Davefevs

I suspect we are still using it.

A cynic might suggest it’s because it takes a lot of setting up, costs a lot of money to run, and you have to be good at it to make it work. Brentford were prepared to do the hard yards, gets scouts all over Europe, etc.. They are agile too. When Brexit impacts started to get thought about they shifted their scouts away from League like French Ligue 2 because they knew they wouldn’t get work permits. I think we have to treat some of these things with some scepticism. I’m sure we all remember that City played Monaco in a friendly / tournament a few years back and he played. He may have stood out, not just with his hair. But I don’t reckon we tracked him per se. If we were, the point he gets into Monaco’s CL team is when you probably archive him and think he’s not gonna end up here! ??? The rumour was that the ex-Chelsea and then Monaco Sporting Director Michael Emanalo offered him to us just before he got the boot.

There is one good reason why you only talk to certain agents….it’s when you are greasing each other’s palms. All alleged of course but there was rumour of £600k of Agent fees in the Engvall transfer. I’d love to see what payments from football clubs have filtered their way through Tactical Change Ltd, Grove Life, Player P.A and Calibre Sports over the years. Implemented in 2012(ish), then thrown out under SOD / Burt. I’m sure he re-introduced it upon his return once Cotts was sacked and then Burt removed too. In all honesty, a database itself is nothing special. The club use Wyscout (amongst others) for data and video. I’m sure they have a slightly better data / video package than I do though! I too have a database, totalling circa 6k players and 100 data attributes each. I have another for a smaller set of interested players that holds every match they play. My database is Microsoft Excel!!! I use Tableau to create visualisations from it. Making a database sound so grand is trying to pull the wool over peoples eyes. It’s only as good as the data you put into it. Depends on their propensity to improve. Plenty of nuggets in L1/2. The skill is find the right ones. We did alright in the past. I think Nige is trying to play some of that role (HoR) too at the mo’. It seems as if he’s willing to give people in place the opportunity first. If he feels Technical Recruitment isn’t up to scratch / needs supplementing I’m sure he will make changes. Yep, for all their data expertise and access to data, hugely reliant on physical scouting. It’s a myth it’s all data based recruitment. Yep, his main role was getting Charlotte ready for the MLS. Some of that heavy lifting has been done. He’s back in Leicester next month to give a talk on Recruitment.

Too quick

Good post, and what we are starting to see if the “big three” settling into form after the usual early season unpredictability. I would be majorly surprised if they don’t continue to increase the gap on 4th. Sheffield Utd will make top 6 too, but I see them in more of a transition than the other three. They will all drop points, it’s the nature of a low scoring sport, so teams, even like City v Fulham will get points here and there. I think some of the players are just a bit weak mentally, and that comes out loud when a team is struggling. Some aren’t quite good enough either. Nige needs to find / re-find the formula from early season where even if we aren’t on our game we stay in the game or at least look competitive and solid. We have gone from looking one goal against games to 9 against in 4. Ok, 5 of those were West Brom and Bournemouth, and you might argue the 2 apiece we conceded v Forest and Portsmouth were a bit undeserved (bar the penalty), but then against probably making up for Luton and QPR. The players need to feel confident they can stay in a game. Even Saturday early on was bizarre. Early ball from Baker put Weimann in, difficult touch ball coming over his shoulder, but then over hit cross to Martin, then their goal, then our offside equaliser. Got to be more resilient.

My views on Holden were….showed really good early principles, but inexperience showed. I was a bit disappointed when he was relieved of his duties, but I also felt a bit relieved for him, because I saw it getting a bit desperate at the end of the window…the whole Lansbury, Massengo to Brum, no left back stuff, etc. I felt unsurprisingly that Ashton was setting him up to fail, even more so with the Ipswich rumours. With Pearson, I am disappointed with certain things. Thought he’d get a bit more out of players, but also completely get the bigger picture at play and the cluster#### left by Ashton….and what Pearson has sorted out already. If it doesn’t work out on the pitch we will still be in a better position off it for his time here. Sounds like I’m having doubts, not really, just not ignoring some recent poor performances, just as I wasn’t getting carried away by 9th after Peterborough. There is a long game at play, football often doesn’t let it play out, especially when a week is a long time, and momentum plays it’s part. These next four games are important. No point saying “x points minimum” or anything like that, but I do expect to see better performances, more cohesive team play and players showing they are better than what they’ve shown recently. Lots of other stuff to look at too, e.g. what happens with Simpson going. Can’t imagine that Downing is staying either from what Nige said, sounds like just formalising his pay-off. Does that mean we go with Fleming, Cisse and Ball (Bell being made full-time to cover some of Alex’s responsibilities?). The whole Tinnion, Davenport, Probert (leaving) now Bell stuff seems part of a sequence of events all linked together. Time will tell indeed….

Looks like the EFL struggling to flush Derby down the toilet too. Reminds me of Extras when Steven Merchant needed a whisk to break up a stubborn turd!

Yep, but do you think we could’ve afforded the package he would’ve wanted to buy out any contractual obligation from / compensation to Sheffield Utd (dependent on how the financial terms of his sacking were constructed)? If yes, cool. I’m in the no camp (not Nou camp). But all about opinions ??

Very good post @Ivorguy. I do think some critique is necessary (and justified), but you can’t just look at results. In some respects I’m more worried with recent trend in performances, but I also think it’s “where we are” at this stage in the re-build.

Nope, but Prince Abdullah quoted as “why would we pay off £4m - almost one years money for him to resign”, and then as per below. We’d likely have to pay Sheffield Utd compensation running into £m’s to take him on. It’s probably why Swansea and Forest baulked at the idea. And finally do you think he’d have taken a job here?

I know it won’t happen but i really wouldn’t mind seeing: Bentley Tanner | Kalas | Atkinson | Dasilva James Scott | Massengo | Pring Wells | Weimann

I’m away next Saturday. Hate missing home games, but for once it might be one to miss and just check the result and nit try to analyse.

Great overall post….but this for me hits the nail on the head.

Comments above Joe

Wow. I was out last night, missed this. Ooooh, tell us more ?

I said a few weeks ago that I thought we might need to evolve the 442/4411 into something a bit different to get it to really work. I wasn’t expecting it to evolve into 532 or 5212….one off games, that’s fine, but I don’t think we have a squad for it really, so I saw the back 4 evolving. My main areas of concern were: - how do we keep 2 up top because that is key to how we drilled the press pre-season - how do we screen the centre-backs The second point is that we don’t have a true Defensive midfielder so would probably require James to do it and sacrifice other aspects of his game. Williams could play it too when fit. Vyner if need be. I honestly feel that if we played Kalas with Atkinson / Baker as a 2 and James sat in front, we actually could have license to get our full-backs on a bit to make up for lack of wingers. Not that the exact formation matters but for help trying to explain it, I probably see more a 4132 (than your 4312). Those 3 could be made up of any of the likes of Massengo, Scott, Williams (if not DM), Palmer, O’Dowda, Pring (if not LB) etc. Yes, it’s looks a bit theoretical, but having 4 lines (defence, defensive midfield, midfield and forward lines) stops our midfielders having to shuttle run between defence and attack when we play long ball. It gets us closer to loose balls from defensive headers. What we want is the likes of Massengo and Scott getting on the ball facing forward not backwards.

No, what I’m saying is that the Lino correctly kept his flag down because he did not know who made the touch. Once the referee says it was Weimann then he has to give offside. If the ref says it was Ajayi, then the goal stands. It will 100% the ref confirming who made the touch. All the Lino will do is inform him whether Wells was offside at the point Weimann touched it….which he was.

I’m sure there are loan options out there. The big question is finding one that will get enough minutes ahead of Weimann, Martin, Wells and maybe Semenyo, and therefore better than Conway / Bell too. Maybe they come at a premium and with clauses???

The linesman should NOT flag unless he is sure that Weimann passed it. He will be mic’d up to the ref, and I’m sure will be asking “was it a City or WBA player that touched it”, ref will be saying, “was Wells offside at the point of contact, because it was Weimann who touched it”. Therefore they did what they were meant to do. Worse would’ve been for the limo to guess and flag offside.

I’ve no idea. Alex Ball has helped out twice now. Guess we will find out. Nige might realise that in the interim he needs to be more hands-on.

It appears that Cisse’s role has lots of little aspects to it. Would not surprise me if he moves on too. Lovely guy btw, not that it should influence anything.

Moore - unused sub Low - unused sub Towler - 90 in a 2-0 win v Yeovil

Chris “£4m compensation to Sheffield Utd” Wilder? That one? Come on!!! Proof that Ashton was not a great negotiator….got to be able to negotiate both ways to be a good negotiator. Tbh, the Reading stuff sounds dodgy!!!

A hypothetical question for you. Imagine letting 10 OOC players go, then looking at the contracted players and thinking there’s another 5 or 6 I wouldn’t really want here in an ideal world, but I can’t shift them because they are either on too much money or the impairment on their transfer fee amortisation will make FFP worse. Is Tanner, Atkinson, King, James, enough? (You can add Simpson, Weimann and Baker if you like).

I genuinely see that as trying to protect Tanner, not throwing Tanner under the bus. Sephjnr, fine if you disagree. It wasn’t one mistake, it was the general case of not playing well, getting exposed by Townsend down his side, in part getting Kalas dragged out of position. Re Simpson….tin hat on, but I thought he actually did ok….bar the shocking back pass. What do you mean by making the club worse? For over 3 years I’ve been highlighting that the club is heading towards a huge downturn, because we overspent. Covid brought that point forward. Results during Nige’s tenure have been worse. This season they have improved, recent performances not good enough. But I think if you don’t want to take into account (or even acknowledge) the “other stuff”, you’re only judging part of situation. I think that’s wrong, but that’s up to you. If, when the accounts come out and we losses in the £35m range, does that influence your thoughts. You use the word “club”, but you only focus on results. The other stuff is influencing results.