The Recruitment "Department"

[OneSirKeefy]

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.

Well, only if you thought that I didn’t know we had actually recruited Hurtado and Walker. Then I might have meant that we identified no one, pursued no one and recruited no one. Otherwise “identified, pursued and recruited no one” can only mean one thing

Doesn’t seem that we identified and pursued either Walker or Hurtado. They were offered to us in the last days of the window by clubs looking for them to get games or simply offloaded, and we accepted.

Stick by my point that our Jan recruitment was pretty poor, even if hampered by the Hurtado injury. 3 “unknown” and almost untried strikers in. 2 of them with 1 career EFL goal between them, and the other long term injured at the time. By any measure, that’s not good recruiting for a team struggling for goals but with the stated aim of promotion.

I really hope Josh Andrews turns out to be a quality player in time. Otherwise it will look even worse.

 

[markinkent]

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.

Great post. I like you more professional insight as to what really happens. It's like talking about open heart surgery to a surgeon rather than the bloke down the pub.

Not really wanting to single people out as its been a team failure this season but Jonny Williams has been way below the standards he is capable of. I cringed at the video when they asked him for his favourite Gills moment. Hopefully the club can work out how to get more from him next season as I suspect he's on a decent contract.

He should be a fantastic asset (as should Lapslie) and just hasn't delivered as much as he could and should have....in my view.

The positive thing is I believe the G's will provide the resources to address it, whether the recruitment team can find the answer who knows. If the don't this summer then they really should be replaced though.

 

[Lark]

The positive thing is I believe the G's will provide the resources to address it, whether the recruitment team can find the answer who knows. If the don't this summer then they really should be replaced though.

You are assuming the resources are there to sign a quality goalscorer, and it’s the recruitment team that have failed to sign one.
But we don’t know if the Galinson’s are willing to spend the big bucks needed for that, as they haven’t done so far.
It could be the forwards signed in January were the best we could get from the funding available.
3 strikers signed, but 3 also left, so points to a need to balance the books.

 

[Defenestrator]

The squad for the last match of the 22/23 season was

Turner
McKenzie
Ehmer
Masterson
Tutonda
Coleman
Lapslie
Clarke
Jefferies
Hawkins
Nichols

Substitutes
Morris
Alexander
Wright
MacDonald
Page
Gbode
Chambers

Basically in the 23 matches from January-May 2023 this squad (with some changes on occasion) had gained us 41 points which is 82 points over a full season. And in those 23 games scored 29 goals (so you'd imagine 58 goals over a full season).

Defensively in the last 23 matches of 22/23 we let in 21 goals (so 42 over a season).

Some of these players had been with us during the first, hopeless 23 matches and some had joined in January 2023.

At the moment, we're heading (simple arithmetic) for a points total of 66 and goals scored of 42 and goals conceded of 53.

So my questions as always are:-

Did we improve the squad over the Summer 23 and/or January 24 windows?

And if not, why not?

 

[Captainreblue]

"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?"

According to KJ at the fans forum all three of our January signings were players that "became available", two of which were very late and wernt targets or planned, so don't think these were part of our January 'planned recruitment'.

Whilst I agree players need to take accountability of their performances, both collectively and individually, how many times over the last few years have we heard "we need to recruit the right type of player/good characters phrase? I'd say we've done anything but judging by the general performances we've seen, certainly since the summer.

Ultimately, whilst every signing is a gamble, the recruitment's team job is to recruit players that make us better as a team. In the forward areas they've not solved the problems that have been identified. That is their job and they haven't done it.

If we're to be serious contenders we need to stop the talk and start delivering performances and that starts at the top. If anyone at the club seriously thought the three recruited in January were going to fire us into the playoffs they need trotting down the road.

Hope BG is asking some serious questions in the summer tbh.

 

[The Roone]

As I say again if a player doesn't want to come here what do you do?