Quote Originally Posted by ragingpup View Post
Ok, but I remember in the first year, Barlaser for one went through a very poor patch and I don't think that there was a clamour for anyone of these players to be resigned on a much larger contract at that stage. I would completely agree that it would be wonderful if you could assuredly and definitely guarantee that such talent could be spotted and nailed down to much improved terms within 9 months of not perfoming well enough for other clubs to sign, and it to pay off consistently with such players realising their potential so they could serve out their contracts for years to come for us and us defying that trend that you correlates final league position with size of the wage budget. And that we wouldn't be hit with a player that resigns on great terms, and then loses form completely so we are left with a big money reserve.

I do agree with your general point that we need to be better at identifying great talent earlier and offering them better terms so they accept but I'm not sure you fully recognise the trickiness in identifying such talent in the up and down flux of players form as well as the costiness when you get it wrong. I agree we could be better at it but I'm not sure you fully realise the difficulty and risk involved to any club operating with a tight budget.
As well as a 'problem for every solution' mindset, you seem to obsess about the idea that anyone questioning the club's ability to improve has a poor grasp on reality or can't understand pretty basic concepts. Far be it from me to coach new thinking into anyone, but maybe consider how limiting that is - there wouldn't be much progress anywhere if people routinely shut down every time they hit a challenge.

Barlaser was with us on loan in his first season, we signed him after that and his stats and value slowly improved. He's not an isolated example, in fact it's harder to find examples of good contract management, but he's yet another we scouted, had belief in, signed, coached, developed a rapport with, and then sat back, watching his 36 months drift by. The approach we lack is continuity, and despite putting in the hard yards to scout and attract the talent, we then assume that either things will be different this time (they seldom are), or that we haven't seen 'enough' to extend contracts in a timely manner. It's not even just about pinning down the best talent, just ensuring we don't lose all the talent and cycle round like we do. Let's remember that we have faith in those charged with bringing players in (scouts, DoF, manager), and if we lose the faith in so many players after one season to a point where we don't want to retain a lengthier term, get rid of the scouts and DoF.

I model financial risk and work around complex contracts all week. It's a far bigger risk to not have adequate resource and to not have security around partnerships than it is to have a small percentage of your cost base not performing. The latter is easily fixable.