Transfer rumours !

Yan Dhanda could be good for our level. At bit out of his depth in the higher divisions I would guess. Some nice ideas, and a bit of an unusual way of passing. Loops the ball high and makes it wobble.

Sadlier should be great for us. I really hope he starts against Sunderland although I'm not sure where he would fit as he tends to play wide and we already have John, Fossey, Isgrove, Afolayen, Kachunga Amaechi and I'm sure some that I'm forgetting...
But in fairness he is probably better for our team game than Dapo.

Whitesince63 wrote:According to my Rotherham pals, they’re disappointed to see him go and wish him well. It seems that he didn’t fit in with Warne’s style of play which asks questions why he signed him. He’s been played mainly as a wing back or out wide but neither position seemed to suit him. They reckon he’d have been better as a No10 but Warne never played one. They reckon he can shoot though, is a good crosser of the ball but shirks a challenge. Let’s see where IE decides to play him, maybe he’ll be a better fit in our system than the more direct Millers style?

From the little I've seen he is a very good footballer with a clever range of creative ideas with passing to match.

I've heard. Dempsey signing. Defo happening.
Will be ready to play on Tuesday.

Biggie wrote:I've heard. Dempsey signing. Defo happening.
Will be ready to play on Tuesday.

We need a box to box worker. Happy with that.

Really impressed with the way we've done business in this window (yet again).

Evans in!!!!!!

Thankyou so much for everything Auntie Sharon.  

Yes HP the window looks to have been another ramp up in quality which hopefully will at last give us a chance of a run up to the play offs. With one or two probably also leaving in the summer there will be a chance for another ramp up if we don’t make it. We’ll done Ian and Shazza.

Hip Priest wrote:Really impressed with the way we've done business in this window (yet again).

Evans in!!!!!!

Thankyou so much for everything Auntie Sharon.  

You're easily pleased HP. But then we only need to look at your record collection to know that.

Why are you pleased? I've never heard of any of these players he's signed. Have you? I'm sure people were saying the same things in August when the likes of Kachunga & Bako were signed.

It's very much Evans out for now.

Whitesince63 wrote:Yes HP the window looks to have been another ramp up in quality which hopefully will at last give us a chance of a run up to the play offs. With one or two probably also leaving in the summer there will be a chance for another ramp up if we don’t make it. We’ll done Ian and Shazza.

"On paper" they look to be signings of a better quality than we have but the reason we were able to get some of them is that they weren't performing at their clubs and haven't been for a while - so there is a massive caveat in that we are betting on them to get back to the form they once had.
The exceptions to this are Charles - who hadn't been playing due to a contract dispute and the Gillingham lad if we get him who is playing regularly in a poor team. There are big questions that hang over the other 4.

We all hope that they'll find form and gel as a team - but at this stage it's just hope and it would be foolhardy to even contemplate a run at the playoffs - but you never know - it's been done before albeit in a lower league.

I'll be happy if we pull away from the relegation zone and compete every game and I'm just hoping that Sharon et al are not betting the farm on this lot getting us promoted at the first attempt.

Next few weeks should tell us where we are actually at, but with so many ifs and buts in play I'm not getting too excited just yet.

Avoid defeat today and a run is on the cards, Bit of a shock to hear Nat hasn't heard of any of the players,broken record springs to mind. He brought players in last year and the same was said,but we went on a run Evatts record says it's still possible. So a huge test today. Dempsey would be another step forward. The hardest task is seeing who fits where.

The thing that pops into my mind about our recent recruits is that if they are that good, then why hasn't any other clubs been in for them?

No offence to any of them and hope they all turn out excellent for us but the lad from Rochdale played loads of games yet we (apparently) paid £80k for him - surely even in these Covid hit hard financial times, I would have thought a Championship club could have outbid us if they rated him.  The Iceland lad is an international, so why has nobody gone in for him and we got him on a free? Sadlier seems to be known in this division, yet clubs like Wigan, Ipswich and Sunderland who splashed the cash at the start of the season didn't apparently rate him enough to get?

Even the Gillingham bloke, no one but us wants him because nobody has bid higher than us and our bid went in about two weeks ago.

As for Charles if he really is that good why did it only take £300k to buy him?

As I say, I do hope they all turn out to be world beaters.

I hope we sign the Gillingham lad too.

I'm a lifelong glass half empty type of bloke so the fact that I seem to be the only one predicting great things ahead for the Wanderers amazes and surprises me. Charles is a massive upgrade on Doyle and watch out for Amoechi if he can get himself fit.The guy is pure class. Add Dapo into the picture and we have a really potent strike force.
If we get Dempsey we will be absolutely spoilt for choice in midfield.
3 quality centre backs in Santos, Aimson and Johnston.
Best 2 full backs in this division in John and Jones.

As Nat says I'd never heard of any of the players we've signed but I've seen nothing yet that says that he doesn't know what he's doing. Look at the state of the club when he took over and look where we are now. In Evans we trust.

Evans in !!!!!!!!!

Hip Priest wrote:I'm a lifelong glass half empty type of bloke so the fact that I seem to be the only one predicting great things ahead for the Wanderers amazes and surprises me. Charles is a massive upgrade on Doyle and watch out for Amoechi if he can get himself fit.The guy is pure class. Add Dapo into the picture and we have a really potent strike force.
If we get Dempsey we will be absolutely spoilt for choice in midfield.
3 quality centre backs in Santos, Aimson and Johnston.
Best 2 full backs in this division in John and Jones.

As Nat says I'd never heard of any of the players we've signed but I've seen nothing yet that says that he doesn't know what he's doing. Look at the state of the club when he took over and look where we are now. In Evans we trust.

Evans in !!!!!!!!!

Fully agree with that HP and you’re not the only one who predicts great, or at least better things from our new signings, I do too. I don’t share Sluffys view that because nobody else signed them they can’t be good. I’m sure if we’d left them all to run out of contract, others would have snapped them up on bigger wages, so I think he’s been pretty smart doing it now. You can already see how good Charles is, Dapo is excellent and whilst Bod might not be a prolific goal scorer, if he delivers the physical presence that SKD did in both boxes, he’ll add something we don’t currently have.

Lots of teams have paid big money for players who have turned out duds and I’m sure one or two of Evatt’s imports won’t succeed but if two or three do it’s well worth it. Also there are long lists of players who didn’t fit in at one club but were then transformed on joining another. I think IE does his homework on players well and I have confidence in him to find some plums and build the quality up over time.

Whitesince63 wrote:

Hip Priest wrote:I'm a lifelong glass half empty type of bloke so the fact that I seem to be the only one predicting great things ahead for the Wanderers amazes and surprises me. Charles is a massive upgrade on Doyle and watch out for Amoechi if he can get himself fit.The guy is pure class. Add Dapo into the picture and we have a really potent strike force.
If we get Dempsey we will be absolutely spoilt for choice in midfield.
3 quality centre backs in Santos, Aimson and Johnston.
Best 2 full backs in this division in John and Jones.

As Nat says I'd never heard of any of the players we've signed but I've seen nothing yet that says that he doesn't know what he's doing. Look at the state of the club when he took over and look where we are now. In Evans we trust.

Evans in !!!!!!!!!

Fully agree with that HP and you’re not the only one who predicts great, or at least better things from our new signings, I do too. I don’t share Sluffys view that because nobody else signed them they can’t be good. I’m sure if we’d left them all to run out of contract, others would have snapped them up on bigger wages, so I think he’s been pretty smart doing it now. You can already see how good Charles is, Dapo is excellent and whilst Bod might not be a prolific goal scorer, if he delivers the physical presence that SKD did in both boxes, he’ll add something we don’t currently have.

Lots of teams have paid big money for players who have turned out duds and I’m sure one or two of Evatt’s imports won’t succeed but if two or three do it’s well worth it. Also there are long lists of players who didn’t fit in at one club but were then transformed on joining another. I think IE does his homework on players well and I have confidence in him to find some plums and build the quality up over time.

I think that's false logic 63.

If I was a player that other clubs were keen to sign (even my own offering me a new contract) then I'm in a position of power to run down my contract and get a big signing on bonus and massive wages from the next club because no one had to pay a transfer fee for me.

If however I'm a player who hasn't done much and my current club wants rid of me, then why do you think I'm in a position of strength to run down my contract and think I'm going to get a pay rise at another club?

The Icelandic player ripped up a better paid contract and signed for lower wages here just to have a job for the next season and a half?

The Rochdale lad has been a regular for the last few seasons, now he could probably run down his contract and get a better contract somewhere else next season, so why wouldn't he do that and instead take a lesser one with us now and be on that for the next few years - doesn't make sense does it?

What we've done is offered him the better contract now.  Ok we aren't talking life changing wages but I'm sure Championship clubs could easily have matched them and paid more than £80k to sign him if they had wanted too.  The reason he's come here is because he'd just be a squad player at most Championship clubs for now but he will be a first team player with us on the wages he was looking for if he had run down his contract at Rochdale.

That's how these things work - supply and demand.

If clubs want to sign you, your 'worth' is high, if they don't, you are having to take less or be playing somewhere you may not want to.

We aren't talking about people like Paul Pogba running down his contract and having clubs like Real Madrid and PSG keen to sign him for massive wages, we are talking about a lad from Millwall who can't get in their team and a youngster from Rochdale who might have got slightly more if he did run down his contract but might not have wanted to take the chance of ending up at say Hearts of Midlothian or Plymouth Argyle when he could stay close to home for now and be on decent wages as far as he's concerned and a first team regular.

I'm not knocking these players and I hope they do brilliant with us but ask yourself the question why other teams aren't doing exactly what we are doing, trying to spot a bargain with players near the end of their contracts?

The answer is of course other teams are doing exactly the same as us and others would have looked at Bodvarsson and Morley so why weren't they tempted to sign them, or at least not match or better the deal we have?

(It also helps that we clearly had come into a bit of money recently and its likely most other clubs fishing in the same waters as we do for the likes of Bodvarsson and Morley probably didn't have much in their kitties to play with to make them better offers).

The thing is that we had no strength in depth before this window and when Sheehan etc were injured and Covid swept through the camp we were found wanting and faced the very real prospect of relegation.
For a few hundred thousand and an increased wage bill (TBA) Evatt has assembled a squad that looks very capable of competing in this league and I'm sure our relegation fears have been put to bed, even though we still sit just 7 points above the zone.

There will be tougher challenges ahead than the Sunderland game as they were truly awful yesterday and don't travel well anyway, but if we maintain the same work rate and consolidate in the next few games, other teams (and Quest!) will start to take us seriously.

Given our expenditure I think Evatt has done a decent job as long as he gets that level of effort out of them in every game and finds solutions for different opposition set ups. I am now confident we won't go back down to League 2 which has to be the main objective for a newly promoted side - and there is an outside chance we may even push for a playoff place even though it's a huge gap to pull back.
We have 3 games against team around and below us coming up before taking on the resurgent Oxford at their place so we'll have a better picture of where we're at by then.

I'm not sure if that is generally headed in my way or not but I'd like to make clear I've no problem at all in Evatt signing any of the new recruits or needing to strengthen a squad that clearly needed strengthening.

We clearly needed to strengthen midfield with Sarcevic strangely leaving halfway through the first part of the season and clearly needed to make an improvement on Doyle - and both things have happened.

Obviously it is fortunate that money was available to do these things rather than make do and mend on free transfers and out of contract players and Evatt seems to have a good eye for loan players he has brought in too.

Personally I never thought we would be relegated unless Evatt stuck blindly to the system he had which clearly needed to be adapted in this division.

I don't think it is unreasonable for us to make the playoffs, it isn't that much of a mountain to climb points wise, having the best part of half a season to do so and just putting six past a team who have been towards the top of the league all season up to now.

Talking about Oxford, I noticed that one of their players scored FOUR penalties in their match against Gillingham yesterday!

I wonder if that is some sort of a league record, it certainly isn't something I'd heard about before?

Sluffy wrote:I'm not sure if that is generally headed in my way or not but I'd like to make clear I've no problem at all in Evatt signing any of the new recruits or needing to strengthen a squad that clearly needed strengthening.

We clearly needed to strengthen midfield with Sarcevic strangely leaving halfway through the first part of the season and clearly needed to make an improvement on Doyle - and both things have happened.

Obviously it is fortunate that money was available to do these things rather than make do and mend on free transfers and out of contract players and Evatt seems to have a good eye for loan players he has brought in too.

Personally I never thought we would be relegated unless Evatt stuck blindly to the system he had which clearly needed to be adapted in this division.

I don't think it is unreasonable for us to make the playoffs, it isn't that much of a mountain to climb points wise, having the best part of half a season to do so and just putting six past a team who have been towards the top of the league all season up to now.

Talking about Oxford, I noticed that one of their players scored FOUR penalties in their match against Gillingham yesterday!

I wonder if that is some sort of a league record, it certainly isn't something I'd heard about before?

No it wasn't - it was my opinion.

In the previous game the regular pen taker missed one so Brannagan was given the job and they were all excellent pens.

Amusingly, after he'd scored 3,  one of the strikers tried to take the ball off him for the 4th but was put back in his box by the manager and the rest of the team. Brannagan smashed it into the top bins.

On Quest last night they said their researcher had checked the records but couldn't find anyone who had scored 4 pens in the same game in history.

PS: Dempsey was less than impressive - perhaps because Oxford played around him and he couldn't get on the ball very often.

Two things here.
Not my usual source so I can't rely on it as confidently.

But, Dempsey is done.
Fossey, signing on perm in summer subject to certain conditions. Or at least will leave Fulham if they go up.

Sluffy wrote:The thing that pops into my mind about our recent recruits is that if they are that good, then why hasn't any other clubs been in for them?

No offence to any of them and hope they all turn out excellent for us but the lad from Rochdale played loads of games yet we (apparently) paid £80k for him - surely even in these Covid hit hard financial times, I would have thought a Championship club could have outbid us if they rated him.  The Iceland lad is an international, so why has nobody gone in for him and we got him on a free?  Sadlier seems to be known in this division, yet clubs like Wigan, Ipswich and Sunderland who splashed the cash at the start of the season didn't apparently rate him enough to get?

Even the Gillingham bloke, no one but us wants him because nobody has bid higher than us and our bid went in about two weeks ago.

As for Charles if he really is that good why did it only take £300k to buy him?

As I say, I do hope they all turn out to be world beaters.

I hope we sign the Gillingham lad too.

You could level the argument of 'if he's good enough why did a bigger club not go for him' at almost any signing (outside of the elite players and clubs), the lack of visible rivals to a signing is an overly simplistic approach to judging a players quality. 

On paper it's simple, sign players from below you deemed good enough to step up and work in your system. But it relies on effective scouting and (more and more these days) data analysis - neither of which our scattergun approach of years gone by seemed to take into account, how many players did we sign on reputation from clubs above and around us? There was seemingly no consistency to the player profile being targetted or what system we wanted them to fit into. It's also easier when you have cash to spend.

Evatt deserves credit, but if you believe the PR coming out of the club transfer policy is now a wider strategy, and he's a part of that rather than solely responsible. As I said at the time I'd say Doyle and Sarc being moved out quickly is evidence of a wider vision.

T.R.O.Y. wrote:You could level the argument of 'if he's good enough why did a bigger club not go for him' at almost any signing (outside of the elite players and clubs), the lack of visible rivals to a signing is an overly simplistic approach to judging a players quality. 

On paper it's simple, sign players from below you deemed good enough to step up and work in your system. But it relies on effective scouting and (more and more these days) data analysis - neither of which our scattergun approach of years gone by seemed to take into account, how many players did we sign on reputation from clubs above and around us? There was seemingly no consistency to the player profile being targetted or what system we wanted them to fit into. It's also easier when you have cash to spend.

Evatt deserves credit, but if you believe the PR coming out of the club transfer policy is now a wider strategy, and he's a part of that rather than solely responsible. As I said at the time I'd say Doyle and Sarc being moved out quickly is evidence of a wider vision.

There might have been other clubs in for them - I'm not saying there wasn't - I obviously don't know - but what I do know is that we signed them and for what we have allegedly paid for them.

Those fees aren't a kings ransom and could easily be afforded by many other clubs if they wanted those players - clearly they didn't desire them beyond what we offered.

I'm more than happy that we seem to have properly scouted and identified players that we believe will benefit the team rather than get good players and fit them into a role that isn't best suited to them or the team itself.

All is good at the moment, I'm not one that was screaming we are doomed as one or two on here did post Sarcevic leaving.

We were fortunate that the club had some financial room to manoeuvre to bring these players in but even if we couldn't I still believe Evatt and his backroom team would have found players to at least keep us moving forward in this division.

Hope Biggie's ITK turns out to be correct too.

Agreed, so either our scouting has been better than other clubs and identified a few 'gems' others have missed. Or they'll turn out to be shit.

Given our experience since Allardyce i think we all subconsciously expect shit.... but so far this new era has proved the opposite. Good time to be a Wanderer.