Ambition/recruitment

Cadden had played nearly 80 games at League two level - including in the team that won the league that season - and another 20 games at Scottish Championship level. He is also 6 years younger than Norwood and has now played 65 games at League 1 level.

 

Yes, all his league one games have come playing for us, so he started with zero experience at this level when we signed him.

 

You may think we only need League 1 experience, the tables suggests otherwise...In Championship (or above ) games the current top 6 experience read like this...

Portsmouth 715
Derby 3,067
Bolton 887
Peterboro 364
Barnsley 278
Lincoln 253

 

Take derby in that equation, they've had a wage bill just over £3m more than ours this season, just over £2.5m more last season, Portsmouth spent around £1.2m more than us on wages, we know we're losing money and not making it back immediately so unless the owners fancy putting in £3m more into just wages next season to compete with teams coming down we will never attract championship experience whilst in league 1.

 

Pompey Derby and Bolton all have alot bigger gates and budget than ours. And didn't work so well for Derby last season who had just as much championship experience but failed to make the play offs.

 

Ipswich and Wednesday both had masses of Championship experience....although tbf Plymouth had much less.

 

Wednesday's wealth of experience had them spending nearly £13m on wages last season and scrape by our 10 men in the last minute, Ipswich had to spend £9m. Plymouth are the only ones who spent within their means to do it.

 

I agree...Wednesday had a team of highly paid geriatrics, but it doesn't alter the fact....whatever the money spent , that Championship experience counts .

 

I remember Wilsons side just over 10 years ago, lita, Keith treacy, Ross turnbull, Nyatanga plenty of championship experience even premier league but we're one of the worst sides I've ever seen.

When your saying championship experience counts I agree players who have played in the championship are usually a higher calibre of player and have played there for a reason. But the experience costs money. Look at bannan last season wasn't he picking up just short of 30k a week? Same with hourhaine at Derby this season close to 20k. If you want the experience it will usually cost you, when we got to the championship people said we needed championship experienced players but any championship experience player worth having was well out of our price range so there's the problem. When we start pulling 20k a week crowds or get a sugar daddy owner we won't be able to fund the conor Hourihanes, Dwight gayles or even Barry bannan.

Funnily enough the defence we had under stendel in cavare, pinnock, lindsay and pinnilos had hardly no championship experience and was the best defence in the league.

 

For me number of appearances at X level never tell us who a player really is, we don't know how well they performed, how many minutes they got, were they 3rd choice and terrible but injuries meant they had to play.

Take Luca Connell for example 23 year old he's got 10 games (630mins AVG 63 mins per game) at championship level and 63 league 1 appearances.
Compare it to Romal Palmer 25 years old 70 championship appearances (3657 mins AVG 53 mins per game)
If we want only "championship experience" and as some folk say "no more youth signings" and neither had played for us we'd be signing Palmer over Connell.

 

I'm not bothered who's signed as long as they can contribute to the team and aren't just hopeful punts. I'd like to hear that there's some proper scouting going on where someone at the club with some actual football nous can confirm whether a spreadsheet player is actually likely to be good in the context of our squad. It would probably save money...

 

We were in the Championship then ...not League 1.

 

No one is saying we only need Championship experience...its blindingly obvious we...or most teams can't afford it in L1, but a small number of experienced players rather than the dozen or so no hopers we've signed would be bloody useful.

 

We definitely weren't mate we signed those players after been relegated to league one.