People sh*tting their pants in August again

B_G said:
Theres two points to make here:

1. All players have a ceiling. The players need to have the potential to reach Championship level as a minimum. If you are going this route though, ideally you want some of them to reach Premier League level to give us a chance of promotion. For you to say Scott has delivered, you need to be sure that this is the case. I don't know how anyone can say that so far. The next 12-18 months will give us the answer to this.

2. We still need a squad we can operate in the Championship now with while the development work is happening in the background. Have we been left with that? I would say we can just about field 11 players of the required quality (with a few players playing out of position). We are 4 or 5 players short really. Engel should have filled one of them spots but isn't good enough. Lath should be filling one of those spots and the jury is still out on him. He could be a good player. He could also be a dud. His finishing hasn't looked good enough so far. But for the money we've paid, we should have been getting a player who is ready to play straight away. He's not a development player.
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Agree with you on point one. I was saying that if his brief is to sign a lot of young players then he’s delivered on that. Whether he’s delivered on quality only time will tell.

The second point is up for debate. I have said numerous times that I think the idea is for the new players to step in and out throughout the season, where you hope one or more of them makes themselves unstoppable.

Also, and this will rub people up the wrong way I’m sure - but if we had signed another striker with Latte Lath, as lots expected to happen, then Coburn wouldn’t have had his chance and seized it. Likewise Hackney and the lack of signing a central midfielder this time last year.
 
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viv_andersons_nana said:
Also, and this will rub people up the wrong I’m sure - but if we had signed another striker with Latte Lath, as lots expected to happen, then Coburn wouldn’t have had his chance and seized it. Likewise Hackney and the lack of signing a central midfielder this time last year.
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Yes, this. Coburn was as good as gone on loan (if what was posted on here was correct). Hackney (and the team) also benefited by the change of manager. It was Leo Percovich who gave him his League debut.
 
indeedido said:
2 of our last 13 signings started today.
That is not top recruitment really is it?

Very good win and hats off to Carrick and the lads who started.
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This is an identical situation to last season. At the end of the season people had retconned this idea that we had really successful recruitment and all the bad stuff was Wilder's fault but the reality is the recruitment team were recruiting for a Wilder team. The recruiters failed to sign a usable striker, hence us going into January playing Crooks up front and having to sign another. They failed to replace Tav. They were just massively fortunate that Akpom become a superstar and Hackney merged as a top end championship midfielder. Oh, and Howson, who they had failed to replace after multiple attempts was still our 1st choice midfielder (and still is) and he's 35 now. Forss was the only permanent signing that we paid money for that was a regular and that was in a position the recruiters hadn't signed him for. They've made another mess of this summer. We're starting with a striker that was supposed to go out on loan because the others haven't been up to scratch (like Akpom last season), our Howson replacement playing left back because the recruitment teams picks aren't good enough. A kid that plays centre back playing full back because we still haven't signed a right back.

We have been woeful at recruitment for years. It used to be we wasted big money on rubbish players. At least now we are only wasting small amounts on rubbish players. The thing that hasn't changed is our ability to consistently identify players that aren't good enough.
 
viv_andersons_nana said:
Also, and this will rub people up the wrong way I’m sure - but if we had signed another striker with Latte Lath, as lots expected to happen, then Coburn wouldn’t have had his chance and seized it. Likewise Hackney and the lack of signing a central midfielder this time last year.
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I'm delighted for Hackney and Coburn that they have both been given a chance and are both grasping it with both hands. It's a great reflection on the academy. It's also another negative for the recruitment though. After all the millions we have spent on the development players over the last 18 months - 13 of them I would class as development players - the two best players who are closest to being Championship ready have came from the academy and were already here. Forss would be the other success and VDB looks a good recruit as well. We did pay a reasonable fee for Forss and he was already proven to an extent.
 
B_G said:
I'm delighted for Hackney and Coburn that they have both been given a chance and are both grasping it with both hands. It's a great reflection on the academy. It's also another negative for the recruitment though. After all the millions we have spent on the development players over the last 18 months - 13 of them I would class as development players - the two best players who are closest to being Championship ready have came from the academy and were already here. Forss would be the other success and VDB looks a good recruit as well. We did pay a reasonable fee for Forss and he was already proven to an extent.
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It’s too easy to say a young player coming through proves recruitment has failed though. I’m not saying the plan all along was dictated by a desire to bring Hackney and Coburn though but there has to be a pathway. Hackney has been earmarked for the first team since he was 15 and 16. Coburn was so promising he managed to convince an old curmudgeon like Warnock to bring him through(much to Warnock’s credit).

There is clearly a hunger from within the club to promote on our own youth and it feels like Carrick buys into that. It’s exactly what Boro should be doing IMO. This is our heritage.

From the outside, everyone is saying Coburn was about to sign for Plymouth - was this ever confirmed by Carrick or Steven Schumacher? - and that that plan changing shows our recruitment has failed. That may be true of course but that would mean you’re quite comfortable in not believing what Carrick said about him returning to fitness and impressing. Which is one of the points I post on here all the time - people post opinion as fact without really knowing what’s happening behind the scenes, in training, in the lives of these players and coaches.

If the right player isn’t available then I’d much rather we develop a youngster in the meantime, and go and sign players they do definitely want when they’re able. That might put me in the minority but there you go. If you can get an Archer then go and get him but on the other hand you end up with a Muniz or a Kebano. Blokes who hang about doing nowt and draining resources.
 
viv_andersons_nana said:
Thanks for that, I’d never seen that before.

Does that automatically mean our recruitment failed or does it mean Coburn had impressed the staff enough to persuade them to keep him with us?
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Well it seems pretty definitive that Coburn being our main striker was not a Plan A. But that is where we are at because the recruitment has failed.

Like I said, I'm delighted for Coburn and he seems to be taking his opportunity. But he's had two good games and it's a lot to ask for a 20 year old to lead the line all season consistently and get the goals we require from that position.
 
It was never any plan A b or otherwise that josh coburn would be staying at the boro letting alone starting games for us this season.
 
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