Realistic Targets for Championship | Page 2 | Vital Football

Realistic Targets for Championship

To me Marriott is no better than Grigg, who has less goals than Marriot but scores goals at a higher rate per minute than Marriot.

We should not be overly concerned with adding a lot of players the goal should be to sign players that are clearly good enough. A quality left-back and a quality goalkeeper will be needed, whether that is Walton or otherwise.

Need another center back and probably a winger.

The mistake we made last season was signing a bunch of players and hoping a few would do the job instead of signing of signing one or two that we know can to the job to go along with Powell Grigg Morsy Burn.
 
No thanks to McClean nor McManamans return. I guess who we target will depend on who owns us. If it is to be new owners then in all probability there will be an injection of funds (if not I see little merit in purchasing us). If Whelan retains control then any funds will be self generated and likely be lower league players. I'm guessing we'll get clarity in the next few weeks.
 
I would say looking at our squad that come end of season and announcement of our released list we will have 19/20 players under contract. (I mentioned which ones we should keep in the other thread)

I think in the summer we should be looking at signing 8/9 players, this imo is a nice medium, the gap between League One and the Championship is huge so you have to upgrade your squad a bit and cannot just go up with the exact same League One squad. However, i dont want a scattergun 14/15 transfers per summer policy that we have seen in the last 2/3 seasons at Championship level as it has proven very costly.

Any recruitment will probably depend on our ownership situation, if the takeover talks amount to nothing, then it is likely we will be hunting around the lower leagues for talent like last summer (Massey, Dunkley)
If the takeover goes through and there are funds, i would like to see us not pay out a lot in transfer fees, HOWEVER, be competitive when it comes to wages. I had a quick look at Transfermarkt earlier today at out of contract Championship players and i reckon the following players could be good signings for us next season in Championship IF our takeover goes through and IF there are funds.

Aron Gunnarsson - 28 Years Old Central Defensive Midfielder at Cardiff, regular for Cardiff over last 4/5 seasons, might not be retained if they go up this summer. I would say at the moment that we certainly need an upgrade on Power in the Championship and a good partner for Morsy in central midfield and this guy could be the answer. Would need takeover to go through for Gunnarsson's wages though.
Daniel Pudil - 32 Year Old Left Back, been a regular for Sheff Wed last 2/3 seasons. Left Back is a position of weakness for us in Championship next season as i do not think either Elder or James are good enough to start regularly. So this is a priority position, if the takeover goes through i would be considering this option
Yanic - Back on loan from Norwich. Sometimes he was inconsistent, but he is an upgrade on both Colclough and Massey and can win you matches on his day.
Jack Robinson - 24 Year Old left back at QPR - Was originally on Liverpool's books as a youngster and is orginally from Warrington, so might fancy a move back up North. Doubt he is on high wages either.
Paul Huntington - 30 year old central defender - Dont know whether Preston will give him new contract, but has plenty of experience at this level and would be a good signing to compliment both Burn and Dunkley as our CB options

Just a few Out of contract players there above which i think we will show an interest in takeover and wages permitting that is! Would also like to see us look at a few good calibre League One players from non-promoted clubs who can make the step up and also possibly 2/3 loanees (hopefully from PL clubs, who we have scouted extensively and who also dont have the ridiculous 50/75% playing clauses added into their contracts) to complete our squad. Hopefully second season finishes we can begin to negotiate with potential targets and get our recruitment going early doors.
 
Lincswiganfan said:
Re-sign James McClean from (potentially) relegated West Brom, and Callum Mcmanaman from (potentially) relegated Sunderland.


Get the band back together!
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McLean yes. McManaman no. Lost his way leaving the pitch at Wembley and never really realised his potential.
 
Opposite for me. Mcmanaman’s a match winner, McClean isn’t. One of the most overrated players to ever pull on a Latics shirt due to coming off like he was the only one that cared in a crap season. Got caught offside more times than Omar Bogle. Paul Cook would turn McManaman back into the class act we know he can be.
 
I think McClean has proved himself to be a much better player than Macca. We used to have many debates about this. Mcmanaman is a one trick pony - although we all love him, because of his FA Cup contribution.

Our perception as fans as to who would be a good signing or not is influenced by fleeting glimpses we see of players on TV clips and what we read in the press. Hopefully, the club's new recruitment team will have their (more informed) eyes focussed on who would be good signings for next season - assuming we go up, which looks odds on.
 
I think people are mistaken when they say we dismantled the squad in Summer 2016. We only sold/ moved on Jordie Gomez, Barnett, Nichols, Pierce, Huws, Davies?
We signed Warnock, Burn, Gilby, Powell, Buxton, McDonald, Byrne,
As far as I can see that was not a bad squad.
So people who are advocating signing 5 or 6 players would be doing exactly the same as we did last time we were promoted.
 
One thing that i don't think is mentioned very often is what a easy club we are to play for compared to so many others.

Every club has a message board with lots of gripes but we generally have very reasonable expectations and are quite forgiving and patient compared to other clubs who are on their players backs so quickly. When these clubs pay so much money they expect to have players who can hit the ground running immedietly and perform to their best every single week and lose faith if that doesn't happen. While we are not spending that type of money and signing rough diamonds to develope, knowing that they aren't going to be flawless and can be more forgiving through those indifferent performances.

Our local press is very easy going with the player and the national press doesn't really care, so while there is pressure to perform and win at every club i think the external pressures are much less here than at a lot of places.

I think the likes of Ellington, Yanic, Powell and McMannaman are great examples of players who were talented but flawed and sometimes inconsistent at times but we generally understood that if we backed them through their indifferent patches we knew they'd reward us with crucial goals and match winning performances shortly after. While the clubs they went to just wouldn't accommodate those flaws to get to their good form.

It's the big fish in the small pond scenario, and some players thrive on being the main man in a smaller club with all the adulation with less pressure. I would be quite confident that if we got Yanic or Callum back that we could get them back to where we previosly had them. Some players just fit at certain clubs and we are the club they fit with - just like us and Nick Powell.

But i'm not sure if Paul Cook would see them as his type of player. As imagine a team with Yanic on left, Powell in middle and Callum on the right - sounds exciting but you probably aren't going to have the type of work rate and tracking back i think Cook would want.
 
Kenny Morris said:
I think people are mistaken when they say we dismantled the squad in Summer 2016. We only sold/ moved on Jordie Gomez, Barnett, Nichols, Pierce, Huws, Davies?
We signed Warnock, Burn, Gilby, Powell, Buxton, McDonald, Byrne,
As far as I can see that was not a bad squad.
So people who are advocating signing 5 or 6 players would be doing exactly the same as we did last time we were promoted.
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I agree that it wasn't a complete dismantaling of the squad but there was actually a larger player turnover than you said. But it's easy to forget as so many of the players in and out were so forgettable.

14 departures (sent out on loan, sent back from loan, released): Nicholls, Pierce, Huws, Wabara McCann, Chow, McAleny, Vukic, Morsy, Colclough, Taylor, Hendry, McKay, McNaughton all left that window.

11 new faces came Bogdan, Burn, Buxton, Gilbey, McDonald, Byrne, LeFondre, Woolery, Jordi, Powell, Garbutt.

A lot of lads who left weren't great loses and a lot of lads we brought in didn't end up making much impact on the team. But the issue is most of them would have been in training every day and part of the group which seemed to have that togetherness. When you have a turnover of 20+ ins and outs combined the dynamic of the group is going to be drastically different.

I don't think anyone is advocating we keep players who aren't good enough for the sake of the team spirit or suggesting we shouldn't strengthen for fear of losing it. But we start with a better squad and while we do need to improve the playing staff and any ins and outs can impact the togetherness - we probably want to limit ourselves to doing half as many signings and releases as we did last time. Having the turnover at around 12 rather than around 25 would ensure we can be stronger in quality but wont have weakened the togetherness too much.

What also didn't help was big 1st team characters like Morsy and Pierce seemed to get frozen out after presumably some type of fall out with Caldwell, McCann was a big loss for us and Morgan was stripped of the captincy and tried to be offloaded to Sheff U but wouldn't go. So I think there may have been other issues rather than just player turnover behind the scenes not helping matters. Hopefully we wont have anything like that this time.
 
i'd forgotten about McCann, I thought last year that he was one of the players that we missed the most and never replaced, he won most of the headers on the LHS of midfield and even impressed when he played LB and CH.
 
A solid left back and hopefullyget walton back in. I think a pacey, tricky winger is a must, with McManaman being quite a realistic target. I would imagine mcclean and yanic to have a slightly higher ambition than what we can offer at the moment
 
Apparently at Norwich, their central defender Russell Martin is out of contract this summer. Been regular for them in both PL and Championship last 4/5 seasons. Only 31 too. Ideal signing for us imo.
 
C_Latic said:
Nah, sounds like the East Anglian Jake Buxton.
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Tbf to Martin, he has played a lot more than Buxton has in last 6/7 seasons. Buxton has only made more than 30 appearances 3 times in that time were this is Martin's first season of not appearing more than 30 times. He also has made over 90 appearances in Prem in this timeframe compared to Buxton's 0.

Even if he isnt considerably better than what we have as our starting central defenders, he is without question better than both our backup central defenders (Bruce and Morgan). If wages were sensible, i would take Martin as it would improve the overall depth of squad.
 
If we can't get Walton I'd have Robles,great shout.
I'd also get Boycey and Scharns back in some capacity.
No way would I have the poppy dodger back.
 
Robles seems to have an affinity for Wigan and I don't think he is getting any first team premier league football, and his contract is out.
 
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