3 million pounds, 38 pros

[KCNotts]

Mr. Hardy, I admire the way you put your hand in your pocket...in that respect we are very fortunate.

But how on earth has this been allowed to happen again?! How can we continually get recruitment so wrong? I feel angry for you that your money has been wasted, but you are a fool for allowing it to happen. How can we have 38 players but still be hopelessly unbalanced?

For some context, Accrington's budget this season is 1.3 million... significantly less than half of ours.

Wow.

[Bohinen]

Mr. Hardy, I admire the way you put your hand in your pocket...in that respect we are very fortunate.

But how on earth has this been allowed to happen again?! How can we continually get recruitment so wrong? I feel angry for you that your money has been wasted, but you are a fool for allowing it to happen. How can we have 38 players but still be hopelessly unbalanced?

For some context, Accrington's budget this season is 1.3 million... significantly less than half of ours.

Wow.

We are fortunate in the same way a tramp would be fortunate if a billionaire lit a fire of ten pound notes to keep him warm

[irish_pie]

3 million, 38 pro footballers... I had a good chuckle at that... looking at that squad I can see about 6/7 who i would call a pro footballer.... horrendous amount of dead wood at this club once again.

[jackal2]

It's a problem that pre-dates Alan Hardy and even Ray Trew. Ultimately it has to come down to poor scouting and/or poor judgement of players by a series of managers, although perhaps we have to be realistic that no manager gets all their signings right. Maybe if we have a manager who, say, recruits 3 good players for every five, then we have to tolerate that and give him time to eventually build a solid squad, albeit having to acknowledge and jettison a few of his bad choices along the way. We sack so many managers that the squad never gets near to settling, and that amount of churn cannot be good when you're trying to establish a system of play.

The thing that "grinds my gears" most though is this habit of signing "ones for the future" who never are, year on year on year. After any given summer, you can look at the first match day programme and pretty accurately predict which players you will be lucky to ever see, even in a situation where there are masses of injuries and these players should theoretically be given a chance. Why do managers sign players they will never ever trust? Hopefully Will Patching today will prove himself to be one of the very rare exceptions to the rule, but overall, a club of our size cannot carry these makeweights when we're actually lacking quality amongst the first-team anyway. Quality not quantity has to be the aim.

[Pies4u]

It's a problem that pre-dates Alan Hardy and even Ray Trew. Ultimately it has to come down to poor scouting and/or poor judgement of players by a series of managers, although perhaps we have to be realistic that no manager gets all their signings right. Maybe if we have a manager who, say, recruits 3 good players for every five, then we have to tolerate that and give him time to eventually build a solid squad, albeit having to acknowledge and jettison a few of his bad choices along the way. We sack so many managers that the squad never gets near to settling, and that amount of churn cannot be good when you're trying to establish a system of play.

The thing that "grinds my gears" most though is this habit of signing "ones for the future" who never are, year on year on year. After any given summer, you can look at the first match day programme and pretty accurately predict which players you will be lucky to ever see, even in a situation where there are masses of injuries and these players should theoretically be given a chance. Why do managers sign players they will never ever trust? Hopefully Will Patching today will prove himself to be one of the very rare exceptions to the rule, but overall, a club of our size cannot carry these makeweights when we're actually lacking quality amongst the first-team anyway. Quality not quantity has to be the aim.

Absolutely! Spot on - 100% correct.

[ancientpie]

It's a problem that pre-dates Alan Hardy and even Ray Trew. Ultimately it has to come down to poor scouting and/or poor judgement of players by a series of managers, although perhaps we have to be realistic that no manager gets all their signings right. Maybe if we have a manager who, say, recruits 3 good players for every five, then we have to tolerate that and give him time to eventually build a solid squad, albeit having to acknowledge and jettison a few of his bad choices along the way. We sack so many managers that the squad never gets near to settling, and that amount of churn cannot be good when you're trying to establish a system of play.

The thing that "grinds my gears" most though is this habit of signing "ones for the future" who never are, year on year on year. After any given summer, you can look at the first match day programme and pretty accurately predict which players you will be lucky to ever see, even in a situation where there are masses of injuries and these players should theoretically be given a chance. Why do managers sign players they will never ever trust? Hopefully Will Patching today will prove himself to be one of the very rare exceptions to the rule, but overall, a club of our size cannot carry these makeweights when we're actually lacking quality amongst the first-team anyway. Quality not quantity has to be the aim.

I agree with 90% of that jackel as you say no manager at our level are going to get signings 100% correct so given the amount of managers we get through in the average 3 year player contract it should come as no surprise that we are carrying plenty of "dead wood". At our level so much depends on bringing/selling on young players that managers must be very tempted to sign kids in the hope that maybe one could come good.

[Frigiliana Pie 1]

I’m not sure how the figure of 38 is arrived at. I can only see 34 on the club website. But it’s still far too many for a League 2 club. IMO about 27 would be enough.

I’m sure AH never intended to have this many. The signings of Davies, Ward, Evina, Turley and Milsom were made after Nolan ‘s departure when it was realised that we didn’t have an adequate defence.

[crazyfists]

Didn't know Hardy assembled that squad, I thought it was Nolan. My mistake.

[countygump]

Didn't know Hardy assembled that squad, I thought it was Nolan. My mistake.

For those who didn't hear it, me included, it runs from 47m.30s- 58m.23s.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p06qh58d

[Old_pie]

For those who didn't hear it, me included, it runs from 47m.30s- 58m.23s.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p06qh58d

I think he's wrong if he thinks that there needn't be a consistency of style of play. It takes time and careful recruitment to go from one style to another even at this basement level. Managers need time to get players to adapt and they need to do it gradually. Even with the more football intelligent players at the top level they need coaching to adapt.

Neither is it rocket science - it's League 2, KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid!