THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

Was either KR or Winkie in an interview a couple of years ago about why we failed in the Championship that said the cost of bringing them here was over a million quid (agent's fees, paying for relocation to MK, signing on fees etc). Might have come up at a fan forum actually.

Fair enough. If that’s the case I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s a regular occurrence all included, given that we took such a huge gamble on them.

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The most optimistic pessimistic person on this forum.

Apparently.

UTF

aguza and benavente were prime examples of why you *should* rely on scouts and an actual recruitment process. it was plainly obvious (and i believe pete has alluded to this) that they were put on kr’s radar by an agent and he took a flyer.

Would Omar Bogle be a realistic target? Not really done anything at Cardiff and was sent out on loan to league one last season. 1 year left on his contract, so a fee would need to be involved but feel like he would be an ideal replacement for Aneke.

One of the basic things is surely how much there is in the kitty to get any replacement. And we don't know that, as far as I'm aware.

I imagine that Tis wasn't altogether surprised by Chuks' departure so he's likely already got somebody in mind and will be able to make a move now that the situation is clear.

As much as having the new signings done early is great, having the situation with Agard and Aneke cleared up this early is probably greater.

Whilst I still have some concerns over Tisdale's match day management, there's no denying this is the best window/close season in many a year (in terms of management).

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Steampunk Don (formerly BongoDon)
Living in a future there never was.

Yep, that’s how it sounded when Pete shared his regrets over the sacking of Robbo as I recall it
Too.

I do have some sympathy with Karl’s situation over their signing though. Rewind those four years and he was having to replace the flair in the team with the loss of Dele, and (not to be underestimated) Lewis Baker. With the budget & wage structure we had it meant we really weren’t in the market for anyone who’d proven themselves at Championship level so he had to look elsewhere.

It was a decision he couldn’t afford to get wrong, as was every transfer that Summer (they almost all were failures - Upson, Jennings, Church et al). With no experience of Championship level football, KR massively underestimated the physical attributes required. On a solely technical level both (Benavente & Aguza) were good enough, the problem was neither of them were ever going to survive the hurly burly of English football. That should have been seen by KR and of course, as manager, the final decision always rests with him, but I think nearly all managers rely on having enough people at their club available to to talk to for a second opinion on a player.

We just didn’t have the infrastructure to ensure that recruitment decisions got filtered in such a way. I genuinely believe Tis wouldn’t make those mistakes if the situation was the same next Summer for instance, not because he has a better eye for talent than Karl, but because we now have far more people at the club able to proffer an opinion. That’s the biggest difference in the last five years.

Agree. In some ways the club needed that failure of surviving in the Championship to grow in the long term - those recruitment and spending oversights etc were a huge learning curve and making those mistakes then will serve the club better in the future. Nobody at the time, from KR all the way up to Pete had any practical experience of handling a team competing in the Championship, especially with limited resources.

As you say, I couldn't see Tisdale making the same mistakes in terms of choosing the calibre of player. He seems too intelligent for that, and combined with Pete and the rest of the senior management team's last experience, we'll be so much better prepared for it. In fact, I get the feeling budget-wise Pete is holding a lot back for such a time.