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leeblue

Members⭐
Joined
Aug 22, 2006
Messages
9,366
Location
On the seafront c c csiders
Now that Mr Brown has gone may as well reflect on some of the players he got in...good, bad, indifferent....moneys made from said signings etc etc
I'll start with 2 good signings
Coker....imo easily his best signing I think he was easily the best left back in league two and definitely a contender for league one too.

White...sound defender and captain. Been a decent player for us and never given anything less than 100%. Him lifting that trophy at Wembley will live with me forever.
 
Another good signing for me was Will Atkinson. A real team player with great energy who never gave less than 100%. He played a huge part in our success over the first 4 years of Brown's reign. We've missed him far more than most realised we would.
 
Another good signing for me was Will Atkinson. A real team player with great energy who never gave less than 100%. He played a huge part in our success over the first 4 years of Brown's reign. We've missed him far more than most realised we would.

Great shout...obscene committment. Missed that character this season.
 
For me, some of Phil Browns signings have been fantastic. Shame he hasn't managed to get the best from them, which for me is the biggest disappointment of his whole tenure. It is also really annoying that we had some brilliant players who became out of favour, such as Worrall, Bolger, and Prosser, and they slipped through our fingers. All decent squad players who could have solved a few of the recent crisis issues. My recent (favourites are, in order:

Marc Antone Fortune - inspired! MAF has still "got it" albeit at the end of a long and illustrious career.
John White - a massive unsung hero, who has been a fantastic servant to Southend. I think he is even forgiven for having previously played for a North Essex side!
Ben Coker - probably the best left back in L1
Simon Cox - still the best striker in the league, who has been totally let down by poor tactics and no service!
Anton Ferdinand - far better than recent form suggests.
 
I agree with MAF, White and Coker. Not so sure about Cox, but as you say lack of service has hindered him. Ferdinand was great last season but he's not been right this season and his legs do seem to have gone.
 
Cox is a quality player. Not in great form, at the moment, but that has more to do with what's been going on than him as a player.

Overall, I think PB has signed well and has certainly outed the ones he made a mistake with, pretty quickly.

It could be that those players under-performing at the moment will start to perform now under a new set-up and turn out to be better signings than we thought.

We've got promoted under PB, without spending huge amounts of money, so kudos in that regard.
 
Adam Thompson was a good signing. Developed a lot during his time and with hindsight he made a mistake by leaving in the summer. Now sitting on the bench at Bradford when he'd be a nailed-on starter in our team at the moment.

Oxley, after a dodgy first few months, has proven to be a very able replacement for Bentley and according to most people is our player of the season so far.

McLaughlin was also one of his better signings and certainly one of the top players in the squad in terms of his attacking ability.

Up until last summer I think most of Brown's signings had been good, and there haven't been too many duffers. But there were some who he either didn't get the best out of or fell out with (Bolger for example). And I think we were all excited by some of the big names he's signed over the last couple of years, but this season we've just had too many injury-prone has-beens.
 
I think memories can also be a bit short. I agree with much of the above about the Good signings , but also wonder if our memories tend to cloud over the less successful, in a haze of rose coloured specs, some down to bad luck some poor judgement? some of the below here briefly, some practically all season and not getting a game.

Heres a few that didnt exactly set the
world on fire

Nouble, Mooney, King, Innis , Sokolik, Coulthirst, Cassidy, OToole, Barnard, Eastwood on return, Ibenfeldt, Malarcyzk, Loza, Hines, Binnon Williams, Layne, Theo Robinson, Hunt, Bennett, Amos, Reid, , Lee ,Weston , Barnett, Ellis Brown, Kamara ?O Neill, / ?Mc Queen, / Hendrie, Lee ,

I make that 31? Obviously debatable and open to your opinion, but hardly glowing endorsement and pretty poor including many of the triallists over Phils time. Obviously our Ron isnt over pleased either

Admitted some of these were unlucky, brief etc and could be the odd one might quite not be a Brownie as Im nor perfectly sure but None of the above really impressed me at thew time as quality additions
 
Perhaps unfair to add in Lee only here so briefly because of injury of course, so I take that one back and my maths were poor as I added him twice. However I am not including Kiernan or Ferdys current awful year, or Isaac Layne , brief youngster, Im not sure Klass will make it but hope he does, Dispensing with the services of Prosser and Bolger wasnt good either
 
If you put together a list of signings for Sturrock and even Tilson you would see plenty of failures too though.

Just listing players who failed doesnt give much of a picture of anything, Tilson spent hundreds of thousands in fees on players who failed yet whilst he bought Foran/Walker/Paynter he also bought Bailey/Eastwood/Barnard.

I cant think of many Brown signings who have really amazed me though.
 
I sse I did include Isaac Layne, wondering how he is doing. Right back to bed, shouldnt have stayed up to 2.30 a.m watching our under 19 cricketers against Bangladesh
 
Cant remember some of those, so they must be bad. Hunt? Bennett? Lee?

I think Mooney and Weston are a bit harsh to be on that list. Both did reasonably well in League two.
 
I think memories can also be a bit short. I agree with much of the above about the Good signings , but also wonder if our memories tend to cloud over the less successful, in a haze of rose coloured specs, some down to bad luck some poor judgement? some of the below here briefly, some practically all season and not getting a game.

Heres a few that didnt exactly set the
world on fire

Nouble, Mooney, King, Innis , Sokolik, Coulthirst, Cassidy, OToole, Barnard, Eastwood on return, Ibenfeldt, Malarcyzk, Loza, Hines, Binnon Williams, Layne, Theo Robinson, Hunt, Bennett, Amos, Reid, , Lee ,Weston , Barnett, Ellis Brown, Kamara ?O Neill, / ?Mc Queen, / Hendrie, Lee ,

I make that 31? Obviously debatable and open to your opinion, but hardly glowing endorsement and pretty poor including many of the triallists over Phils time. Obviously our Ron isnt over pleased either

Admitted some of these were unlucky, brief etc and could be the odd one might quite not be a Brownie as Im nor perfectly sure but None of the above really impressed me at thew time as quality additions

Most of the players you list were loans so hardly "signings" in the true extent. Others like Nouble, Hines, and Sokolik were very short contracts and effectively extended trials. Strip those out and I expect there are less poor signings than either Bury or Gillingham make per season.

Some of those signings like Layne and Ibenfeldt (and Ba this year) were clearly gambles and hardly caused us any problems. I thought you were fan of taking on untried youngsters or non league players, or is only those that Peterborough sign?

On a more positive note I would say his best signings are:

Ben Coker
Simon Cox
Stephen McLaughlin
Adam Thompson
Will Atkinson
David Worrall
Mark Oxley
Harry Kyprianou (potentially)

And all signed I believe for the grand sum of £0
 
PB didn't spend hardly any money on those, though and many were loans.

Bottom line is that, regardless of who came in and who went out, he left the club in a higher league position than when he took over and in that time, some of our younger players have had time to develop and nudge into 1st team spots.
 
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