28TH JANUARY AND THE CHIMPS IN BFC RECRUITMENT ARE STILL CLAPPING THEIR CYMBALS

Thankfully I wasn't there.

 

Some people have all the luck.

It's my birthday on Saturday, I'm genuinely considering giving the match a miss. I'm not a "Well that's my weekend ruined" kind of guy but I just think I can probably do something more fulfilling with my family...

 

I'm genuinely not sure that I want any more recruits from whoever's doing the recruitment currently. It could just be throwing more good money away.

Centre back is a really good example of how poor our recruitment has become. When I walked out of Wembley just 20 months ago after the play-off final we had the best three centre back combination in the division. We lost all three due to two sales and a loan return - no arguments over that, Mads was always going, Bobby was a loan and Kitching then had the chance to step up too. The problem is the recruitment both in terms of quality and strategy/compatibility. Since Wembley we have recruited 7, yes SEVEN, centre backs (Pines, Roberts, Earl, Gevigney, McCarthy, Lopata and Shepherd) and absolutely NONE are anywhere near good enough. I had some hope with Roberts and he was our best player before his injury but he's come back like someone whose legs have gone. Earl is probably the least poor but, at best, he's low end League 1.

This scattergun, quantity over quality, approach is killing us imho and it can't be cheap either.

I know they were only playing against Watters but I looked at the two lads Stevenage had at centre back on Saturday with envy and couldn't help thinking that surely two big strong, reasonably mobile, commanding players who know how to organise and defend like Piergianni and Goode aren't beyond our reach? Neither were anything really special but they were fundamentally solid. Surely, instead of spaffing millions on the wages of seven players, none of whom can defend for toffee, we could have brought in two decent League 1 centre backs and a loan of the next Bobby Thomas type to supplement them (and probably been able to keep a few quid in the bank too). I genuinely don't think this is rocket science.

There's a similar situation in terms of what I'll call the wide defenders. We've now got five of these, with O'Keeffe, Cotter, Lofthouse, Gent and Farrugia. I'd argue that there's only a need for four but four of better quality (Farrugia excepted as I'm not judging him on two games) and two of which, one left sided and one right sided, who are more at home in a back five as wing backs and two of which, one left sided and one right sided, who are more at home in a back four, so that the coach has the options he needs. Instead we have five, none of whom are natural defenders that can be trusted to be the full-backs in a four.

Taking the resultant group of the two sets of defenders together, centre backs and wide defenders, the head coaches, be it Collins or Clarke, have felt and continue to feel that they can't use the option to play a traditional 4 at the back. Neither, probably correctly, have they felt they can trust any two of the centre backs on their own in the centre of a four and neither have felt that they can trust the wide defenders as the full backs in a four. Collins didn't even try four at the back and on the rare occasions Clarke (who I feel would love to be able to deploy 4-2-3-1 and 4-3-3 formations when needed) has done, he's felt the only way he can is by using four centre backs!

There's similar but subtly different analogies in terms of the incompatibility and/or quantity over quality of recruitment all over the rest of the squad.

It's the first window I've ever said this but I genuinely wouldn't bat an eyelid if we sold or paid up any or all of the current first team squad as the more space we can get to start building afresh the better imho. I'm just not sure I can trust anyone who so deludely thinks our defence is a strongpoint (as Mladen said) to lead and deliver that though.

 

Excellent post. I fully agree with everything you've posted. IMO it could be summer 2026 before we can really sort this mess out and that's primarily due to the number of existing poor players under contract until such time. Hopefully by that point we may be under new ownership.

 

You sound like that **** running Sheff Wednesday.

People are more than entitled to be disillusioned with how things stand currently.