Have Harry's signings really been that bad?

On what do you base the assumption that keeping Remy would of guaranteed a finish of 15th or 16th?
As Stan says, if you're happy with Harry and where we are in the League then that is your prerogative.

 

My basis was that firstly he is a proven premiership goalscorer with two clubs namely QPR and Newcastle ( also scoring for France at international level) and that he is quick. Having a forward with pace would give us the opportunity to play balls behind defences. It would add a dimension to our attacking play that would in my opinion provide us with more opportunities to create more chances and score more goals that would lead to more points.

 

Someone would have to supply the service that you describe though.
IMO it's impossible to know whether he would have kept us up or not. What I will say is that another coach would keep THIS squad up imo.

 

Pulis would get 40 points with Accrington in this league

 

That's a fair point RoyalOak. I don't get these guys who say lets drop into the Championsh*t for three years and build. Isn't the aim to be playing at the top level, not in that sub-standard, hack-ball, hatchet man excuse of a league?

 

Your missing the point. BAE's wages alone were £1.5m over the 9 months. Add to that a Will Keane and Aaron Hughes and you've basically paid for Aaron Cresswell or scrap that trust YSY you could have Lewis Grabban in Jan before his contract ran out for 1.5m.

Look at Burnley they sign Ashley Barnes for 600k and he's smashing in equalisers against City.

Redknapp took the short term approach and signed names he'd heard of but it's his job to identify the players that can improve us and improve here

With the millions he's spent and sheer numbers he's signed he's had the odd success but to low a hit ratio to justify being one of the best paid managers in world football

He signed loan players, they all left then he moaned that they all left.

What a mug

 

Yeah and if the Championship is purgatory then be rest assured hell awaits in League One and we have been there too in recent years! Maybe a bit more than 2/3 years to get our soul back.

 

Vargas is played out of position and less effective as a result ( not that that plonker Harry realises, he said we had 2 strikers pre-Zarate)

Sandro is a walking injury so it was his risk to take. Pays off credit but fails as many predicted it would due to injury not ability and he rightly takes the blame

Fer and Mutch play the same position in a 3 man midfield. Fer struggles out of position on the wing (buy a 8m pound winger if that what you want- not an 8m CM). While Mutch isn't good enough to get in ahead of limited players like Barton and Henry.

Complete failure and somewhere round 10-15% success rate with transfers.

Sums him up. Not good enough. Must do better

 

Any of the numerous midfield players would do this if they knew they had a quick forward in the team. With Charlie and Bob up top they just knock it up to them when they have their backs to the goal. Neither has pace so they do not really have an option.

 

Fair enough mate, we could go back and forth like this for ever I think. If Harry played fast wingers, not a forward and centre mid out of position in his 4-4-2 there would be more options than just lumping it up to BZ etc etc. Or he could change it and play Vargas in the centre with Austin, or promote Isla to the right of midfield, or play 4-3-3. Trouble is, he has no tactical nous and so he does none of these things.

Let's agree to differ eh?

 

I'm with you on the 4-4-2 with fast wingers col. Problem is the wide players we have; hoillet, Phillips and SWP have just not performed ( well SWP has not been near the team even though he trains well apparently) this season.

 

Accept 2-3 years in the Championship? Our owners ambitions and I hope most of our support have bigger ambition than that. 2 or 3 months in the PL summer break is plenty time. Saints have shown that. Soul can be bought in Bradford.
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At the start of last season, if BAE was offered to every club in the championship, a large proportion would have taken him. Nobody was complaining when he joined. Will Keane was and is on peanuts at United. Aaron Hughes, as I said, pay per play and barely featured. Besides, BAE only had one awful game for us, aside from that he was better than Traore. Yun only came to life for the last 10 games.

"He signed loan players, they all left". Well yes, obviously, they're on loan.

Listen, as I stipulated at the start not all of his signings have been great. More to disagree with your original point, his championship signings weren't ridiculous. You only have to look at Fulham paying however much for Ross McCormick to see where they are, along with the amount Forest have spent and see where they are. Redknapp's signings got us out of the division for a lot less than what some other teams consolidate in that division did.

 

Hughes played a fair bit from memory, including at right wing-back bizarrely.

We were incredibly fortunate to go up last season. The more I think about it the more awful signings there have been- Jenas, Carroll, Maiga, Benayoun, Kranjcar, Chevanton, Onyewu. All either awful value for money or just awful.

 

Yeah, that's why we're still in the Championship.

No wait....

 

Hughes played 11 games and was signed on a short term deal. No risk. Chevanton and Onyewu were monthly signings. No risk. Carroll on loan, not great but had potential. Jenas was actually good when he played - you look at the involvement he had in a lot of goals and you will be surprised. Kranjcar an awful signing? On loan? Really?

 

Assuming he was on £40k per week plus and could rarely play 90 minutes, yeah.

Jenas was bloody awful IMO but it's a game of opinions. He was a ghost on the field.

All these short term deals- would it have been any worse to develop one of our own players and save hundreds of thousands of pounds in the process? Ehmer could have done Onyewu's job. Hitchcock could have done Chevanton's. Petrasso has never had a look in while countless slow, over 30s players with nothing to prove get played in his position.

 

His championship signings were hit and miss. He bought players he knew (just like Warnock) and he got us up at the first attempt - to his credit. His problem was that the academy had been run down for years, the owners were in a hurry and he had a year left, at most, in management - all a recipe for short term thinking. Which meant we were 'buying a team' (again) in the Summer. It hasn't worked out. Not sure it's all his fault because he hasn't been in charge of buying players for a while, but he will carry the can if we are relegated, as managers always do.

 

.....and whatever happens we'll be buying another team next summer. A cheap one, I'm guessing.