Connor Wickham | Page 7 | Vital Football

Connor Wickham

Playing Budget was clearly cut in January with the business that was done. Can’t be bothered to go through it all but when you see who left and who came in it’s quite obvious. Hurtado and Andrews being last minute signings as well seemed a bit odd when we have a director of football and head of recruitment supposedly working on new signings since the closure of the previous window.

B team now being pulled when it was billed as being important for the structure of the football side of the club. You’d have to assume money is the main reason again.

Lots of investment behind the scenes in the stadium LED boards & a new club shop etc but I wonder if cuts are being made in other areas to allow room to finance a new BMS or maybe the big screen that was mentioned last year?

Or it has just been decided that the B team is a waste of money and if you cut it you can perhaps afford 3 more first team squad players on decent wages instead .
 
If we are talking about Wickham, regardless of his abilities, he has not played for a while so will take some time to reach full match fitness, plus he has a bad recent injury record so signing him in March is a really strange (and possibly desperate) move.

Nathan Jones says "it'll be interesting to see how much we can get out of him."

I checked the stats for the Barrow game just before half time and we had no shots and no shots on target. Is that purely down to the strikers? Would another target man improve that?
 
Be interesting to see how much he plays and whether he can score any.

I was really surprised by seeing Hurtardo in the gym and moving freely......maybe, just maybe.
 
Lark said:
In the Factory after the Wrexham game Brad Galinson told supporters to “watch this space” regarding a free agent signing.

Font of all knowledge Fred claimed that Scally met with Connor Wickham the day after the Wrexham match, but nothing came of it - presumably wages or other terms weren’t agreed or he just kept his options open.
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This sounds very much like our lack of options up front is down to the bespectacled one, as usual.

Ffs sort it out Scally
 
However this season plays out we need to make securing at least one and preferably two top quality strikers a priority.

We have thrown money around to secure players from other clubs and supposedly we were in the market for Alfie May which suggests a healthy budget for the right player.

I suspect we will still be in League 2 and therefore we need to get players who are effective at this level.

Our recruitment team have their work cut out in the summer.
 
Lark said:
Playing Budget was clearly cut in January with the business that was done. Can’t be bothered to go through it all but when you see who left and who came in it’s quite obvious. Hurtado and Andrews being last minute signings as well seemed a bit odd when we have a director of football and head of recruitment supposedly working on new signings since the closure of the previous window.

B team now being pulled when it was billed as being important for the structure of the football side of the club. You’d have to assume money is the main reason again.

Lots of investment behind the scenes in the stadium LED boards & a new club shop etc but I wonder if cuts are being made in other areas to allow room to finance a new BMS or maybe the big screen that was mentioned last year?

Or it has just been decided that the B team is a waste of money and if you cut it you can perhaps afford 3 more first team squad players on decent wages instead .
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I don't have access to the day to day finances of the club. Clemence and Jackett both said at the recent forum that Andrews was originally a summer target.

Assuming we don't have a bottomless money pot, I think we must have had a transfer budget put aside for the January window which didn't include buying Andrews. We quite probably had other targets. Andrews would have been in the upcoming summer budget.

So the purchase of Andrews may well have spaffed the January budget. As I say, that assumes that the club couldn't move the summer money into the January budget (cash flow).

Question for the recruitment "team" is whether getting him early is worth it. Based on the opinion (mine) that he's a crock.
 
Captainreblue said:
Wickham came on for the last 25 minutes of Charltons win against Carlisle yesterday.
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His name was mentioned in the run up to May's winner in the ITV highlights in that I think he challenged a defender who then played a bad back pass that May latched on to. Or something.
 
Captainreblue said:
Wickham came on for the last 25 minutes of Charltons win against Carlisle yesterday.
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Came on with 20 minutes to go and got the assist on Charlton`s game winning goal. Shotshy was alluding to this kind of benefit, the kind that someone like Wickham can deliver as an impact sub.

Wickham may prove to be a smart capture by Charlton if they avoid the drop zone.
 
Defenestrator said:
I don't have access to the day to day finances of the club. Clemence and Jackett both said at the recent forum that Andrews was originally a summer target.

Assuming we don't have a bottomless money pot, I think we must have had a transfer budget put aside for the January window which didn't include buying Andrews. We quite probably had other targets. Andrews would have been in the upcoming summer budget.

So the purchase of Andrews may well have spaffed the January budget. As I say, that assumes that the club couldn't move the summer money into the January budget (cash flow).

Question for the recruitment "team" is whether getting him early is worth it. Based on the opinion (mine) that he's a crock.
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You’re forgetting that we sold Nichols to Mansfield in January for an undisclosed fee. I suspect whatever we got for him paid for Andrews, and Nichols was one of the high earners at the club having signed the previous January when we had to overpay to attract players to come here.

So far based on his injury record it’s looked like a poor decision, but it’s still early days and we have to wait to see how good he is once fit.
 
LancsGordoRoad said:
Came on with 20 minutes to go and got the assist on Charlton`s game winning goal. Shotshy was alluding to this kind of benefit, the kind that someone like Wickham can deliver as an impact sub.

Wickham may prove to be a smart capture by Charlton if they avoid the drop zone.
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Wasn't credited as an assist. Flicked a header on to a defender who involuntarily made the assist with a crap back pass. Sort of thing that happens when you are bottom of the league and have conceded 63 this season:
 
The Roone said:
I spoke to someone close to AH a few days ago and Hess told him that is exactly what he is doing.
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I’m assuming the rumours are correct here that we did look at Wickham.

Given that, I wonder what made him attractive for a L1 side that already had May & Ladapo there, but not us with Hawkins and err, that’s it, at Gills.

Did we make any offer I wonder, or did he simply get a better offer from them? As Baghdad said, Charlton were/are on a decent run anyway and have pulled away from the relegation scrap. Nathan Jones seems to have made a big difference there. They don’t particularly need another striker, but are covering all bases. We are crying out for multiple effective strikers yet have done nothing. Weird.
 
Defenestrator said:
I don't have access to the day to day finances of the club. Clemence and Jackett both said at the recent forum that Andrews was originally a summer target.

Assuming we don't have a bottomless money pot, I think we must have had a transfer budget put aside for the January window which didn't include buying Andrews. We quite probably had other targets. Andrews would have been in the upcoming summer budget.

So the purchase of Andrews may well have spaffed the January budget. As I say, that assumes that the club couldn't move the summer money into the January budget (cash flow).

Question for the recruitment "team" is whether getting him early is worth it. Based on the opinion (mine) that he's a crock.
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Not sure I buy the theory that we purchased Andrews at the expense of our January budget. That would be absolute madness.

We were (and still are) gunning for promotion this season and desperately in need of decent forwards right now. If we “spaffed” that by getting in a future project player instead I’d be gobsmacked. Especially one that was known to be injured for at least a few weeks when signed.

Besides, we were still chasing JCH right up until deadline day according to those ITK.

Our January business, Hutton and maybe Hurtado apart, was very poor imho. Getting rid of 2 of our better forward players was a sound decision if it released wages to bring in quality, proven, previously identified talent. But what we got was 2 very late and quick reactions to bring in Walker and Hurtado. They weren’t even previously on our radar. What have the recruitment team been doing since last summer?

When Brad made his comment back in December that they knew our problems and were working on it, I thought we already knew our targets, had made arrangements and deals, and would be announcing decent forward signings soon after the window opened. But we got crickets…

The more I read back my comments here, maybe the “absolute madness” is rife in our recruitment.
 
OneSirKeefy said:
The more I read back my comments here, maybe the “absolute madness” is rife in our recruitment.
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Can’t agree more. Watching Saturday’s game unfold, makes me have more and more sympathy for Clemence. We are having to overly rely on Hawkins, who was injured for a lot of the first half of the season and has generally suffered with injury. He’s having to start with Nadesan, who second half of Wrexham aside has shown no form or confidence since August and the players we brought in in January were completely unproven at this level in Walker and Hurtado and an injured player who the club have admitted is mainly one for the future. Clemence is now having to try to come up with an attacking formation which involves playing the useless Nadesan or Walker with Hawkins or playing midfielders/wingers like lapslie and Mahoney effectively off of Hawkins. If we make the playoffs, it will be a good effort as we will face a battle every game just to nick one goal wins or draws.

We’ve had two transfer windows to sort this out, so lessons MUST be learned in the summer.
 
OneSirKeefy said:
The more I read back my comments here, maybe the “absolute madness” is rife in our recruitment.
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I'm not saying my reading is correct. It's merely a theory that appears to fit the facts as I "understand" them.

I assume that as we approach a transfer window, we (as a well run organisation) have a pretty good (but not perfect) idea of how much "cash" we have, plus who is likely to be leaving us for pastures new, freeing up wages and bringing in transfer monies (eg. Nichols). Therefore we should be able to work out our targets and which/what is achieveable. This strategy will have been firmed up well before the January window opened (you would hope).

All I am stating is what Clemence and Jackett said at the Fans Forum. Alexander was a target for this summer's window and he unexpectedly became available in the January one. So where did the money for him come from? I doubt that the Nichols money was unexpected. Personally, I'd be surprised if Brad dipped into his pocket for it again. But it's not impossible. And if he did and the Alexander purchase was the result, it means that our original "budgeted for" January incomings were Hutton, Hurtado and Walker.
 
OneSirKeefy said:
I’m assuming the rumours are correct here that we did look at Wickham.

Given that, I wonder what made him attractive for a L1 side that already had May & Ladapo there, but not us with Hawkins and err, that’s it, at Gills.
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I don't think Ladapo is exactly ripping it up either. He was on the bench on Saturday with Wickham while young Kanu has been partnering May.

Quite a wedge of salaries there.
 
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