Twenty First Group / Overseas Market

Quoted from diehardmariner

I'm not convinced we'll be getting internationals in.  I imagine it will be more the unearthed diamonds from the Belgium 3rd tier or something like that.

In the interview Barnsley were cited as the only lower league club who have dabbled consistently in the overseas market, with a bit of a nod towards Lincoln and Fleetwood for their Irish signings.  There's part of me that thinks that's a huge area of potential, but then the cynic in me thinks that might be the case for a reason.   I think probably there is scope to get in there and find a few rough diamonds and smooth them off.

I know it didn't go to plan but it's another example of Michael Jolley trying something that could have been really impressive.  Ohman, Ring and Ogbu all coming over from the Swedish leagues was a bit of a throw back to Lennie Lawrence's time.  Ring never looked up to the hustle and bustle of League Two but Ohman in particular started incredibly well whereas Ogbu had moments where he was just unplayable (Mansfield away very early in the Holloway era, might have been his first game actually and Exeter away).  

I think the thing is that we've got to be prepared, should we go down this path, to accept the wins and losses.  Just like in the domestic market, there's good bits of business and bad bits.  It just feels the scrutiny and expectation is more for foreign signings.  Not all will work, but it doesn't that some won't.   I'm really eager to see what level of advantage we get from Twenty First Group in this link-up.  Another really interesting point was the two lads from the podcast (Ali and George) are linking up with TFG in a partnership focused on the EFL.  It was loosely described as a bit of blend between the data from TFG and more of that knowledge/feel perspective from the 'experts' in the EFL.  A very, very clear message that football isn't just played on a spreadsheet.  

Quoted from male private Nale

More bloody foreigners, no thanks

Quoted from Swansea_Mariner

I guess it's the same risk reward model as taking and developing bigger club cast offs, some will work out like Conteh others like Hunt.

One thing to consider though is the levels within different systems and league 2 is probably on par with a fair few nations top leagues (bar the top few clubs).

Quoted from Poojah

It’ll be even bigger if we don’t.

I think the notion of us looking further afield is an interesting one. Evidently, if you can identify some targets capable of playing at our standard that aren’t being tracked by other English clubs, it should in theory make attracting them that bit easier. Fair to say our record with foreign imports has been patchy to say the least this past 25 years. Off the top of my head:

Jason Batty
David Neilsen
Knut Anders Fostervold
Menno Willems
Zhang Enhua
JP Kalala
JP Akpa-Akpro
Mickael Buscher
Ludvig Ohman
Seb Ring
Moses Ogbu

I’ve probably missed a couple of names, but most of the above are pretty forgettable (Neilsen and Enhua the obvious exceptions). Of course, they each arrived under different circumstances and in very different eras, but there’s a natural degradation of available data on players the more obscure into Europe and beyond you go, which makes accurate recruitment a lot more challenging.

I remain to be convinced we can make this kind of thing work, but time may tell.

Quoted from Meza

No Ivano, i know you said some might be missing but Ivano, c'mon Poojah have a word