I still think we may get the targets the club has been after but only when the parent clubs have got their targets. Stoke, for example, seem to be looking at experienced players who can mix it in the championship. Their Manager doesn’t think the younger players like Tegzel are ready for that yet and need to go out on loan and “toughen up”. Like we did with RAM. The window is open until end of the month so we may have a longer wait. I get the frustration but I’d rather have someone who wants to improve than someone like Wilkinson who only impressed in patches. Improving players is also good for our club’s reputation. We are not going to splash the cash imho. Our modus operandus now is to sign players with potential and try and improve them, give loanees an opportunity and help some to settle and get careers back on track. If we look back this has been our modus operandus many times.
Stoke have 3 U21 strikers and I’d take any of them: Lowe, Tegzel and McGuiness.
If it was Lowe and Tezgel we had loans rejected for, could have gone in for one this week to ease the worries for tomorrow’s game and the other once Stoke had got in another striker.
Can see us going back in for them both next week.
I wonder whether we aren’t popular with Stoke City.
They wanted to keep Okagbue, offered him a new contract, but we tempted him to join us.
Maybe that is why they aren’t too keen on letting other youngsters come to us.
When we signed Okagbue, Sadler said this:
“I would also like to thank Stoke for their help in getting this deal done and it further strengthens the relationship that we have with them as a club and we hope to further utilise the links between the clubs in the future.”
And Chesterfield got 9k at home. Another team that looks likely to step over us on its way up the ladder.
I suspect in reality they offered him a deal to trigger a compensation payment.
Hmm! Really!
Based on this summer’s business and how wasteful we’ve been with the budget, I think we need a Director of Football.
There’s no planning and by giving Sadler the final say, we’ve had an absolute disaster with the use of budget for strikers.
I’d like Trivela to go out there and get somebody of top quality like Stockport and others have who will actually build a system for strengthening the team based on stats, data and a club identity.
Almost every club that has sustained success uses this sort of model these days.
Haven’t we got someone doing just that, with the “laser-focused recruitment? He’s just not very good at it!!
We’ve got two of them 
Jordan for the Trivela group and O’Kelly at Walsall
I thought that was what Matt Jordan did? You know that bloke who spend most of his time on LinkedIn liking the posts of his American mates and who we never see here. He needs to get a new computer programme.
I take the points about Jordan and O’Kelly, but they’re not here every day building a football identity and revolutionising the football operations from top to bottom.
Well if they are, they’re terrible at it.
O’Kelly is a consultant and this is a full time job for somebody who is at the ground every day.
Agreed. The Fullerton experiment was crazy but a DOF done correctly (which it should be with an energetic new CEO and Richard O Kelly now) could improve things.
Whatever direction we decide, Trivela still have to keep investing in the team!
I believe that Jovan Malcolm still hasn’t found a club.
I wonder whether he might accept a short term deal on reduced terms now that the season is up and running.
It works both ways between player’s agents and football clubs, because although I would have preferred for Walsall to have got all their ducks in a row early in the summer, sometimes you have to play the waiting game.
As most people know, young players of premier and championship clubs do sometimes have illusions of grandeur (in terms of wage demands) but reality soon hits home when they find themselves redundant.
I know it’s not the same, but at the other end of the spectrum with much older players like Sawyers, a lot of people talk about wage demands, but players out of contract are essentially living off previous earnings and it’s a short career. After a while, £1.5k a week looks quite decent, if you can do the school run and have a steady source of income for a while longer, even if you’re used to £20k a week. Just ask Charlie Austin, who has now chosen to play for a team which is way down the pyramid. I assume that he is playing at Totton for next to nothing, in terms of wages.
Stoke signed Koumas surely means that Tezgel or Lowe to us now.
Yes, just read that. He is highly rated but only 18. Clearly ahead of Stoke’s current crop of forwards so if we are in for one them maybe get it done early next week?
Perhaps they want to sell him, but dont want to risk him getting injured
maybe thats whats hapened with DJ with an elaborate smokescreen of injuries and viral infections to complete the charade
Is he related to Jason?