Harry Arter

[Citizen's Nephew]

Can't argue with much of this. Whilst being all too aware of where we've come from, I'd have loved to have thought back in the 90's and early 00's that we'd barely be looking down for 20+ years, it really grates that we failed to capitalise on our two big opportunities to grow the club.

Premier League money and the subsequent parachute payments were criminally wasted not once but twice by the current administration and we are treading water again. Again, it was once just a dream to tread water in the 2nd tier but there's a real frustration that we've not been able to kick on and we're about to embark on major rebuilding, with a number of contracts being up this year, when we could have built in a considered way with the riches that have passed through the club in recent times.

I know what you mean. On reflection, we've been very unlucky with Covid and before that the tragedy of Sala. So I have to remind myself (or be reminded) that it's only football and that things could be worse. But then that leads us back to treading water again. If we don't by some miracle get promoted this season, then I don't see us having any realistic chances of getting out of The Championship for a long time. That's when the if-only scenarios start to really eat away.

Anyway, I'm terrible for sidetracking so to keep things on-topic.....I really don't want to see Harry Arter in a CCFC shirt again!

[surge]

I was a big Kimbo fan, but I'd question whether we couldn't have spent that money better - never really delivered that often for us.

Some of them we made our money back or small profits on:
Caulker, Medel, Decordova Reid - so it's hard to call them a complete disaster - but then you have to think of the opportunity cost - could that money have been spent better at the time.
That isn't always down to the player though - sometimes we've made what looks like a decent signing , but the manager doesn't want to use them (i.e. Warnock with Decordova Reid, and arguably Tomlin).

There is an awful lot of waste on that list though.

I tried to give some thought to i) how much money each fee was at time of spending, ii) percentage of total budget at the time, iii) how much they performed for it. Manga is very lucky to come out in positive column based on being capable at premier league level but without that season it's another bad transfer.

Decordova Reid is another one where I'd love to read internal comms to see what club were thinking. Almost like Warnock wanted an extra dimension and ended up picking one he didn't fully understand - if he did understand then surely could see why it was such a bad fit whereas Camarrassa wasn't - and eventually didn't want to use.

I think we have spent money over past decade (mostly poorly) and have shopped abroad much more than in decades before that (also mostly poorly) so maybe we need to give some credit for putting an end to mistakes. Process needs to improve before we go big again.

[blue lewj]

I don't buy into the 'Tan got burnt once so we won't give the manager funds' argument that is trotted out again and again.

Transfers are hit and miss but not backing a manager, one that the board are telling the fans is the man to take us forward, with funds because of what previous managers done is ludicrous.

I think that it is more due to Tan not wanting to inject funds and having lost interest to an extent rather than 'you're not having any cash, remember what Malky spent it on'.

It is worth noting that the most comfortable promotion was achieved under Malky at this level when he was allowed to buy who he liked. The problems started in the Premier League.

The club either employ a new man, tell the fans he is the man to take us to the promised land and back him or not. They can't keep looking back to managers who spent money wrongly in the past. Managers who are no longer here.

[surge]

I don't buy into the 'Tan got burnt once so we won't give the manager funds' argument that is trotted out again and again.

Transfers are hit and miss but not backing a manager, one that the board are telling the fans is the man to take us forward, with funds because of what previous managers done is ludicrous.

.....

Saw a tweet yesterday which said that a good transfer window is one where 50% of transfers are in hindsight deemed a success, that transfers are based on months of work and last minute deals without that work is much less likely to do well. Went on to talk about how many moving parts there are involved.

My conclusion was that if the process behind transfers at our club needs work (and I think it does, or potentially did, based on the evidence when we've spent money or spent abroad) then throwing money around doesn't make the team or club better off.

[J R Hartley]

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/card...rde/verein/603

8th most expensive, Manga, was worth the fee paid as was 12th most expensive (Smithies), 14th most expensive (Morrison), 19th most (Kimbo), 24th most (Thorne) and 25th (Vaulks) but we could have swerved on every other one on that first page and spent the money better elsewhere.

Not sure how it fits to this thread other than to say high transfer fees isn't all that and it being another post saying Brentford investing into talent ID with lower transfer fees paid is to be admired.

Vaulks? Not for me. Nor Smithies.

[Citizen's Nephew]

I tried to give some thought to i) how much money each fee was at time of spending, ii) percentage of total budget at the time, iii) how much they performed for it. Manga is very lucky to come out in positive column based on being capable at premier league level but without that season it's another bad transfer.

Decordova Reid is another one where I'd love to read internal comms to see what club were thinking. Almost like Warnock wanted an extra dimension and ended up picking one he didn't fully understand - if he did understand then surely could see why it was such a bad fit whereas Camarrassa wasn't - and eventually didn't want to use.

I think we have spent money over past decade (mostly poorly) and have shopped abroad much more than in decades before that (also mostly poorly) so maybe we need to give some credit for putting an end to mistakes. Process needs to improve before we go big again.

I think that's fair and well put. I can get on board with that. The only caveat for me is the definition of 'go big'. <£1M? or >£3M? I don't know what kind of budget we've got or how much we can even spend anymore. We seem like a club licking our wounds right now and I'm afraid that's going to hold us back.

[The Hooded Claw]

Put simply, in the main, we have recruited poorly in recent years where substantial fees have been involved.
In other words, those in charge of recruitment either overspend on players or allow the wrong type of players to be recruited.
It therefore looks like there is a lack of understanding as to how the manager is going to use those expensive players.
This brings us back to the Director of Football debate.

[surge]

I think that's fair and well put. I can get on board with that. The only caveat for me is the definition of 'go big'. <£1M? or >£3M? I don't know what kind of budget we've got or how much we can even spend anymore. We seem like a club licking our wounds right now and I'm afraid that's going to hold us back.

I keep saying it but I think contract renewals and next summer's window (and what we see as consequence of that on pitch next year) tells us a lot about where our club is and what it wants to do going forward.

We have taken a step back but is that in preparation for pressing accelerate in a much more intelligent way or is licking wounds our new normal?

[blue lewj]

Saw a tweet yesterday which said that a good transfer window is one where 50% of transfers are in hindsight deemed a success, that transfers are based on months of work and last minute deals without that work is much less likely to do well. Went on to talk about how many moving parts there are involved.

My conclusion was that if the process behind transfers at our club needs work (and I think it does, or potentially did, based on the evidence when we've spent money or spent abroad) then throwing money around doesn't make the team or club better off.

I agree that the process needs work.

The club either admit this and take some blame or use every sacked manager as a scapegoat and blame them for money not being spent now (Covid aside, it was mentioned here for the reason Tan was more careful with the pennies way before Covid).

The poor recruitment is either down to the manager and his immediate staff who he brings in or is a result of the recruitment team as a whole.
The board are quite clever in that they accept the praise when Malky and Warnock got them up but aren't as accepting of the criticism when the club went down. All I will say is your signings of Cornelius and Madine were signed off by the same people as signed off the successful signings.

If they are being honest then they should accept the blame or at the very least accept that they lack knowledge and are led blindly. Either way it points to getting more footballing knowledge into the club and the recruitment areas to everybody but those in charge.

[Citizen's Nephew]

Put simply, in the main, we have recruited poorly in recent years where substantial fees have been involved.
In other words, those in charge of recruitment either overspend on players or allow the wrong type of players to be recruited.
It therefore looks like there is a lack of understanding as to how the manager is going to use those expensive players.
This brings us back to the Director of Football debate.

Yes! I think we're now playing Cardiff City Monopoly. It all feels very circular!

[blue lewj]

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results"

[Citizen's Nephew]

I keep saying it but I think contract renewals and next summer's window (and what we see as consequence of that on pitch next year) tells us a lot about where our club is and what it wants to do going forward.

We have taken a step back but is that in preparation for pressing accelerate in a much more intelligent way or is licking wounds our new normal?

I agree. Let's hope it's the former. I'm really hoping there's a plan (strategy) in there somewhere. I think licking wounds is in danger of becoming the new normal. Yes, next summer's window will reveal all.

[WJ99mobile]

Put simply, in the main, we have recruited poorly in recent years where substantial fees have been involved.
In other words, those in charge of recruitment either overspend on players or allow the wrong type of players to be recruited.
It therefore looks like there is a lack of understanding as to how the manager is going to use those expensive players.
This brings us back to the Director of Football debate.

We are a team of hard working cloggers and who did we splash the cash on?

Bobby Reid.

Was never going to get the ball into channels in a million years.

Instead of having players to vary style in my opinion we should have been doubling down on our niche.

[Rjk]

Looking back over the last few windows:

THis season:

Collins
Wintle
Both frees but too early to tell if a success
Giles looks like being a good loan move

Last Season
Moore - Excellent business
Wilson - A very good loan move
Ng - good for the fee
Watters early to tell.
Jonny Williams - wht was that all about?
Osei-tutu - unfortunate with injuries - made sense on paper
Ojo - meh ok loan I suppose
Phillips - Good signing
Benkovic - waste of time

Definitely more good than bad there

19/20
Glatzel - occasionally looked decent, but not a good buy for the money
Flint - is a good player at this level, but we paid £4m for him- im not convinced in hindsight we can call it a good move when he's only played about 50 times for us and might leave at the end of the year. Good player - poor value.
Vaulks - he's done ok, but not great value at £2 million
Vassell - very unlucky with injuries, i think he looks a decent player but another 2 million wasted unfortunately
Whyte - another £2 million with little to show for it - didn't look a terribl move on paper though - if perhaps slightly overpriced
Pack - decent purchase for the money
Sang - free - now looks a good move
Nelson - free - very good business
Joe Day - free - why?
Smith and Sanderson loans and Traore signing - meh.

Definitely more bad than good.

18/19
Sala - :(
Murphy - Looked a sensible move on paper - good young championship talent - potential to increase in value - hasn't happened for whatever reason.
Decordova Reid - Again - good move on paper, wasn't used well - recouped most of the money when he left us to join a better team - I don't think the signing was the issue here.
Smithies - very good keeper at this level, but at almost 4m arguably a waste of money when we had other options.
Cunningham - 3.6 million and played for us 14 times
Bacuna - 3 million and he's been ok - I'm sure we could have picked up similar players for less and on less wages.
Arter/Camarasa loans were good
Niasse less so.

For different reasons we havent gained any longer term value from any of those investments.

17/18
Madine - terrible business
Tomlin - £3 million and hasnt played a lot - when he has he's been generally good
Danny Ward - did ok, cost 1.5 million - decent signing i'd say.
Omar Bogle - didn't work out, wasn't too expensive
Lee Camp - free - ok
Paterson - Free - excellent
Loic Damour - Free - didn't really work out
Ethridge - Free - Excellent
NML Free - Excellent.


There seems to be a pattern emerging that we generally have a better success rate with free or cheaper signings than we do when we spend any significant money.

Seems line we've had some better transfer windows more recently, but are we actually better ad recruitment or were we just due some luck?

[WJ99mobile]

Looking back over the last few windows:

THis season:

Collins
Wintle
Both frees but too early to tell if a success
Giles looks like being a good loan move

Last Season
Moore - Excellent business
Wilson - A very good loan move
Ng - good for the fee
Watters early to tell.
Jonny Williams - wht was that all about?
Osei-tutu - unfortunate with injuries - made sense on paper
Ojo - meh ok loan I suppose
Phillips - Good signing
Benkovic - waste of time

Definitely more good than bad there

19/20
Glatzel - occasionally looked decent, but not a good buy for the money
Flint - is a good player at this level, but we paid £4m for him- im not convinced in hindsight we can call it a good move when he's only played about 50 times for us and might leave at the end of the year. Good player - poor value.
Vaulks - he's done ok, but not great value at £2 million
Vassell - very unlucky with injuries, i think he looks a decent player but another 2 million wasted unfortunately
Whyte - another £2 million with little to show for it - didn't look a terribl move on paper though - if perhaps slightly overpriced
Pack - decent purchase for the money
Sang - free - now looks a good move
Nelson - free - very good business
Joe Day - free - why?
Smith and Sanderson loans and Traore signing - meh.

Definitely more bad than good.

18/19
Sala - :(
Murphy - Looked a sensible move on paper - good young championship talent - potential to increase in value - hasn't happened for whatever reason.
Decordova Reid - Again - good move on paper, wasn't used well - recouped most of the money when he left us to join a better team - I don't think the signing was the issue here.
Smithies - very good keeper at this level, but at almost 4m arguably a waste of money when we had other options.
Cunningham - 3.6 million and played for us 14 times
Bacuna - 3 million and he's been ok - I'm sure we could have picked up similar players for less and on less wages.
Arter/Camarasa loans were good
Niasse less so.

For different reasons we havent gained any longer term value from any of those investments.

17/18
Madine - terrible business
Tomlin - £3 million and hasnt played a lot - when he has he's been generally good
Danny Ward - did ok, cost 1.5 million - decent signing i'd say.
Omar Bogle - didn't work out, wasn't too expensive
Lee Camp - free - ok
Paterson - Free - excellent
Loic Damour - Free - didn't really work out
Ethridge - Free - Excellent
NML Free - Excellent.


There seems to be a pattern emerging that we generally have a better success rate with free or cheaper signings than we do when we spend any significant money.

Seems line we've had some better transfer windows more recently, but are we actually better ad recruitment or were we just due some luck?

Missed McGuinness who looks OK

[Rjk]

Missed McGuinness who looks OK

yes, so I did.
agree that looks like it has potential, too early to tell yet but the fee wasn't high so doesn't need to do much to represent good business

[surge]

Missed McGuinness who looks OK

Yellow card for quoting a long post then adding one sentence.

Alternative thoughts on Rjk's post:

Tomlin - £3million on a player who Warnock was never going to use as a starter. We got to see him as good value under Harris but you shouldn't spend such a great percentage of that year's transfer budget on a bench option.

Decordova Reid - good on paper but for another club not ours. Again a high percentage of total transfer budget on a player who Warnock saw as a bench option at best - this only changed in Man United game and by then player was asking agent to force a move.

Both of these signings suggest Warnock was looking to add a dimension to his side without understanding what sort of skillful player could fit into what he wanted to do.

Vaulks - I don't think £2million was that high as a fee in that season and not a huge percentage of overall spend. But if you can take a gamble on spending £2million we gambled too many times and only Vaulks has come close to being worth it so far.

I liked the Sanderson loan move.

Ojo - I remember someone saying 7 assists and 4 goals was a good output and hard to replace but now he's "meh"

Overall, I'm not sure if the club has read articles saying go for younger and more skillful players and is getting lucky or whether the right sort of younger and more skillful players are being identified. Too early to say but I find some of the criticism of the club's actions stuck in the past.

[dembethewarrior]

Saw a tweet yesterday which said that a good transfer window is one where 50% of transfers are in hindsight deemed a success, that transfers are based on months of work and last minute deals without that work is much less likely to do well. Went on to talk about how many moving parts there are involved.

My conclusion was that if the process behind transfers at our club needs work (and I think it does, or potentially did, based on the evidence when we've spent money or spent abroad) then throwing money around doesn't make the team or club better off.

Have you ever talked yourself to sleep?

[dembethewarrior]

Yellow card for quoting a long post then adding one sentence.

Alternative thoughts on Rjk's post:

Tomlin - £3million on a player who Warnock was never going to use as a starter. We got to see him as good value under Harris but you shouldn't spend such a great percentage of that year's transfer budget on a bench option.

Decordova Reid - good on paper but for another club not ours. Again a high percentage of total transfer budget on a player who Warnock saw as a bench option at best - this only changed in Man United game and by then player was asking agent to force a move.

Both of these signings suggest Warnock was looking to add a dimension to his side without understanding what sort of skillful player could fit into what he wanted to do.

Vaulks - I don't think £2million was that high as a fee in that season and not a huge percentage of overall spend. But if you can take a gamble on spending £2million we gambled too many times and only Vaulks has come close to being worth it so far.

I liked the Sanderson loan move.

Ojo - I remember someone saying 7 assists and 4 goals was a good output and hard to replace but now he's "meh"

Overall, I'm not sure if the club has read articles saying go for younger and more skillful players and is getting lucky or whether the right sort of younger and more skillful players are being identified. Too early to say but I find some of the criticism of the club's actions stuck in the past.

Didn't Warnock say Tomlin was more like 1.5?

[Rjk]

Yellow card for quoting a long post then adding one sentence.

Alternative thoughts on Rjk's post:

Tomlin - £3million on a player who Warnock was never going to use as a starter. We got to see him as good value under Harris but you shouldn't spend such a great percentage of that year's transfer budget on a bench option.

Decordova Reid - good on paper but for another club not ours. Again a high percentage of total transfer budget on a player who Warnock saw as a bench option at best - this only changed in Man United game and by then player was asking agent to force a move.

Both of these signings suggest Warnock was looking to add a dimension to his side without understanding what sort of skillful player could fit into what he wanted to do.

Vaulks - I don't think £2million was that high as a fee in that season and not a huge percentage of overall spend. But if you can take a gamble on spending £2million we gambled too many times and only Vaulks has come close to being worth it so far.

I liked the Sanderson loan move.

Ojo - I remember someone saying 7 assists and 4 goals was a good output and hard to replace but now he's "meh"

Overall, I'm not sure if the club has read articles saying go for younger and more skillful players and is getting lucky or whether the right sort of younger and more skillful players are being identified. Too early to say but I find some of the criticism of the club's actions stuck in the past.

Yeah fair points, I guess the Ojo move was good on balance. - I wonder where he'll end up this season, i guess there are quite a few players in that situation still.

As for decordova reid and murphy the moves seemed to be sensible at the time - signing some of the best young attacking talent in the championship is usually a good idea for a newly promoted club. there is a significant potential upside if they do well in the premier league and if you go back down you know (or you should) that they'll be good in the championship. And wages are likely to be lower than an established premier league player.
Didn't work out for either of those, but if by some miracle we went back up in the next year or so I wouldn't be against that kind of aproach again - just hopefully the manager would know what to do with them.

[Rjk]

Didn't Warnock say Tomlin was more like 1.5?

who do you believe?

[The Hooded Claw]

There seems to be a pattern emerging that we generally have a better success rate with free or cheaper signings than we do when we spend any significant money.

Exactly my point. I don’t think that there’s been too much to complain about with our most recent signings, as they were either free or were excellent, such as Kieffer.
It’s when we spend big that we fall down.

[dembethewarrior]

who do you believe?

Someone connected to the club or someone online? I'll go with Neil.

[Croesy Blue]

Have you ever talked yourself to sleep?

I hope the irony of this being posted by the ccmb poster who posts 1000 times a day while adding nothing isn’t lost on anyone

[dembethewarrior]

I hope the irony of this being posted by the ccmb poster who posts 1000 times a day while adding nothing isn’t lost on anyone

A comment such as mine said in an actual face to face conversation would get no argumentative response.. Because face to face you can actually speak to people and they don't get offended at words on a screen, and you don't get strangers running across the pub to scream offence for something you've said to someone that they weren't conversing with..


I've said plenty of tones in here I mean no harm, if you want to take offence for someone else you carry on.