Re: BFC TRANSFER NEWS (MUST CONTAIN LINK)
Posted: Mon Jul 08, 2019 9:24 am
Yes, this is probably going to be a long post, yes it will probably border on a rant, but Erik Pieters FFS.
Are we under some quirky transfer directive that is forcing us to buy at least one player from Stoke every window?
Did we really need to increase investment in our recruitment if we are primarily scouting one team?
Patience is asked for, patience is given, and our new first team left back could be Erik Pieters?
A 30 year old, who will be 31 in a couple of weeks, who couldn't force his way back into the Stoke squad. A situation that wasn't helped by his social media communications. Rowett and Jones both decided that they would rather play Martins Indi at left back and away from his best position instead of Pieters.
His last International appearance was in 2014 as a substitute and his only real run of games was way back in 2011. So the Netherlands' International tag is a massive stretch. The only reason that he got any game time at Amiens is because they didn't have another specialist left back to challenge him.
Fair enough, he played 21 games for Stoke early in the season, when they were leaking goals.
They conceded 20 goals during their first 15 games, with him on the pitch, and ( drum roll ) about 15 of those goals came from play down his flank. It didn't get any better when he was brought back into the squad. In fact the other Championship teams seemed to be exploiting him as a weakness and shuffling him off to SC Amiens improved the defensive performance of Stoke. Which is a poor reflection, because his replacements aren't suited to the position.
And we think he is capable of protecting our left flank in the Premiership if anything should happen to Taylor?
And we think that he is capable of replicating Taylors link up play with Mc Neill by getting forward?
Not a chance, he will sit on the bench and pick up a big wage, deny us the opportunity of bringing in a long term player, pick up a few yellow cards and stunt our limited creativity if he plays.
Prior to the window we had some media gems that included these statements.
“As we hopefully continue to maintain our Premier League status going forward, the above will form a key part of our strategy and, in the main, we will purchase players who improve the quality and competitiveness of our first team and are able to technically develop further and grow in value."
Mike Garlick
"Burnley are in the process of appointing technical analysts and their stats system puts value, and perhaps most importantly potential, on prospective players."
“The two interesting ones are how he is performing and what his potential is,” explains Rigg.
“What we want to try and do is not buy a player for what he’s done, but for what they’ve got the potential to do. Looking at Barcelona, Lionel Messi is playing at his peak, whereas Dembele has got more to come."
Mike Rigg
So what seems to be happening on that front exactly?
Well, with the few players the rumour mill has linked us to ( which could be nonsense ) it all seems to be a bit like Riggs spell at QPR.
https://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video ... autoplay=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Potential for sour grapes and bias, but just as interesting as the blog link I posted in the Eleven new scholars sign in for the new season thread.
* LTL sprays himself with a little Obsession by Calvin Klein *, because if the QPR and Fulham fans had been more dubious and critical instead of throwing their arms wide to welcome their new Messiah they might have escaped or limited a lot of the damage their clubs sustained. Key appointments should always be subject to ongoing scrutiny until they have proven their worth and loyalty, especially when they have poor performance records.
The Lancashire Telegraph article from March 25th also stated that
"Rigg has implemented a new statistics-based model at Turf Moor since arriving in November, in tandem with a data professor he has worked with closely elsewhere over the past four years."
"Rigg believes the system, which will analyse players in 22 leagues across the world, provides Burnley with something ‘better than anything else out there.’ "
If all of that is true then we really must be prioritising other areas, because bringing in Pieters would be a scraping the barrel type of signing that doesn't correspond with what our new system allegedly gives us in terms of performance and what our new recruitment strategy is aiming to accomplish.
I wonder who our priorities could be?
They can't include Fikayo Tomori from Chelsea, because selling Tarks and bringing him in as a direct replacement would move us one step closer to relegation. Ticks the box for being young with some potential, but we can't make a drastic change to our defensive set up ( like we did last year), he isn't as good and more importantly you can't easily replace the developed understanding Mee and Tarks have built up or expect a new arrival to master our framework in a couple of weeks.
£40m isn't enough for Tarks in this window of mad prices for central defenders either. £50m release clause as a minimum, if that is what it is, or jog on.
If Tarks isn't set to leave ( hopefully he doesn't want to ), then we really don't need another central defender and we should be spending the money elsewhere. £10-£20m sat on the bench behind four other players will do us no good this season at all.
Hasn't been confirmed yet, but Pieters would be a poor and somewhat desperate signing. The type of last ditch solution that is called upon to fill a position when everything else goes tits up.
What happened to Rigg putting together a target list of 440 players for us, comprised of 10 players for each position across 4 key groups within the clubs playing staff?
20 players in the Peak and Twilight groups and we might be in for Erik Pieters?
How did Pieters even make it into the 20 when the benchmarks are "how is he performing and what is his potential", at a competent level for the Championship ( in a flat back 4 with no forward impetus) and no remaining potential ( likely to decline further ) doesn't tick either of those boxes.
How many more, only for the short term, cast offs from a struggling Stoke do we really need?
If this is the "next level" recruitment that we were promised we are probably wasting our money. It will take a couple of jaw dropping miracle signings in the next few weeks to justify that claim if we bring in Pieters. I'm not saying that won't happen, I'm hoping it will, but this rumoured link doesn't inspire me with a lot of confidence.
Pieters isn't a completely busted flush and he could certainly do a job for someone, but is he really the best we could do for a new left back after 8 months of preparation for this window?
Are we under some quirky transfer directive that is forcing us to buy at least one player from Stoke every window?
Did we really need to increase investment in our recruitment if we are primarily scouting one team?
Patience is asked for, patience is given, and our new first team left back could be Erik Pieters?
A 30 year old, who will be 31 in a couple of weeks, who couldn't force his way back into the Stoke squad. A situation that wasn't helped by his social media communications. Rowett and Jones both decided that they would rather play Martins Indi at left back and away from his best position instead of Pieters.
His last International appearance was in 2014 as a substitute and his only real run of games was way back in 2011. So the Netherlands' International tag is a massive stretch. The only reason that he got any game time at Amiens is because they didn't have another specialist left back to challenge him.
Fair enough, he played 21 games for Stoke early in the season, when they were leaking goals.
They conceded 20 goals during their first 15 games, with him on the pitch, and ( drum roll ) about 15 of those goals came from play down his flank. It didn't get any better when he was brought back into the squad. In fact the other Championship teams seemed to be exploiting him as a weakness and shuffling him off to SC Amiens improved the defensive performance of Stoke. Which is a poor reflection, because his replacements aren't suited to the position.
And we think he is capable of protecting our left flank in the Premiership if anything should happen to Taylor?
And we think that he is capable of replicating Taylors link up play with Mc Neill by getting forward?
Not a chance, he will sit on the bench and pick up a big wage, deny us the opportunity of bringing in a long term player, pick up a few yellow cards and stunt our limited creativity if he plays.
Prior to the window we had some media gems that included these statements.
“As we hopefully continue to maintain our Premier League status going forward, the above will form a key part of our strategy and, in the main, we will purchase players who improve the quality and competitiveness of our first team and are able to technically develop further and grow in value."
Mike Garlick
"Burnley are in the process of appointing technical analysts and their stats system puts value, and perhaps most importantly potential, on prospective players."
“The two interesting ones are how he is performing and what his potential is,” explains Rigg.
“What we want to try and do is not buy a player for what he’s done, but for what they’ve got the potential to do. Looking at Barcelona, Lionel Messi is playing at his peak, whereas Dembele has got more to come."
Mike Rigg
So what seems to be happening on that front exactly?
Well, with the few players the rumour mill has linked us to ( which could be nonsense ) it all seems to be a bit like Riggs spell at QPR.
https://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video ... autoplay=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Potential for sour grapes and bias, but just as interesting as the blog link I posted in the Eleven new scholars sign in for the new season thread.
* LTL sprays himself with a little Obsession by Calvin Klein *, because if the QPR and Fulham fans had been more dubious and critical instead of throwing their arms wide to welcome their new Messiah they might have escaped or limited a lot of the damage their clubs sustained. Key appointments should always be subject to ongoing scrutiny until they have proven their worth and loyalty, especially when they have poor performance records.
The Lancashire Telegraph article from March 25th also stated that
"Rigg has implemented a new statistics-based model at Turf Moor since arriving in November, in tandem with a data professor he has worked with closely elsewhere over the past four years."
"Rigg believes the system, which will analyse players in 22 leagues across the world, provides Burnley with something ‘better than anything else out there.’ "
If all of that is true then we really must be prioritising other areas, because bringing in Pieters would be a scraping the barrel type of signing that doesn't correspond with what our new system allegedly gives us in terms of performance and what our new recruitment strategy is aiming to accomplish.
I wonder who our priorities could be?
They can't include Fikayo Tomori from Chelsea, because selling Tarks and bringing him in as a direct replacement would move us one step closer to relegation. Ticks the box for being young with some potential, but we can't make a drastic change to our defensive set up ( like we did last year), he isn't as good and more importantly you can't easily replace the developed understanding Mee and Tarks have built up or expect a new arrival to master our framework in a couple of weeks.
£40m isn't enough for Tarks in this window of mad prices for central defenders either. £50m release clause as a minimum, if that is what it is, or jog on.
If Tarks isn't set to leave ( hopefully he doesn't want to ), then we really don't need another central defender and we should be spending the money elsewhere. £10-£20m sat on the bench behind four other players will do us no good this season at all.
Hasn't been confirmed yet, but Pieters would be a poor and somewhat desperate signing. The type of last ditch solution that is called upon to fill a position when everything else goes tits up.
What happened to Rigg putting together a target list of 440 players for us, comprised of 10 players for each position across 4 key groups within the clubs playing staff?
20 players in the Peak and Twilight groups and we might be in for Erik Pieters?
How did Pieters even make it into the 20 when the benchmarks are "how is he performing and what is his potential", at a competent level for the Championship ( in a flat back 4 with no forward impetus) and no remaining potential ( likely to decline further ) doesn't tick either of those boxes.
How many more, only for the short term, cast offs from a struggling Stoke do we really need?
If this is the "next level" recruitment that we were promised we are probably wasting our money. It will take a couple of jaw dropping miracle signings in the next few weeks to justify that claim if we bring in Pieters. I'm not saying that won't happen, I'm hoping it will, but this rumoured link doesn't inspire me with a lot of confidence.
Pieters isn't a completely busted flush and he could certainly do a job for someone, but is he really the best we could do for a new left back after 8 months of preparation for this window?