Viking Supporters Co-operative
Viking Chat => Viking Chat => Topic started by: rtid88 on April 13, 2025, 02:13:24 am
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After so many good loan signings last season. Who ultimately made decisions this year as to who we signed as for me none of our signings this year have added anything.
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Street has, take away his contribution and we'd definitely now be looking at playoffs. Signed to replace Yeboah who himself was brought in on June 11th, presumably because he was such an outstanding talent, but now hardly getting off the subs bench at Dunfermline.
Sbarra is what he is, a good non league player
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It is hard to make a case for any of the decisions since last summer. The new deals for Close and Westbrooke look truly astounding decisions. TSL pretty good. Rest of loanees all very hit and miss. Sbarra has struggled to adapt to league football again. Billy has been a squad addition and not a revelation.
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Gibson, Street and TSL. The rest have been pretty average signings
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Gibson is a good player but a different one to Adelakun, which has upset the balance a bit in attack.
I think we’ll go up this season, but the 24/25 signings and upcoming retained list are going to put us in trouble for League One next season I fear.
If promotion was expected there should have been better long term planning.
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I also don't think the manager has used them correctly I'm sure if Crew played for someone who plays football he would definitely add something.
Our midfield has been shite all season and has just got away with the fact we are in a poor league 2. Broadbent, Clifton and Sbarra will all be embarrassed week in week out if we get promoted yet this season they are the ones getting picked week in week out. I'm baffled how Westbrooke, Crew and Kelly haven't got more time because the ones we have played instead of them are shite.
As for the permanent signings Grant made this season I wouldn't mind if everyone of them weren't here next season.
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Gibson has been very unproductive this season and therefore can’t be considered to have been a good signing, I am sure majority of supporters will have been expecting more from him.
I have been saying for quite some time, is body language is shocking and just strolls around when he’s off the ball, and offers very little urgency when he loses the ball.
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There’s been some absolute stinkers of decisions - Close and Westbrooke as mentioned, plus Yeboah and Ennis who are down there with our worst ever loanees.
We seem to have gone for quantity over quality, Kelly and Crew both shown glimpses but raw kids who were always more likely to struggle than success. Add the useless Ennis and Yeboah and that’s four loans pretty much wasted. One or two more senior players would have worked much better.
Far too scattergun in recruitment, and we really haven’t ever addressed the main weakness which is in the middle of the park every week. Whatever league we’re in next year we need a huge shake up.
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McCann.
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McCann.
/Head of Recruitment and his team?
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This is sounding like the love affair with some fans for Mcann is coming to an end ! I for one was absolutely chuffed when he came back, however the football from his team this season hasn’t been enjoyable, if we do make it up this season, then do we trust him and his team to deliver a squad capable of competing? And before I’m told to get a grip I’m a season ticket holder and watch what’s been delivered on the pitch.
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One thing to be considered when watching these players in u21s football is a decline in the overall standard of players at that level.
We have now got to the stage with the academy system where most players coaches and systems and styles of coaching are all the same, and robotic, do the same tricks, line up the same way, pass the ball backwards and sideways, and unfortunately the ones who don't fit and show different straights and probably a little individualism are discarded into non league or in many cases pack in at 17 to twenty years old.
Kelly and Crew are fine examples play for clubs hundreds of miles apart and virtually the same player, technically very good, but playing at a pace and physicality they have not come across before, and are not allowed to dominate the ball.
A couple of weeks ago I watched Derby County u21s v Buxton Buxton having just as young a side as Derby Buxton a mix of players discarded by league club u21s sides and never got near the first teams at their clubs, and loans such as Burton from Hartlepool, Faulkner from us, and Mann from Stockport all having played non league loans before and obviously Buxtons own players playing in league games in the National North a good standard.
Not one Derby player would have got in Buxton's team who were stronger faster and technically in front of them, Faulkner, Burton , and Mann miles in front of them like taking candy off a baby, and they were the same age as the Derby side.
Now to me Kelly and Crew are at the stage of the Derby lads, and in Faulkner and Flint we have two of our own who have flourished in the national North League which is where Crew and Kelly should be playing and probably Ennis, substitute us for Buxton and Darlington and we are their finishing school and its too much for them and we have not been any better a loan for them as they are for us.
Burton and Mann with Faulkner are quite a formidable back line of good young players attracting a lot of interest from other clubs because of their youth, McGraths dad certainly has an eye for young players, and you can see him looking for pay days for Buxton moving them on building a side of all young players very few older than their early tweties.
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Kelly and Crew are completely different midfielders.
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McCann said in an interview early last season that he has the final say on transfers as it’s him who will be judged if they fail.
Well he needs to accept that most have been poor this season.
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Not securing Adelakun , for whatever reason, has hurt us this season. He was the regular goal scorer we have missed .
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Not securing Adelakun , for whatever reason, has hurt us this season. He was the regular goal scorer we have missed .
Not signing Adelakun had nothing to do with the player. It was all down to his agent.
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Not the clubs fault with adelekun, we offered him a contract he listened to poor advice and ended up with no club when the season started.
Hope he sacked his agent
McCann has made some very good signings and some poor ones, the same as any club in the country
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DO, I rope them in with Marsh from last season good players at u21s level good when on the ball and not dominant when not on the ball or strong enough.
Decent ball control but easily knocked off the ball every coach is looking for the same thing teams like us need them when they have had experience of men's football not the nursery., the difference in Broadbent after playing regular is there for all to see with games under his belt.
Different positions but Flint and Faulkner are in front of them development wise, they have made a difference in the games I have watched them and dominated their man in the opposition.
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Not the clubs fault with adelekun, we offered him a contract he listened to poor advice and ended up with no club when the season started.
Hope he sacked his agent
McCann has made some very good signings and some poor ones, the same as any club in the country
He got offered fortunes abroad that didn’t materialise.
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Not the clubs fault with adelekun, we offered him a contract he listened to poor advice and ended up with no club when the season started.
Hope he sacked his agent
McCann has made some very good signings and some poor ones, the same as any club in the country
Isn’t his brother his agent
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I struggle to criticise the recruitment that much. Was happy with a lot of the signings as individuals based on what they were doing for other clubs. And you’d think if it’s manager led recruitment he’d have an idea how he wants it to fit together. Potentially a case of our owners giving him exactly what he asked for and not challenging him.
I have 2 areas I’d take issue with
The loanees have been mostly a waste of space and personally think we need to forget loanees unless they’ve played a reasonable number of men’s games. The players top clubs will send to L2 aren’t their best prospects. It’s the dregs. And yes I know there’s examples of good ones but not enough imo.
Contract renewals, and this all depends on how much we are paying obviously but, we’ve had a shocker here. Close was a terrible decision we all saw it at the time. Wood is a 40yr old man. Yes finished last season well but it’s a very risky move and watching him play he’s a liability now imo.
Westbrooke I was ok with extending and actually think he’d do a job for us still. But it was like GM got him extended and then wiped his hands of him. Unless Westbrooke has done something out of order it’s just wasteful.
I hope the owners do needle GM about this type of thing it’s wasteful. When he comes asking for a new midfielder I’d be saying what happened to the 2 I’m paying 3k a week for (combined) that you asked me to extend? Or the winger whose contract we extended and you sent on loan to be replaced by someone far worse on loan who now gets no game time. There has to be accountability on the daft decisions.
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Not the clubs fault with adelekun, we offered him a contract he listened to poor advice and ended up with no club when the season started.
Hope he sacked his agent
McCann has made some very good signings and some poor ones, the same as any club in the country
Isn’t his brother his agent
Del boy ?
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DO, I rope them in with Marsh from last season good players at u21s level good when on the ball and not dominant when not on the ball or strong enough.
Decent ball control but easily knocked off the ball every coach is looking for the same thing teams like us need them when they have had experience of men's football not the nursery., the difference in Broadbent after playing regular is there for all to see with games under his belt.
Different positions but Flint and Faulkner are in front of them development wise, they have made a difference in the games I have watched them and dominated their man in the opposition.
Quite a few on here were wanting us to sign Louie Marsh, but he hasn’t pulled any trees up at Fleetwood since signing in Jan.
And you’re right about Crew. He’s struggled to get a game because he’s too lightweight and not brave enough. Look at the Chesterfield 1st goal here. Not exactly busting a gut to get back for their 3rd either?
https://youtu.be/NLgNltJNMLc?si=i8rL3qr_LSouo-WX
Like you say, academy football doesn’t prepare them for the physical side of the game anymore.
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DO, I rope them in with Marsh from last season good players at u21s level good when on the ball and not dominant when not on the ball or strong enough.
Decent ball control but easily knocked off the ball every coach is looking for the same thing teams like us need them when they have had experience of men's football not the nursery., the difference in Broadbent after playing regular is there for all to see with games under his belt.
Different positions but Flint and Faulkner are in front of them development wise, they have made a difference in the games I have watched them and dominated their man in the opposition.
Quite a few on here were wanting us to sign Louie Marsh, but he hasn’t pulled any trees up at Fleetwood since signing in Jan.
And you’re right about Crew. He’s struggled to get a game because he’s too lightweight and not brave enough. Look at the Chesterfield 1st goal here. Not exactly busting a gut to get back for their 3rd either?
https://youtu.be/NLgNltJNMLc?si=i8rL3qr_LSouo-WX
Like you say, academy football doesn’t prepare them for the physical side of the game anymore.
Loads of academy players move straight into Prem teams and look fantastic. They are there.
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I don't know why we're asking the question when McCann on more than one occasion explained the recruitment process he oversees and makes the final decisions. Meet The Owners was one specific event when he explained it in a response to a direct question.
It's easy for us to criticise in hindsight but more difficult to take responsibility to make decisions, sometimes difficult ones, assessing risk and making compromises.
He's not the kind of bloke to shy away from answering any questions but more importantly, promotion or not, he and the board will review everything at the end of the season including how he's managed the players once through the door. On the outside, we may think one or two loans haven't had the game time and/or not lived up to endorsements from McCann when signing them. He's already said he has to make some difficult decisions when leaving players out of the matchday squad and yes, of course those decisions are of his own making.
We're about 5 games away from deciding whether this year's recruitment has been good enough to achieve the desired goal.
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There’s been some absolute stinkers of decisions - Close and Westbrooke as mentioned, plus Yeboah and Ennis who are down there with our worst ever loanees.
We seem to have gone for quantity over quality, Kelly and Crew both shown glimpses but raw kids who were always more likely to struggle than success. Add the useless Ennis and Yeboah and that’s four loans pretty much wasted. One or two more senior players would have worked much better.
Far too scattergun in recruitment, and we really haven’t ever addressed the main weakness which is in the middle of the park every week. Whatever league we’re in next year we need a huge shake up.
Not even close to our worst ever signings
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There’s been some absolute stinkers of decisions - Close and Westbrooke as mentioned, plus Yeboah and Ennis who are down there with our worst ever loanees.
We seem to have gone for quantity over quality, Kelly and Crew both shown glimpses but raw kids who were always more likely to struggle than success. Add the useless Ennis and Yeboah and that’s four loans pretty much wasted. One or two more senior players would have worked much better.
Far too scattergun in recruitment, and we really haven’t ever addressed the main weakness which is in the middle of the park every week. Whatever league we’re in next year we need a huge shake up.
Not even close to our worst ever signings
Damned by faint praise..
Did you see this article? At the time I thought wow, this kid is going to be so unbelievably talented, signing so early in the transfer window, no-one else is going to have the impact this 17 year old will who'd previously reached the stratosphere with Bath. Quote from McCann " he's someone we've watched religiously "
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/clkk19112ddo
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Not sure of your point
If you don’t think we’ve made worse signings ever than yeboah then you’ve lost the plot
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Street again, without his goals where would we now be?
Someone at Lincoln knew he was worth a long contract.
A board with experience and knowhow?
https://www.weareimps.com/club/board-members-and-key-investors
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Not sure of your point
If you don’t think we’ve made worse signings ever than yeboah then you’ve lost the plot
Who else did we sign on a season long loan deal in very early June having had such public high praise from the manager who then had his loan ended? Explain please, so we can do a like for like comparison.
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Off the top of my head Tiago cukur!
But we’ve made plenty of bad signings over the years, loan signings like these are very cheap, low risk signings
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A lot of strange ones. New contracts for people like Close and Westbrook who no longer exist and aren't in plans. Signing players on loan who he then doesn't play. How Crew doesn't get in that midfield I'll never know. Gibson has been good for me, gets criticised a lot but is decent, TSL been good also. Street been good.
The most annoying is the people leaving and I'm sure Olowu will be another to add to thatlistcome the end of the season, always left until last minute.
The football has been slow, ponderous and dire for a long time now and I am losing faith in the vision or style that we are supposed to be playing. Whoever it is who has brought them in, there are more failures than successes and they have been well and truly backed this season. After losing 3 million, will that happen next year?
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Off the top of my head Tiago cukur!
But we’ve made plenty of bad signings over the years, loan signings like these are very cheap, low risk signings
I get they are cheap so no loss if it doesn’t work out. But it gets to me when they come in and displace our own players who are probably better. Why is Ennis here and Hurst sent away! There is no way Hurst wouldn’t contribute more. And didn’t he recently sign an extension. It’s just a weird way to try develop your own players.
Broadbent starts the season in the role he is now playing. All preseason like that. Then Kelly joins and is straight in the 11 in that position. It doesn’t really suit him there and he’s too lose with the ball giving away opportunities. But from memory he’s pretty much 1st choice there till around Jan. Then we sign Crew who starts a couple of games in that role again our own players overlooked.
And now we’re back to where we started and it turns out Broadbent isn’t the problem it’s that we have a structural issue in midfield.
We have a core of contracted players of an age where if we develop them they either grow with us or we can potentially sell. We should back them wherever possible not jump to the next shiny loanee who will be here all of 6 months. Just my opinion on loans I get they have a place just confused how we’ve used them recently
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DO, I rope them in with Marsh from last season good players at u21s level good when on the ball and not dominant when not on the ball or strong enough.
Decent ball control but easily knocked off the ball every coach is looking for the same thing teams like us need them when they have had experience of men's football not the nursery., the difference in Broadbent after playing regular is there for all to see with games under his belt.
Different positions but Flint and Faulkner are in front of them development wise, they have made a difference in the games I have watched them and dominated their man in the opposition.
Quite a few on here were wanting us to sign Louie Marsh, but he hasn’t pulled any trees up at Fleetwood since signing in Jan.
And you’re right about Crew. He’s struggled to get a game because he’s too lightweight and not brave enough. Look at the Chesterfield 1st goal here. Not exactly busting a gut to get back for their 3rd either?
https://youtu.be/NLgNltJNMLc?si=i8rL3qr_LSouo-WX
Like you say, academy football doesn’t prepare them for the physical side of the game anymore.
Loads of academy players move straight into Prem teams and look fantastic. They are there.
I know you’re a Stats man Gaz, but “loads”?? When I see the Nationalities alongside the team members my recollection is that often there are only a couple of UK players, occasionally less with 3 seemingly exceptional and even then they may not be from PL academies. Against that, Selby’s comments seem evidence-based from watching a lot of NL clubs and their loanees. It surely doesn’t amount to a generally satisfactory system. We saw with Schofield what a deadening effect modern coaching had on entertainment value. I suppose that real talent goes beyond methodology, but is powerful enforcement of “process” the right emphasis? By implication Selby would seem to disagree .
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I have no doubt at all that if Gaz was asked to put a full squad of players together they would be at least competitive with our current squad if not better.
The fact is not one person is ever going to have that say and some of the players would not be available.
I am just pointing out that IMHO we as a club may have stumbled on a better way forward for players when reaching 17yrs old than the academy system of u21s if they can do well at National North or National League level, Sam Brown, Bobby Faulkner, and Will Flint have all had excellent loans this season at national North level which is a good league, and all out of our own academy, while Close, Hurst, and the others have struggled to make an impression on loan and to be honest, more or less what I would have expected having watched them all before going on loan and watched them all for two or three years or more in some cases.
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On a side note I would like to know who brought the flying mop of hair from Brighton, and what system they used to get him in.
My first thoughts were he should take up athletics as a sprinter but would never make a footballer while he had a hole in his backside.
Todd Miller Schofield said we had been watching him for quite a while when we announced his signing, Christ on a bike I wouldn't like to admit that, just what were they watching, probably the same person who watched that great central defender Adam Long and we actually payed money for him, what a crock of S**te those two were.
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A lot of strange ones. New contracts for people like Close and Westbrook who no longer exist and aren't in plans. Signing players on loan who he then doesn't play. How Crew doesn't get in that midfield I'll never know. Gibson has been good for me, gets criticised a lot but is decent, TSL been good also. Street been good.
The most annoying is the people leaving and I'm sure Olowu will be another to add to thatlistcome the end of the season, always left until last minute.
The football has been slow, ponderous and dire for a long time now and I am losing faith in the vision or style that we are supposed to be playing. Whoever it is who has brought them in, there are more failures than successes and they have been well and truly backed this season. After losing 3 million, will that happen next year?
Street has been better than good, he has been exceptional. An inspired signing.
9 league goals in 18 games, the best scoring rate in League 2.
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Street has turned out the best signing of the lot in the end. Someone out there isn't daft that offered him a lengthy contract.