Billy Chadwick from Ull

Need to know why Glennon has suddenly lost his speed, leading to rash late tackles - he has been snottered by quick players on several occasions.

Raikhy would be a good call for next season with a further year of developing.

If we can keep Smith and Emmanuel, persuade Lloyd to move here, maybe get in Chadwick as well, then let the Recruitment Head work for his salary.

Is Vernam still a supposed firm signing?

The lack of physicality at this level has been a downfall in tight games when teams have bossed us, so we need to match up, as well as tighten up on possession passing  especially if Hurst wants to bring in short goal kick tactics.

Success will be 2 new rough diamonds found, on top of the known targets, who can then be immediate potential first teamers once pre season has finished.

Quoted from acko338

Is Vernam still a supposed firm signing?

I'll honestly be amazed if this doesn't happen this summer.  

Instantly regretted making the move to Lincoln over us in the summer, especially when Kennedy made his mind up about him pretty quickly.  (It was Kennedy that signed him but I can only guess on the advice of someone else, perhaps the recruitment guy who is now here).   Was desperate to make the move in January but Lincoln wouldn't let him go unless they got someone in to replace him, even as back-up.

Lincoln wanted to bring Anthony Scully back from Wigan in January, which was the transfer that didn't happen that held up any Vernam move.  Scully is, by all accounts, free to leave Wigan in the summer and Kennedy is desperate to get him back.  But I suppose with Wigan dropping back into League One they may want to reassess for a player who did impress at that level as recently as 9 months ago.

Either way though, I can't see Lincoln wanting to keep Vernam.  I do wonder if Hurst's stubbornness might come into play here though, which could work either way here.  On one hand he might decide having waited on Vernam in each of the two previous transfer windows and left empty handed, he feels it's not worth the effort.  Or he could be like a dog with a bone and refuse to give it up...

If, as I think he will, Hurst pursues this one, I hope to god we get it over the line early doors or just draw a line under it.  I can't be arsed with waiting on the same player every bloody transfer window.  Vernam's a good player and I think he'll be a good addition to our squad.  But he's not peak-Maradona.  Get the offer on the table, either signed or walk away and look elsewhere.  

Quoted from diehardmariner

I'll honestly be amazed if this doesn't happen this summer.  

Instantly regretted making the move to Lincoln over us in the summer, especially when Kennedy made his mind up about him pretty quickly.  (It was Kennedy that signed him but I can only guess on the advice of someone else, perhaps the recruitment guy who is now here).   Was desperate to make the move in January but Lincoln wouldn't let him go unless they got someone in to replace him, even as back-up.

Lincoln wanted to bring Anthony Scully back from Wigan in January, which was the transfer that didn't happen that held up any Vernam move.  Scully is, by all accounts, free to leave Wigan in the summer and Kennedy is desperate to get him back.  But I suppose with Wigan dropping back into League One they may want to reassess for a player who did impress at that level as recently as 9 months ago.

Either way though, I can't see Lincoln wanting to keep Vernam.  I do wonder if Hurst's stubbornness might come into play here though, which could work either way here.  On one hand he might decide having waited on Vernam in each of the two previous transfer windows and left empty handed, he feels it's not worth the effort.  Or he could be like a dog with a bone and refuse to give it up...

If, as I think he will, Hurst pursues this one, I hope to god we get it over the line early doors or just draw a line under it.  I can't be arsed with waiting on the same player every bloody transfer window.  Vernam's a good player and I think he'll be a good addition to our squad.  But he's not peak-Maradona.  Get the offer on the table, either signed or walk away and look elsewhere.  

That's not what I was told.  Lincoln wouldn't release Vernam until they had his replacement who was coming from Portsmouth [Recco Hackett-Fairchild] but they in turn wanted to confirm a player in from Exeter and that fell through.  That scuppered Vernams move to Town.

Fair enough, I'm not gonna argue with you on the details of who's in for who.

The consistent point, again, is that Town got caught up in a chain of events.  Partly that's the nature of sitting so far down the chain, but it sits uncomfortably with me that we seem to forever get caught up in it and rarely with a successful outcome.  I'd like us to get our bigger bits of business done early.  On so many levels that statement of intent works wonders.  It creates a buzz which can only help with ticket sales but perhaps more importantly it shows we're serious to other players who will look at who we've signed and think we've got a chance of challenging.

Quoted from diehardmariner

I'll honestly be amazed if this doesn't happen this summer.  

Instantly regretted making the move to Lincoln over us in the summer, especially when Kennedy made his mind up about him pretty quickly.  (It was Kennedy that signed him but I can only guess on the advice of someone else, perhaps the recruitment guy who is now here).   Was desperate to make the move in January but Lincoln wouldn't let him go unless they got someone in to replace him, even as back-up.

Lincoln wanted to bring Anthony Scully back from Wigan in January, which was the transfer that didn't happen that held up any Vernam move.  Scully is, by all accounts, free to leave Wigan in the summer and Kennedy is desperate to get him back.  But I suppose with Wigan dropping back into League One they may want to reassess for a player who did impress at that level as recently as 9 months ago.

Either way though, I can't see Lincoln wanting to keep Vernam.  I do wonder if Hurst's stubbornness might come into play here though, which could work either way here.  On one hand he might decide having waited on Vernam in each of the two previous transfer windows and left empty handed, he feels it's not worth the effort.  Or he could be like a dog with a bone and refuse to give it up...

If, as I think he will, Hurst pursues this one, I hope to god we get it over the line early doors or just draw a line under it.  I can't be arsed with waiting on the same player every bloody transfer window.  Vernam's a good player and I think he'll be a good addition to our squad.  But he's not peak-Maradona.  Get the offer on the table, either signed or walk away and look elsewhere.  

Agree entirely

Quoted from Poojah

Is this not a slight oversimplification of the “Brighton / Brentford” model, and a slight exaggeration of our current recruitment capabilities? My understanding is that we now have a full-time employee reviewing gold standard data, watching footage and presumably attending games in which prospective targets are playing (or at least extending that responsibility to our scouting network).

In effect, we have someone dedicated to a role which previously would have had to be covered by the manager and his coaching team. That’s a massive step forward and should absolutely improve our recruitment results, but we’re not quite adopting a “moneyball” type model just yet, are we? To do what Brighton and Brentford are doing, even at a lower level of the game, presumably has associated costs and complexities which make it prohibitively difficult to emulate, else everyone would be doing it, wouldn’t they?

I believe we’re further down the moneyball route than you think. We have a data analysis that joined us from Lincoln City. His role is far more about data and statistics than watching videos and attending games.

His role is to know what good/excellence looks like at this level from the formation and style of play we adopt going forward and identify players with statistics to match that. Even at Rochdale & Hartlepool there will be players with statistics that will suggest they could flourish in a different environment and with better players around them.

Gut instinct and knowing the character of the player will of course still be important, but data will be more important going forward.

Quoted from 123614

That's not what I was told.  Lincoln wouldn't release Vernam until they had his replacement who was coming from Portsmouth [Recco Hackett-Fairchild] but they in turn wanted to confirm a player in from Exeter and that fell through.  That scuppered Vernams move to Town.

Lincoln probably had a few potential Vernam replacements identified and none of them came off. So you’re probably both right.

Lincoln were probably aware that Jack Diamond had been under police investigation since May 2022 and were being extra careful with numbers incase he became unavailable (as happened at the end of March).

Quoted from diehardmariner

Fair enough, I'm not gonna argue with you on the details of who's in for who.

The consistent point, again, is that Town got caught up in a chain of events.  Partly that's the nature of sitting so far down the chain, but it sits uncomfortably with me that we seem to forever get caught up in it and rarely with a successful outcome.  I'd like us to get our bigger bits of business done early.  On so many levels that statement of intent works wonders.  It creates a buzz which can only help with ticket sales but perhaps more importantly it shows we're serious to other players who will look at who we've signed and think we've got a chance of challenging.

I'm not arguing mate, the thing is about a chain, is that, in this case, 3 different clubs involved as well as us, then anything can go wrong, as proved in this attempted signing.  Also I think it's unfair to say we should get our bigger bits of business done early.  I cannot imagine PH just sits on his backside at the beginning of the window waiting for something to happen, in fact we know from his own mouth that he has been speaking to several players already.

I don't think it's unfair to be honest.  It's no secret that we've missed out on the players we've really wanted consistently.  

At no point am I saying Hurst is sitting on his bottom just waiting for something to happen.  But I do think we're possibly reactive in the transfer market rather than proactive.  Vernam is just one example of us waiting and waiting on the first target, only to find that they say no and the second, third, fourth targets have all signed up with someone else.  There's an art to biding your time but there's also an art to calling teams bluff.  

It might be a case, using Vernam as the example, that Lincoln weren't prepared to let him go under any circumstances until they had the replacement through the door.  But I also wonder, perhaps unfairly here, what would have been the outcome had Hurst said 'look, we'll take him today but we won't tomorrow...your call'.  Equally so when Vernam was talking with us last summer, did we say 'contract comes off the table in 36 hours.  We're not waiting forever on you'.  To be honest I don't think we did.  Again, it's an art to calling someone's bluff.  But I know we were in talks with Vernam for well over a week before he got his head turned by Lincoln.

Regards the Scully/Hackett-Fairchild point - no argument from me here, Golly sums it up that we're both likely right and that chain (as you point out too) is complicated by many factors.  It's a tough one but unless we look to disrupt that chain ourselves and try and jump ahead of that natural pecking order, we're always likely to end up with players that aren't our first choices.

Window after window we've waited for everything to fall into place, to my knowledge that hasn't worked.  Worst thing we can do is try something different and a bit bolder.

Quoted from diehardmariner

I don't think it's unfair to be honest.  It's no secret that we've missed out on the players we've really wanted consistently.  

At no point am I saying Hurst is sitting on his bottom just waiting for something to happen.  But I do think we're possibly reactive in the transfer market rather than proactive.  Vernam is just one example of us waiting and waiting on the first target, only to find that they say no and the second, third, fourth targets have all signed up with someone else.  There's an art to biding your time but there's also an art to calling teams bluff.  

It might be a case, using Vernam as the example, that Lincoln weren't prepared to let him go under any circumstances until they had the replacement through the door.  But I also wonder, perhaps unfairly here, what would have been the outcome had Hurst said 'look, we'll take him today but we won't tomorrow...your call'.  Equally so when Vernam was talking with us last summer, did we say 'contract comes off the table in 36 hours.  We're not waiting forever on you'.  To be honest I don't think we did.  Again, it's an art to calling someone's bluff.  But I know we were in talks with Vernam for well over a week before he got his head turned by Lincoln.

Regards the Scully/Hackett-Fairchild point - no argument from me here, Golly sums it up that we're both likely right and that chain (as you point out too) is complicated by many factors.  It's a tough one but unless we look to disrupt that chain ourselves and try and jump ahead of that natural pecking order, we're always likely to end up with players that aren't our first choices.

Window after window we've waited for everything to fall into place, to my knowledge that hasn't worked.  Worst thing we can do is try something different and a bit bolder.

We are very much reactive rather than proactive. It is clear with everything Hurst says. In a seller's market, you have to be proactive most of the time; players need to be wanted and you have to woo them with salary, perks and aspirations and do the chasing. Waiting for things to fall into place is not going to work unless you are just going to work down your list till you get towards the bottom.