is blood youth and look for cheap players to polish up whilst getting the wage bill down.  Any coach or manager has to operate this way and get as many bodies mins on the pitch as possible to get experience and value into them. Club is owned by billionaires but run by their bean counters who don't really care as long as things keep rolling and they stay in wages etc.

So we'll always get needless rotating taking priority at times.

[BigBar]

5 minutes ago, Tricky said:

Dat goal line clearance last night though 😎

Was actually decent tbf 🤣

[J*B]

1 minute ago, Gav said:

I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to work out JDT is working with no budget, or at least no budget worth shouting about.

Several managers before him turned the job down, the budget wasn’t what they wanted, the ambition wasn’t there.

We are a mid table side with a mid table budget waiting for crumbs off the Premiership table.

I’m not sure. I suspect our wage budget is low compared to a lot of clubs in this league, those with parachute payments and big crowds will have a lot more to play with. But I think our transfer budget is seemingly quite healthy. 

Brittain - 1M 

Sammie - 2M 

3.5M bid for both Anel and Davies. 

It wouldn’t surprise me if we end this window having spent between 8M and 10M.

[J*B]

1 minute ago, tomphil said:

The remit though at this club isn't promotion as a priority that much is abundantly clear and has been for years.  Promotion or the play offs would be a by product, a bonus on the way they operate.

First and foremost it is blood youth and look for cheap players to polish up whilst getting the wage bill down.  Any coach or manager has to operate this way and get as many bodies mins on the pitch as possible to get experience and value into them. Club is owned by billionaires but run by their bean counters who don't really care as long as things keep rolling and they stay in wages etc.

So we'll always get needless rotating taking priority at times.

Again, not sure. I think the remit is promotion, but it’s the ‘slow build’ and developing the squad. JDT has spoken in interviews about how he needs to raise player values. I very much believe we’re in some weird combination of the Brentford (player trading) and QPR (academy development) approaches. 

[SuperBrfc]

2 hours ago, Bbrovers2288 said:

I’m disappointed that the manner of our transfer business is again being left for a mad final day scramble, just like mowbrays tenure, was hoping that was going to change with the new regime and targets identified and secured early. I’m fully expecting to be linked to a good few final day and the we tried but ran out of time line to reappear 

We should be getting the taxi started for Gregg, with the message being that he's got two weeks to show us something.

The goal isn't promotion here, in my view. For JDT it is, I doubt it is the case elsewhere though.

[J*B]

18 minutes ago, SuperBrfc said:

We should be getting the taxi started for Gregg, with the message being that he's got two weeks to show us something.

The goal isn't promotion here, in my view. For JDT it is, I doubt it is the case elsewhere though.

We should be getting the taxi ready for him when he’s not been in the job for 3 months? Absolutely not for me. 

He’s only just had a head of recruitment join. He’s responsible for hiring the head coach and has changed the structure of the club. If we sack the DOF after a few months then we will:

1) Make every other DOF think it’s a poisoned chalice 

2) Never actually see the results of what he could have done, he’s not even had one transfer window and there’s been huge upheaval in the approach / management. 

3) Make JDT think WTF is going on  

I think we need some serious management of expectations here. I saw on an earlier thread a suggestion of blowing FFP off and going for it this season because the league is weak. We’ve played 4 games, we’ve no idea at this stage what quality the league has. As I responded at the time, for me JDT has 3 years to achieve a genuine promotion push. This would be my brief if I was DOF:

Year 1: Establish ourselves without being close to relegation. Sell Brereton, or get him to sign a minimum 3 year deal, so that huge cloud is lifted one way or another. Let JDT assess the squad and take any opportunity to improve it at this stage, but most importantly work out what young players he thinks can break through. 

Year 2: Top half / signs of a team capable of a top six push. Ensure both transfer windows see improvement within the full squad. Sell/loan/release all players JDT doesn’t think will make it  

Year 3: Top six / promotion push. Ensure the summer window sees us signing players to improve the first 11, not the squad. Ensure we go into January with budget to fill in any gaps established in the first half of the season. 

[Mike E]

18 minutes ago, J*B said:

I’m not sure. I suspect our wage budget is low compared to a lot of clubs in this league, those with parachute payments and big crowds will have a lot more to play with. But I think our transfer budget is seemingly quite healthy. 

Brittain - 1M 

Sammie - 2M 

3.5M bid for both Anel and Davies. 

It wouldn’t surprise me if we end this window having spent between 8M and 10M.

I'm not kidding when I say I'm still confident we end the window with VDB on loan, and Styles and JPVH on permanent deals.

I believe there IS a decent budget to play with, but GB is playing the waiting game to get value once the PL transfers have happened.

[jim mk2]

28 minutes ago, BigBar said:

Lads do you not get what @RV Blueis saying? Those replying with "we lost 7-0 to Fulham last season", you do realise you can get absolutely battered and lose 7-0 and also lose 1-0 with both performances being equally appalling yeah? Point being the scoreline doesn't always reflect the display of the team, we lost 3-0 which doesn't stand out as disgraceful but don't be fooled at all, the performance was was bad as the Fulham one only Fulham had more quality and we're ruthless.

Last night could easily have been 6-0, Reading should have scored more in the first half. It was as bad a performance as I’ve seen. Apart from Travis not one player could hold their head high and say they played to the required standard. The Sheffield game worries me; if we’re not up for that one and the whole teams gets stuck in it could be a cricket score

Edited August 18, 2022 by jim mk2

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

13 minutes ago, J*B said:

We should be getting the taxi ready for him when he’s not been in the job for 3 months? Absolutely not for me. 

He’s only just had a head of recruitment join. He’s responsible for hiring the head coach and has changed the structure of the club. If we sack the DOF after a few months then we will:

1) Make every other DOF think it’s a poisoned chalice 

2) Never actually see the results of what he could have done, he’s not even had one transfer window and there’s been huge upheaval in the approach / management. 

I think we need some serious management of expectations here. I saw on an earlier thread a suggestion of blowing FFP off and going for it this season because the league is weak. We’ve played 4 games, we’ve no idea at this stage what quality the league has. As I responded at the time, for me JDT has 3 years to achieve a genuine promotion push. This would be my brief if I was DOF:

Year 1: Establish ourselves without being close to relegation. Sell Brereton, or get him to sign a minimum 3 year deal, so that huge cloud is lifted one way or another. Let JDT assess the squad and take any opportunity to improve it at this stage, but most importantly work out what young players he thinks can break through. 

Year 2: Top half / signs of a team capable of a top six push. Ensure both transfer windows see improvement within the full squad. Sell/loan/release all players JDT doesn’t think will make it  

Year 3: Top six / promotion push. Ensure the summer window sees us signing players to improve the first 11, not the squad. Ensure we go into January with budget to fill in any gaps established in the first half of the season. 

Any job at Rovers is a poisoned chalice. That’s why so many staff come and go.

[BigBar]

5 minutes ago, jim mk2 said:

Last night could easily have been 6-0, Reading should have scored more in the first half. It was as bad a performance as I’ve seen. Apart from Travis not one player could hold their head high and say they played to the required standard. The Sheffield game worries me; if we’re not up for that one and the whole teams gets stuck in it could be a cricket score

Be classic rovers to go there and win...be very welcome too but yeah it's a very tough game. Should tell us alot either way.

[J*B]

3 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

Any job at Rovers is a poisoned chalice. That’s why so many staff come and go.

I’d like to this GB can change that. I’m sick of seeing the ‘roles available’ tweets from the Rovers account… and it’s the same ones. Recruitment, Fitness and Marketing all seem to be a reoccurring role. 

[Mattyblue]

How do you ‘slow build’ in the Championship when more than half the team fecks off every season?

It’s a ‘rebuild’ each time.

[J*B]

1 minute ago, Mattyblue said:

How do you ‘slow build’ in the Championship when more than half the team fecks off every season?

It’s a ‘rebuild’ each time.

Well, quite. So just number one, get us into a position where we have more control on that front. Contract extensions or sales, I’ve said it for ages now. Contract extensions start when suitable, but the second you’ve got 19 months left on your deal you’re either sold or have a month to sign an extension. No exceptions. We can’t continue with the way Mowbray and Waggott have allowed the squad to be ripped up every year. 

No more contracts running out 

No more confusion as to whether someone will sign a new deal

No more having a squad built on loans. 

[ItsRoverZ]

Another day and no signing ..no rumours or whispers

We only had to sort out small details for Styles apparently, but that was weeks ago and since been told we backed away from Styles and loaned morton 

No rumours of a left back which means JDT might think we are OK with edun and pickering fighting for that position, bad news if true 

No rumours or sniffs of a striker 

Josh bowler link gone super cold

No rumours or sniffs of a CM

Loan of SVDB seems to now rely on if Liverpool are light in defence 

No chatter on JpVH coming back 

 

Either we really do keep our business super quite or we are really struggling to get stuff over the line 

[simongarnerisgod]

going to be a busy last week before the window shuts or a period of despair as we go into the winter with a thin squad😪

[J*B]

2 minutes ago, ItsRoverZ said:

Another day and no signing ..no rumours or whispers

We only had to sort out small details for Styles apparently, but that was weeks ago and since been told we backed away from Styles and loaned morton 

No rumours of a left back which means JDT might think we are OK with edun and pickering fighting for that position, bad news if true 

No rumours or sniffs of a striker 

Josh bowler link gone super cold

No rumours or sniffs of a CM

Loan of SVDB seems to now rely on if Liverpool are light in defence 

No chatter on JpVH coming back 

 

Either we really do keep our business super quite or we are really struggling to get stuff over the line 

What did we know about Brittain, or Smodics or Morton from the Rovers end before we signed them? Nothing.

Brittain signed within 24 hours of the first news report. 

Smodics we only knew anything about because of the Peterborough chairman. 

Morton we only knew about because of the Liverpool fan accounts. 

We will be signing people and it wouldn’t surprise me if we where close. We just tend not to find out until the last minute or through other clubs when the deal has been agreed. 

[roversfan99]

3 hours ago, 1864roverite said:

and yet some on here thought we were walking the game before we played!

Just because we lost doesnt mean we should have been looking to win and been frustrated with anything less.

They lost 4 nil to Rotherham at the weekend, have Paul Ince as manager and their team is poor with the worst keeper in the league and a scattergun mixture of unwanted journeyman and a bench (aside from the unexpected return of Joao) of kids.

Its a bad reflection on us that we played so poor.

12 minutes ago, J*B said:

Well, quite. So just number one, get us into a position where we have more control on that front. Contract extensions or sales, I’ve said it for ages now. Contract extensions start when suitable, but the second you’ve got 19 months left on your deal you’re either sold or have a month to sign an extension. No exceptions. We can’t continue with the way Mowbray and Waggott have allowed the squad to be ripped up every year. 

No more contracts running out 

No more confusion as to whether someone will sign a new deal

No more having a squad built on loans. 

You mention a partial Brentford model but Venkys would need to consistently commit to that and they clearly havent to date.

We could have made a huge profit on Rothwell with far less than 19 months on his deal and the owners stupidly intervened. We dont know if they will stubbornly do the same with Brereton. They also have a random policy in terms of budgets where often they have allowed no investment or even reinvestment of big incoming fees rather than encouraging a consistent churn of selling for big money, reinvesting a percentage and using the rest to offset losses.

Also, loans are a necessary evil, many promoted teams have had a sprinkling of loanees.

[ItsRoverZ]

10 minutes ago, J*B said:

What did we know about Brittain, or Smodics or Morton from the Rovers end before we signed them? Nothing.

Brittain signed within 24 hours of the first news report. 

Smodics we only knew anything about because of the Peterborough chairman. 

Morton we only knew about because of the Liverpool fan accounts. 

We will be signing people and it wouldn’t surprise me if we where close. We just tend not to find out until the last minute or through other clubs when the deal has been agreed. 

Which is a very fair assumption, but we've been burnt before when we have expected to sign players..days tick by..then its deadline day and we get excited for a busy day and nothing happens 

Hopefully under the new regime its very different 

[J*B]

2 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

You mention a partial Brentford model but Venkys would need to consistently commit to that and they clearly havent to date.

If we talk about managerial eras then you’re right, so far they haven’t. But they might be doing now under JDT. Mowbray mentioned it, as did Waggott and they’re right, FFP means that we can’t just buy our way out the league and our income - which could and should be increased by the CEO, but that’s a different story - means that we cannot just buy our way out the league. We need some sort of a plan. 
 

4 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

We could have made a huge profit on Rothwell with far less than 19 months on his deal and the owners stupidly intervened. We dont know if they will stubbornly do the same with Brereton. They also have a random policy in terms of budgets where often they have allowed no investment or even reinvestment of big incoming fees rather than encouraging a consistent churn of selling for big money, reinvesting a percentage and using the rest to offset losses.

You would have Gregg has the autonomy and the power to insist mistakes like all of the above don’t happen. If he doesn’t, you’re right, we will just continue making the same mistakes over and over. It encourages me that GB and JDT are the first people truly hired by Suhail. Now they’re his decisions, we might let them actually run it. 
 

6 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

Also, loans are a necessary evil, many promoted teams have had a sprinkling of loanees.

They are and we need some loans. But they shouldn’t be at the detriment of our own young players (see Mowbray refusing to play Travis / Buckley / Carter / Wharton and bringing in short term loans instead) and shouldn’t be such key players that when we inevitably lose them we need a full overhaul of playing style (see Elliott).