BFC TRANSFER NEWS SUMMER/AUTUMN 2020 (MUST CONTAIN LINK)

[FactualFrank]

I'll guess at a contract extension for one of our players.

[Gordaleman]

I'll guess at a contract extension for one of our players.

Hope it's Tarky.

[Tall Paul]

6th signing very close.

That was Diallo.

[clarethomer]

Can we have a guess the gate type competition to say guess the page number when our first major signing of the season is signed?

I will start at 46

Slow the posting down lads

[Duffer_]

Can't have a link without a youtube video, this is from before he joined Mainz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiegknx_Prs

More reasons to shop at Quaison's!

[NewClaret]

I’m sure it will be groundbreaking if it’s from Nixon.

Gibson doesn’t want to come back here if Norwich don’t get promoted?

[KRBFC]

Tony, can we get some temporary bans on the posters continuously dragging down topics by shooting down what others say without offering anything constructive?

At least when I post I offer up an opinion related to the topic and I don’t target the same posters to bicker.

[MACCA]

Tony, can we get some temporary bans on the posters continuously dragging down topics by shooting down what others say without offering anything constructive?

At least when I post I offer up an opinion related to the topic and I don’t target the same posters to bicker.

Hear hear, although one of the main culprits doesnt come in at weekends. Make if that what you will

[huw.Y.WattfromWare]

I’ll post it here rather than start another thread but on the highlights package from yesterday JBG looked immense. 2 good strikes, from the IL position, and a hand in all 3 goals. That threat he gives us when he comes in off his line is a major plus.
I posted it on here because I’m sick of reading all the posts about his injuries and how we need cover for him. This fella will be the new signing this year.

[CFS]

7 signings before our first league game has surely got to be a record?

[CFS]

I’ll post it here rather than start another thread but on the highlights package from yesterday JBG looked immense. 2 good strikes, from the IL position, and a hand in all 3 goals. That threat he gives us when he comes in off his line is a major plus.
I posted it on here because I’m sick of reading all the posts about his injuries and how we need cover for him. This fella will be the new signing this year.

He'll be injured soon not to worry.

[NewClaret]

Can't have a link without a youtube video, this is from before he joined Mainz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiegknx_Prs

Looks quality but assume Vydra is off if we sign him?

[Gordaleman]

Looks quality but assume Vydra is off if we sign him?

Hope not. Not a word to suggest that aand it was something I mentioned yesterday. He seems more settled and integrated into the squad now and his ability has been recognised at last.

[FactualFrank]

Looks quality but assume Vydra is off if we sign him?

He can play all across midfield too.

[Gordaleman]

He can play all across midfield too.

He looks very useful. Just the sort of attacking midfielder we need.

[Conroy92]

There's a few posters at the minute who don't seem to understand what a debate is. They revert back to default setting of my opinion is right and yours doesn't exist. Then they start to drag people into the bickering and those people get branded the idiots with the original poster side stepping the s***.

[huw.Y.WattfromWare]

There's a few posters at the minute who don't seem to understand what a debate is. They revert back to default setting of my opinion is right and yours doesn't exist. Then they start to drag people into the bickering and those people get branded the idiots with the original poster side stepping the s***.

Sadly, been this way for far too long.
It would help if the mods immediately deleted any thread that is of a personal nature with no reference to the thread topic.
Free speech is all well and good but bloody boring to read.

[MACCA]

7 signings before our first league game has surely got to be a record?

There's 13 teams with less!

[CFS]

There's 13 teams with less!

Exactly it shows how far we've come that after the big 6 we've made the most signings.

[MACCA]

Exactly it shows how far we've come that after the big 6 we've made the most signings.

What you calling the big 6? We have signed more than most of them too

[superdimitri]

There's a few posters at the minute who don't seem to understand what a debate is. They revert back to default setting of my opinion is right and yours doesn't exist. Then they start to drag people into the bickering and those people get branded the idiots with the original poster side stepping the s***.

I'd argue they don't understand the purpose of a message board. I wish they'd eff of back to their superfan arguments in the pub tbh.

[Jimscho]

That Hendrick at Newcastle might be worth a punt.

[ewanrob]

I really hope Sean's just sent link to our illustrious Chairman....good move Sir

[DCWat]

Sadly, been this way for far too long.
It would help if the mods immediately deleted any thread that is of a personal nature with no reference to the thread topic.
Free speech is all well and good but bloody boring to read.

Deleting the thread would ruin it for those that have put forward their views sensibly. Personally, I’d prefer the post itself to be removed and the user warned privately.

Easy to say that but I suspect that the volume would prove to be difficult to moderate in such a way.

[huw.Y.WattfromWare]

Deleting the thread would ruin it for those that have put forward their views sensibly. Personally, I’d prefer the post itself to be removed and the user warned privately.

Easy to say that but I suspect that the volume would prove to be difficult to moderate in such a way.

My fault. I meant delete post but understand how busy the mods must be anyway.

[CFS]

What you calling the big 6? We have signed more than most of them too

Well there you have it don't get what all the moaning is about from everyone saying we haven't signed no-one.

[Bin Ont Turf]

I wonder if West Ham will find the extra £20 million in the next day or so.

[ClaretTony]

There's a few posters at the minute who don't seem to understand what a debate is. They revert back to default setting of my opinion is right and yours doesn't exist. Then they start to drag people into the bickering and those people get branded the idiots with the original poster side stepping the s***.

Then please report the posts so the mods can see them and take action. Decent posters are staying away because of all the bickering.

[ClaretTony]

Sadly, been this way for far too long.
It would help if the mods immediately deleted any thread that is of a personal nature with no reference to the thread topic.
Free speech is all well and good but bloody boring to read.

Just don't see everything, it's as simple as that. I've asked for help time and again but what usually happens is that other posters take it into their own hands and it just deteriorates even further.

[Newcastleclaret93]

I wonder if West Ham will find the extra £20 million in the next day or so.

That is my concern.

West Ham looked abysmal all over the park. However it could work on the other hand, surely Tarks has to be looking at that and thinking they have got to be one of the favourites for relegation

[RVclaret]

West Ham will be in the bottom 3 with or without Tarks by mid November, have you seen their run of fixtures? Today’s was the easiest by far and they looked abysmal. Tark would be daft going there IMO.

As for Robin Quaison he looks excellent and I hope we don’t muck around with it.

[NewClaret]

West Ham will be in the bottom 3 with or without Tarks by mid November, have you seen their run of fixtures? Today’s was the easiest by far and they looked abysmal. Tark would be daft going there IMO.

As for Robin Quaison he looks excellent and I hope we don’t muck around with it.

If Tarks goes there after that performance and run of fixtures they have, he needs his head looking at.

[nyclaret]

Can't have a link without a youtube video, this is from before he joined Mainz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiegknx_Prs

Announce 10 year contract

[DCWat]

If Tarks goes there after that performance and run of fixtures they have, he needs his head looking at.

Considering we are at the beginning of the season, the run of fixtures is a tad irrelevant, as we’ve all to play one another home and away.

[Steddyman]

7 signings before our first league game has surely got to be a record?

And none of them will get anywhere near the first team.

[NewClaret]

Considering we are at the beginning of the season, the run of fixtures is a tad irrelevant, as we’ve all to play one another home and away.

Yep, but playing like that, there’s every chance that West Ham will be on 0 points in November. Accept it evens itself out, but their confidence could take an irreparable battering in the coming weeks. Souness mentioned it post-match - just seems to be a toxic situation brewing at the club.

[DCWat]

Yep, but playing like that, there’s every chance that West Ham will be on 0 points in November. Accept it evens itself out, but their confidence could take an irreparable battering in the coming weeks. Souness mentioned it post-match - just seems to be a toxic situation brewing at the club.

Fingers crossed. That’d be them and Fulham gone!!

[NewClaret]

Fingers crossed. That’d be them and Fulham gone!!

Think they’ll let Moyes take this run of games and then swap. He reminds me of the John Major spitting image character- completely grey and lifeless. Getting rid of him could change things around.

[BenWickes]

Think they’ll let Moyes take this run of games and then swap. He reminds me of the John Major spitting image character- completely grey and lifeless. Getting rid of him could change things around.

Seems like the West Ham way. Buy random expensive players, start badly, sack manager. Improve enough to stay up. Rinse and repeat.

[BenWickes]

Robin Quaison looks very decent. Be pleasantly surprised and pleased if we could nab him.

[jojomk1]

Robin Quaison looks very decent. Be pleasantly surprised and pleased if we could nab him.

Now that it's out in the public domain and that we have gone in with a bid supposed to be way below the release clause figure, someone else likely to come in for him and beat us to it

[BenWickes]

Now that it's out in the public domain and that we have gone in with a bid supposed to be way below the release clause figure, someone else likely to come in for him and beat us to it

Sadly. I think you're right.

[Father Jack]

Reminds me of the same feeling watching the Hakim Ziyech videos from his time at Twente & Heerenveen.
And we lost out on him to Ajax.

Links higher up the thread saying that Spurs are interested in him. Just doesn’t feel like we’ll get him for £8m without any competition.

[Oldparkwood]

Question... With all the un rest that seems to be about on this board.... Will the fans turn against the chairman?

[Andreshotboots]

Question... With all the un rest that seems to be about on this board.... Will the fans turn against the chairman?

How do they do that?The likelihood of being in a football stadium any time soon is looking more and more remote as the days go by.

[PremierLeagueClass]

Where’s Nixon’s Burnley news?

[Long Time Lurker]

The Quaison rumour is something of a surprise to me. Given the financial impact that the loss of fan attendance will have on a lot of Championship clubs I was expecting to see Preston attached to our next news item on the transfer front. Their Chairman, Trevor Hemmings, has been faithfully making up for their financial shortfall for many a year. In the last few months he has put another 1.5m into the club via share issues to keep things ticking over when Covid started to bite.

During the current window they haven't sold or signed anybody. If things continue they will probably need another substantial injection of capital in the short term, so I was expecting to see them sell at least one player. However, thanks to the property price boom ( and plenty of public money being used to keep prices up ) Hemmings has more than enough money to support the club until the end of his days, should he choose to do so, but FFP will limit what he can do.

Having quite a few players in the latter part of their contracts might make a sale or two more likely though. Ben Davies would be my pick of their squad, even though they currently only have four central defenders which might make them reluctant to lose one so late in the window.

They do have an abundance of central midfielders, but I'm not enthusiastic about the prospect of us signing any of them. Ben ( Mr Red Card ) Pearson can play a bit, but I think that he represents far too much of a risk. We need players who can stay on the pitch. Alan Browne could be an option, but we already have Brownhill who is a similar type of player and better.

Maybe sign Quaison and swap Vydra for Davies, I could see that working for us if the idea appeals to them. Some cash on top would be fair, but Preston don't have any. What Preston definitely do have is a bunch of very poor strikers though.

If the rumour linking us with Quaison is true then our statistical scouts probably typed who scored lots of goals last season into WYSCOUT and jumped on the name of Quaison. Or the glowing reports, and potential interest from Tottenham, caught their attention. Unfortunately, due to his performances last season, he is now a very important member of the FSV Mainz squad. His monetary value must now be at an all time high as well.

When he was in my Tombola list last year, as someone that we should look at instead of Jay, he was struggling to get regular games up front or claim a fixed position. During that window of opportunity he was slipping down the pecking order and probably considering his options. His estimated transfer value was significantly less than it is now and it was in danger of dropping. The injury to Mateta gave him the opportunity to re-establish himself as a starting striker and towards the end of last season as their primary inverted left winger.

If we sign Quaison for £10m+ and he relegates Jay to the 4th spot we will have spent £20m+ on two players, not to mention wages. We could have probably bought Quaison for £5m+ last year, because he was falling out of favour, to achieve a similar result. To me that represents something of a negligent over spend.

Unless Vydra is moving on we don't urgently need another striker. Selling him and then spending an equal amount or more on a replacement fourth choice striker, who probably won't see much game time, doesn't make a lot of sense either. About as much sense as signing Crouch and ignoring Karlan Grant and Josh Maja who were both available for 1.5m in the same window, but I digress. If Quaison fills the 4th spot ( in the event of Vydra leaving ) then we could also be spending a lot of money for a repeat performance of Gibson Gate.

In terms of adding to our central midfield we only need one extra player. One thing that has puzzled me are the midfield targets the rumour mill has associated with us.

One minute we are supposed to be looking at a creative attacking player like Gallagher, the next one on the cards is Phillips who is more of a defensive midfielder, then we sign up Drinkwater ( as a last gasp better than nothing option ), Brannagan ( another attacking midfielder ) is the next name to surface, followed by Santamaria who is a defensive midfielder and now we are being linked with Quaison who could count as an attacking midfielder.

It's ******* amateur hour. We can't complain about prices when we target players who are currently at the peak of their visibility and important to their current clubs. More worryingly, with one spot to fill in midfield we shouldn't be chasing after targets with diametrically opposed playing styles. A club with a focused transfer strategy should only be after one type of player. Chasing after two different types raises questions of competence and a clear forward vision. Especially when our only defensive midfielder is set to be on the sidelines for an extended period of time.

Quaison is a good player, but our recruitment team should have known that last season. Considering our finances they should be finding quality players before they light up everyone's radar screen - not afterwards when their values have risen significantly.

Despite being ridiculed for my Tombola picks the last three have included Greg Taylor who moved to Celtic for £3m and played really well for them last season ( at left back and left midfield ). Moukoudi joined Saint-Etienne on a free transfer before joining Middlesbrough on loan and he looked as good as Fry last season. Villa signed John Mc Ginn for £3m and he was instrumental in their Championship winning season, he was also doing well in his first EPL season before his injury. Before his stand-out performances last season, which made him a highly sought after player, I suggested a swap deal with Wells for Eze at QPR ( although I'm happy we got Brownhill ). Ollie Watkins was another of my picks last Summer and I've already mentioned Grant and Maja from the previous Winter picks. I could go on further, but I think that is enough.

This isn't me blowing my own trumpet, I'm just painting a picture and using myself as an example. If an amateur observer ( who watches football beyond Burnley, but doesn't have anything approaching an extensive knowledge base ) can do an okay job of identifying cheap talent then a big department that is staffed by multiple full time professionals with far more resources at their disposal should be able to produce far better results for us.

At the very least they should be able to uncover good young players at cheap prices, instead of being blind to them until their names are shining like bright ******* beacons under " everyone is looking at me now spotlights ".

A recruitment team that can only identify obvious targets who have risen to prominence isn't doing their job. That is akin to phoning in a performance. When you consider how little money we have to spend we need a recruitment team that can uncover quality players at cheap prices, before all their playing stats push them to the front of a no effort or perception WYSCOT search query. If all we are doing is targeting statistical headline grabbers then it's no wonder the players we are looking at are expensive, open to transfer competition from other clubs and in some cases unavailable.

If all of the players that a recruitment team identifies are expensive then it could be that all of the players in the market are expensive. However, it is more far likely to be the case that the players are all expensive because the recruitment team aren't capable of unearthing anything other than high profile players with correspondingly high price tags.

The way that I envision things working is that Sean has a sit down with Riggy and he tells him the type of players he believes we need in respect to the positions that we need to fill. Garlick then gives Riggy an idea of how much we have to spend. If Riggy comes back with a list of players that don't meet with the Gaffers requirements, aren't available for the money that we can afford to pay, don't want to move to us or their clubs don't want to sell them then the recruitment team failed to identify players who satisfied the conditionals they were given.

If I ask someone to price up some prime steak for a dinner party and they come back to me with a list of possible acquisitions, containing nothing but nuts and vegetables, they ****** up. Giving me the choice of disappointing my dinner guests, by serving up something unsuitable or nothing at all, will put me in a bad position. Either way, all my guests will be unhappy with their dining experience and some of them might look to lay the blame at my feet, even though I'm not the one at fault. It is hard to come out ahead when you are the victim of Hobson's choice and the people standing front and centre are always the first to get hit when the **** hits the fan.

The difference between a recruitment team that is earning their pay and one that is " putting in the maximum effort to satisfy the minimum requirements, or less than the minimum requirements " is their ability to find quality players that won't cost us large amounts. That means digging deeper to uncover players that haven't made it onto the awareness list of every club, instead of skimming the surface for players that are currently putting big ticks in the stat boxes we happen to be monitoring.

If we search for Championship players with the most goals and assists during the last season up pops Gallagher, should we enter the same query for League One up pops Brannagan. Widening our search to strikers with the most goals in the Bundesliga the name of Robin Quaison pops up.

Coincidence or superficial statistical scouting ?

Had we signed Quaison last season then he would have represented an excellent piece of business in my humble opinion, but I can only see him being a current transfer target if Vydra is quietly pushing for a transfer or moving Vydra on is the key to unlocking another deal or deals. Quaison is a very good player and he would represent a quality replacement, providing that he is available for a reasonable price ( which I very much doubt ). However, having four ready to play first team strikers on relatively high wages could be considered a luxury that we can't really afford and they would all want to play.

Other than Vydra leaving the impending departure of either Dwight or Brady could create gaps that we might be looking to fill in advance. I doubt that playing Quaison on the left or maybe even right wing would generate many chances for our strikers and subsequent assists. He would be a strange choice as a direct replacement for Dwight, unless we have it in mind to change our formation to 4-3-3 or a more attack focused line up.

If we envision him as a creative goal scoring midfielder it would surely signify the end of the line for Cork, because a younger defensive midfielder would probably be next on our midfield shopping list and I can't see us supporting five central midfielders. Quaison definitely has a lot of good qualities, but defensive resilience isn't one of them. I wouldn't rule out the idea of playing him as an attacking midfielder this season and shifting him into a striker role if we move Vydra on the season after. However, I would prefer to see us bring in a central midfielder with a bit of defensive bite, especially with Cork set to miss quite a few games, and the same would apply to a new winger.

Despite his performances for us last season, and viewing the scenario from a purely financial perspective, we should have identified and subsequently bought Quaison last year instead of buying Jay. In my books a quality player with the potential to increase in value trumps a quality player that is only going to decrease in value. I'm saying that with an unreserved acknowledgement that Jay Rod played superbly for us last season. Experienced players are definitely valuable to a squad, but a healthy spread of ages is needed to provide a club with what it needs to keep moving forwards.

If our new recruitment team can't do any better than " after a players star has risen " scouting then we will end up paying a very heavy financial cost in the transfer market. If they can't see beyond obvious and expensive targets or players in the latter stages of their careers with little to no resale value then we are going to struggle. It could be argued that our stumbling progression on the recruitment front is already starting to cost us.

Covid or no Covid, when we consider the high level of additional investment that the board has pumped into our recruitment over the last two years we shouldn't be staring down the barrel of a gun three weeks out from the end of a transfer window. It's true to say that we have always done some of our business late in the window, but we have never done all of our major business this late in a window.

Touch wood everything will come together in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully, we don't have a daft idea in our heads that just because the players put in a magnificent performance to keep us up the table last season they can repeat that heroic feat to carry us through to the Winter window - so we can try again. Given an injury free spell, I don't doubt that they could do it, but asking it of them would be a disgraceful expectation.

[clarethomer]

Can you do a TLDR version for us who have things to get on with today?

[Boss Hogg]

I was going to start reading a new book tonight. I don’t need to bother.

[Reecey1987]

The Quaison rumour is something of a surprise to me. Given the financial impact that the loss of fan attendance will have on a lot of Championship clubs I was expecting to see Preston attached to our next news item on the transfer front. Their Chairman, Trevor Hemmings, has been faithfully making up for their financial shortfall for many a year. In the last few months he has put another 1.5m into the club via share issues to keep things ticking over when Covid started to bite.

During the current window they haven't sold or signed anybody. If things continue they will probably need another substantial injection of capital in the short term, so I was expecting to see them sell at least one player. However, thanks to the property price boom ( and plenty of public money being used to keep prices up ) Hemmings has more than enough money to support the club until the end of his days, should he choose to do so, but FFP will limit what he can do.

Having quite a few players in the latter part of their contracts might make a sale or two more likely though. Ben Davies would be my pick of their squad, even though they currently only have four central defenders which might make them reluctant to lose one so late in the window.

They do have an abundance of central midfielders, but I'm not enthusiastic about the prospect of us signing any of them. Ben ( Mr Red Card ) Pearson can play a bit, but I think that he represents far too much of a risk. We need players who can stay on the pitch. Alan Browne could be an option, but we already have Brownhill who is a similar type of player and better.

Maybe sign Quaison and swap Vydra for Davies, I could see that working for us if the idea appeals to them. Some cash on top would be fair, but Preston don't have any. What Preston definitely do have is a bunch of very poor strikers though.

If the rumour linking us with Quaison is true then our statistical scouts probably typed who scored lots of goals last season into WYSCOUT and jumped on the name of Quaison. Or the glowing reports, and potential interest from Tottenham, caught their attention. Unfortunately, due to his performances last season, he is now a very important member of the FSV Mainz squad. His monetary value must now be at an all time high as well.

When he was in my Tombola list last year, as someone that we should look at instead of Jay, he was struggling to get regular games up front or claim a fixed position. During that window of opportunity he was slipping down the pecking order and probably considering his options. His estimated transfer value was significantly less than it is now and it was in danger of dropping. The injury to Mateta gave him the opportunity to re-establish himself as a starting striker and towards the end of last season as their primary inverted left winger.

If we sign Quaison for £10m+ and he relegates Jay to the 4th spot we will have spent £20m+ on two players, not to mention wages. We could have probably bought Quaison for £5m+ last year, because he was falling out of favour, to achieve a similar result. To me that represents something of a negligent over spend.

Unless Vydra is moving on we don't urgently need another striker. Selling him and then spending an equal amount or more on a replacement fourth choice striker, who probably won't see much game time, doesn't make a lot of sense either. About as much sense as signing Crouch and ignoring Karlan Grant and Josh Maja who were both available for 1.5m in the same window, but I digress. If Quaison fills the 4th spot ( in the event of Vydra leaving ) then we could also be spending a lot of money for a repeat performance of Gibson Gate.

In terms of adding to our central midfield we only need one extra player. One thing that has puzzled me are the midfield targets the rumour mill has associated with us.

One minute we are supposed to be looking at a creative attacking player like Gallagher, the next one on the cards is Phillips who is more of a defensive midfielder, then we sign up Drinkwater ( as a last gasp better than nothing option ), Brannagan ( another attacking midfielder ) is the next name to surface, followed by Santamaria who is a defensive midfielder and now we are being linked with Quaison who could count as an attacking midfielder.

It's ******* amateur hour. We can't complain about prices when we target players who are currently at the peak of their visibility and important to their current clubs. More worryingly, with one spot to fill in midfield we shouldn't be chasing after targets with diametrically opposed playing styles. A club with a focused transfer strategy should only be after one type of player. Chasing after two different types raises questions of competence and a clear forward vision. Especially when our only defensive midfielder is set to be on the sidelines for an extended period of time.

Quaison is a good player, but our recruitment team should have known that last season. Considering our finances they should be finding quality players before they light up everyone's radar screen - not afterwards when their values have risen significantly.

Despite being ridiculed for my Tombola picks the last three have included Greg Taylor who moved to Celtic for £3m and played really well for them last season ( at left back and left midfield ). Moukoudi joined Saint-Etienne on a free transfer before joining Middlesbrough on loan and he looked as good as Fry last season. Villa signed John Mc Ginn for £3m and he was instrumental in their Championship winning season, he was also doing well in his first EPL season before his injury. Before his stand-out performances last season, which made him a highly sought after player, I suggested a swap deal with Wells for Eze at QPR ( although I'm happy we got Brownhill ). Ollie Watkins was another of my picks last Summer and I've already mentioned Grant and Maja from the previous Winter picks. I could go on further, but I think that is enough.

This isn't me blowing my own trumpet, I'm just painting a picture and using myself as an example. If an amateur observer ( who watches football beyond Burnley, but doesn't have anything approaching an extensive knowledge base ) can do an okay job of identifying cheap talent then a big department that is staffed by multiple full time professionals with far more resources at their disposal should be able to produce far better results for us.

At the very least they should be able to uncover good young players at cheap prices, instead of being blind to them until their names are shining like bright ******* beacons under " everyone is looking at me now spotlights ".

A recruitment team that can only identify obvious targets who have risen to prominence isn't doing their job. That is akin to phoning in a performance. When you consider how little money we have to spend we need a recruitment team that can uncover quality players at cheap prices, before all their playing stats push them to the front of a no effort or perception WYSCOT search query. If all we are doing is targeting statistical headline grabbers then it's no wonder the players we are looking at are expensive, open to transfer competition from other clubs and in some cases unavailable.

If all of the players that a recruitment team identifies are expensive then it could be that all of the players in the market are expensive. However, it is more far likely to be the case that the players are all expensive because the recruitment team aren't capable of unearthing anything other than high profile players with correspondingly high price tags.

The way that I envision things working is that Sean has a sit down with Riggy and he tells him the type of players he believes we need in respect to the positions that we need to fill. Garlick then gives Riggy an idea of how much we have to spend. If Riggy comes back with a list of players that don't meet with the Gaffers requirements, aren't available for the money that we can afford to pay, don't want to move to us or their clubs don't want to sell them then the recruitment team failed to identify players who satisfied the conditionals they were given.

If I ask someone to price up some prime steak for a dinner party and they come back to me with a list of possible acquisitions, containing nothing but nuts and vegetables, they ****** up. Giving me the choice of disappointing my dinner guests, by serving up something unsuitable or nothing at all, will put me in a bad position. Either way, all my guests will be unhappy with their dining experience and some of them might look to lay the blame at my feet, even though I'm not the one at fault. It is hard to come out ahead when you are the victim of Hobson's choice and the people standing front and centre are always the first to get hit when the **** hits the fan.

The difference between a recruitment team that is earning their pay and one that is " putting in the maximum effort to satisfy the minimum requirements, or less than the minimum requirements " is their ability to find quality players that won't cost us large amounts. That means digging deeper to uncover players that haven't made it onto the awareness list of every club, instead of skimming the surface for players that are currently putting big ticks in the stat boxes we happen to be monitoring.

If we search for Championship players with the most goals and assists during the last season up pops Gallagher, should we enter the same query for League One up pops Brannagan. Widening our search to strikers with the most goals in the Bundesliga the name of Robin Quaison pops up.

Coincidence or superficial statistical scouting ?

Had we signed Quaison last season then he would have represented an excellent piece of business in my humble opinion, but I can only see him being a current transfer target if Vydra is quietly pushing for a transfer or moving Vydra on is the key to unlocking another deal or deals. Quaison is a very good player and he would represent a quality replacement, providing that he is available for a reasonable price ( which I very much doubt ). However, having four ready to play first team strikers on relatively high wages could be considered a luxury that we can't really afford and they would all want to play.

Other than Vydra leaving the impending departure of either Dwight or Brady could create gaps that we might be looking to fill in advance. I doubt that playing Quaison on the left or maybe even right wing would generate many chances for our strikers and subsequent assists. He would be a strange choice as a direct replacement for Dwight, unless we have it in mind to change our formation to 4-3-3 or a more attack focused line up.

If we envision him as a creative goal scoring midfielder it would surely signify the end of the line for Cork, because a younger defensive midfielder would probably be next on our midfield shopping list and I can't see us supporting five central midfielders. Quaison definitely has a lot of good qualities, but defensive resilience isn't one of them. I wouldn't rule out the idea of playing him as an attacking midfielder this season and shifting him into a striker role if we move Vydra on the season after. However, I would prefer to see us bring in a central midfielder with a bit of defensive bite, especially with Cork set to miss quite a few games, and the same would apply to a new winger.

Despite his performances for us last season, and viewing the scenario from a purely financial perspective, we should have identified and subsequently bought Quaison last year instead of buying Jay. In my books a quality player with the potential to increase in value trumps a quality player that is only going to decrease in value. I'm saying that with an unreserved acknowledgement that Jay Rod played superbly for us last season. Experienced players are definitely valuable to a squad, but a healthy spread of ages is needed to provide a club with what it needs to keep moving forwards.

If our new recruitment team can't do any better than " after a players star has risen " scouting then we will end up paying a very heavy financial cost in the transfer market. If they can't see beyond obvious and expensive targets or players in the latter stages of their careers with little to no resale value then we are going to struggle. It could be argued that our stumbling progression on the recruitment front is already starting to cost us.

Covid or no Covid, when we consider the high level of additional investment that the board has pumped into our recruitment over the last two years we shouldn't be staring down the barrel of a gun three weeks out from the end of a transfer window. It's true to say that we have always done some of our business late in the window, but we have never done all of our major business this late in a window.

Touch wood everything will come together in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully, we don't have a daft idea in our heads that just because the players put in a magnificent performance to keep us up the table last season they can repeat that heroic feat to carry us through to the Winter window - so we can try again. Given an injury free spell, I don't doubt that they could do it, but asking it of them would be a disgraceful expectation.

how long did it take you to write that ?