S-Clarke

And that is why I do not hold the confidence that some do on our ability to be competitive next year. We were inept, hamstrung by our losing habit and home form which doesn't exit. I'm not seeing the 'good things' that Juric claims to have seen either. A bunch of utter trash in that 11, some good players for sure, but they are brought down so badly by the utter trash we've managed to acquire over the last few years. We'll lose anyone who can play football in the summer, and we'll be left with the likes of Bree and Fraser to build around. I really don't expect anything next year other than a bumbling stoke-style season. We've got a long road ahead of us.

The players loved him because he covered up their limitations and allowed them to do whatever the fuck they wanted to do. The preparation and start to this season tells you how utterly underprepared we were. They loved him because he gave them an easy ride. Juric is a bit grizzly and will have a go, some of the softies won't like that. It is really poor show for him to drop and run like he has though, it's not like he's been the standout this year - he's been our worst midfielder by a mile.

It doesn't mean much. I always stand by the opinion that in the lower leagues momentum counts for more than money, but when you can combine momentum with a bit of money it's sometimes an unstoppable force.

Bloody Davenport, useless centre back. One of the worst we've had to endure.

I think he only ends up there if they get promoted, they wouldn't be able to afford him otherwise. He just signed a new contract with us, we're in a strong position to demand upwards of £15m for someone who guarantees you stacks of goals in the Championship. If people don't pay that, we keep him and he scores goals for us.

It's a start and I'm pleased Dragan immediately identified the need for someone in his position. From the limited info I have, it seems as if he is a Red Bull approach advocate - high press, high energy football - which ties in quite nicely with how Juric has traditionally approached football, so hopefully the right players are now being profiled. The flip flopping of philosophies is driven by the lack of football leadership though, so if we can get that right we might be able to build something again. It's not going to happen overnight but it's certainly a step in the right direction. It feels like there is a bit of a plan again. Why the club never replaced Wilcox ahead of our Summer transfer window will forever confuse me though.

He's a good player, I was pleased when we signed him as IMO he's a future England international. He should have had more game time, I mean if Bree can play at the back for us in the PL then I'm sure Edwards can deal with it. We'll enjoy watching him next season I think, it'll be interesting to see who partners him. He's certainly the sort of player who can grow with a club and become a PL player, so we need to make sure we keep those sorts.

Both of those windows were directionless as others have said, no real plan on what we were doing. What do they both have in common? We oversaw both of those windows without a proper DoF in place. It's obviously well documented that Rasmus stepped in during Jan 03, but Summer 2024 by all accounts was lead by Martin as we decided to not replace Wilcox, which was dangerous really. I keep harping back on about it, but without a footballing structure we're broken - you can tell our struggles because of our constant flip flopping between styles. I don't know at this stage if we'll have a proper DoF in place for Summer 25 which makes me nervous, as we'll have lots of big footballing decisions to make - and we need footballing people to lead that, not businessmen.

Good for him to get some game time, be interesting to see how he does. You can't get away from how much weaker we've ended the window though, losing SAA, Cornet, Armstrong and BBD as attacking options and not replaced (granted, the output from them all was pretty shit). We only have Onuachu and Archer as viable 9's. I hope we don't get any end of season attacking injury crisis!

Oh yes, good point. I was thinking of Kuryu Matsuki at Goztepe, who equally looks decent tbf.

In the snippets I've seen, this guy looks good. I think it's easy to forgot we've got him coming back into our 11 next year, and he certainly looks Championship quality - probably higher than that. Looking forward to seeing him.

Surprised there were no takers in England (actually, maybe not that surprised!). I think it's the Edozie and Bazunu derby in a few weeks.

Oops. Reminds me of a player Leeds went for a few years ago, at the same time they were pushing for Gakpo with us. He agreed to go to Leeds, then decided to go elsewhere, that didn't happen and then he was left in limbo at the club who wanted rid.

If we're not strengthening Gozepte, we're strengthening our U21's. Shame about the first team. 😉

I agree with this in the main, my gripe has never been with Dragan - who like you say has put his money where his mouth is. The biggest issue is the lack of a footballing department, even aside from the DoF's there hasn't been what I'd call a stable recruitment environment. The ideal situation is that the DoF builds his own footballing structure, including analysts, scouts and the such - Shields nor Wilcox were here long enough to even implement that. If we can get a DoF who wants to stay longer than 6 months, then he has a chance to shape the scouting and recruitment in a way that aligns with an overall strategy. What we have at the moment, in the absence of a footballing structure, is a club which is hopping between styles and philosophies every other day. I still find it incredibly odd that we felt it was a good idea to ignore a replacement for Willcox when he left, and try to shoe-horn non-football people into those roles - look at how that's turned out. As a club we need to start getting ruthless. That starts with the DoF calling the shots and setting the goals within the department, but equally requires the manager to call out players who need calling out. Some of the first team squad have enjoyed comfortable lives for the last year, going to work with their best mate. In isolation there isn't a problem with a manager being friendly with his team (Poch had an element of this), but there is a line and I think Martin created an environment which crossed that line and it encouraged cliques. The summer is a big one for us, even bigger than the last time we went down. We will likely lose a lot, but in a way it provides us with an opportunity to reset everything. I don't envisage us being amazingly competitive in the first year, but long term if we get it right I think we'll be on the right track. I think building the footballing department and scouting setup is step 1, then the rest will follow over time.

A total WUM account, nothing to see there. But out of interest, why wouldn't we be preparing for the Championship? It's the most sensible thing we can do at this stage, which is why I'm somewhat happy we've not blasted loads of money around in a vein attempt to stay up - which has been over for months.

I assume SSN are ramping this up as one of the greatest, dramatic deadline days ever? It seems pretty null and void from what I've read. Sky Sports website is mainly reporting on SPL and random lower league loans.

You're not wrong, I thought in the main we were pretty shit. In fact it was a truly horrible game of football to watch, a proper slug fest between two awful sides. We came out on top of this one, but based on that I can't imagine us pulling any sort of run together against better sides, of which all 18 others are.

Ammar Jemal and Elliot Ward vibes.

A buy clause certainly makes more sense if we're giving them SAA with a buy clause. Not sure we'll be spending £15m on both him and Albert in the Championship though, gives us an option though I guess.

I think they evolved physically, certainly Morgan. But 10-15 years ago the league allowed players like that to evolve and adapt if you know what I mean, you don't get a chance these days - you have to be ready straight away. I even look at some of Ipswich buys, top Champ players in Clarke (absolute cheat code down there) and Greaves at CB - but Clarke in particular hasn't been able to adapt at all. Maybe spending big on 2 or 3 'ready' players to lift the overall level of the squad would help, and allow these guys some room to evolve - but I think we've just thrown Downes and THB (as two examples) into the lions den and expected them to evolve and grow on the job. Not sure that's possible anymore.

If anything illustrates how big the gap has become it's those two. Absolute cheat codes in the Championship, but physically lacking in the PL. It's really difficult to compete, you need so much power and pace in the top flight nowadays - not just up front, but all over the pitch. 10-15 years ago we got promoted with Cork, Fonte, Morgan etc - I wouldn't say they were particularly powerful or quick, but they were able to adapt. If the same guys came up now I can't say they'd fare as well.

Of all our players, Downes has been the one who has disappointed me the most. He was arguably pivotal to us last year, we couldn't handle the midfield without him - so I thought both himself and THB would make the step up a little more comfortably than they have. Downes has been awful, really weak, really slow and caught out way too much at this level. Our biggest issue this year has been a lack of midfield structure and he is culpable in that, he's just looked out of his depth.

Not directly, nope. But he hasn't been given much game time. The thing with SAA is that it looked like he 'could' impact games, he just wasn't given the chance to show. We'll see what happens, I assume it's part of the deal to get their CB - but I'd be disappointed if we give them our player and don't have any form of option on their CB.

I guess it's not just Juric who has come to that conclusion, as Martin was very reluctant to use him either. There must be something we're not privy to, i.e how he trains or there are some flaws in his game which make him a risk in a certain system. No idea. Trying to make some logic out of it!