Not being funny but that’s every thing that’s wrong with football that it’s acceptable for owners to have to continually put money in to stay afloat.
I haven't got an issue with stats and an initial series of video montages to highlight prospects. We've signed some very good players over time that way. I don't know what we're currently doing, but its safe to say we're not in the same realm of identifying the quality to help us on the pitch and latterly on the balance sheet.
after several years of good solid recruitment (most of which is now in the premier league or championship and we've let sieve through our hands for peanuts) has declined terribly, we've had 3/4 bad windows in a row now
I don't understand the hatred for James Cryne. He identified and built a way of identifying undervalued talent that enabled us to sign them, develop them, sell them at a profit, and then reinvest. This very system enabled us to identify players that got us to the Championship play off semi final, in addition to a few promotions (despite being skint). Like any system/logic model, it has its flaws. I think our strategy undervalued what mixing experiencing and youth can achieve (particularly in expediting the development of young potential, but also short term results). Arguably, it needed modifying...not binning. I was disappointed that we didn't give the Director of Football position to an experienced 'football' person, because relevant experience with top level players and coaches is missing at the club in my opinion. However, I think we can lay a lot of the blame for the bad windows at the door of the people implementing the recommendations (i.e. Conway and other CEOs of the time). I hope we learn lessons from the failures of recent transfer windows. But in the meantime I'll continue to support the lads who are playing, comfortable that we're playing significantly better than earlier in the season, without getting the results we deserve at the moment.
Thought the recruitment team consists of : analysts, coaches and CEO/DoF? So that means sacking everyone.
Agree with this. It would be easy to make the argument that it's got much worse since James Cryne and his 'spreadsheet', as they like to call it, has no longer been involved.