MA Hope not saw for U23s against West Ham in the week He was poor played left sided centre back Not saying he was slow but he makes Huddleston look like Linford Christie. To be fair he's obviously not match fit but opulent fancy him in defence maybe defensive midfield because he can pass
Didn't think Lingard was anything special at Derby but liked the look of Bamford and Ibe, especially Ibe, agree with you that Ibe made a difference. Was sorry to see him leave.
My favourite loan signing of all time was was Toribo West even though he was an odd ball!
Last edited by Manofpride; 18-04-2019 at 05:49 AM.
I think everybody would agree with your view MoP. It is also an indication of how hard it is to forecast which bright young things will make the step up and what influences that.
Ibe was excellent at Derby. 12 appearances for Pool the season after. 27 the season after that but didn't seem to have that same spark.
Bamford never got a chance at Chelsea. Zero senior games played there. Never played in the PL. Sold to Boro. 12 goals in 39 games. On to DYS and 9 in 20. Despite averaging a goal every 3 appearances at those 2 clubs, in fact 1 every 2 games at DYS, he seems to spend an awful lot of time on the bench.
Lingard does well for Man U and for England where e is a regular.
All 3 have had a future, so far, reverse to what they showed at Derby.
I quite liked Arturo Lupoli in our promotion season, that was a cracking loan signing.
All remains to be seen with Frank. Tactically I don't think he's that astute. What he's capable of signing for next season in terms of cost and scouting may be constrained. Raiding the Scottish leagues all sounds a bit N Clough-ish, mid-table expectations.
Yep, I liked Lupoli too although he was a bit lightweight for the Championship perhaps.
Be nice to turn up another Andy Robertson or even a Craig Bryson (original Mk1 version) from Scotland and we maybe should remember that some of our best ever signings - eg Van der Laan, Stimac and Wanchope - were either initially dismissed or had never been heard of before they arrived.
Good scouting is everything, especially now the ‘money well’ appears to have dried up.
Im not so sure that FFP is in fact a reason not to spend, although it may be put out as such - unless Gibson gets his way and disallows our "manouvres".
In that FFP is on a three year rolling cycle, the profitable 2018 year with £14m profit not only gets us out of the current year problem, but also can be included in the next two FFP cyclical calculations, given us greater loss making capability going forward.
Its all smoke and mirrors but our FFP management seems to have been a tad edgy. Strip the academy out of the Club's accounts, thus soaking up its costs straight into the holding company, and not via the club itself (where it would otherwise have increased the FFP loss). Same with Club DCFC, avoiding a £ 3.2m loss, same with Stadia DCFC, avoiding a £ 4.3m loss. Then sell the stadium within the group and create a paper profit in the club of £ 40m.
That said there isnt much more scope for stripping costs out of the club's accounts and pushing them up a tier, or no more assets to crystallise paper profits on.
I suppose we could form an employing company that owns the player employment contracts, thus we could remove all our salary costs etc from the club into that company, and recharge the FFP assessed club at about half the true cost?