twitter: "Rotherham United are one of eight clubs to express an interest in signing 23-year-old Grimsby Town striker Omar Bogle."
I laughed out loud when I saw this, causing my family to ask “what’s so funny….?”
I sincerely hope our new 'head of recruitment' is at least a little more nous than previous pathetic (in my opinion) transfer dealings personnel.
I also hope that TS has finally, finally learned some lessons, and realises that if he comes out with anything like “The player was asking too much", or, "we have a healthy player budget", or…. Worst of all… naming players we are interested in that we NEVER actually get (players that are keeping other clubs in the Championship by the way…) , that every time he says those now it will be another 500 people who DON’T renew their season ticket for league 1
Just keep it quiet, don’t tell us until the deal is done and DON’T GET SCREWED BY AGENTS CREATING HIGHER PRICES AT OUR EXPENSE… CLOSE THE DEAL AT THE END, NOT START THE BIDDING FOR SOMEONE ELSE'S BENEFIT...
-- Edited by Davidedin on Tuesday 3rd of January 2017 07:28:54 PM
I know what you are saying Davidedin. I agree that some of our club statements in the past have not been helpful. I sympathise though with what they have to deal with. Not talking about this purported interest in the Grimsby player because I know nothing about it, but generally speaking if you take a principled approach and refuse to deal with agents or unscrupulous agents then you are taking yourself out of the market for a lot of players. Also, the club has very little control over what others might leak to the media. Sometimes those rumours/stories are planted by the player (or agent) or by the selling club to generate a bidding war, and no doubt sometimes there isn't any foundation to it anyway. It is a minefield and must be as frustrating as hell to have to navigate through. The reality may however be that on financial grounds alone never mind the added complication of our lowly league position now, if any other Championship clubs share our interest in any player we might find it difficult to land him.
-- Edited by smiler on Wednesday 4th of January 2017 11:23:17 AM
I know what you are saying Davidedin. I agree that some of our club statements in the past have not been helpful. I sympathise though with what they have to deal with. Not talking about this purported interest in the Grimsby player because I know nothing about it, but generally speaking if you take a principled approach and refuse to deal with agents or unscrupulous agents then you are taking yourself out of the market for a lot of players. Also, the club has very little control over what others might leak to the media. Sometimes those rumours/stories are planted by the player (or agent) or by the selling club to generate a bidding war, and no doubt sometimes there isn't any foundation to it anyway. It is a minefield and must be as frustrating as hell to have to navigate through. The reality may however be that on financial grounds alone never mind the added complication of our lowly league position now, if any other Championship clubs share our interest in any player we might find it difficult to land him.
-- Edited by smiler on Wednesday 4th of January 2017 11:23:17 AM
Yes I agree with that Smiler, and with what Hillsborough Millers says, but if we are ever to compete, we need to have the same attitude as other clubs who are actually signing the players we are missing. Thinking back to 2 players that Barnsley signed, both of who we showed an interest in, both of who are scoring the goals to keep them competitive, and going back to Tavs, Griffiths (some time ago, what a signing that would have been), the offers we were purported to give were close to the final price paid... so there has to be some times when you have to put your principles to one side and hold your nerve and take a small amount of added risk.
Also HOW to deal with agents, and negotiating generally is a skill we haven't showed so far - maybe the new guy has that, but in any business you have to weigh up the risk versus the reward. I would suggest for three seasons we have not been doing this properly and we are now reaping the rewards of bad thinking.
It's not helped that Stubbs and Redfearn were not effective, and we've had our fair share of bad luck, but accepting that, as a business, in my opinion, we have failed in respect of player transfers, and this needs fixing in the long term if we are to return to the Championship at any point in the future...
I accept it's not easy, but I do think ii is common business practice and skilled people who can negotiate and closedeals properly that is letting us down.
It’s just my opinion, and don’t get me wrong I love TS for what he’s done for our club, but he needs a skilled and capable team around him and in my opinion they have let him and the club (and us fans) down. I don’t think we are much (if at all) smaller than the likes of Barnsley, Burton, Wigan, Ipswich and a few others, and it’s such a shame we haven’t made a fist of it properly – we could have stayed in this league with a better team around TS.
Always a Miller though, no matter which league we’re in !
-- Edited by Davidedin on Wednesday 4th of January 2017 04:45:47 PM
oh i totally agree on TS has been good for the club but has made some bad decisions either through arrogance or bad advice from third parties.
Tony is a business man but he needs to get someone in with experience in running a football club amybe change the chief executive as well in my opinion
From Paul's article as regards players PW is expecting to look at brining in :
PW: “So I have to accept the fact that a player maybe has not played for a little bit of time or has been injured or maybe this or that has happened or he’s out of favour or he’s a bit of a rough diamond”
This sounds very familiar and suggests we won't sign anyone who is in form, nomatter what league they are in, presumably because PW has been told we have no money available to buy.
More than that, hopefully another lesson we've learned (although we've done it many times already so maybe not) is that you don't give these (unfit, out of contract, ex injury) types of players a contract unless it is based on pay per play, again common sense business nous surely?
We haven't been able and aren't able to bring in proven Championship standard players who are at the peak of their careers. We just can't afford them. How many players like that have come through the door in the past three years? Generally speaking the players in our sights fall into one or more of a few categories.
(1) lower division players who may or may not prove to be up to it (Taylor, Newell etc).
(2) players released by or available on loan from good clubs but who are untried (G Ward, Brown, Fry, Ball, Fisher etc).
(3) players who were once good enough at this level but are past their best (dozens of examples).
(4) players with recent injury problems (lots of examples).
(5) players who have become fringe players at other Championship clubs (Danny Ward, Tom Adeyemi, Lee Camp etc).
With a bit of luck, team spirit, and doing the best you can you might be able to keep your head above water for a season or two but not for too long.
There is a further possible category - players who we bring through ourselves - but we don't do that any more.
Burton have followed a similar strategy to us. Look at their front line: O'Grady, Jamie Ward, Dyer and now they have signed 34 year old injury plagued Luke Varney. They probably won't stay up this season and if they do they will struggle again next.
I would prefer the Barnsley route. Spotting and bringing through real young talent. That is the only way to build something sustainable. They have brought young players through and acquired young talent from lower leagues and developed it. They have sold players for fortunes, and how much are Winnall, Hourihane and others worth in the current window if sold? Itgives them a longer term chance. But it needs a bit of patience and time, something we have frankly been terrible at realising both at board room level and as supporters.
The same is true of managers by the way. This idea that they must have Championship experience is codswallop. It is one of a number of things to look for, but by no means essential. There are plenty of teams in the top half with managers new to the Championship and plenty in the bottom half who have managers with lots of Championship time served.
Looking back on how the last three seasons have panned out, its clear to me that Rotherham United have not moved on since the title winning Champions of the old Div3 in the 80-81 season. All that has changed is we have swapped Millmoor for NYS. In terms of progress we have gone nowhere and been up and down like a brides nightie and never, ever, built on the odd occasions of success ; by success I mean promotion to the Championship.
The club and the fans have had a raw deal time after time, from the time of the Purshouses onward. All who followed were guilty of one thing or another and we all know the history. I think TS has made a valiant effort and I really, truly thought this time it would be different. But no. With relegation looming we will be left with the half empty white elephant of NYS and be rueing missed opportunities once again. Clearly Warnock and Jackett were not interested in staying in my view because they could see something was inherently wrong from the top, to the very bottom of the training ground shower room.
Where will it end? will I EVER see a successful football club that I have followed for over 50years? I doubt it. I really dont have any answers either, but its clear if TS is to remain as Chairman he is going to have to have professional help to restructure the way the club is run and managed. If this was 1957 the current arrangement could possibly have worked, but with us it is mistake after mistake and once again we have to suffer the chagrin of being a Miller.
I agree to a certain extent Towdlad, but we also know that we were literally one day away from Liquidation before TS rescued us, he then convinced the Rotherham Council to help us (a small miracle in itself) and delivered on his promise of a new stadium and getting us to the Championship.
So, like you and thousands of other true Millers, we’re hurting because it feels so frustrating to throw away the chance and opportunities we were presented with when we got back up to the Championship – and we all have that dream of (even just for one year) of getting into that elusive Premiership, or at the very least establishing ourselves for many years in the current league.
I didn’t know Booth personally, nor TS now, but I do think they are inherently different, and that TS is probably just as gutted if not more (since it’s also his money) as we are that things have turned out as they have.
As we’ve said, those around TS have let him down badly, probably with no intent, but certainly we have made, and then repeated, the same mistakes over the last few years. That combined with TS probably unable to fund what he knows he needs to (as I’m guessing Warnock would have stayed if he’d been offered anything like a decent player budget for this season), and added to that the refusal of authorities to let him develop the surrounding area (another totally stupid bureaucratic decision in my opinion) has just meant he’s not financially in a position to bankroll the things needed to put it right. He needs help, financially and with better staff.
So, we drop to League One, we hopefully stay there and not drop further, we hopefully start to do some of the things we need to – like building an Academy, better scouting, looking at taking on developing players spotted in lower leagues, combined with a scattering of older but proven better players from the lower leagues (the likes of Scarz,) and start to build a winning team again…
It could be worse, it might get better again… we have to hope so :)
Davidedin, a couple of small anomalies in your previous post. T.S. did not convince Rotherham Council to help out it was the other way round. The Council literally begged him more than once to save the club, he got together with the three shareholders with a business plan. Yes he spotted a financial opportunity and we should not be beholden to him forever. The Jest & Crimes fiasco is disappointing and a deal with the Heritage people ought to have been sorted by now. He`s bought the land at Tinsley and it`s rumoured he`s about to sell at a profit. Roundwood will have some investment into building better quality changing rooms. All in all it`s been a poor season, one to forget but it`s not the end of the world.
so far its all been one way out of the door some i agree good riddance ie caskey allan and fry
halford for a fee
ball out on loan probably wont come back and be playing for posh against us next season
and izzy brown going to huddersfield according to the media
and no one coming in and I am not expecting anyone of any note
A few post have talked about missed opportunities and that for me is the thing that has let us down.
Clearly the players we have had have been continually let go and swapped for much worse players.
Arnie
Smallwood
Green
Halford
Derbyshire
Steve Evans
pringle
none of these players needed to leave and likewise the manager. They left because no one had any eye for what we have and as much as some decried these men others will agree with me and realise this list represents the bare minimum to build a successful squad at this level.
They all went due to internal decision making about players and wages and direction and they were all decisions that contributed to our demise. And, if we cant retain these kind of players and some of the excellent loans we had then we wont progress.
