Good post on Slade
Mon Jun 22, 2015 6:58 pm
Got this from Mike board
Today Mehmet Dalman and Russell Slade met for a four hour meeting. No doubt most fans will attempt to read into the article's contents for clues of what the season ahead holds. Some may dismiss it as a smokescreen. Some will see it as a superb chip wrapper. The cynical may come to view it as PR chicken feed to the press co-incidentally timed with attempts to drum up interest in season ticket sales. My personal take is that today's article cuts as a fairly reasonable article which probably fairly summarises the reality facing Slade for the 2015/16 season. It is also clear to me that Slade has some hard and early choices to make.
Fudge it on a budget
Having re-read the article twice I concluded that the most telling is this:
"Tan has not insisted that players must be sold before signings are made, but Slade must work within the budget agreed."
Any analysis of the season ahead must be begin within that context. No ifs, no buts. But it comes as no surprise. This narrative is already known: the Go-go years have been replaced by the No-No years. But this should not be seen through the prism of complete negativity. Many other teams face the same constraints.
Tan has clearly said to Slade that there is hard ceiling to what he spends, that he has the target of promotion, and how he achieves that is up to him. This is the sensible way to run a club: give the manager his money, say no more, and give him the freedom to shape it his way. If this interpretation is correct then I think most Championship managers would be reasonably happy with this hands-off approach.
Slade's Dilemma
So that's the money. Now Slade has a dilemma. Does he stick or twist? On the one hand he can keep a familiar side with some fan favourites such as Marshall, Whittingham, Manga, Turner and Gunnarsson. In there lies know-how and experience of this division. But equally under his system last year they failed to hit the target. So does he keep the experienced guys or not? That in itself is a big call fraught with risk.
If Slade sees the issue as a player issue then his choice is obvious: he needs to sell the players he can, raise the money and reconfigure the squad with the wage budget given. If he saw it as a coaching issue then he may decide to roll the dice again and assume Trollope and co, given a full season, will deliver the results. Sell them and replace them with lower division players and the lack of experience may result in disaster if they fail to cope. Retain them and the risk is that unless the coaching methods improve then it is likely to fail again.
Another issue he has is created by line from Vincent Tan in there is no insistence that the players are sold in order to make new signings. But if he wishes get his players he wants first and stick within the budget over the year he may well be forced to sell the players he doesn't want later in the year when it is difficult to sell. Or he may sign players he wants, they fail to perform, and is then forced to sell them again before the end of the season if the players he really wanted to sell begin to perform against his expectations. Justifying the sale of players he bought in the same season to Vincent Tan may prove a challenge. So Slade needs to think hard about this dilemma as it carries an inherent trap. The cleanest choice is to sell now, raise the funds quickly and establish a settled squad early.
Transfers
According to today's musings:
"There are likely to be at least three new signings including a winger and dominant central midfield player".
On the buy side the initial news sounds a mixed back of sensibility and dubiousness. It says we have dropped out for Daryl Murphy. That doesn't surprise me. Murphy is a striker I have admired for quite a while at this level. A tall striker with an eye for goal and experience in this division strikes me as a Heidar Helguson type of signing a man with the know how to net the goals to get out of this division. But Helguson was much cheaper. £2m for a man who is 32, who we would need to discard as soon as we got promoted, and whose age means his price would be dropping anyway, strikes me as a poor way to spend money within the confines of a restricted budget.
Johnny Russell is thought to be wanted but he might be a one season wonder. Albert Ellis would represent a gamble given his lack of experience in this division. And Nathan Byrne might prove to be another Alex Revell he may do a decent job but will that be enough? None of these names are inspiring enough to help Slade Tan's desire of promotion.
On the sell side talk continues of Adam Le Fondre, Filip Kiss and Etien Velikonja. Personally I think Adam Le Fondre's represent the type of player we need to preserve with. He is young enough and pacey enough to score goals, and experienced in this division. He has scored everywhere else why not here? That's a coaching issue. Slade needs to find a way of making it work not selling him for a cut price fee. The less said about Kiss and Velikonja the better. They need to go.
Unknowns and possibles
What is interesting is the lack of chatter around the sale of Whittingham or Marshall. Whittingham has been a great servant but he is fading. We may get £2-£3m for him and replace him with an alternative. Like Jonathan Williams, who, we should be able to sign for a fee of £1.5-£3m. As for Marshall I think he is great but clearly he is ready for bigger things. Why not sell him for £10-£15m, get Hennessy for £1.5m, spend another £3.5m on players and pay off some debt with the other £10m? That would result in improving our financial position, replacing like for like, injecting some pace and also adding to squad strength. Aren't we all happy with that?
In all of this of course there are the hidden and the unknown. Can we realistically expect Tan to be adopting a completely hands-off approach? Given that profitable player trading is an important tool for covering annual losses of running a football club or paying the debts back I am sure Tan or Dalman will be testing or vetting Slade's transfer decisions to see that the players he signs have a chance of being resold for a profit. I do wonder if this is a factor in the Daryl Murphy pullback.
Are the demands for promotion realistic? That is tougher to judge. Much depends on the transfer money available and the quality of the coaching. But overall I think Tan is setting a fair constraint in order to get the finances on track. I doubt he seriously thinks Slade can hit the target but it's a risk free bet for Tan force Slade to watch the money, set him a high target. If he achieves it then great. If not, then he has a cheap scapegoat to kick out. But if Slade is as good as some like to think, then he does have £10m-£17m of transfer fees he can raise to help build his squad. Even if he can only spend half of it, it's still a number many managers would welcome in this division.
Roll on the transfer season. Pressure is on Slade!
Today Mehmet Dalman and Russell Slade met for a four hour meeting. No doubt most fans will attempt to read into the article's contents for clues of what the season ahead holds. Some may dismiss it as a smokescreen. Some will see it as a superb chip wrapper. The cynical may come to view it as PR chicken feed to the press co-incidentally timed with attempts to drum up interest in season ticket sales. My personal take is that today's article cuts as a fairly reasonable article which probably fairly summarises the reality facing Slade for the 2015/16 season. It is also clear to me that Slade has some hard and early choices to make.
Fudge it on a budget
Having re-read the article twice I concluded that the most telling is this:
"Tan has not insisted that players must be sold before signings are made, but Slade must work within the budget agreed."
Any analysis of the season ahead must be begin within that context. No ifs, no buts. But it comes as no surprise. This narrative is already known: the Go-go years have been replaced by the No-No years. But this should not be seen through the prism of complete negativity. Many other teams face the same constraints.
Tan has clearly said to Slade that there is hard ceiling to what he spends, that he has the target of promotion, and how he achieves that is up to him. This is the sensible way to run a club: give the manager his money, say no more, and give him the freedom to shape it his way. If this interpretation is correct then I think most Championship managers would be reasonably happy with this hands-off approach.
Slade's Dilemma
So that's the money. Now Slade has a dilemma. Does he stick or twist? On the one hand he can keep a familiar side with some fan favourites such as Marshall, Whittingham, Manga, Turner and Gunnarsson. In there lies know-how and experience of this division. But equally under his system last year they failed to hit the target. So does he keep the experienced guys or not? That in itself is a big call fraught with risk.
If Slade sees the issue as a player issue then his choice is obvious: he needs to sell the players he can, raise the money and reconfigure the squad with the wage budget given. If he saw it as a coaching issue then he may decide to roll the dice again and assume Trollope and co, given a full season, will deliver the results. Sell them and replace them with lower division players and the lack of experience may result in disaster if they fail to cope. Retain them and the risk is that unless the coaching methods improve then it is likely to fail again.
Another issue he has is created by line from Vincent Tan in there is no insistence that the players are sold in order to make new signings. But if he wishes get his players he wants first and stick within the budget over the year he may well be forced to sell the players he doesn't want later in the year when it is difficult to sell. Or he may sign players he wants, they fail to perform, and is then forced to sell them again before the end of the season if the players he really wanted to sell begin to perform against his expectations. Justifying the sale of players he bought in the same season to Vincent Tan may prove a challenge. So Slade needs to think hard about this dilemma as it carries an inherent trap. The cleanest choice is to sell now, raise the funds quickly and establish a settled squad early.
Transfers
According to today's musings:
"There are likely to be at least three new signings including a winger and dominant central midfield player".
On the buy side the initial news sounds a mixed back of sensibility and dubiousness. It says we have dropped out for Daryl Murphy. That doesn't surprise me. Murphy is a striker I have admired for quite a while at this level. A tall striker with an eye for goal and experience in this division strikes me as a Heidar Helguson type of signing a man with the know how to net the goals to get out of this division. But Helguson was much cheaper. £2m for a man who is 32, who we would need to discard as soon as we got promoted, and whose age means his price would be dropping anyway, strikes me as a poor way to spend money within the confines of a restricted budget.
Johnny Russell is thought to be wanted but he might be a one season wonder. Albert Ellis would represent a gamble given his lack of experience in this division. And Nathan Byrne might prove to be another Alex Revell he may do a decent job but will that be enough? None of these names are inspiring enough to help Slade Tan's desire of promotion.
On the sell side talk continues of Adam Le Fondre, Filip Kiss and Etien Velikonja. Personally I think Adam Le Fondre's represent the type of player we need to preserve with. He is young enough and pacey enough to score goals, and experienced in this division. He has scored everywhere else why not here? That's a coaching issue. Slade needs to find a way of making it work not selling him for a cut price fee. The less said about Kiss and Velikonja the better. They need to go.
Unknowns and possibles
What is interesting is the lack of chatter around the sale of Whittingham or Marshall. Whittingham has been a great servant but he is fading. We may get £2-£3m for him and replace him with an alternative. Like Jonathan Williams, who, we should be able to sign for a fee of £1.5-£3m. As for Marshall I think he is great but clearly he is ready for bigger things. Why not sell him for £10-£15m, get Hennessy for £1.5m, spend another £3.5m on players and pay off some debt with the other £10m? That would result in improving our financial position, replacing like for like, injecting some pace and also adding to squad strength. Aren't we all happy with that?
In all of this of course there are the hidden and the unknown. Can we realistically expect Tan to be adopting a completely hands-off approach? Given that profitable player trading is an important tool for covering annual losses of running a football club or paying the debts back I am sure Tan or Dalman will be testing or vetting Slade's transfer decisions to see that the players he signs have a chance of being resold for a profit. I do wonder if this is a factor in the Daryl Murphy pullback.
Are the demands for promotion realistic? That is tougher to judge. Much depends on the transfer money available and the quality of the coaching. But overall I think Tan is setting a fair constraint in order to get the finances on track. I doubt he seriously thinks Slade can hit the target but it's a risk free bet for Tan force Slade to watch the money, set him a high target. If he achieves it then great. If not, then he has a cheap scapegoat to kick out. But if Slade is as good as some like to think, then he does have £10m-£17m of transfer fees he can raise to help build his squad. Even if he can only spend half of it, it's still a number many managers would welcome in this division.
Roll on the transfer season. Pressure is on Slade!
Re: Good post on Slade
Mon Jun 22, 2015 7:22 pm
Sell Marshall for £10-£15 million? 
Pay up to £3 million for Jonathan Williams? :lol
Who is this idiot?
Pay up to £3 million for Jonathan Williams?
:lolWho is this idiot?
Re: Good post on Slade
Mon Jun 22, 2015 7:28 pm
davids wrote:Sell Marshall for £10-£15 million?
Pay up to £3 million for Jonathan Williams?
Who is this idiot?
calls himself Keyser Soze
Re: Good post on Slade
Mon Jun 22, 2015 7:44 pm
No one would pay anything over £5m for Marshall now, we should have cashed in on him last season.
Re: Good post on Slade
Mon Jun 22, 2015 7:47 pm
BlueSince1908 wrote:No one would pay anything over £5m for Marshall now, we should have cashed in on him last season.
Marshall £3million is about right for him and on £25,000 a week basic.
Re: Good post on Slade
Mon Jun 22, 2015 7:50 pm
Forever Blue wrote:BlueSince1908 wrote:No one would pay anything over £5m for Marshall now, we should have cashed in on him last season.
Marshall £3million is about right for him and on £25,000 a week basic.
Agreed, especially at his age. Maybe last season when people saw him in the Premier League but not now. You don't pay over £5m for a mid-table Championship goalkeeper whose about 30
Re: Good post on Slade
Mon Jun 22, 2015 7:52 pm
BlueSince1908 wrote:Forever Blue wrote:BlueSince1908 wrote:No one would pay anything over £5m for Marshall now, we should have cashed in on him last season.
Marshall £3million is about right for him and on £25,000 a week basic.
Agreed, especially at his age. Maybe last season when people saw him in the Premier League but not now. You don't pay over £5m for a mid-table Championship goalkeeper whose about 30
Agreed
I believe City have touted Marshall around for the last year,but no takers.