In, Out, Shake It All About: January 2025 Transfer Window

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Valid questions, all DSB. Given that IE has stated that he's not interested in goals that come from set pieces (The most insane thing I think I've ever heard a football manager utter) then I just can't see him signing a big unit anytime soon. The very fact that our centre backs contribute virtually nothing in goal scoring terms raises huge questions for me. At 6'5 and 6'6 ish Toal and the 50pence headed Santos should be getting 6 or 7 apiece every season from corners.

I suppose the other issue and the one that has me screaming abuse from the North Lower most games, is the fact that our free kicks in the opposition half almost never go forward and never go anywhere near the box. Likewise, our corners are incredibly poor, I reckon at least 1 in 3 either fails to miss the first man, or ends up back with our centre halves or keeper. We score so few goals from second balls in and around the box, it's appalling.

Set-pieces have been a problem for most of Evatt's tenure, barring an uptick under Hird and, IIRC, Craddock - both of whom have gone. I can't recall Evatt actually saying he'd ignore the source of around a quarter of all goals, that would indeed be madness, although the bloke has said so many things we're now getting near the monkeys-and-typewriters stage.

Most teams, even the good ones, fail with set-pieces if you watch long enough – MOTD highlights are essentially clipreels, they rarely show Trent Alexander-Arnold hitting the first man, but he does. However, it's not just confirmation bias for BWFC fans to be disappointed with our disdain for getting the ball in the box. For instance:

I think we might be more in need of someone likely to score with the top half of their body.... your thoughts?

That would require us actually crossing the ball to that player.

We do have a #9 type on the books who scores from balls across the box. We just decided not to use his primary skillset. Whenever we did last season he put the ball in the net, but he spent most of his time outside the box. 2 fewer non-pen goals than Dion from 1/3 as many shots last season...any other manager gives him the freedom of the 18-yard-box and sends the ball at him as much as possible.

Still has the same strike rate this season in terms of shots and XG, just not getting any service of any kind.

If we sell Vic and replace him with a "proper #9" then we have got to give that new bloke the ball in the feckin' box.

You can love Vic or hate him, but any new centre forward has to be fed.

All fair points. A target man isn't *just* for heading the ball in the goal - although it's useful - but yeah, Vic needs to meet crosses between the posts, with head or foot, like Bakayoko did. The fact Evatt's sides made both those players work *for a while* suggests babies have defenestrated with the bathwater.

[GhostoftheBok]

Evatt's evolution is currently looking dangerously like it's nearing a dead end.

Since he said "We need to sign my kinds of players for my football" (paraphrasing) we've gone down hill.

He's stopped trying to make the available players work and just tried to force them to play purely system football.

No set of 11 (or 25) players is every going to be precisely right for any system.

He has 4 strikers on the books who should score between 10 and 20 goals every single campaign at this level in even a fairly average side. In a good side one should get closer to 30. He's managed to make them look like dross - Collin's ability to spark one in from 25 years notwithstanding.

The Evatt who got 10 goals out of Bakayoko, in just 1400 minutes of football, is nowhere to be seen.

[GhostoftheBok]

Vic needs to meet crosses between the posts, with head or foot, like Bakayoko did. The fact Evatt's sides made both those players work *for a while* suggests babies have defenestrated with the bathwater.

I think we've had a meeting of minds there. Snap.

[Prufrock]

On set pieces, we've clearly been working on them from an attacking point of view. In the past few games there have been a few clearly planned efforts. Rico's header off the bar came from a set up that looked very much like someone had been taking notes on Arsenal from MotD.

All positive steps, though we've been here before with false dawns which have faded away.

The two things that wind me up:

1) short set pieces, without a plan. We took one on sat that was clearly planned trying to get someone in down the side. Didn't come off, but I have no issue with that. But we constantly send the big lads forward, and then just go short for the sake of it as if we're just going to work out how to deliver. They are the ones that break down and we get countered, or end up with us back at Baxter while the big lads trundle back. You take it short and quickly. Or you get set and send the big lads forward and give them something to attack. That can come indirectly, but only if there's a concrete plan. Otherwise it's just thick.

2) similarly, defensive set pieces. We're horrible at them. And keep conceding the same goal. Stop letting teams pull us into the box and then cut it back to a free man!

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

[Mar]

On set pieces, we've clearly been working on them from an attacking point of view. In the past few games there have been a few clearly planned efforts. Rico's header off the bar came from a set up that looked very much like someone had been taking notes on Arsenal from MotD.

All positive steps, though we've been here before with false dawns which have faded away.

The two things that wind me up:

1) short set pieces, without a plan. We took one on sat that was clearly planned trying to get someone in down the side. Didn't come off, but I have no issue with that. But we constantly send the big lads forward, and then just go short for the sake of it as if we're just going to work out how to deliver. They are the ones that break down and we get countered, or end up with us back at Baxter while the big lads trundle back. You take it short and quickly. Or you get set and send the big lads forward and give them something to attack. That can come indirectly, but only if there's a concrete plan. Otherwise it's just thick.

2) similarly, defensive set pieces. We're horrible at them. And keep conceding the same goal. Stop letting teams pull us into the box and then cut it back to a free man!

Makes sense.

I'd also like to add to the list being quicker to react to issues within the side. It's no shock that we've conceded the same goal over and over and yet are still seeing the problem persist. We spotted that teams pulling us into the box and free man on the edge being a problem months ago and yet the same issue is there. Hopefully they can find the issue and get it resolved so it doesn't happen next week.

As for the attacking set pieces. All for them mixing it up and keeping the opposition on their toes. In full agreement with them being up there with a purpose rather than just up there for the sake of it.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Ilesy responding very differently to two other rumours:
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Screenshot 2025-01-08 at 16.50.03.png (202.86 KiB) Viewed 918 times

[Harry Genshaw]

the unlikeliest English top-flight title in many generations (how long since the last shock that big? Ipswich in 1962?).

I'm going Forest in 1978. Promoted the year before, by the skin of their teeth and in place of a valiant, more deserving side who finished 4th , then league champions the following year.

[sonicthewhite]

This Jellis thing is gaining momentum. Seen by a lot of people as the most talented midfield all-rounder in League Two.

Would further complicate the midfield overload issues, but a very good player.

When you say "all-rounder", do you mean equal parts Faye and Okocha?

Now that would be some player DSB. Almost the perfect midfielder Hopefully Randall can hit the ground running like the messiah he's being touted to be.

Happy New Year guys. Apologies for not being around these last few weeks but the end of 2024 has been utterly dogsh1t in our house and it's looking like 2025 is already going to follow suit. I've only been half-heartedly keeping tabs on things on here but it seems the general consensus is that we've been a bit crap. Does anyone think that this window is IE's last chance saloon scenario?

[TonyDomingos]

This Jellis thing is gaining momentum. Seen by a lot of people as the most talented midfield all-rounder in League Two.

Would further complicate the midfield overload issues, but a very good player.

When you say "all-rounder", do you mean equal parts Faye and Okocha?

Now that would be some player DSB. Almost the perfect midfielder Hopefully Randall can hit the ground running like the messiah he's being touted to be.

Happy New Year guys. Apologies for not being around these last few weeks but the end of 2024 has been utterly dogsh1t in our house and it's looking like 2025 is already going to follow suit. I've only been half-heartedly keeping tabs on things on here but it seems the general consensus is that we've been a bit crap. Does anyone think that this window is IE's last chance saloon scenario?

Sorry to hear that, Sonic. Unfortunately, coming on here is unlikely to provide a silver lining.

PS Randall isn't the Messiah; he's just a very naughty boy.

[sonicthewhite]

This Jellis thing is gaining momentum. Seen by a lot of people as the most talented midfield all-rounder in League Two.

Would further complicate the midfield overload issues, but a very good player.

When you say "all-rounder", do you mean equal parts Faye and Okocha?

Now that would be some player DSB. Almost the perfect midfielder Hopefully Randall can hit the ground running like the messiah he's being touted to be.

Happy New Year guys. Apologies for not being around these last few weeks but the end of 2024 has been utterly dogsh1t in our house and it's looking like 2025 is already going to follow suit. I've only been half-heartedly keeping tabs on things on here but it seems the general consensus is that we've been a bit crap. Does anyone think that this window is IE's last chance saloon scenario?

Sorry to hear that, Sonic. Unfortunately, coming on here is unlikely to provide a silver lining.

PS Randall isn't the Messiah; he's just a very naughty boy.

Cheers mate. Didn't expect a silver lining, just a bit of a distraction and a laugh or two

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

the unlikeliest English top-flight title in many generations (how long since the last shock that big? Ipswich in 1962?).

I'm going Forest in 1978. Promoted the year before, by the skin of their teeth and in place of a valiant, more deserving side who finished 4th , then league champions the following year.

Forest is a fair shout. Still a couple of generatiopns, like!

[irie Cee Bee]

Vic needs to meet crosses between the posts, with head or foot, like Bakayoko did. The fact Evatt's sides made both those players work *for a while* suggests babies have defenestrated with the bathwater.

I think we've had a meeting of minds there. Snap.

Our wing-backs hardly ever cross the ball in the air. I don't know if that's because we have no forward currently who is willing to contest for a header, our it's just Evatts method, but I have noticed that for a long time now. Crosses are hit low into the box, invariably hitting the first defender, or played to the edge of the 18 yrd to a running midfielder. Johnston, Toal and Forrester are our only threats on corners. I wish we had a #9 who could head so that we are less predictable in attack. I often wonder how Kevin Davies would have survived in an Evatt side playing like this.

[Worthy4England]

If someone had said this "project" was just about rolling lots of dice and hoping we get something that fits at one visit to the table, I might be ok with it. But this project wasn't that at all. When we were asked for patience, the dice rolling was the very antithesis of our current infallible plan. This is now approaching fcuked up gambling. It might pay off, who knows, but if anyone can explain to me why we bothered developing a 20 a goal a season striker (first we had since? Dunno? Ricketts?) and added a back-up that actually whilst we might point to faults still hit double figures only to not play 'em this year (injuries aside)? To then recruit and actually break it and go (quite a long way) backwards?

All football teams are in an almost constant state of flux; even the successful ones need new faces. Hugely achieving managers like Ferguson and Paisley used to recruit every summer almost as a point of principle, to stop momentum becoming inertia: Look how City have flolloped this year, hot on the heels of the one-trick-pony "bald fraud" conquering Europe with a huge striker and four centre-backs.

The key bit is in bold, though. A manager who changes a winning team and wins again is a rotating genius, keeping his troops fresh to conquer new arenas. A manager who changes a winning team and loses is a tinkerman – a phrase that will still follow Claudio Ranieri to his grave despite him leading the unlikeliest English top-flight title in many generations (how long since the last shock that big? Ipswich in 1962?). Fergie changed his XI every single game for something like five seasons, but it didn't matter if they kept winning.

Now multiply that from the single-game focus to the seasonal overview, and that's where we're at. Change in itself is not a bad thing; adaptation is how species survive. Evatt's evolution is currently looking dangerously like it's nearing a dead end.

Change/flux (or whatever) I'm fine with there will always be churn as happens on most organisations. More the degree of change and the brokenness of it that's at issue - for something where the narrative all summer was "it was a near miss - just a little extra...

[GhostoftheBok]

It's certainly not a near miss this season.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Cranking up toward an announcement.
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[Dave Sutton's barnet]

And there he is.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

https://www.bwfc.co.uk/news/whites-seal-randall-deal
"substantial undisclosed fee", 3.5yr deal - that makes him contracted for a year longer than anyone else in the squad (so far). Evatt:

"We worked very hard to try and get him here in the summer. It ended up being unachievable, but things change quickly in football and once we knew we had the potential to make it happen we wanted to work quickly to try and secure his services.

“It's a big signing for us, short and long term. He's a top player who can play in a number of different positions which is important for us.

“We feel the role Paris (Maghoma) played for us in particular last season, being able to receive the ball in tight spaces, dribble, break down low blocks and create, is Joel’s game, so he’s going to add a lot to us.

“The Board has always tried to help us move the team forward and improve the team. This is a player I've admired for a long time, so it was great that they have supported me to make this happen.”

[GhostoftheBok]

From what's leaking out we've had by far the better of the financial side of it, as far as Posh are concerned. It'll take us going up for them to break even on him.

Let's hope he settles in quickly.

[jmjhb]

What is leaking out?