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Post by redandwhitetundra on Apr 27, 2017 6:27:59 GMT
It's our scouting that truly baffles me. As well as the refusal to play the players that have come in under Hughes' watch. You see teams like Southampton, or even Hull now- pulling unknowns out of the continent and selling them on if the right offers come along. Then when they do, they're always able to replace them without disruption. Us on the other hand, wager on the dogs home singings or just stump up on a fat bloke down the road that hasn't kicked a ball in 2 years. It's a complete fucking mess. This is because of Southampton's recruitment and scouting policy. The BBC did a feature on it a couple of years ago; essentially they have a load of statisticians running the rule over every player in every league they can get data on. The statistics allow them to find two or three players for every 'role' they're trying to fulfil and - similarly to our time under TP - the recruitment team have a specific type of player (stats, mentality, positional, etc) they're looking for. When the time comes that they want to purchase an upgrade, or replace an aging/departing player, they have the replacements lined up and go and get them. They don't just look for short-term fixes, like we seemingly do (i.e. tried-and-tested players). They look for players who are younger and offer more than what they have already... Hull, I believe, have implemented a similar methodology and are now reaping the rewards from it. Whilst I aren't sure about how Hull found Silva, the Southampton methodology covers managers and coaches as well as players. TL;DR Stoke's scouting and recruitment policy is stuck in the late 80's/early 90's, whilst Southampton and Hull are looking at, investing in and reaping the rewards from new technologies in recruiting staff.
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Post by mrcoke on Apr 27, 2017 7:07:34 GMT
The real weakness is in recruiting strikers. We have done okay under Hughes on goalkeepers, maybe slightly negative Grant v Haugaard/Given. Okay on defenders especially when we consider what fees we have paid for them, not spectacular but solid and signing Bruno would put this area in the plus column. Mixed in midfield but Allen, Afellay, Bojan balance Imbula and also true Ireland has contributed, so not a bad hit rate but no CDM on the negative side. Good on wide players, Arnie, Shaq and Sobhi. But shocking on strikers, Giudetti, Diouf, Joselu, Bony and yet to see on Berahino. What's most worrying si we seem to ahve made the strikers we sign into worse players We have 6 full-time defenders in our squad(easily the worst in terms of numbers in the prem), arguably 5 are not good enough at this standard. 1 of our former defenders stated that they have no coaching nor do they practice any defensive drills in training. We conceded over 70 goals in the 38 games of 2016, which included a dozen or so drubbings - not sure how that constitutes as solid. As far as goalies go he risked our premiership status with Derby's 3rd choice keeper and like every other position in defence has had no viable backup for nearly an entire season. I suppose Grant could also be considered a superb bit of business by Hughes, but still a big risk given his history or lack of it. He does not do defence - I think it only entered his head to sign Bruno when he sat down to fill in the team sheet and realised he did not have 2 centre-backs to choose from Strong opinions with a barbed comment regarding signing Bruno, but really your views don't fit the facts. I am aware that stats can be used to prove anything as indeed you do from quoting 2016 calendar performance. However closer examination of Stoke's record shows that they are not a team that concedes lots of goals as only Burnley and Boro have conceded less in the bottom half of the table and they both play very defensively. Stoke's problem is quite clearly an inability to score lots of goals, which has been the same since we joined the Prem. The drubbings were almost invariably by top class sides; the sole exception being at Palace where the team played zonal defence for the first time and made a hash of it. They conceded 2 goals in the first 11 minutes, then matched Palace for an hour before finally conceding 2 more. But as in the case of all the drubbings the team kept trying to attack to recover the game, but left themselves exposed. I personally much prefer the team kept trying to score rather than just lumping the ball out of defence and waiting for the next opposition attack. Other than those 4 goals conceded to top teams, Stoke have only conceded a maximum of 2 goals. It is more the case of dropping points by missing goal scoring opportunities and then conceding the odd goal or two.
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Post by dutchstokie on Apr 27, 2017 8:10:59 GMT
It's our scouting that truly baffles me. As well as the refusal to play the players that have come in under Hughes' watch. You see teams like Southampton, or even Hull now- pulling unknowns out of the continent and selling them on if the right offers come along. Then when they do, they're always able to replace them without disruption. Us on the other hand, wager on the dogs home singings or just stump up on a fat bloke down the road that hasn't kicked a ball in 2 years. It's a complete fucking mess. This is because of Southampton's recruitment and scouting policy. The BBC did a feature on it a couple of years ago; essentially they have a load of statisticians running the rule over every player in every league they can get data on. The statistics allow them to find two or three players for every 'role' they're trying to fulfil and - similarly to our time under TP - the recruitment team have a specific type of player (stats, mentality, positional, etc) they're looking for. When the time comes that they want to purchase an upgrade, or replace an aging/departing player, they have the replacements lined up and go and get them. They don't just look for short-term fixes, like we seemingly do (i.e. tried-and-tested players). They look for players who are younger and offer more than what they have already... Hull, I believe, have implemented a similar methodology and are now reaping the rewards from it. Whilst I aren't sure about how Hull found Silva, the Southampton methodology covers managers and coaches as well as players. TL;DR Stoke's scouting and recruitment policy is stuck in the late 80's/early 90's, whilst Southampton and Hull are looking at, investing in and reaping the rewards from new technologies in recruiting staff. I'm sure I read somewhere, our scouting policy utilizes beer mats and biro's........
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Post by mrred on Apr 27, 2017 8:21:43 GMT
It's our scouting that truly baffles me. As well as the refusal to play the players that have come in under Hughes' watch. You see teams like Southampton, or even Hull now- pulling unknowns out of the continent and selling them on if the right offers come along. Then when they do, they're always able to replace them without disruption. Us on the other hand, wager on the dogs home singings or just stump up on a fat bloke down the road that hasn't kicked a ball in 2 years. It's a complete fucking mess. This is because of Southampton's recruitment and scouting policy. The BBC did a feature on it a couple of years ago; essentially they have a load of statisticians running the rule over every player in every league they can get data on. The statistics allow them to find two or three players for every 'role' they're trying to fulfil and - similarly to our time under TP - the recruitment team have a specific type of player (stats, mentality, positional, etc) they're looking for. When the time comes that they want to purchase an upgrade, or replace an aging/departing player, they have the replacements lined up and go and get them. They don't just look for short-term fixes, like we seemingly do (i.e. tried-and-tested players). They look for players who are younger and offer more than what they have already... Hull, I believe, have implemented a similar methodology and are now reaping the rewards from it. Whilst I aren't sure about how Hull found Silva, the Southampton methodology covers managers and coaches as well as players. TL;DR Stoke's scouting and recruitment policy is stuck in the late 80's/early 90's, whilst Southampton and Hull are looking at, investing in and reaping the rewards from new technologies in recruiting staff. Excellent, thanks for sharing that info. Maybe we should start integrating some of the statisticians from Bet365 instead relying on Football Manager 09.
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Post by Glory Hunter on Apr 27, 2017 8:24:01 GMT
Well we will all see in the Summer cos Hughes is going nowhere and will have at least one more full window to change the squad and make the progress needed.
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Post by coupe on Apr 27, 2017 8:30:35 GMT
The trouble on here is everybody is expecting things to soon we were light years away from Southampton once don't forget they nurtured Bale & Oxlade Chamberlain when we had no academy to talk of.It takes time to build a reputation even Crewe were way ahead of us once. Our youth team reaching the Youth Cup semi final shows we are on the right lines also the young ones winning the Staffs Senior Cup for the 1st time since 1999 we now know at 4 or 5 youth players names when a few years back if you asked any fan they would be lucky to come up with 1 name.
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Post by sheikhmomo on Apr 27, 2017 8:35:18 GMT
The trouble on here is everybody is expecting things to soon we were light years away from Southampton When we were in a Cup Final in 2011, Southampton were facing their second season in League One. The gap maybe should have closed quicker than it has.
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Post by coupe on Apr 27, 2017 8:44:58 GMT
The trouble on here is everybody is expecting things to soon we were light years away from Southampton When we were in a Cup Final in 2011, Southampton were facing their second season in League One. The gap maybe should have closed quicker than it has. Crewe have never been above the championship but produced players like Platt,Thomas,Murphy,Savage, Ashton & host of others while we produced nothing like I say it takes time you go on about a Cup Final whilst most big teams until the semi finals played their reserves or have you conviently forgot that.
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Post by sheikhmomo on Apr 27, 2017 8:48:17 GMT
When we were in a Cup Final in 2011, Southampton were facing their second season in League One. The gap maybe should have closed quicker than it has. Crewe have never been above the championship but produced players like Platt,Thomas,Murphy,Savage, Ashton & host of others while we produced nothing like I say it takes time you go on about a Cup Final whilst most big teams until the semi finals played their reserves or have you conviently forgot that. I haven't forgot we lost to Wolves reserves this year. Getting to Cup Finals isn't that easy to do as our wretched 154 year history bears testament to.
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Post by coupe on Apr 27, 2017 8:55:55 GMT
It's a lot easier now, Villa reached one after us look where they are now and they are by far the biggest team in the Midlands personally this club is in the best health it as ever been in our history one blip this season and all the typical moaners come out in force, have you got something positive to say about the club for a change.
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Post by sheikhmomo on Apr 27, 2017 9:01:28 GMT
It's a lot easier now, Villa reached one after us look where they are now and they are by far the biggest team in the Midlands personally this club is in the best health it as ever been in our history one blip this season and all the typical moaners come out in force, have you got something positive to say about the club for a change. I want Hughes to remain and will just about forgive our 'blip' this season. What I wont do, is accept useless benchmarking against teams like Southampton and friggin' Crewe! We've had our noses in the filthy money trough for nearly a decade now.
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Post by bayernoatcake on Apr 27, 2017 9:14:57 GMT
It's a lot easier now, Villa reached one after us look where they are now and they are by far the biggest team in the Midlands personally this club is in the best health it as ever been in our history one blip this season and all the typical moaners come out in force, have you got something positive to say about the club for a change. I want Hughes to remain and will just about forgive our 'blip' this season. What I wont do, is accept useless benchmarking against teams like Southampton and friggin' Crewe! We've had our noses in the filthy money trough for nearly a decade now. We (and by we I mean a lot of the support and the people in the club) seem happy with this bobbing along and not trying to excel in areas where we should. As you say we've been earning absolutely shit loads of money and nothing seems to be done right. The recruitment policy seems haphazard at best. The academy is at a level where it probably should have been 4/5 years ago with the real acid test (players who are good enough for the PL) still to come, we're just putting a corner in etc etc etc. I don't get why we seem happy with the status quo in an industry where you need to be one step ahead. As I've said many times for the past 18 months, the whole club seems to me like it's just sleep walking but for absolutely no good reason.
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Post by coupe on Apr 27, 2017 9:16:12 GMT
Like I say that is not a benchmark but Southampton still retained a fantastic youth policy when the 1st team nose dived. We spend more money on overseas youth players than we did on 1st teamers way back,he as just spent more money on the academy last season so it is work in progress and don't forget that as not come out of the club's profits it was a gift from Coates for the club. to build on. The problem we have got is the players who have been here so long expect loyalty from within and if it was me who had played over a dozen games for the 1st team this season and was not handed a new contract you would be pretty miffed to see Ireland been given an extended one seeing he as been injured throughout last season,so I think this is where unrest begins like in any other work place.jealousy prevails.
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Post by alster on Apr 27, 2017 9:20:16 GMT
We have 6 full-time defenders in our squad(easily the worst in terms of numbers in the prem), arguably 5 are not good enough at this standard. 1 of our former defenders stated that they have no coaching nor do they practice any defensive drills in training. We conceded over 70 goals in the 38 games of 2016, which included a dozen or so drubbings - not sure how that constitutes as solid. As far as goalies go he risked our premiership status with Derby's 3rd choice keeper and like every other position in defence has had no viable backup for nearly an entire season. I suppose Grant could also be considered a superb bit of business by Hughes, but still a big risk given his history or lack of it. He does not do defence - I think it only entered his head to sign Bruno when he sat down to fill in the team sheet and realised he did not have 2 centre-backs to choose from Strong opinions with a barbed comment regarding signing Bruno, but really your views don't fit the facts. I am aware that stats can be used to prove anything as indeed you do from quoting 2016 calendar performance. However closer examination of Stoke's record shows that they are not a team that concedes lots of goals as only Burnley and Boro have conceded less in the bottom half of the table and they both play very defensively. Stoke's problem is quite clearly an inability to score lots of goals, which has been the same since we joined the Prem. The drubbings were almost invariably by top class sides; the sole exception being at Palace where the team played zonal defence for the first time and made a hash of it. They conceded 2 goals in the first 11 minutes, then matched Palace for an hour before finally conceding 2 more. But as in the case of all the drubbings the team kept trying to attack to recover the game, but left themselves exposed. I personally much prefer the team kept trying to score rather than just lumping the ball out of defence and waiting for the next opposition attack. Other than those 4 goals conceded to top teams, Stoke have only conceded a maximum of 2 goals. It is more the case of dropping points by missing goal scoring opportunities and then conceding the odd goal or two. Too true. I've been trying to highlight that the obsession with conceding goals and defensive systems is not our problem. Scoring goals is our problem which Hughes initially improved but instead of building on that improvement we've sunk back to Pulis type scoring stats as a direct result of the manager becoming more pragmatic and cautious and less cavalier and adventurous.
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Post by coupe on Apr 27, 2017 9:28:02 GMT
Strong opinions with a barbed comment regarding signing Bruno, but really your views don't fit the facts. I am aware that stats can be used to prove anything as indeed you do from quoting 2016 calendar performance. However closer examination of Stoke's record shows that they are not a team that concedes lots of goals as only Burnley and Boro have conceded less in the bottom half of the table and they both play very defensively. Stoke's problem is quite clearly an inability to score lots of goals, which has been the same since we joined the Prem. The drubbings were almost invariably by top class sides; the sole exception being at Palace where the team played zonal defence for the first time and made a hash of it. They conceded 2 goals in the first 11 minutes, then matched Palace for an hour before finally conceding 2 more. But as in the case of all the drubbings the team kept trying to attack to recover the game, but left themselves exposed. I personally much prefer the team kept trying to score rather than just lumping the ball out of defence and waiting for the next opposition attack. Other than those 4 goals conceded to top teams, Stoke have only conceded a maximum of 2 goals. It is more the case of dropping points by missing goal scoring opportunities and then conceding the odd goal or two. Too true. I've been trying to highlight that the obsession with conceding goals and defensive systems is not our problem. Scoring goals is our probleqm which Hughes initially improved but instead of building on that improvement we've sunk back to Pulis type scoring stats as a direct result of the manager becoming more pragmatic and cautious and less cavalier and adventurous. You're not seriously quoting Wilson if it was Huth coming out with those quotes it would have more credibility but Wilson who went to Bournemouth then Albion and could not hold down a place I put it down to sour grapes.
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Post by alster on Apr 27, 2017 9:39:04 GMT
Too true. I've been trying to highlight that the obsession with conceding goals and defensive systems is not our problem. Scoring goals is our probleqm which Hughes initially improved but instead of building on that improvement we've sunk back to Pulis type scoring stats as a direct result of the manager becoming more pragmatic and cautious and less cavalier and adventurous. You're not seriously quoting Wilson if it was Huth coming out with those quotes it would have more credibility but Wilson who went to Bournemouth then Albion and could not hold down a place I put it down to sour grapes. I'm not quoting any players. So many of our fans and posters on this board are totally focused on 4 goal humiliations, zonal systems etc etc. They're totally missing the real problem which is our inability to score enough goals. Yes in squad building the balance of the squad has been neglected defensively and yes we've conceded 4 on an uncomfortable number of occasions but as Mrcoke posted we don't actually over a season concede an alarming number of goals.
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Post by coupe on Apr 27, 2017 9:57:39 GMT
Even when we had Ric we have had a problem scoring goals having a 15 to 20 a season man as not happened for years which is baffling, and what is alarming the goals we concede I think it shows the mediocre teams can't take advantage like the top teams who seem to be brutal against us on our naive defending.Missing Butland at the start of the season did not help and then bedding in Grant saved us further embarrassment.
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Post by alster on Apr 27, 2017 10:09:48 GMT
Even when we had Ric we have had a problem scoring goals having a 15 to 20 a season man as not happened for years which is baffling, and what is alarming the goals we concede I think it shows the mediocre teams can't take advantage like the top teams who seem to be brutal against us on our naive defending.Missing Butland at the start of the season did not help and then bedding in Grant saved us further embarrassment. I don't think the fact that we haven't had a prolific striker for donkeys years is a coincidence. 10 of those years were under Pulis who's set up is so defensive his teams are never going to score a lot of goals. Bangoura would have been prolific if he could have been arsed to actually be at the club when he was supposed to be. Other than him I don't think we've ever looked like we have had a prolific striker on the books since Sheron.
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Post by alster on Apr 27, 2017 10:12:28 GMT
Even when we had Ric we have had a problem scoring goals having a 15 to 20 a season man as not happened for years which is baffling, and what is alarming the goals we concede I think it shows the mediocre teams can't take advantage like the top teams who seem to be brutal against us on our naive defending.Missing Butland at the start of the season did not help and then bedding in Grant saved us further embarrassment. After the evidence at the back end of last season having Given anywhere near the starting 11 was completely negligent.
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Post by coupe on Apr 27, 2017 10:33:22 GMT
Even when we had Ric we have had a problem scoring goals having a 15 to 20 a season man as not happened for years which is baffling, and what is alarming the goals we concede I think it shows the mediocre teams can't take advantage like the top teams who seem to be brutal against us on our naive defending.Missing Butland at the start of the season did not help and then bedding in Grant saved us further embarrassment. After the evidence at the back end of last season having Given anywhere near the starting 11 was completely negligent. No way we're we bringing in another keeper as Butland broke down just before the season so you are saying we still brought in 1 keeper short when only signing Grant, Given did alright last season when called upon, l put that down to misfortune, I just think Haugaard lost his confidence and that is something you don't know will happen until you are put in that position.
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Post by alster on Apr 27, 2017 11:07:17 GMT
After the evidence at the back end of last season having Given anywhere near the starting 11 was completely negligent. No way we're we bringing in another keeper as Butland broke down just before the season so you are saying we still brought in 1 keeper short when only signing Grant, Given did alright last season when called upon, l put that down to misfortune, I just think Haugaard lost his confidence and that is something you don't know will happen until you are put in that position. I thought Given was fuckin awful last season so would have wanted another keeper even as a No2. We've got away with it because there have been no issues with Grant but the thought of him being injured and having Given back in goal has been terrifying. He should retire he's totally gone and he knows it. Committing himself far too soon to try and compensate for his slowness of reaction.
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Post by coupe on Apr 27, 2017 11:29:56 GMT
Well we will get our wish this summer with him but you would have thought the age of Haugaard would have stepped up to the plate but alas no that was where the problem was laid.
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Post by alster on Apr 27, 2017 11:38:43 GMT
Well we will get our wish this summer with him but you would have thought the age of Haugaard would have stepped up to the plate but alas no that was where the problem was laid. You can't buy Premier league players you can hang your hat on for what we paid for Haugaard he was a punt nothing more. I'm all in favor of punts but if you want them to be Premier League ready anytime in the next couple of years you're not going to pick them up for peanuts. In this market £5/6M is a punt that might be ready to step up.
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Post by Bramolini on Apr 27, 2017 12:38:59 GMT
I saw an interview with hughes just after the jan window closed . In it he was asked how the window had gone in his opinion. He said there were deals we didn`t get over the line , when asked who, he said its best not to ask because you would probably cry . I think it was a on a scfc official site , didn't see it mentioned on here.
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Post by walton corner on Apr 27, 2017 13:06:18 GMT
I'll repeat. Lose on Saturday, and I for one will be calling for his head, amongst a lot of others methinks! And if/when they win what you doing then ...just waiting for next defeat ???
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Post by coupe on Apr 27, 2017 13:24:53 GMT
Well we will get our wish this summer with him but you would have thought the age of Haugaard would have stepped up to the plate but alas no that was where the problem was laid. You can't buy Premier league players you can hang your hat on for what we paid for Haugaard he was a punt nothing more. I'm all in favor of punts but if you want them to be Premier League ready anytime in the next couple of years you're not going to pick them up for peanuts. In this market £5/6M is a punt that might be ready to step up. Well he came here with glowing referances from Tommy Sorensen and was worth it but you find out when they go in front of the firing line that's the real test.
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Post by alster on Apr 27, 2017 13:36:30 GMT
You can't buy Premier league players you can hang your hat on for what we paid for Haugaard he was a punt nothing more. I'm all in favor of punts but if you want them to be Premier League ready anytime in the next couple of years you're not going to pick them up for peanuts. In this market £5/6M is a punt that might be ready to step up. Well he came here with glowing referances from Tommy Sorensen and was worth it but you find out when they go in front of the firing line that's the real test. He'd lost the No1 slot in a shitty no mark league, it was like backing a 500to1 shot £1e/w in the Grand National or having £1 on 0 at roulette very much a long shot, not something you hang your hat on. If you want players ready for a crack at the Prem you aren't going to get them for a few hundred thousand.
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Post by crapslinger on Apr 27, 2017 13:45:32 GMT
I saw an interview with hughes just after the jan window closed . In it he was asked how the window had gone in his opinion. He said there were deals we didn`t get over the line , when asked who, he said its best not to ask because you would probably cry . I think it was a on a scfc official site , didn't see it mentioned on here. The one he did get over the line has hardly had us smiling has he ! considering he has spent three years chasing him.
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Post by maliciousdamage on Apr 27, 2017 14:26:28 GMT
Everything on the football side, the buck stops with Hughes. He is the kind of bloke that, if decisions were taken out of his hands, he would probably walk. Yes, Carto and Cruickshanks (who is Hughes' chief scout and his appointment) will recommend players, and Carto will help Scholes to negotiate the deal, but I am positive no player will sign for Stoke without Hughes' final say so. Are you sure? I'm getting the increasing feeling that Sobhi wasn't a Hughes signing. I think someone else at the club spotted him and recommended him to Hughes who took him as he was cheap but now is embarrassed to play him as he's a country mile better than his own big money signings
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Post by alster on Apr 27, 2017 14:32:29 GMT
Are you sure? I'm getting the increasing feeling that Sobhi wasn't a Hughes signing. I think someone else at the club spotted him and recommended him to Hughes who took him as he was cheap but now is embarrassed to play him as he's a country mile better than his own big money signings Don't know who signed him but I think what Hughes has against him is his age. He's young so he doesn't think twice about dropping him like when Shaq came back recently. I don't think he's more influential than Shaq so that justifies it somewhat. I just think the Mark Hughes of 18 months ago would have been able to accommodate all 3 (Arnie, Shaq, Sobhi) but this Mark Hughes just doesn't have the guts to play such an attacking line up.
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