The 'Requirement Policy' Now - Your Thoughts

[SeaSideDoughnut]

This is my first thread post, so be kind people.

Towards the end of last season we were told by Phil Brown ‘I want to have my transfers done early’ and there were mentions of a requirement policy which we as supporters discussed quite heavily.

I’m not saying it’s a failure by the club, Cox and Demetriou in particular are evidence of good business. But our season has already started, and our transfers are still not done and I wondered how the requirement policy featured, what your views are now, if they've changed and if it helped or hinder us...

For example, we’ve been linked to former players and its viewed as desperation from Phil Brown. Do you think the requirement policy is flawed? Perhaps too particular, or were there simply few suitable players available.

 

[pbdream]

Think the timing of our signings are a lot More to do with other clubs, finances and players than when we want them to sign. I'm sure Phil and Ron didn't want to leave it this late...but if this means we get the right players in that great stuff. If not, then so be it.

Also, I don't get the hate for bringing back former loanees or players. Our scouting network has scouted them in the past and decided they match our criteria....if they are still available and still match that criteria ...I can't see the problem. I would rather a player I know inside out in my team than a player I've seen once or twice in a friendly.

 

[Jai]

Clubs at our level are having real problems due to the rule changes on emergency loans. Championship clubs are fearful of letting players out because they know if they get an injury in September they won't be able to replace them. The new 'Premier League 2' is also making EPL clubs reluctant to let out their youngsters. It may only be an academy league but it is televised and they don't want their brand harmed by getting beat heavily etc.

This in turn is forcing up the prices of permanent signings as fewer players are available. A couple of the players we were after have apparently had their asking prices forced up to about £250k, well out of our price range and highly inflated.

It's a real problem and not one just facing us.

 

[rlb999]

Certainly nothing wrong with being too particular. The criticism last season was that we went quantity over quality - no point in doing that. In recruiting Cox, Demetriou, Ranger I think it's safe to say we've improved on what we had previously so what we want is more of the same. If you look at the names we're being linked with, Brown is clearly TRYING to do this. But let's be honest, it's not easy - there's the budget issue, the fact that other clubs with more kerb appeal than us may be interested, and the fact that some players at bigger teams won't know where Southend is, let alone want to go there.
We also need to remember we have 3 or 4 first teamers to come back from injury.

 

[Chocolardo]

I think brown has been unlucky. Before the season started I would say the majority of people where excited. We had a good squad majority of players where fit and we where rumoured to be after a few more high standard players (ball, Simpson etc). Fast forward a few weeks, injuries to key players (Timlin, Wordsworth and Ranger) and unfortunately signings falling through has left us a bit short atm. Brown will get a few more people in and the players will come back from injury and I think we will do okay this season. Top 12

 

[Cockle43]

It's as Jai says above, PB has been on the radio this morning saying exactly this and that it has been the most difficult transfer window he's ever known.
It's not just PB saying this, Steve Kavanagh said the same on Wednesday evening and the EFL CEO Shaun Harvey said pretty much the same. SK mentioned that the deal with Cox was one of the most involved he's ever done and that PB has a long list of targets they've been negotiating on, he said that one loan was even all but agreed but the releasing club changed their mind at the last minute because they suddenly realised they wouldn't be able to recall the player in the event of an injury to one of their squad to backfill.
As Jai said, many of the EPL sides are keeping their stockpile of players this year for EPL 2, this means that many aren't being released down the chain to the Championship clubs who in turn are starting to hold on to their youngsters because they won't be able to loan in either. This leaves the L1 and L2 clubs looking at either the very young and untried players from the EPL, who are on wages that even as a youngster are probably out of our range or trying to pick up an unpolished diamond from the non-League pool but everyone else is trying to do that as well so prices are rising. And all this has to be done within the Financial Fair Play guidelines which hampers clubs with lower revenue streams from gate money, etc.
It's no longer a case of just saying, 'Oh, Mr Chairman, give me some extra money, I want to buy/loan some players.'

 

[rigsby]

Good post Cockle. You will find that lots of people on here will ignore it, as it does not suit their agenda.

 

[Sleaford Shrimper]

My guess is that Mr Brown's first priorities would have been to replace the members of last season's squad who have left the club and had been pretty much in constant contention for a place in the first eleven and/or the subs' bench when fit. I think he has achieved that with Cox for Hunt, Ranger for Barnett, Oxley for Bentley, McGlashen for Worrall and Sokolik for Prosser. Whether those recruits will prove adequate or improved replacements for their predecessors only time will tell. However, he has not managed to recruit anyone that I can identify at present as direct replacements for Payne or Deegan, unless King or Bridge can be developed quickly to fill their roles, and we don't have a big, physical, bullying central defender to replace Bolger. My ideal scenario would be to have a squad that contains at least two players who could do a decent job in every position. The current crop of injuries to the likes of Wordsworth, Ranger and Timlin has exposed weaknesses in cover for the key roles that they can fill in the team when fit and in form.

 

[BrettieAngell]

The changes to the loan system seem to have changed the dynamics, personally I don't really like it when it gets to a situation where half the team are loanee's but clearly lower league clubs really on the loan system to a certain extent.

 

[undercovershrimper]

do you mean recruitment policy?

 

[Cockle43]

Good post Cockle. You will find that lots of people on here will ignore it, as it does not suit their agenda.

People can ignore, or not, that's their right, but if our manager is saying it, our CEO is saying it, the EPL CEO is saying it and I've heard several other managers saying the same thing, then the chances are they're not all wrong. :sherlock:

 

[united we stand]

It's as Jai says above, PB has been on the radio this morning saying exactly this and that it has been the most difficult transfer window he's ever known.
It's not just PB saying this, Steve Kavanagh said the same on Wednesday evening and the EFL CEO Shaun Harvey said pretty much the same. SK mentioned that the deal with Cox was one of the most involved he's ever done and that PB has a long list of targets they've been negotiating on, he said that one loan was even all but agreed but the releasing club changed their mind at the last minute because they suddenly realised they wouldn't be able to recall the player in the event of an injury to one of their squad to backfill.
As Jai said, many of the EPL sides are keeping their stockpile of players this year for EPL 2, this means that many aren't being released down the chain to the Championship clubs who in turn are starting to hold on to their youngsters because they won't be able to loan in either. This leaves the L1 and L2 clubs looking at either the very young and untried players from the EPL, who are on wages that even as a youngster are probably out of our range or trying to pick up an unpolished diamond from the non-League pool but everyone else is trying to do that as well so prices are rising. And all this has to be done within the Financial Fair Play guidelines which hampers clubs with lower revenue streams from gate money, etc.
It's no longer a case of just saying, 'Oh, Mr Chairman, give me some extra money, I want to buy/loan some players.'

Jut adding to the above. Kavangh confirmed that we made the deal for the CB pre season. The agreement was that he would do pre-season with his current club as they wanted to see how he got on and to make him feel wanted . Regardless of how well he played they agreed to send him to us us . In other words in this instance we DID do our business early, and we fully expected to havee the player at the start of the season . mWe dont becasue his club didn't understand the implications at the time of agreeing the deal

 

[C V Shrimper]

Did he say who the player or club was?

 

[united we stand]

Did he say who the player or club was?

Player no, some hints on the club, but I can't recall as I had already decided not to post details (see fans forum thread)

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

It's as Jai says above, PB has been on the radio this morning saying exactly this and that it has been the most difficult transfer window he's ever known.
It's not just PB saying this, Steve Kavanagh said the same on Wednesday evening and the EFL CEO Shaun Harvey said pretty much the same. SK mentioned that the deal with Cox was one of the most involved he's ever done and that PB has a long list of targets they've been negotiating on, he said that one loan was even all but agreed but the releasing club changed their mind at the last minute because they suddenly realised they wouldn't be able to recall the player in the event of an injury to one of their squad to backfill.
As Jai said, many of the EPL sides are keeping their stockpile of players this year for EPL 2, this means that many aren't being released down the chain to the Championship clubs who in turn are starting to hold on to their youngsters because they won't be able to loan in either. This leaves the L1 and L2 clubs looking at either the very young and untried players from the EPL, who are on wages that even as a youngster are probably out of our range or trying to pick up an unpolished diamond from the non-League pool but everyone else is trying to do that as well so prices are rising. And all this has to be done within the Financial Fair Play guidelines which hampers clubs with lower revenue streams from gate money, etc.
It's no longer a case of just saying, 'Oh, Mr Chairman, give me some extra money, I want to buy/loan some players.'

All this is a factor but what rigsby will ignore as it doesn't suit his agenda is that this rule change was known well in advance and so isn't something that we should have been caught by surprise with.

What we are reaping is the lack of advance planning and the failure of numerous previous Brown signings.

We should have been making signings in January, February and March with an eye on this season. That's getting them in early and letting them bed down so they can be productive players from the start of the season.

And to be fair Ron backed him. He let him get in on decent wages Tyrone Barnett with a view to a permanent move only for us to find out that PB wasn't as good a man manager as PB thought he was and he couldn't motivate him either where others had failed (still, at least with Nile Ranger as his replacement there are no concerns there and PB seems to have learnt his lesson). We got in Franck Moussa which gave us an exclusive negotiating period which we failed to take advantage of. We got in Piotr Malarczyk on loan, but he appeared to be crap and not the answer to our central defensive issues that arose as a result of Brown falling out with two centre-halves in Prosser and Bolger, that latter a Brown signing that itself ultimately has to also go down as another failed signing.

Instead we gave yet more pitch time to loanees that we've got no chance of signing. Sam McQueen played 18 times when we had a chance in the second half of last season to blood Jack Bridge, to find out what we had and bed him in the side so he was ready to start this season but instead gave him just 76 minutes total from one start and one sub appearance whilst playing loanees like Sam McQueen instead. Bridge's now getting the minutes for us as sub he should have got towards the end of last season before starting the final matches. We played Glen Kamara - maybe that was with a view to a permanent but if so it was an unsuccessful loan spell. Ditto for Jamar Loza. I'm not sure what happened with Glenn Rea, but at any rate he's not here. Then there's Joe Pigott who needed his confidence building up by a manager but didn't get that.

Our problems now are the result of unsuccessful signings for Barnett and Moussa and Bolger and Malarczyk and Kamara and McQueen and Loza and Rea and Mooney and Weston and before them the likes of Clifford, Barnard (although that was probably Ron's fault) and Reid and Coulthirst and Ibenfledt and O'Toole and Layne and Brown and the list goes on. That's the real reason we're struggling: poor signings, often just trying to apply the band-aid temporary solution of a loanee rather than addressing the underlying issue with a permanent fix.

We need to be recruiting and developing young talent. Our biggest -pun not intended - need is at centre-half. Off the top of my head Brown has during his reign signed something like 7 central defenders on loan! How come that problem hasn't been permanently fixed yet? Do people really believe that a permanent solution is just around the corner 8th time lucky?

Cox is Brown's 16th forward he's signed (Ranger, Mooney, Pigott, Weston, Loza, Hunt, Barnett, Barnard, Brown, Layne, Cassidy, Coulthirst, Cowan, Reid, Woodrow - have I missed anyone?) and whilst it's too early for a verdict on Cox and Ranger he's 0 and 14 in the hit stakes and still looking to replace the forward he inherited who got the team promoted.

Not every signing is going to be a success but Brown's hit rate has been woefully low leaving us struggling to fill gaps as he's now trying for somewhere between the third and seventeeth time - depending on the position - to fill a role. Of all Brown's signings only Coker, Thompson, Atkinson and White have I think got contract extensions and the latter two are out of the side and merely squad players (something that Thompson is likely to be once we sign the latest central defender). That's not nearly a good enough success rate and this, above all, is the true cause of our current difficulties.

 

[rigsby]

I'm honoured that Yorkshire would dedicate such a post to me personally. Good effort but here are a few learning points to help you in future

a) We can't sign people in February or March
b) Barnett was on loan not decent wages
c) Moussa wanted more money than we were offering
d) Bolger wasn't a failure. L2 run in 7 clean sheets good performances v Stevenage and outstanding v Wycombe at Wembley
e) Bridge was on a very successful loan at Chelmsford, that's why McQueen was playing.
g) Every club has loan players they don't sign. The parent club don't want to sell or in many cases not good enough.
h) You say our biggest problem is not developing young talent.....Two words Bentley and Payne
I) The problem with signing those 20 goal strikers is simple...Charlton are paying Novak (14 goals) £100,000 More than us a year.
j) Brown does not deal with the contract extensions
k) If we are failing, can you list the clubs who finished higher than us last season but have a lower income.

Apart from those small points good post :thumbsup:

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

I'm honoured that Yorkshire would dedicate such a post to me personally. Good effort but here are a few learning points to help you in future

a) We can't sign people in February or March
b) Barnett was on loan not decent wages
c) Moussa wanted more money than we were offering
d) Bolger wasn't a failure. L2 run in 7 clean sheets good performances v Stevenage and outstanding v Wycombe at Wembley
e) Bridge was on a very successful loan at Chelmsford, that's why McQueen was playing.
g) Every club has loan players they don't sign. The parent club don't want to sell or in many cases not good enough.
h) You say our biggest problem is not developing young talent.....Two words Bentley and Payne
I) The problem with signing those 20 goal strikers is simple...Charlton are paying Novak (14 goals) £100,000 More than us a year.
j) Brown does not deal with the contract extensions
k) If we are failing, can you list the clubs who finished higher than us last season but have a lower income.

Apart from those small points good post :thumbsup:

Nice rebuttal except

a) we can and did sign players in February and March. There was the loan system and on many occasions under this system someone was signed on loan with a deal in place for when the transfer window re-opens. This is therefore a pathetic argument.
b) Unless you are saying Shrewsbury let him play for us without us paying anything to him or them this point isn't valid.
c) As it's a negotiation most players will ask for more money than they end up signing for (especially if we only made a token offer), so without any more details that's an empty point.
d) Why was he allowed to go then without us recouping his fee?
e) Bridge should have been playing for Southend in L1 and not at Chelmsford.
f) You seem to have no f in (your) argument
g) the issue is the amount of loan players that don't sign. A constant churn doesn't allow you to build. Whilst one wouldn't expect every trial to be successful one would expect a far higher proportion to sign and be successful than this if one were looking to build long stability rather than just patch us up from one press conference to the next.
h) no, I actually said recruit and develop. Neither recruited by Brown so not a valid point.
i) I didn't say anything about 20 goal strikers, although I think if you take out Pigott's goals the remaining 15 might have probably just about managed 20 league goals for us between them. Are Charlton paying Novak more than the combined total we paid those 15?
j) are you suggesting that he has no input into whether players stay or not?
k) If we're failing to replace the players that Brown inherited - to take your example, the players in your point h - how is that going to show up in last season's table? Or do you mean the plummet down the table after PB failed to replace the seemingly easily replaceable Luke Prosser? The point is that you don't see the fruits of long-term planning immediately and having inherited a strong squad we're only starting to feel the pain of PB's short term approach. As you will know, we're still feeling the financials benefits of the cash from players signed before PB darkened our doorstep. That pipeline will dry up unless replenished.

So basically yeah, Walsall might have (but we don't actually know) offered Moussa more money than us, a sum which we may or may not have been able to pay, otherwise exactly what I said.

 

[Harry Bullocks]

Excellent banter gents....IMO as many others, our expectations are boosted by press releases and gossip...only to have to take a rewality check when it doesn't materialise...very frustrating, but it seems, a fact of life :'(

 

[Harry Bullocks]

My spelling is crop ...."reality".:facepalm:

 

[SeaSideDoughnut]

Two very simple things I think we could have done and done differently

The first, use deadlines more often so we're allowing a player and his agent time to find a better contract - like Moussa. That was drawn out far too long... It's okay for me if a player doesn't want to play for this club because I only want players that do.

The second, start your search locally where possible. I understand Brown is from up north and will have connections in football in that area. But these signings are geographically difficult for a player and time consuming for the club.