The Recruitment "Department" | Page 2 | Vital Football

The Recruitment "Department"

nibbles said:
Josh Andrews is in contention to play on Saturday 😮
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If so, I imagine he will come on at the hour mark depending on the score at the time.
A productive Hutton/Andrews partnership might just yield enough of the goals we've been lacking to keep any play off push on track.
 
I already feel sorry for Andrews.

A player being rushed back from mid to long term injury, with the expectation from many of less patient supporters that he will single handedly solve our goal scoring crisis.

If he has not scored 5 by the end of the season, there will loads calling rubbish!!
 
Lozzy-Hove_Gill said:
I already feel sorry for Andrews.

A player being rushed back from mid to long term injury, with the expectation from many of less patient supporters that he will single handedly solve our goal scoring crisis.

If he has not scored 5 by the end of the season, there will loads calling rubbish!!
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Don`t think so, Lozzy. Reckon most of us would be delighted for the player, whilst at the same time, hope he`s able to add some much needed bite.

If Josh can be part of the solution then great. But, tbh, isn`t it more likely that it will take the summer (off-season) break for the bigger issue to be addressed and, hopefully, fixed.
 
daveycrocket said:
Considering the title of this thread, what do Hess and KJ do all day?
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Well KJ looks after the whole club I thought, not just recruitment. That’s Hess primary and only role isn’t it?

I thought recruitment was going great guns (apart from attack) up until the Jan window. Before that we/he had unearthed and recruited some decent players. All the crop last Jan did excellent and had a great 2nd half of the season. We then recruited pretty well in summer, securing Masterson, JW, plus Clark, Malone, Mahoney, Ogei and others. Although still lacking in attack.

But January was poor on every front except Hutton and (hopefully) Andrews. To openly state “we know our issues and are dealing with it” in December but then get in zero known quality strikers except “one for next season” and 2 last minute hopefuls in Walker and Hurtado was a complete fail.

So what exactly was happening on the recruitment front between September 2023 and Jan 2024? Apart from Hutton and Andrews we identified, pursued & recruited no one. Bizarre.
 
It's surprising how many games you have to see to find players that fit what you are looking for. Then find out if they are available at the right price. The task is never ending. Then they have to be persuaded to come here, I bet there are more no's than yes's, to that question.
 
The Roone said:
It's surprising how many games you have to see to find players that fit what you are looking for. Then find out if they are available at the right price. The task is never ending. Then they have to be persuaded to come here, I bet there are more no's than yes's, to that question.
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Errr, chasing May through the whole summer when he was never coming here, the expensive bloke who (weirdly) ended up at York, the couple we chased from Charlton who ended up at Fleetwood a division above, Oalafe who said no, and that one who went to Peterborough from Mansfield.

All great targets, but all unobtainable, and then the recruitment team is scratching its collective head on who to take a chance on (on having shipped out 3 strikers), in the final hours of the transfer window.
 
OneSirKeefy said:
So what exactly was happening on the recruitment front between September 2023 and Jan 2024? Apart from Hutton and Andrews we identified, pursued & recruited no one. Bizarre.
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Practically no players are out of contract in January. Simple as.

The only decent players clubs will be looking to sell are those whose contracts are coming to an end in the summer and are adamant that they will not sign a new one, like Hutton. The club will then be looking to take their last chance to get a fee.

Any players that clubs have a good relationship with, and want to keep, will be offered and sign new ones.

Players looking for the best pay day and signing on fee will hold on until the summer and leave on a free, like JCH.

To get round the above issues you really do have to splash the cash regardless and Jan 2023 was the only time we were going to do that.
 
This is starting to read like "what have the Romans done for us".
In my opinion the permanent signings of the recruitment team have been first class with no duds. The problem with attack signings is a reluctance to pay over the odds for average players.
I do think there is a failure to pick up local talent. For example the Wimbledon striker Omar Bugiel who scored 2 against us the other day was signed from Sutton in July 2023 on a free transfer. How many have been slipping under the radar when we were chasing after Alfie May who was never coming to us?
 
I find it difficult to get too involved in this thread but I just wanted to point out that we went into January knowing we needed to improve a few things - Right hand side of the defence in an offensive sense, a revamp to the forward line and maybe a boost in central midfield as it looked like Jefferies might be on his way at the time.

We got in Hutton for the first bit, so a good bit of work by all involved.

We shipped out Bonne and Nichols who didn't perform to the expected level in the first half of the season and brought in 3 to replace them - revamping the forward line as planned. I have absolutely no idea how many forwards we 'identified and pursued' in January, but it's not going to have been just the three we brought in. Walker hasn't worked which happens, Andrews has been out longer than expected after a couple of knock backs, and who could've forseen Hurtado being so good that Swindon's only response was to crock him?

With a fit Hurtado in our side we were a different team in the limited minutes he had, so extrapolate that by the last however many games and (although there are no guarantees in football) I'm fairly certain he would've been a difference maker in at least 3 or 4 games. KJ brought Hurtado to the club having seen him for Watford (answering a little piece of what he does for the club) and does anyone reckon that was a bad signing? His injury was calamitous, both in scale and timing.

Yes, we all know what the issues with the squad are, but the constant blame put at KJ and AHs door is crass. Last summer the signings in the main were heralded as positive ones, we have players in the squad who have scored double figures at this level for previous clubs, so why not here? Is looking to recruit players who've had positive seasons at this level a bad strategy? It hasn't worked out, but it's not as black and white as just blaming KJ/AH.

Very little heat on Jonny Williams for example, who just hasn't produced enough on the field. Lapslie can't stay fit. Mahoney is all twists and turns and firing over the bar. Dieng can't get into the box often enough. Hawkins on average misses a really good chance every game. This set of players should be producing more considering their combined talents, and at the end of the day that's more or less the issue.

I'm not absolving anyone of blame, because no-one has been able to put things right yet - but that includes everyone involved with the club going back over 3 years now - the managers, coaches, various recruitment staff - no-one has been able to get a tune out of probably 100-odd players over that time, and at some point those players have to take collective responsibility.
 
PuB said:
Errr, chasing May through the whole summer when he was never coming here, the expensive bloke who (weirdly) ended up at York, the couple we chased from Charlton who ended up at Fleetwood a division above, Oalafe who said no, and that one who went to Peterborough from Mansfield.

All great targets, but all unobtainable, and then the recruitment team is scratching its collective head on who to take a chance on (on having shipped out 3 strikers), in the final hours of the transfer window.
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I guess they are only 'unobtainable' once you haven't managed to obtain them. There is plenty to be said for the fact that we did try to sign them in the first place.
We don't know how close we came or what games the players agents were playing either.
Summer window is only a few weeks away and we can do it all again.
 
nibbles said:
How did you manage to get your hands on the list of identified and pursued players?
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You missed out the all important “AND” in my statement nibbles.

We actually did identify, pursue AND recruit only Hutton and Andrews. I’m only going on the rumours, but again these were from all the ITK sources, that both Hurtdo and Walker were very last minute options offered to us that we took. The injury to Hurtado was a big blow, but doesn’t appear to have been much or any previous process went into their recruitment.

If there were any other players we identified and pursued, we didn’t get them.

A lot of pursuing did seem to happen with both May and JCH, but I agree with PuB that both those players were never, ever coming here regardless. I think both those chases were pointless other than to prove we have good money to spend. And it appears we spent a lot of time on them. Definitely on Alfie May.
 
Play up Brompton said:
I do think there is a failure to pick up local talent. For example the Wimbledon striker Omar Bugiel who scored 2 against us the other day was signed from Sutton in July 2023 on a free transfer. How many have been slipping under the radar when we were chasing after Alfie May who was never coming to us?
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How many strikers were we meant to sign or take a punt on?

Bugiel is 30 and has played all his career in non league until Sutton got promoted in the EFL. Apart from the 2 against us, he has scored 8 in 38 games for the Dons this season. Yes, that is 2 more than our top scorer (Masterson) but would he necessarily have fired us to promotion when those that have scored more than double his amount of goals (Langstaff and Matt Smith) play for teams that look unlikely to make the play offs?

The other week it was Acquah at Barrow that was being feted. He has scored 7 in 38 and doesn't always get in their team.

We are incredibly inconsistent so we are losing almost alternate games - 15 in all. When that happens, do we assume that anyone who scores against us should have come here instead?

We did, of course, sign 2 forward players from the side that looks like being champions this season (Mansfield) and yet they only managed to score against us from that dodgy free kick, so I presume we didn't miss out on any targets from there.
 
OneSirKeefy said:
You missed out the all important “AND” in my statement nibbles.

We actually did identify, pursue AND recruit only Hutton and Andrews. I’m only going on the rumours, but again these were from all the ITK sources, that both Hurtdo and Walker were very last minute options offered to us that we took. The injury to Hurtado was a big blow, but doesn’t appear to have been much or any previous process went into their recruitment.

If there were any other players we identified and pursued, we didn’t get them.
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Your statement was ambiguous at best - confusingly written. As well as your intended meaning, it reads more naturally that we identified no one, pursued no one AND recruited no one.
 
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