Summer 2021 Transfer Thread.

[BWFC_Insane]

Yes exactly I suppose that’s where the ‘sales pitch’ that Evatt and Markham have spoken about before comes in.

“Look Mr academy/loan manager, we can’t pay 100% of the kid’s salary or even 50%, but what can do is develop your player in a system where they’ll see plenty of the ball, be structured out of possession, learn how to press and when” etc , etc

It’s not impossible though, even teams with the smallest budgets have some Champ and Prem loanees: Daniel Jebbison (scored on his Prem debut back in May for Sheff Utd) and Harry Chapman (Blackburn) at Burton, and Harry Trafford (Man City) and Joel Mumbongo (Burnley) at Acrrington to name a few.

Certainly not impossible and, as I say, I remain hopeful.

I do wonder how much the sales pitch will be hit by poor form. If you say "we can offer development and great football" do they say "Okay, but you're getting battered every week"?

Not to be overly simplistic, but winning matches just makes everything easier in football. We need to find some form if we're to go to promising young players with a straight face and tell them we can make turn them into class players.

We did alright attracting players last January when we were in pretty poor form. If we can keep bobbing along in mid table I think the style of football, location and size of the club should mean we're an attractive enough proposition for promising youngsters.

Looking forward to Brommers' scouting reports!

The quality of player needed to improve us last season was far far lower than it is now.

Partly because we're not the mess then but also because the top 10 in this league are significantly stronger relative to ourselves than the top 10 were last season.

If the ambition is to steer clear of trouble then I think January will be a good window. If its to get into the top 8 then I think we'll need 5 or 6 players better than we have mainly with significant experience of football at this level, not untested kids. I frankly don't see it happening.

[The_Gun]

Bar Wycombe, every side presently in the top 8 has young players on loan from clubs higher up the pyramid. We're not going to sign many players with significant experience of this level unless they're crocked or have character issues.

Also you may recall that Dapo was an 'untested kid' and he's now our best player and one of the best in the division.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Last January's acquisitions, plus a change in formation, saved the season. Who were they? Kieran Lee, Declan John, Zach Elbouzedi, Ben Jackson, Dapo, Lukas Jensen, Marcus Maddison, MJ Williams. Of those, only Jackson was underage by FL rules, and only Dapo direct from a "big" club. That said, we're a division higher now, with a happy tale to tell, so maybe.

Jackson, by the way, hasn't played a minute all season and has only made the bench once (on opening day). Surely a candidate for loan-to-buy.

And there'll hopefully be more like MJ, drifting toward the exit, who we can pick up. Unlikely IMO to find someone as good as Lee (especially for the division) totally unemployed, but we'll see.

(BTW It's a we'll-never-know but the formation change came after newbie John got injured and loanee Kioso was recalled, robbing Evatt of his best wingbacks. Interesting to wonder what might have happened if not...)

[BWFC_Insane]

Bar Wycombe, every side presently in the top 8 has young players on loan from clubs higher up the pyramid. We're not going to sign many players with significant experience of this level unless they're crocked or have character issues.

Also you may recall that Dapo was an 'untested kid' and he's now our best player and one of the best in the division.

And Dapo last season scored 1 goal. He'd also played a relatively large amount of first team football having been out on loan before and was older.

What we lack is physicality and experience - that's our weakness - through he spine of the team. And that isn't likely to be fixed with kids. And whilst Dapo an older loan from the premiership worked out - I think there are only a few of those. We're not short of 'ability' we're short of power, pace and physicality coupled with experience.

January has to be part of the longer term picture adding players who will help us build for next season. Loans with a view are part of that. But I think taking an insanely talented 19 year old we're never keeping to spend 6 months getting them physically up to speed for me is a no. We're not at the point where a cherry on the icing will tip us over the edge short term. We need to build.

[BWFC_Insane]

Last January's acquisitions, plus a change in formation, saved the season. Who were they? Kieran Lee, Declan John, Zach Elbouzedi, Ben Jackson, Dapo, Lukas Jensen, Marcus Maddison, MJ Williams. Of those, only Jackson was underage by FL rules, and only Dapo direct from a "big" club. That said, we're a division higher now, with a happy tale to tell, so maybe.

Jackson, by the way, hasn't played a minute all season and has only made the bench once (on opening day). Surely a candidate for loan-to-buy.

And there'll hopefully be more like MJ, drifting toward the exit, who we can pick up. Unlikely IMO to find someone as good as Lee (especially for the division) totally unemployed, but we'll see.

(BTW It's a we'll-never-know but the formation change came after newbie John got injured and loanee Kioso was recalled, robbing Evatt of his best wingbacks. Interesting to wonder what might have happened if not...)

Yep Jackson makes sense though our full back quality would be a bit unbalanced unless one of them can play right back?

[Worthy4England]

Bar Wycombe, every side presently in the top 8 has young players on loan from clubs higher up the pyramid. We're not going to sign many players with significant experience of this level unless they're crocked or have character issues.

Also you may recall that Dapo was an 'untested kid' and he's now our best player and one of the best in the division.

And Dapo last season scored 1 goal. He'd also played a relatively large amount of first team football having been out on loan before and was older.

What we lack is physicality and experience - that's our weakness - through he spine of the team. And that isn't likely to be fixed with kids. And whilst Dapo an older loan from the premiership worked out - I think there are only a few of those. We're not short of 'ability' we're short of power, pace and physicality coupled with experience.

January has to be part of the longer term picture adding players who will help us build for next season. Loans with a view are part of that. But I think taking an insanely talented 19 year old we're never keeping to spend 6 months getting them physically up to speed for me is a no. We're not at the point where a cherry on the icing will tip us over the edge short term. We need to build.

Hmmmmm....I thought part of our "strategy" was to find diamonds in the rough that could then be moved on for cash. If so then we'd probably need to do a bit of both?

[BWFC_Insane]

Bar Wycombe, every side presently in the top 8 has young players on loan from clubs higher up the pyramid. We're not going to sign many players with significant experience of this level unless they're crocked or have character issues.

Also you may recall that Dapo was an 'untested kid' and he's now our best player and one of the best in the division.

And Dapo last season scored 1 goal. He'd also played a relatively large amount of first team football having been out on loan before and was older.

What we lack is physicality and experience - that's our weakness - through he spine of the team. And that isn't likely to be fixed with kids. And whilst Dapo an older loan from the premiership worked out - I think there are only a few of those. We're not short of 'ability' we're short of power, pace and physicality coupled with experience.

January has to be part of the longer term picture adding players who will help us build for next season. Loans with a view are part of that. But I think taking an insanely talented 19 year old we're never keeping to spend 6 months getting them physically up to speed for me is a no. We're not at the point where a cherry on the icing will tip us over the edge short term. We need to build.

Hmmmmm....I thought part of our "strategy" was to find diamonds in the rough that could then be moved on for cash. If so then we'd probably need to do a bit of both?

Yeah but I'm talking a short term premiership loan we're not keeping. That sort of thing makes sense if you are a few points off a genuine promotion challenge and one or two pieces of extra quality in your squad can get you over the line. But we're more fundamentally needing to up the squad generally. Some of that will absolutely be loans but I'd hope mainly loans that COULD be converted into deals next season so that we're building on something. January is (hopefully) not a position where we need to panic to stay up and probably unlikely to be a 'find a striker and we go up' scenario either.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Specifically on Jackson: IMO we need two good full-backs on each side - we've seen this season and last what happens when the first choice is injured. Easy to imagine Jacko returning on loan then switching permanently on a free in summer. Who we get at right-back to shadow/supersede Gethin is a whole other question, but one that also needs answering. We're not in either/or territory, and we'd be daft to ignore an upgrade even if it's not Problem No.1 - especially given it might be escalated at any time by Declan's chocolate hamstrings. Would anyone be happy with Liam Gordon at LB from Feb 1 to May?

Wider: I've said before and will say again, two of last season's L1 play-off contenders benefited from 10-goal loanees borrowed off Champo clubs. Those goals probably made the difference between qualifying and not qualifying for the play-offs.

Also worth noting that while Little Johnny Brilliant might not sign with us this summer - if he's that good, they'll loan him to a Champo club next term to continue his development – a good loan spell here would help convince him to return in a couple of years when the brutal reality of football's tight talent funnel squeezes him out. Not everybody we borrow will be a Sturridge or Wilshere - many end up down a division or two.

Longer-term: While we would be daft to turn down, say, Anthony Elanga even if we can't buy him, we can certainly borrow players with a view to signing them. Last season it was Dapo, this season it might be Jacko, for instance. Those players are not likely to be the absolute finest jewels of Big Six academies, but if they're promising young players who can improve us short-term and possibly become an asset long-term - Dapo again - then we'd be utter fools not to try it.

[GhostoftheBok]

Any League One manager who turns down signing an "insanely talented" Premier League youngster on loan wants taking out back and shooting. Loaning in real talent for the short term is a long term strategy, because developing players encourages other young players to look at you as an option and makes it more likely big clubs will loan you more in the future. Young players are pretty savvy these days and they will look at the development of players at the clubs making them offers - they also get more of a say in their loan moves than used to be the case. Just as Dapo's development will help us attract lads in similar positions, progressing an academy player for their club will be noticed by other potential loanees and their reps.

We absolutely need to look at players we can flip for money and we also need to look at long term squad signings; but the obvious aim of the manager is to challenge for promotion from the Championship in fairly short order. That's going to involve a huge amount of upheaval in the squad over a limited number of seasons. We are not going to put together 20-odd players who can get us out of the Championship - not on a shoestring in League One when we still have plenty of League Two players on the books.

Any long term strategy will have to include plenty of short-termism along the way. Any player who does really well with us will probably end up sold, the best loanees will go back to their clubs or up the pyramid, our trusted veterans will retire or age out. At this level you take any quality you can get, whenever you can get it.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

File under "idle thoughts" and "blast from the past"

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Got a bit bored. Had a look at Blackpool, to see who they might define as not good enough for them since promotion. Found some names. No idea if they're any good.

CJ Hamilton – 26 years old, 6ft 1in, prefers left wing but can play right or up top – hadn’t played above L2 before Neil Critchley took him to Blackpool on a three-year contract in July 2020. Played 22 times in their promotion season, scoring 5. Hasn’t been in a Champo matchday squad since August (when he was twice subbed on, twice subbed off).

Bez Lubala - right-footed left winger (can also play on the right). Scored 12 in 34 League Two games for Crawley in 2019/20; moved up a league to Blackpool in summer 2020 (three-year contract), played 12 third-tier games until Feb 6th, but hasn’t played since due to a “club matter”. Unregistered but still around - played a non-competitive game for them in October.

Last January Blackpool loaned Everton striker Eliis Simms, who then scored 8 in 21. Oldham-born, 6ft 1in, he’s 20 (underage) and hasn’t gone anywhere this season - unused sub in four first-team Everton games, after being injured all summer. Blackpool’s chief exec hasn’t ruled out going back in for him in January, and the lad’s out of contract in summer.

Striker Joe Nuttall is out of contract in summer. Bury-born six-footer, 24, was on City’s books, moved to Aberdeen for two years then back down to Blackburn at age 20, Blackpool at 22. Not exactly goal-strewn (15 in 87).

Teddy Howe. Right back, sadly not the son of Eddie Howe. One of Blackpool’s last signings before Critchley arrived, he hasn’t played a minute under the newish gaffer. Contracted for another 18 months but last January Critchley said he could leave.

Matty Virtue - defensive midfielder, 24, who came up through Liverpool’s ranks the year below MJ Williams. Did his cruciate at the end of last season but could be back in January. Blackpool have extended his contract but might want to loan him out.

Kevin Stewart - yet another defensive midfielder who used to play for Liverpool, where Jurgen Klopp called him the best tackler at the club. Now 28, he’s had minor injury niggles (foot, etc) this season so again they might want to loan him. Contracted until 2023.

[GhostoftheBok]

Getting Ellis Simms in would be superb business.

I was interested to see us linked to Hartigan down at the Wombles again this week.

There are a lot of players available who could potentially improve us, but even more dross.

At the minute we don't create enough, don't finish well enough, don't have an out ball and can't defend. Take your pick as to what gets priority and how best to fix these issues. There aren't many players who are untouchable.

[Bruce Rioja]

Got a bit bored. Had a look at Blackpool, to see who they might define as not good enough for them since promotion. Found some names. No idea if they're any good.

CJ Hamilton – 26 years old, 6ft 1in, prefers left wing but can play right or up top – hadn’t played above L2 before Neil Critchley took him to Blackpool on a three-year contract in July 2020. Played 22 times in their promotion season, scoring 5. Hasn’t been in a Champo matchday squad since August (when he was twice subbed on, twice subbed off).

Bez Lubala - right-footed left winger (can also play on the right). Scored 12 in 34 League Two games for Crawley in 2019/20; moved up a league to Blackpool in summer 2020 (three-year contract), played 12 third-tier games until Feb 6th, but hasn’t played since due to a “club matter”. Unregistered but still around - played a non-competitive game for them in October.

Last January Blackpool loaned Everton striker Eliis Simms, who then scored 8 in 21. Oldham-born, 6ft 1in, he’s 20 (underage) and hasn’t gone anywhere this season - unused sub in four first-team Everton games, after being injured all summer. Blackpool’s chief exec hasn’t ruled out going back in for him in January, and the lad’s out of contract in summer.

Striker Joe Nuttall is out of contract in summer. Bury-born six-footer, 24, was on City’s books, moved to Aberdeen for two years then back down to Blackburn at age 20, Blackpool at 22. Not exactly goal-strewn (15 in 87).

Teddy Howe. Right back, sadly not the son of Eddie Howe. One of Blackpool’s last signings before Critchley arrived, he hasn’t played a minute under the newish gaffer. Contracted for another 18 months but last January Critchley said he could leave.

Matty Virtue - defensive midfielder, 24, who came up through Liverpool’s ranks the year below MJ Williams. Did his cruciate at the end of last season but could be back in January. Blackpool have extended his contract but might want to loan him out.

Kevin Stewart - yet another defensive midfielder who used to play for Liverpool, where Jurgen Klopp called him the best tackler at the club. Now 28, he’s had minor injury niggles (foot, etc) this season so again they might want to loan him. Contracted until 2023.

Reet.

[Bertie Wooster]

Getting Ellis Simms in would be superb business.

I was interested to see us linked to Hartigan down at the Wombles again this week.

There are a lot of players available who could potentially improve us, but even more dross.

At the minute we don't create enough, don't finish well enough, don't have an out ball and can't defend. Take your pick as to what gets priority and how best to fix these issues. There aren't many players who are untouchable.

If that's the case (which I agree with) is there anything that are we good at ?

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Done a bit more digging on potentially available players who’ve played regularly in recently-promoted sides.

Josh Emmanuel, formerly of this parish, was Hull’s right-back for the first half of last season (when they won the title) but lost his place to Lewie Coyle; this season he’s only played one league game since August, and that was at right midfield. He’s been in every matchday squad, but if they strengthen that position the 24-year-old would presumably be available - his contract ends in summer, though Hull have a year’s option.

Regan Slater, a central midfielder borrowed from Sheffield United, made 27 appearances for Hull last season. They almost signed him on a permanent deal in summer but it collapsed on deadline day - Blades saying Hull (who were under a semi-embargo after an EFL loan) shifted the financial goalposts, Hull saying Blades concentrated on incomings. They may be back in for the 22-year-old, and they may not be alone.

Peterborough’s Idris Kanu, a right-winger who can also play left or up top, made 17 league appearances as Posh went up last season, but this term has only appeared three times, all off the bench. He’s still only 21 but contracted till 2023.

The season before, Coventry were champions, and six-footer Jordan Shipley - a versatile left-footed midfielder who can play at 8, 10 or 11 – tended to play attacking midfield, with 5 goals and 5 assists from 31 games. Slipped to the bench for the second half of last season and hasn’t played a league minute this season (unused sub 8 times). Pompey were strongly linked at the last deadline and his contract’s up in summer.

(The other two teams to go up two years ago, Rotherham and Wycombe, came back down, and given their careful financial model I assume they kept hold of most players - but I won’t rule out getting bored enough to check.)

[boltonboris]

Josh Emannuel looks like he'd be a good fit for us.. Aggressive runner, gets forward quickly form full back. Could add a bit of physicality too, from what I recall.

[officer_dibble]

Aye Josh Emanuel back feels about the right kind of level of signing.

[GhostoftheBok]

If that's the case (which I agree with) is there anything that are we good at ?

We are only 5-10% off, but it's in multiple areas so it adds up to big issues. When we have a good day we look pretty good, but when we are not on it we lack the right kinds of players to drag us through and we look dire.

When we are poor our squad looks like a group built under an embargo, rather than a load of lads who improve each other. Even so we are only a 2-3 players away from a really decent side.

I have rewritten this a few times as I ended up going on with myself as to the little details, but ultimately that doesn't matter in this thread. We are currently bad in too many areas, but we are not so bad in any area that it's beyond fixing.

[GhostoftheBok]

Josh Emannuel looks like he'd be a good fit for us.. Aggressive runner, gets forward quickly form full back. Could add a bit of physicality too, from what I recall.

Aye. I liked the look of Emmanuel last time and he'd add a new option at right back. League One Micah Richards, which is no bad thing.

[BWFC_Insane]

If that's the case (which I agree with) is there anything that are we good at ?

We are only 5-10% off, but it's in multiple areas so it adds up to big issues. When we have a good day we look pretty good, but when we are not on it we lack the right kinds of players to drag us through and we look dire.

When we are poor our squad looks like a group built under an embargo, rather than a load of lads who improve each other. Even so we are only a 2-3 players away from a really decent side.

I have rewritten this a few times as I ended up going on with myself as to the little details, but ultimately that doesn't matter in this thread. We are currently bad in too many areas, but we are not so bad in any area that it's beyond fixing.

Yep this is it. We need to either find a way of playing that is less technically and physically demanding and also suits our players or add extra quality and physicality to the team. The former seems unlikely so it needs to be the latter. Wigan for me was the eye opener in that we went into it thinking we could surf on their coattails this season yet my view is that none of our players would get into their side. That’s the gap. People say this is now premiership 3 and I believe it. There are 6 or so teams who are genuine contenders with squads significantly better than half the division. We are not one of those 6.