nzlatic

5 minutes ago, JoeP said:

 

It is funny what some people define as "good", isn't it?

 

Rubbish = someone who's a nuisance, scores from range and close-up with his head and feet, defends (FFS!), runs at players and holds the ball up.

 

Good = someone who sulks and "will score 20 a season" but only if the ball is played in a very very very very VERY specific way to him.  And he takes all the penalties.

I think you’re slightly overstating Fondop’s abilities there! But he should 100% be getting a new deal. My question is over his record in delivering in big games, so personally I wouldn’t have him down as a constant starting striker. But as a sub or an occasional starter he is a really important player to have. 

7 minutes ago, spanishfly said:

I`ll agree with that nz. When I first joined here, you almost had me convinced we were like Brazil away from home, whilst I was witnessing Breeze Hill at home games. The Breeze Hill side of us eventually won through 

Cool. 

4 minutes ago, oafc1955 said:

They haven’t got time…the ST early bird offer finishes a week on Sunday!

They’ve got til a week on Sunday then! For all those waiting for it before they decide whether to buy or not. 

I do think the club need to come out with something… a vision or an update on plans for the next period or something like that. But I’d prefer they take the time and produce something thorough rather than rush out something short. 

I may just be a humble happy clapping, blind faith, Mellon loving, ultra positive fantasist, but I thought that interview was largely expectation management from Mellon. If he promised to sort it and say we’re going to have a great summer and we then drew the first 3 games next season everyone would lose their shit. 

Behind the scenes I reckon they’ll have had their plans in place for existing squad and target replacements for a while. 

4 minutes ago, oafc1955 said:

Options enable you to monitor progress so if a player is performing admirably you can take up the option fairly early.
Are you clairvoyant or summat?

Could they refuse though if someone else is sniffing? Not really sure how options work. 
 

Maybe statsbomb has a suggested contract length feature and we should just go with whatever that says?!

26 minutes ago, oafc1955 said:

I also believe that going forward contracts for any new signings should be for no more than 1 year with an option. That would then give the club a fail safe whilst encouraging the said players to perform consistently rather than sat on their underperforming arses for 2 or more years thus leaving the club stuck in a financial nightmare!

We could have someone taken off us after 1 season if they’ve been really good though and we’d get nothing. Plus only offering those sort of deals could mean we lose out on targets. 
 

It’s a difficult thing to get right - long contracts for the great signings, short contracts for the shit ones. 

5 minutes ago, yarddog73 said:

Why wouldn't that be available to all fans then?, not looking for an argument it's just a simple question as to how the club communicates to those not part of the Foundation.

The way I see it is that it’s an OASF led thing where they’re putting questions to him received from the membership. As opposed to a means of the club communicating with fans. 
 

There was a good explainer thread about it on Twitter from one of the oasf directors I think. I can’t find it but someone else may be able to. 

When the frame rate can’t keep up with the speed of the game you shouldn’t be making absolute decisions on whether it was millimetres off or on. If you’re going to have it, it needs a tolerance that allows for frame rates etc. 

Up in Manchester for a booze up tomorrow so taking the opportunity to get back to BP for the first time in ages. Quite looking forward to it. Miss the place. 

1 hour ago, GlossopLatic said:

 

I realise that but it doesn't mean it's beneficial for the game as a whole and it's certainly no benefit to us.

Oh of course. Totally agree. They’re doing what they always do - looking after themselves and promising some trickle down for everyone else which either won’t come or won’t touch the sides. 

Premier league teams want to reduce the number of fixtures that don’t make them money so they can increase the number that do. It’s not about anything other than that. 

33 minutes ago, PeteG said:

With the exception of the Royles not that i'm aware. Peter Norberry was on the board at Wigan Warriors for a time I think but looking at some of the press releases regarding that, it wasn't wholly successful. Tbh, i'm not sure too many boards at football clubs will have people previously involved in football but i think the important thing for the board is to recruit people who have and the most important position should be the CEO. When was the last time the club actually employed a really good CEO or MD? My personal thoughts are we should get a CEO who employs a Director of Football to oversee the football side of things, whether that's Darren Royle or not is for the board to decide but the DoF needs to work closely with the manager, the recruitment team, the youth set up. Need to get all these things right and then we might start to see some progress. A long term plan essentially which is what i thought they were doing but seems to have gone out of the window at the first sign of some poor results. Since then we seem from the outside to have gone into panic mode and just thrown money at it signing players left right and centre without any real thought process to a system, resale value or length of contracts. I'm repeating myself here, but we have relied on several players throughout the season that were actually signed by Shez and the previous owners which is criminal really.

The issue with a long term plan is that it may require patience as it takes time to implement and hone. Which could mean more time at this level. I agree with a lot of what you’ve said about plan and structure. My guess is that the board have decided all that may have to wait until we’re a league club again. That short term strategy is the way to go to achieve that initial objective of getting back in the league. 

3 minutes ago, JoeP said:

 

Yes, agreed. It also probably needs to be tailored for this level, if York are also using it in the same way. 

 

It is a problem, if we're using it in the way I suspect. It should be an extra tool for recruitment, rather than the main tool. As I say, the fact that we have a collection of individuals, rather than a team suggests to me that our recruitment has been heavily stats/attributes based and it hasn't worked. 

 

I don't mind them trying it and it not working, but they don't seem to have gone back to the drawing board at any point. They seem to be persevering with the way they use it at great cost. 

It could be the stats. But it could also be down to either Unsworth or Thompson or how they worked together. How skilled were they at identifying the right characters? It could also be loads of other things or a combination!
 

I have lots more faith in Mellon and Brabin to identify those traits we need than I would in Unsworth. 

1 hour ago, JohnnyPimp said:

I’ve got no idea how it’s used and if it’s at the root of our recruitment issues.

 

I do think it’s worth noting that the two teams in the division using Stats Bomb (us and York), also spent the most on agents’ fees.

 

Causation or correlation?

Correlation just based on the evidence we have. 
 

If we had a new data driven system for rehabilitating injured players that all the top clubs were using with varying success, but our rehabilitation rates were not improving. Then it’s more likely an issue as to how that system is being implemented than a fault with the system itself. 

8 minutes ago, PeteG said:

Who are these football people you refer to on the board? With the exception of Joe, I can't see anyone on the board with football experience and we don't know what Joe does or if he is just a figure head. The Rothwell's have been quoted as saying they know nothing about football and we've an inexperienced CEO in football. I've said it before, but before even thinking of sacking the manager or any further investment in the squad they need a total rethink on how the club is being run from the top.

Aren’t there members of our board that have had experience in football? I don’t mean played or coached, but had previous involvement in football clubs or administration?

So...

We need a young progressive coach.

But also...

we don't need any new fangled stats tech.

Or any new fangled job titles.

Or any new fangled departments.

We need the chaddy to be the home end.

We need to recruit like Joe Royle did.

What we actually need is a time machine to take us back to the early 90s when we were last good.

Or, if we can't do that, we need to get the recruitment right. We have great owners. We have an experienced board with football people on it. We have much improved infrastructure with much more improvement planned. We have a manager with a track record of success.

Get the recruitment right this summer and I'm confident we'll kick on next season. 

15 minutes ago, BP1960 said:

 

Stats department!! More trendy rubbish, you need a proper scouting network and management who will actually check  out recommendations.

It worked well at Nottingham Forest when I worked for Brian Clough and Peter Taylor, the likes of Gary Birtles wouldn't even be found on any stats database.

 

I feel like I'm screaming into the void here but they already do this!!!!! Stats are used to increase the pool of players that the scouting team go and actually scout! They've told us this. So either you think they're lying or you are just ignoring what they say. I don't for one second believe that we sign players purely off stats without any other checks at all.

41 minutes ago, JoeP said:

 

Similarly there's no evidence we don't use them too heavily. Why would we have a stats department if it wasn't fairly central to our recruitment? 

But I've not said we don't use them too heavily. I don't know how much we've relied on them. My opinion is that I think they should be an asset but they need to be used more effectively. Every aspect of our recruitment department needs to operate more effectively this summer. 

24 minutes ago, JoeP said:

Could get quite cathartic this thread..

 

As LOF said in the OP and I've said elsewhere, we've used stats too heavily.  We've brought in a (over-inflated) squad of individuals based on stats, rather than built a team based on a mix of ability and personality. 

 

 

We might need better players - but we definitely need better personalities.

 

 

On stats, you both and others keep saying this. But you have absolutely no evidence that we have “used stats too heavily”. It might be the case, but it might not also be the case. You are confusing causation and correlation. 
 

On the last point - 100% agree. I think this is what Mellon is referring to when he talks about knowing what a good player is. Most of our signings have looked good on paper and there have been few complaints when signings are made. But the characters and personalities are just wrong in too many cases. This summer may be about moving out players and bringing in players who are on paper of less quality, but who’s character is what the team needs to be successful. Whether stats are to blame for this is up for debate of course, but this isn’t just an issue of the last 12 months. We’ve had very few players of that sort of mental quality for years now.

It’s all on the recruitment. It’s not been good enough so far. If we can get that right over the summer we’ll be in the top few next season. If we can’t then we’ll be floating around the same sort of level. 

4 minutes ago, welshgaz said:

I’m not a fan of Norwood, but thought the same when that happened. No desire to get up the pitch and offer support.

 

 

It was staggering. And this is the thing I’m getting at @yarddog73 - I’m not saying Norwood is faultless. I just think he’s been let down by so many in that team. And as for how he deals with that, it might be wrong and might upset his teammates but at least it shows he cares to some degree. Otherwise he wouldn’t kick off at them. So I don’t get why he gets the boos and the chants about being a waste of money when there are so many others who clearly couldn’t give enough of a fuck. 
 

Garner had the same problem - won a lot of battles tonight but so often the midfield was 20 yards behind him so it was futile. 

13 minutes ago, Wardie said:

No matter how much we call for his head, he ain't going anywhere unless he walks..which he may do. He's already saying his hands are tied and to me that means not much will change next season. Stick or twist with the manager but the players are either totally shit or have completely downed tools and I don't think anything will change with a new man in charge.
 

Imposter syndrome is rife at BP.

100% this. It’s just wasted breathe/typing for all those crying for him to be sacked. 
 

Surely for those who do think he should be sacked, you also think major changes are needed to the team? Or do you think Mellon is the main problem?

I think I heard Norwood get jeered when he held the ball up out wide but then lost it because there was no one within 30 yards. Again, neatly summarising our problem - a total lack of desire from too many in the team. 
 

But sure, let’s hound out the top scorer who makes an effort because he’s having a lean spell. 

One big positive to take from tonight… only a day and a half before the season is officially over.