Tooling up: The summer 2024 transfer thread

[BWFC_Insane]

Same applies to Conor Carty, so we’ll see.

I wrote a whole thing and deleted it for being a bit self-indulgent, but the basic gist was that we are likely to have budget issues this season after the fan loan splurge and may therefore need to patch the squad up and make do.

Cogley was in the TotY, so Matheson as back-up may be the play. Carty as 5th striker might be too.

I don't personally think either is ready, from what I've seen; but if we are broke this time around we are broke.

Cogley starting almost every game, Matheson getting a go and Jones as cover is a functional squad. Not sure either of them (the promoted Bs) starts in any other League One team, though.

Collins, Dion, Vic, Dan and Carty (with CMG as cover) is also functional.

I think one thing that has been demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt is that as good an egg as Cogley is he is in no way up to being a regular RWB for a side with ambitions of exiting league one in a positive direction.

I like him. I think he never lets you down. But looking at the league next season if he’s our RWB that’s screaming mid table. If he was a normal RB….I think that could look different.

[Worthy4England]

One of me mates' sons landed his 1st pro, so he's pretty happy with it.

Alongside what you say Ghost, wonder if Jerome's non-contract for "upstairs gig" is tied to us not making it up a rung?

Not surprised other than that.

[GhostoftheBok]

Which is the mistake? I can’t see any argument for keeping any of the three. I really liked BOD as a player, but he’s always injured, takes an age to get going when he is fit, and then misses a lot of chances nowadays.

Clearly means Jerome.

Ian has ruined TD's favourite chant

[BWFC_Insane]

What better players to have on the bench than DBV and Jerome? Surely both had one more season in them? With Ogbeta and Mahoma in the balance, what a great way to start building a squad by removing the foundations? Badly done I.E..I'm hesitant about in/out now.

Maghoma isn’t in the balance he’s gone and said goodbye and Evatt has said we can’t sign him as a league one side.

Bod and Jerome both take significant wages and neither have significantly impacted games off the bench this season and both have the feeling that their playing days are either over or rapidly coming to an end.

[GhostoftheBok]

One of me mates' sons landed his 1st pro, so he's pretty happy with it.

Alongside what you say Ghost, wonder if Jerome's non-contract for "upstairs gig" is tied to us not making it up a rung?

Not surprised other than that.

Congrats to the kid. Huge moment for any young man.

It may well be a case of "We didn't go up" with Cam, though that might be more down to "The players have to see something different" than anything else.

Evatt may now feel he's in survival mode and his self-help books will tell him he needs to present a different structure around himself, but remain indispensable. Cam could just have been an easy victim.

Alternatively, we may just all have misunderstood the plan.

[GhostoftheBok]

I think one thing that has been demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt is that as good an egg as Cogley is he is in no way up to being a regular RWB for a side with ambitions of exiting league one in a positive direction.

I like him. I think he never lets you down. But looking at the league next season if he’s our RWB that’s screaming mid table. If he was a normal RB….I think that could look different.

Even in a tougher league I think putting "3rd to midtable" on Cogley's back is a stretch.

[BWFC_Insane]

I think one thing that has been demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt is that as good an egg as Cogley is he is in no way up to being a regular RWB for a side with ambitions of exiting league one in a positive direction.

I like him. I think he never lets you down. But looking at the league next season if he’s our RWB that’s screaming mid table. If he was a normal RB….I think that could look different.

Even in a tougher league I think putting "3rd to midtable" on Cogley's back is a stretch.

It’s not Cogley alone. But there are singular points of failure in this system and one of the most common ones, beyond Sheehan, is the wing backs.

To make this work we’d need considerably better ones. It’s also noticeable how much Cogley faded as the season went on. That will keep happening because playing wing back in the way we play is impossible across a full league campaign.

If you want to make this system work well enough to go up automatically then you need those highly specialised wing backs in and you need backups for them,

[GhostoftheBok]

It’s not Cogley alone. But there are singular points of failure in this system and one of the most common ones, beyond Sheehan, is the wing backs.

To make this work we’d need considerably better ones. It’s also noticeable how much Cogley faded as the season went on. That will keep happening because playing wing back in the way we play is impossible across a full league campaign.

If you want to make this system work well enough to go up automatically then you need those highly specialised wing backs in and you need backups for them,

Generally, I agree.

If we are forced into using Matheson as squad depth this season because we spent the rent last term then I will have serious concerns.

Carty I'm less worried about, as it's hard to justify carrying the wages of 5 strikers at any level. However, I also think he's the least likely of the two to get a go - based purely on what staff have said at various points.

Ideally we see Matheson go on loan again and make signings down both flanks.

No indication yet that we intend to offer Oggy a deal or bid for Ashworth, but the day is young.

[BWFC_Insane]

There is no good reason to play 3 at the back, bottom line is we can recruit into a 4131 far more easily it suits more of our players and even if you say the main ones it doesn’t suit are Charles and Santos…both of those might not be here……

[Worthy4England]

One of me mates' sons landed his 1st pro, so he's pretty happy with it.

Alongside what you say Ghost, wonder if Jerome's non-contract for "upstairs gig" is tied to us not making it up a rung?

Not surprised other than that.

Congrats to the kid. Huge moment for any young man.

It may well be a case of "We didn't go up" with Cam, though that might be more down to "The players have to see something different" than anything else.

Evatt may now feel he's in survival mode and his self-help books will tell him he needs to present a different structure around himself, but remain indispensable. Cam could just have been an easy victim.

Alternatively, we may just all have misunderstood the plan.

Huge moment for the chances of his old man getting a round in too! His dad's a Liverpool fan so there's plenty to go at with his son being a mighty White.

[GhostoftheBok]

There is no good reason to play 3 at the back, bottom line is we can recruit into a 4131 far more easily it suits more of our players and even if you say the main ones it doesn’t suit are Charles and Santos…both of those might not be here……

If Evatt is manager he's shown before he actually prefers a 4-3-3, so if that suits the group better he will play it.

At the moment it doesn't. If things change, fine.

I don't care about the formation. I care about how the system fits the resources we have. As it stands we play the right way for what we have.

[Worthy4England]

There is no good reason to play 3 at the back, bottom line is we can recruit into a 4131 far more easily it suits more of our players and even if you say the main ones it doesn’t suit are Charles and Santos…both of those might not be here……

If Evatt is manager he's shown before he actually prefers a 4-3-3, so if that suits the group better he will play it.

At the moment it doesn't. If things change, fine.

I don't care about the formation. I care about how the system fits the resources we have. As it stands we play the right way for what we have.

I'm in the same place on formation - not really tied - but what I would say is, if you pick one and match the players to it and it still doesn't deliver, then it becomes part of the problem. What've we had now? 4 (or is it 5?) transfer windows where we're recruited exclusively to fit this formation? Leaves me thinking either we can't get sufficient quality at a price tag we can afford or we have and the manager doesn't know what to do with it, quite enough to get us up, as which point your at the same place - you either need a manager who makes better use of what you have or you change the formation. Given one of the selling points of this project was pulling through saleable players, we should be able to accommodate either from existing resources...

[officer_dibble]

Who is saleable then? Can we cash in on Santos, Sheehan, Thomason, or Charles to plug the gaps we need in mentality? I’m with Insane at the moment, if that’s the squad for next season it’s not getting top 6, never mind top 2. Too many opposition managers have worked out how to play against us.

[Worthy4England]

Who is saleable then? Can we cash in on Santos, Sheehan, Thomason, or Charles to plug the gaps we need in mentality? I’m with Insane at the moment, if that’s the squad for next season it’s not getting top 6, never mind top 2. Too many opposition managers have worked out how to play against us.

I suspect there's a good few more than that, who have £ signs - people like Morley (who I like, but if we think he's hit is ceiling, then maybe move him on) - we didn't finish bottom third, we were nearly good enough - so you'd think you'd get some dosh for most of them...

[BWFC_Insane]

There is no good reason to play 3 at the back, bottom line is we can recruit into a 4131 far more easily it suits more of our players and even if you say the main ones it doesn’t suit are Charles and Santos…both of those might not be here……

If Evatt is manager he's shown before he actually prefers a 4-3-3, so if that suits the group better he will play it.

At the moment it doesn't. If things change, fine.

I don't care about the formation. I care about how the system fits the resources we have. As it stands we play the right way for what we have.

No. You pick a system that gives you the best chance of winning games to get you out of this league. We picked a system that suited maybe one or two key players rather than the whole. It would be fine if we had a couple of systems and shapes in us and we could switch. But the system we played last season the issues it had would need fixing in the market if we were to go up next season. You could change style to a Parky type 352 and ask less of your wingbacks and midfield but you’d still need to find someone out wide with brilliant delivery and counterbalance that on the other side with a better defender.

The system itself isn’t the issue. It’s the system combined with how Evatt wants to play. Why is our press much more ineffective than oxfords or a lot of the leagues (for a team that is all about pressing) because we don’t have the structure in this system to do an effective high press. Not without a huge risk reward factor.

[BWFC_Insane]

Who is saleable then? Can we cash in on Santos, Sheehan, Thomason, or Charles to plug the gaps we need in mentality? I’m with Insane at the moment, if that’s the squad for next season it’s not getting top 6, never mind top 2. Too many opposition managers have worked out how to play against us.

Problem is - we lost £5.6M last accounts and that will be higher I assume in the next. Do the board need to start to offset those losses? I suspect so. Sharon has said repeatedly they can’t keep pouring money in season after season and as Marc Iles said the carrot was the £10M revenue from promotion.

So with that gone and a more competitive league it would make business sense to sell a couple and use the money to reduce our losses.

This is nothing new. Allardyce lost a bunch of outstanding footballers from a side that finished 6th and missed out in the play offs. He managed though to build a side on a much lower budget to take us up the next season.

That is the job that I think awaits us. And is one of the reasons I don’t think it’s Evatt who should be doing the job.

[GhostoftheBok]

Who is saleable then? Can we cash in on Santos, Sheehan, Charles to plug the gaps we need in mentality?

Sheehan is 29 with a raft of injuries in his folder. The best business decision is to give him a new deal. If he won't sign we might look to sell him to record a profit, but the money we get won't compensate for his loss as a playing option - let alone improve the squad. Maybe some moneybags club makes a point by signing him and we get an unexpected win, but law of averages says small return.

Santos is worth some money, but not as much as people would hope with 12 months on his deal. I'd imagine he'd want out, given he didn't sign a new deal when other did (usually indicative). Best business practice would be a new deal, he's a profit if we sell him though.

Charles is money, whatever happens. In his prime, good deal and scores goals. Ideally keep him, but he's 7 figures if we don't.

Vic may be the most sensible sale, if the Turkish clubs are still interested. Again the rumour was 7 figures. I think that having built this strike force Evatt will want a chance to use it, but that's probably the best money-vs-disruption deal to do.

I won't bore anyone with a comprehensive list. There's money to be made, but it might not cover what we need to spend to replace and improve. The board will have a decision to make. The play-offs made us some money, so hopefully things like the pitch can be mostly covered by that.

If we have to sell to cover running costs/losses then it's another story.

[GhostoftheBok]

Why is our press much more ineffective than oxfords

It's not.

At the start of the season we were far and away the best pressing outfit.

Where that fell down was when we lost Dion and Vic. None of the replacements could do the work. Without one key pressing player it worked, without both it didn't.

It was personnel, not structure. Oxford without two of their front three would be exactly the same story with their counter attacking football.

If we go into next season with Dion, Vic, Collins and Dan that's 4 who can do the work (hamstrings allowing). Rather than the two we had this season due to Dan's injury and then zero for a while whilst Collins learnt it.

[Prufrock]

Yeah, if we need cash one of Dion or Vic makes the most sense. Would be the biggest money in, and whichever system you play next year with everyone fit probably only one starts.

Shame, as they'd be a cracking pair for me preferred approach, but can see that.

One other point to bang in my campaign for 433 is about resale. Part of the model has to be pick up players, improve then and sell them. More teams in the league above play 433, and wingers go for more than centre backs and wing backs. Aaand if a striker can make as a 1 they can almost certainly play in a 2, but not vice versa. As I've said I think Dion can play through the middle on his own, but I was spending 7 figures on him a league up, I'm not sure I'd take the gamble (so you'd think only teams planning on playing a 2 would be interested).

Get some wingers in. Go up, or flog them for £3m to keep the lights on. Simple game, really.

[TANGODANCER]

Who is saleable then? Can we cash in on Santos, Sheehan, Thomason, or Charles to plug the gaps we need in mentality? I’m with Insane at the moment, if that’s the squad for next season it’s not getting top 6, never mind top 2. Too many opposition managers have worked out how to play against us.

So be flexible. We need to be able to adapt on the hoof, but also stop thinking about systems and more about solving problems as they come. Too much time i spent analysing problems after they happen instead of just playing football better than the opposition. Then again, pot hunting has never been first priority with me. Twenty managers jobs are at risk and the season hasn't started yet. That's football for you..