THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

But I thought Liam's little black book only had young iri.....no, let's not go back there.

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

Let's be honest, we have no idea who signed who. Other than the signing of players with past relationships to the head coach we don't have the foggiest, even then they could have popped up on the Sweeings spreadsheet. 9 months ago the rhetoric for some was Manning was dumped with the squad and he had no say (despite signing multiple players he has history with) then after relegation the club said the head coach chose the players from a list of identified targets. We will never know quite 'who signed who', like we will never know the true transfer fee or wages of players.

The interesting thing for me is that both signings are in their mid late 20's, likely with no resale value, which is quite the difference from the recruitment policy we seemed to be going with last year. I assume the priority this year is more results based, rather than development and resale value. However I wonder if Manning also had a slight preference to working with younger players based on his background in coaching?

Good call and also take into account Alexander's experiences, including his 24 year career with over 1,000 games. I suspect he would have looked dimly if Sweeting had presented him a list with only spotty faced youths with little league experience. As Alexander said in his interview, his objective is too win the next game. A refreshing change from focussing on neverland.

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Disclaimer: All my comments are my opinions unless stated otherwise. I'm just a fan following my club.

We do know that GA wasn't involved in the Gilbey return, based on the relative timings of their appointments. So Gilbey is down to Sweeting.

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I don't need your ill-informed, half-baked, idiotic opinions. I have plenty of those myself.

All we know is that when we make a bad signing, its a Sweeting signing and when we make a good signing, its the Managers signing.

Forever a scapegoat.

All I know is, Sweeting and his team (it's not solely him) massively f--ked up last summer, so badly that it destroyed any credit he had in the bank from the excellent windows before. You just cannot go from one point from automatic promotion to relegated the next season, and the majority of the blame is down to recruitment. It's that bad of a hit to his reputation. I'd also say it's fair to say Russell Martin especially had some pulling power with certain signings (e.g. Twine).

For me, Sweeting is back to square one, a fresh start.

I doubt Pete see it that way. The role is there to provide continuity, among other things, I doubt there’s much danger of him losing his job.

No idea why you think that is fair to say. These are from the original story on the official site on his signing and indicate a shared credit....

I suppose it’s possible that Alexander endorsed the Gilbey signing during the appointment process. But I think it was apparent to anyone we should get him in if we could

I didn't say Russell Martin took sole credit, I said he had some pulling power.

It's fairly well established now that it's not just Sweeting who finds and signs players, it's his team that identity potentials, with the head coach having the final say. Winkie said this in his most recent interview. He also said players can come about because of coaches suggesting them (or even other players recommending them - i.e. Jules with Tennai).

Ultimately Sweeting is in charge of recruitment so takes credit/blame but a player joining us is facilitated by multiple people.