cornerdon26 wrote:
Gers wrote:
Scribble wrote:
We recruited players who were not good enough for league 1, that fact was confirmed at Burton.
This.
Radically overhauling the squad with an influx of youngsters unfamiliar with English L1 football. Replacing Manning mid-season with Jackson, untested at men’s football.
We also radically overhauled our squad with an influx of youngsters unfamiliar with English L1 football in January and Summer 2022 - Darling 0 games, O'Riley 0 games, Parrott 20 games, Watson 27 games, Watters 5 games, Kioso 20 games whilst Harvie and O'Hora signed with 0 experience at this level too. The only Russ signing with real experience at this level was Eisa was 57 games.
This may be a stretch, but I think Tucker had more L1 starts when he signed for us than L1 appearance in our entire regular starting XI in 21/22 combined (excluding Lewington).
This summer we added Grigg (378), Holland (45), Lawrence Robson (46), Lawrence (24), Johnson (132), Kayode (20). Cumming had a year at this level before resigning.
We failed because we were not good enough, the balance was wrong and they were coached poorly, not that they were unfamiliar with this level. Our squad that came 3rd had significantly less experience at this level.
Whilst the men's football comment may play a part. Manning was inexperienced at this level. Russ had never even been a coach. The two teams promoted from L1 this season are two former coaches/assistants with zero experience as the main man. Paul Warne kept getting Rotherham promoted but his only previous experience was coaching some kids in a field in Norfolk.
We can probably go round and round all day. The real answer is no one person is to blame and collectively Pete, Manning and Sweeting massively cocked it up last summer, during the season and then again when settling on Jackson as the man to get us out of the mess.
What I would say is that a large part of our problem specifically was that our attempt to utilise loan players was a complete and utter disaster. Loans are normally something we do reasonably well with but this year we cocked it up to no end. I am a firm believer that loan spots at league 1 level should be reserved for players who are essentially too good for the club to own. They should be 1st time regulars or at the very least pushing very very hard for a starting space. In the past we've done this very well. Parrott, Afobe, Bamford, Coventry, Smith (going way back), Healey etc etc. But this year, with the exception of Cumming all our loans have been so poor they hardly merited a place in the squad let alone the starting 11.
In Pete's interview he mentions this. He talks briefly about how we had a lot of injuries at the start of the season meaning we signed loan players earlier in the window (less quality available) rather than wait until nearer the end when some of the prem and championship clubs will free up players to go out on loan. In hindsight this was a terrible strategic decision. If we had held out longer who knows who we might have been able to pick up. We know we were very much in the race for Rak Sakyi who is we had signed would probably have singlehandedly helped us pick up enough additional points to finish mid table.
Lawrence, Kayode, Barry and Oyegoke must be our worst ever batch of loans.