Gerrard’s Recruitment Record & Another Summer Overhaul

S

supersouness

Well-Known Member
Putting the points we’ve dropped this season due to tactical naivety and unnecessary squad rotation aside, we have to have a serious look at Gerrard’s recruitment record.

He’s signed 19 players since the summer

GK - McGregor, Firth
DF - Goldson, Worrall, Katic, McAuley, Flanagan, Polster, Barisic
MF - Arfield, Kamara, Davis, Grezda, Kent, Ejaria, Coulibaly
FW - Defoe, Lafferty, Sadiq

Only the 4 in bold have hit anything like the levels needed. You could also argue the Manager didn’t have a great deal to do with bringing in 2 of them. It’s an appalling waste of money and in many cases ignored glaring holes in the squad at centre half and in midfield.

We are back to square one yet again with significant numbers moving on and at least 8/9 players coming in on a limited budget. More if we lose Tav and Morelos. It doesn’t work and isn’t sustainable.

Harsh reality is that the level of improvement needed from Gerrard is enormous. Miles off it.
 
supersouness said:
Putting the points we’ve dropped this season due to tactical naivety and unnecessary squad rotation aside, we have to have a serious look at Gerrard’s recruitment record.

He’s signed 19 players since the summer

GK - McGregor, Firth
DF - Goldson, Worrall, Katic, McAuley, Flanagan, Polster, Barisic
MF - Arfield, Kamara, Davis, Grezda, Kent, Ejaria, Coulibaly
FW - Defoe, Lafferty, Sadiq

Only the 4 in bold have hit anything like the levels needed. You could also argue the Manager didn’t have a great deal to do with bringing in 2 of them. It’s an appalling waste of money and in many cases ignored glaring holes in the squad at centre half and in midfield.

We are back to square one yet again with significant numbers moving on and at least 8/9 players coming in on a limited budget. More if we lose Tav and Morelos. It doesn’t work and isn’t sustainable.

Harsh reality is that the level of improvement needed from Gerrard is enormous. Miles off it.
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Can’t agree we are 4 players away from good team and by 4 players I mean 3-4 million players who come and make the difference!
Get them type of players and that window help other players who aren’t producing week in week out.
Money has to be spent in the summer simple as that
 
Rfc loyal said:
Can’t agree we are 4 players away from good team and by 4 players I mean 3-4 million players who come and make the difference!
Get them type of players and that window help other players who aren’t producing week in week out.
Money has to be spent in the summer simple as that
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We aren’t going to spend £12-15M on 4 players mate especially with so many going out the door.

Wallace, Worrall, McAauley, Coulibaly and Davis are all out of contact. I wouldn’t keep any of them so that’s 5 for starters.

We also need to look at moving on the likes of Flanagan, Dorrans, Rossiter and even Lafferty.

We may cash in on Tav and Morelos as well.

Huge changes needed after getting the last 2 windows so wrong.

There’s the basis of something decent in there I agree but not enough that 4 solves it. Our record with the last 19 also highlights how unlikely it is we would even get all 4 right.
 
Listen we should be ditching the loanees and prepping this team for next season

That means ditching Worral for katic, ditching Davis for Kamara. Finding a solution right wing should also be high on the agenda, don't know what the youth stock is like ok that department, if we don't secure Kent on a permanent or longer deal then thats another area needing addressed
 
Rfc loyal said:
Can’t agree we are 4 players away from good team and by 4 players I mean 3-4 million players who come and make the difference!
Get them type of players and that window help other players who aren’t producing week in week out.
Money has to be spent in the summer simple as that
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I've heard this argument since 2015 about a million times, and not once have we went and bought those 3-4 players
 
There is no solid foundation as said.

We will lose 10 or more players in summer. It will be huge turnover again.

Out: Wes, Worrell, Flanagan, Davis, Defoe, Kent, Coulibally, Alfie (almost certainly), Wallace, Mcauley, etc
 
millar2318 said:
I've heard this argument since 2015 about a million times, and not once have we went and bought those 3-4 players
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Yeah it’s the same cycle. Most likely is another mass player exodus in the summer and serious pressure on the Manager by October if it doesn’t work.

Painful watching the same mistakes happen again and again and again. For example, I can’t believe the number of untried loanees and veterans we’ve brought in. It barely ever works.
 
Luthgibear said:
No argument there....im sure if SG had the cash he wouldn't bring in the players he has.
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He spent £3.5M on Katic and Grezda and barely uses them so the money argument doesn’t hold much weight.

He’s brought in 19 players. There can be no argument about not backing the Manager. Gerrard has thankfed the board for backing him on a number of ocassions himself.
 
supersouness said:
Yeah it’s the same cycle. Most likely is another mass player exodus in the summer and serious pressure on the Manager by October if it doesn’t work.

Painful watching the same mistakes happen again and again and again. For example, I can’t believe the number of untried loanees and veterans we’ve brought in. It barely ever works.
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Exactly, and everytime we think it will, because it worked with Davie Weir, and with Steven Davis 11 years ago. It rarely works, and we more than often get a Niko or a lee Martin.

The only shining light is that I'm pretty sure Gerard will get full backing in another window, and I don't think anyone had that opportunity so far in the top flight.

For once in the summer we need the 'serious quality' targets to come to fruition.
 
AllanD said:
Not sure how much is trust the recruitment team in spending more money the way things are going. Not much success really despite the initial promise.
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Exactly. Folk go “sign 4 quality players and we are challenging”. Their success rate would suggest only 1/4 would cut it.
 
Are we really any further forward than last season? Seriously. Either the tactics are too complicated or the players aren't good enough or up for games like today. This has been our downfall over the last few years. Beat Dolly and the Tims and then get beat by Kilmarnock and Dundee etc. It's actually not good enough.
 
supersouness said:
We aren’t going to spend £12-15M on 4 players mate especially with so many going out the door.

Wallace, Worrall, McAauley, Coulibaly and Davis are all out of contact. I wouldn’t keep any of them so that’s 5 for starters.

We also need to look at moving on the likes of Flanagan, Dorrans, Rossiter and even Lafferty.

We may cash in on Tav and Morelos as well.

Huge changes needed after getting the last 2 windows so wrong.

There’s the basis of something decent in there I agree but not enough that 4 solves it. Our record with the last 19 also highlights how unlikely it is we would even get all 4 right.
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Totally agree, might be an idea to let defoe go, money saved, and he s nearly done anyway
 
I always thought it would take 3 transfer Windows to turn it around(we were basically building a team from scratch). Many of the players brought in the last 2 Windows are loanees so easily shifted out. Also, Winter Windows are always short term cluster f*cks. We'll rely again on 4-5 loans in the summer with around the same in permanent signings.
 
millar2318 said:
Listen we should be ditching the loanees and prepping this team for next season

That means ditching Worral for katic, ditching Davis for Kamara. Finding a solution right wing should also be high on the agenda, don't know what the youth stock is like ok that department, if we don't secure Kent on a permanent or longer deal then thats another area needing addressed
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Ditch Worrall who was one of the only players that came off that park with anything like a decent performance behind him?

Aye, great idea.
 
themightyi said:
Well he’s playing well at the moment and we’re still hoping to secure 2nd place and win the Scottish Cup so that would be the point.
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Quick reminder that if not for Worral at rugby park we might not be in this position now. Katic is more than capable and ours to develop. We'll easily get second without Worral and might gain the benefit of bedding in and settling one of our own players
 
No need for a major overhaul. We have the basis of a good team and only need to upgrade the odd position, which I’m sure we will do in the summer.
 
supersouness said:
Please tell me the positives. The league is over and we are facing another mass overhaul in the summer.
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We've improved. We're a comfortable second and have banked some Euro money that helps us strengthen again.

The manager will be a year more experienced and have learned from a few mistakes he's made.

Also, with better players, there are less likely to be mistakes.

We're getting there. It's not going to be overnight or maybe even in one season of a manager coming in against a Celtic team who have a settled run a things and a year or two left in the core of their squad.
 
Coda said:
We’re not facing a mass overhaul.

Utterly hysterical pish.

We need quality and that’s been the case since day one. We’ve not had the money to do what’s required in two transfer windows.
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I guarantee we bring in at least 7/8 and the same, if not more, go. That’s an overhaul.

You only need to look at the volume of dead wood on our books to see how costly our approach to recruitment is. Our turnover of players since returning to the top division is staggering.
 
Laudrup1 said:
We've improved. We're a comfortable second and have banked some Euro money that helps us strengthen again.

The manager will be a year more experienced and have learned from a few mistakes he's made.

Also, with better players, there are less likely to be mistakes.

We're getting there. It's not going to be overnight or maybe even in one season of a manager coming in against a Celtic team who have a settled run a things and a year or two left in the core of their squad.
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I’d agree if we were building towards something but we are not. Our approach to transfers is massively reliant on players we don’t own or players on their last pay day.
 
strider said:
We can't just ditch most of our signings, many of whom are under 25 with time to improve, based upon 1 season.

That's not going to work. We can't buy this league, so we either give a squad time to develop, or keep watching us finishing second.
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My frustrations are more directed towards the signings who don’t fall into that category. Of the 19 we’ve signed half are either on loan or in their mid to late 30s. Our success rate on players who fall into that category is abysmal yet it has been our default approach in the 6 windows we’ve had since returning to the top division.
 
supersouness said:
I’d agree if we were building towards something but we are not. Our approach to transfers is massively reliant on players we don’t own or players on their last pay day.
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But we're still in a rebuilding process. We couldn't buy 20 players last summer. We brought in about 12 permanently and a number of loans to make up the numbers.

We'll move a few on this year in the summer and the loans will return to their parent clubs with us in a position to buy more permanent ones as well as bringing in a Kent type to augment the squad.

We've brought in Kamara and Jones already with that sort of thing in mind.

The attitude that of throwing the baby out with the bathwater after every poor result is atrocious.

We've taken Davis and Defoe in short term to replace Ejaria and Sadiq. That's all part of a structured plan to improve us and to deny that is a nonsense.

Our approach to transfers is simply reliant on the budget we have. If you can't understand that, there's no point in having a discussion about it.
 
Laudrup1 said:
But we're still in a rebuilding process. We couldn't buy 20 players last summer. We brought in about 12 permanently and a number of loans to make up the numbers.

We'll move a few on this year in the summer and the loans will return to their parent clubs with us in a position to buy more permanent ones as well as bringing in a Kent type to augment the squad.

We've brought in Kamara and Jones already with that sort of thing in mind.

The attitude that of throwing the baby out with the bathwater after every poor result is atrocious.

We've taken Davis and Defoe in short term to replace Ejaria and Sadiq. That's all part of a structured plan to improve us and to deny that is a nonsense.

Our approach to transfers is simply reliant on the budget we have. If you can't understand that, there's no point in having a discussion about it.
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I’m sorry but that’s nonsense. Another approach is quality over quantity and supplementing the squad player positions from the academy. You can’t talk about a rebuilding process whilst defending a policy that is at least 50% short-termism.

This isn’t isolated. We have been in a cycle of huge player turnover and the need for a reaction after a poor performance for 3 years. The level of waste has been staggering. That considerable outlay could have been put to far better use.
 
I think the recruitment has been good.

We have 4 centre backs better than anything we have had in years, in fact Goldson and katic are on a different level from the likes of Cardoso, Kiernan and Senderos.

McGregor is just McGregor, Arfield has added a real touch of quality to midfield and its a problem for us he looks to be carrying a knock.

Coulibally started really well and never came back from an injury spell the same player.

Defoe is a top class finisher and we dont feed him enough on days like today, Lafferty hasnt pulled up any trees, he has done ok without being great but we paid buttons for him so its all relative.

Granted Grezda and Barisic havent looked good when they have been fit which hasnt been often enough for me.

The loans have helped supplement the team and only really Kent will be missed.
 
supersouness said:
I’m sorry but that’s nonsense. Another approach is quality over quantity and supplementing the squad player positions from the academy. You can’t talk about a rebuilding process whilst defending a policy that is at least 50% short-termism.

This isn’t isolated. We have been in a cycle of huge player turnover and the need for a reaction after a poor performance for 3 years. The level of waste has been staggering. That considerable outlay could have been put to far better use.
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We only spend money on a few players. Goldson being one. You can't say that's short termism.

We have a short, medium and long term plan. If we'd spend the entire budget on four players at Goldson levels and purely used the youth players to supplement them, we'd have been in a worse position than we are now.

You also can't use the last previous two managers are as a criticism of this one and the DoF either as they weren't in place then and started with very little.

Who is the left back you think we should use instead of Barisic from the youths? Who is the central midfielder the manager apparently just isn't playing who is starring in the reserves that's better than Arfield, Jack and Kamara?

Your point is silly.
 
January wasn’t good for us.

Scottish football is littered with great players who came up here in the twilight of their careers and did nothing.
 
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