Ross Wilson

[Sir Know it All]

We can do better than Bournemouth reserves surely?

How can we expect to do well in Europe with signings like that?

I get the point but surely we can do better

But that is what scouting is though surely?

You say we can do better than Bournemouth reserves, our best players currently came from Wigan, Dundee and HJK.

Where we are just now will need imagination and talent identification it likely will mean players come from odd backgrounds on occasion.

 

[Gecekondu]

I think we have done well from the English market but that only takes you so far as most of them maybe Goldson aside were projects who take time. Some of the domestic signings like Kamara and Wright have been good too.

For me and it’s something that for a number of years we have been poor at, is the foreign market. So much value for money in Scandanavia, Eastern Europe, French Lig 2 in particular.

we hit the jackpot with Hagi, Morelos and Borna. And Helander has been good. But too many failures such as Sadiq, Coulibaly, Zungu, Herrera , Pena i know they were before Wilson. Then add in Itten who, and you have Sakala that still needs time but looks like its going to be a while.

i dont know if Brexit is going to make it more difficult to sign foreign players but those markets need to see an improvement.

 

[jackstar]

I think this summer hasn’t worked out as planned, so far.

Lundstram and Sakala haven’t settled as quickly as required.

Going out the CL was a massive blow.

I don’t think we recruited well enough or early enough to help that CL issue.

Surely we could've speculated to accumulate in terms of getting the right players in that would've gave us a better chance of getting there. The signs were there last season conceding poor goals in Europe and the vibe coming from Chairman and Manager gave me the impression they were going to spend. So I'm a bit disillusioned at that.

 

[Crouchy]

Surely we could've speculated to accumulate in terms of getting the right players in that would've gave us a better chance of getting there. The signs were there last season conceding poor goals in Europe and the vibe coming from Chairman and Manager gave me the impression they were going to spend. So I'm a bit disillusioned at that.

I agree to a certain extent.

We did the same with Roofe though - bought on the premise of a sale, so they do gamble.

Going into the CL qualifiers without Kamara and Roofe, plus a half fit Alfie, it was always going to be a risk.

Sakala arrived late, for me. Lundstram, also.

We missed a trick, imo. Left Gerrard a massive up hill battle.

 

[Clockwork Tangerine]

I think our dealings in the window have been pretty woeful especially given youd have thought we may have invested to give us a chance at the champions league. I didn't think we were too bad squad depth wise for the Europa league until we let Katic and Itten go. Seems a very bizarre decision.

 

[Northhiglander]

This thread is unbelievable. After everything we have gone through we seem to have people that have learned nothing at all.

We have enjoyed outstanding support from the directors. Douglas Park has poured huge sums of money into the club. Surely everyone can see that can’t go on for ever.

We should want financial stability. That is key for our long term future. We have done just fine in last window. Lundstram showed last night he will be fine, just needs a bit of time. We need to see Bacuna. Sakala needs a chance as well. None of the signings are disasters. They need work and time. We need patience.

 

[DeeCeeTee]

You’ve also got to take into consideration he can only spend what the board are giving him, plus atm we will have to sell a player to get another few in

That’s his job. Yes he can only spend what is made available to him, but his job is dealing with departures and offloading players to clubs just as much as bringing in new arrivals.

 

[WDYGH]

We are/were at a point where we should have signed one player using our total budget, rather than spread it across a few players.

 

[Oranje]

Are we financing those types of signings via our magic money tree? Wilson can only work with what he’s got tbf

We don’t need a magic money tree though.

The (almost) guaranteed starters in our team for a few seasons now:

McGregor - Free
Tav - £200k
Goldson £3m
Borna - £2m
Davis - free
Kamara - £50k
Aribo - £300k
Kent - £7.5m
Morelos - £1m

We just need to recruit and scout smarter. Would be better to sign 2 or 3 guys who will come in to the squad and make a real contribution than 5 guys who will sit on the bench just to make up the numbers.

 

[Givetheballtobrian]

Clearly working with a tight budget this year given Gerrards comments at the presser.

 

[Jon Jones]

I was happy with last seasons recruitment. Roofe and Itten definitely gave us the strength we needed up top. Hagi the previous window could still prove to be a good bit of business.

This season I feel like Lundstrum was an SG signing. But he still needs time along with Sakala and Bacuna.

The main issue this season was not selling any of our top assets. I personally felt it was time for one or two to move on, Morelos in particular, and for that money to be reinvested to refresh and strengthen the first 11.

However in Wilson's defence it was a very unusual transfer window due to the impact of covid.

 

[knightswood_bear]

It depends, none of us know if a decision was taken last season to improve as much as we could on the understanding that the first team would likely not be improved the following season without first selling players or CL qualification then it’s been a success.

If there was budget there and we expected to bring in better than what we had this summer than it’s not worked.

 

[knightswood_bear]

Agree

I feel like I keep repeating myself but regardless of what you win in one season, the following season you need to strengthen

we haven’t done that and it’s showing with our performances. I just hope it doesn’t cost us

We spent over £10m last season on players during a pandemic with no significant outgoings - I think that was likely to do everything we could to stop their 10 in a row and bring home 55.

We didn’t make the CL this year and we didn’t have any significant sales, where is the money coming from to strengthen?

 

[Donsky]

Missing out of Ali McCann was a strange one for me, as he looked like he could do a job for us in midfield.

 

[A1bertz]

It’s hard to improve a starting 11 that went undefeated all season, I think the 11/15 players that achieved that deserved a chance to replicate that form.
id guess if we had a spare £10/15m we would have spent it on a couple of players, we don’t, so without selling a star player from last season I don’t see how you buy the type of player that is of a level above.
Even then you could sell a Kamara and buy 2/3 £5m players that might not work out.
I think I’d rather let this team go until January and give them a chance to get back to the standard we know they can get to.

Disagree when it comes to the 1st eleven.
We got knocked out of 3 cup competitions last season because we never had the quality required to win those competitions.
We are on here today talking on the back of another poor performance. We absolutely needed to improve our 1st Eleven to get to where we need to get to. We were unable to do that for whatever reasons (£ ? / scouting?)
This team is stale and it's not going to magically just change without improving the 1st Eleven.
What we are watching now is a reflection of the team we have become.

The football is pretty poor, We lack passion, intensity and hunger. It's negative, repetitive and bordering on boring.

 

[WeAreAllRyanJack]

Everyone else is getting it in the neck, so why not?…

But, seriously, would you say our recruitment was better before or after Wilson arrived?

It feels like we’ve been treading water for a few windows now, and we seem to have regressed this season, despite keeping our squad intact.

The promise was quality over quantity, but there is very little evidence of this so far.

It’s hard to maintain that promise of quality when our revenue was affected hugely by Covid. Look at the rest of Europe minus the EPL and PSG and you will see hardly any clubs (including some with far bigger budgets than us) have strengthened significantly.

Frustrating start to the season no doubt but come the next European match I fully expect us to be top and in a domestic cup semi final.