Josh Scowen

Worrying that he wasn't on our radar. Sunderland apparently couldn't afford Liam Boyce so he wouldn't have cost us too much and has all the experience we need. Not woken up happy this morning!

 

Met Josh in the course of my work just as he was signing for QPR, came over as a lovely lad. Said he'd had five offers and was going to the one that he felt gave him the best chance of playing regularly, whilst being somewhere he felt comfortable living with his then young family. Moneywise QPR was the middle of the five offers. Said that he would probably have stayed with us if the Board had offered him the same salary as Alex Mowatt was then on (given Alex's form at the time you can understand that!)

 

Ffs

 

I didn't know much about Josh but going by your comments it seems as though we've signed a good player, looks like Parky has done his homework well.

 

Shame he’s getting paid more then any of our players so we can’t afford him

 

It found Scowen.

 

You are Daffy Duck, and I claim my prize.

 

Mowatt had only just signed, the same month we lost Hourihane. He was highly rated from Leeds. He’s proven to be a very good signing and I’d pick him over Scowen every day and twice on Sunday.

 

You are correct.

But it's also found us about 10 duds this season and will lead us to relegation.

 

Resorted to personal insults when proven wrong. Wonderful.

Josh Scowen is 26 years old. He has over 100 games in the Championship. If you add up the wages of Ritzmaier, Ludewig and Thomas you would comfortably cover his weekly wage.

This would still be living within our means - it would just not he flooding the squad with cheap, unproven bilge that make no difference to our side.

Just come up from underneath Conway's duvet for one second and you may see this.

 

C’est la vie. It’s not an exact science otherwise every club would be doing it. But what it definitively ensures is that our club continues to run off its own steam. Woodrow, Chaplin, Brown, Mowatt, Halme and Oduor were signed using this utterly despicable policy (your words not mine). They’ll go for a lot more than we shelled out. It’s a very sensible way to run our football club.

Does it lend itself to dreams and glory? Not at this level, seemingly.

I imagine staying up would help move the strategy on a level. We’ve some work to do to achieve that this season.

Sorry that I refuse to tear into the club, its policy and people. I just don’t see things like you or plenty of others do. I’m not seeing the car crash. I just think we are up against it at this level. Keith Hill was right all those years ago. But because our current owners are said to be mega rich, fans’ expectations have increased. That’s a choice.

 

Alleluia.

 

Mrs Josh: "Ya know what pet, ah'm reet missin' the Toon! Mebbes we can gan oop North where we'll be nearer wor roots!"

 

I apologise unreservedly. It is just that the word 'despicable' always conjours up an image of Daffy Duck in my mind.

 

I see your point - and I don't want to have a go at you because you're a very good poster and I respect your opinion.

Keith Hill was right all those years ago - you are correct. But at the time he was working under Mr Cryne, who using his own money basically kept us in business. Who no doubt would want to invest in us if his personal wealth allowed. But who never said that we'd just had the 'most successful transfer window ever'

He also financed the signing of 29 year old Adam Hammill. A man who almost single handedly turned us around and gave us the momentum for other less experienced players to see his example and step up - Josh Scowen being one of them. He financed the loan signings of Ramage, Long and Brownhill, because he understood how football works.

At the minute, the current powers that be seemingly refuse to deviate from The Plan. Hopefully the signing of a 29 year old defender is the start of this. But so far we have wasted money on so much dross that, we seem to have little or no budget left without moving on the so called dead wood. Which will prove very difficult I would imagine.

When the players you mentioned were signed (Woodrow, Mowatt) they were not signed in some kind of blind panic. Both Woodrow and Mowatt had experience of the level. Chaplin looks to be a good signing, but he's played over 100 games for Portsmouth- so I would not class him as that high risk. Certainly not as high risk 10 of the other blokes we signed this year. Oduor looks to have all the right tools - but he's played 6 games. Halme you mention, but I would say the jury is still out. The rest of them looked to be a waste of time. Schmidt? Anderson? Diaby? Radlinger? Think of the transfer fees and wages there. Wasteful.

Like I've said before, I don't want to put the club at risk. I just want to show a little flexibility - instead of blindly following The Plan. A Plan that looks to have a 100 percent failure rate in the division we are looking to establish ourselves in.

 

Another one on the list that PC let go cos he wouldn't stump up the $....

 

Haha. Never thought of that.

Suffering suckotash.

 

That is a very good point and indicative of our recruitment,plan we are so obsessed with getting cheap players in, to sell on....we are blindly not seeing the trees for the forest.
Scowen (tried and tested) and his wages versus 3 lads, who are weeks off the pace and may/ may not be good enough at this level.

 

I saw a car crash last Saturday at Portsmouth. It was a multiple pile up, caused by irresponsible drivers not looking where they were going.

 

Would’ve been perfect for us, shame we didn’t go get him back!