Depending on the textbook, there are four or five stages in the typical human response to change: shock, denial, anger, acceptance and commitment.
Reflecting on the events of transfer deadline day and even allowing for the passage of time, it’s fair to say that I’m less than halfway through that particular emotional journey.
Following the shock of seeing Bradley Johnson in a Derby ‘City’ shirt, I slipped effortlessly into the denial phase. So what if the window had closed? There’s no way we’ve finished adding to the squad. David and Alex are going to make it right. Right?
I waited.
I waited some more.
When it became apparent that instead of Dwight Gayle and a strapping 6’ 5” centre-back we’d picked up the loan signing of Matt Jarvis, I threw a hissy-fit that Lewis Grabban would be proud of.
Now I don’t know how you feel about City’s transfer dealings this window. If you’re a regular contributor to Canary Call there’s a chance you’re ‘absolu’elie fuumin’. Or if you’re a more reasoned and balanced individual – a columnist on MyFootballWriter for example – there’s a chance you’re pleasantly optimistic.
Either way, there’s nothing worse than someone telling you how you should be feeling, particularly when that person is no more qualified to comment than yourself (as I discovered when Mrs C told me to cheer up and not to take it all so seriously).
So the purpose of this piece is not to try and convince you that we’re doomed or indeed that all’s rosy. It’s a cathartic exercise aimed at helping me overcome a personal lingering sense of frustration and annoyance.
Or to put it another way, it’s an old fashioned moan.
Now whatever your standpoint, most fans will acknowledge that our dealings this transfer window were ‘less than ideal’. As fans, we have no way of knowing exactly what transpired over the summer and how close we came to additional signings but the fact remains that we are a tear of a Bassong hamstring away from a defensive nightmare.
It’s a thoroughly uncomfortable position and to my mind raises serious questions over the capability of Lee Darnbrough, who on the 7th July was confirmed as our Head of Scouting.
Darnbrough joined the ‘executive football board’ alongside McNally, Alex Neil and Ricky Martin, the Technical Director. I’m sure that all four of them would take collective responsibility for the incomings and outgoings. However it’s the remits they have within that board which I suggest point towards failings on Darnbrough’s part.
Let’s assume that Ricky Martin’s role is to inform the discussions with detailed analysis. His team will provide the data which highlights particular strengths and weaknesses in our play; the manner in which we concede goals for example.
Alex Neil uses that to consider the options within the squad, potential tweaks to formations or different combinations of players. He will identify the areas or positions that need strengthening and the attributes that he wants to add to the squad.
David McNally will set the financial framework such as the amount available for transfers, agents’ fees and the wage structure set against the overall budgetary constraints.
Then it’s over to the Head of Scouting to find our man.
As we saw over the summer, anyone with a copy of Football Manager and a Twitter account can propose a potential transfer target. It is perhaps the crudest form of scouting there is. Search for a centre-back with good pace and a salary of under £30K a week and ‘bingo’, there’s your shopping list.
What you need is a sense of how realistic those targets are. Will the club listen to offers? Is the player open to a move? If so, is he prepared to push through the move at the other end? Fail to understand all that and you run the risk of bidding for players who you have little or no chance of signing. Several times over in the case of Benik Afobe.
I have no doubt that the majority of rumours and transfer links were completely unfounded but the fact remains we didn’t strengthen defensively when it’s clearly an area in which we’re lacking. Is that bad luck or bad planning?
Gary’s recent piece questioned the appeal of our club to a certain calibre of player. I’d agree that some players wouldn’t be prepared to wear the yellow and green but our scouting network should be filtering those out as non-starters. Otherwise David McNally could find himself on a flight to Italy (for example) for discussions with a player who simply isn’t going to sign.
Similarly you need to understand the wider market and the knock-on effects of various transfers on your chosen targets. The little nuances such as the impacts of Glenn Murray’s move to Bournemouth on the chances of bringing in Dwight Gayle. Either act before Bournemouth make their much rumoured move or look elsewhere; don’t wait until the last few hours when it all comes across as slightly desperate.
Yes it’s complicated but that’s what separates the people who play Football Manager from those whose job title is the Head of Scouting at a Premier League club.
Darnbrough was previously at Burnley where he made headlines due to the email he sent round to various agents asking if they had any players. I guess it could be argued that it’s a logical thing to do. It could also be interpreted as a desperate measure from someone struggling to identify targets through the usual means. Either way Burnley’s lack of transfer activity was widely questioned during their solitary season in the premier league which ended in relegation.
Let’s just hope we don’t share the same fate.
Okay, rant over.
What’s done is done and Alex knows the players he has at his disposal. To be fair to those players, with the exception of Southampton, they have shown that they are more than capable of competing in the top flight.
And there are more reasons to remain hopeful, not least of all, our Congolese contingent. If Mbokani can do what neither Grabban nor Jerome managed to and find the back of a gaping River End net then that’s another big plus. Mulumbu (courtesy of Lee Darnbrough it should be noted) will be a very welcome addition and shield the back-four.
Much as I grew to love Bradley Johnson, I suggested in my last piece that I couldn’t see him repeating his goal scoring antics and that Olsson and Brady down the left has a better feel about it. If Jarvis can discover the form that turned him into a £11million pound player, he will be another useful option down the flank that ‘Bradderz’ made his own last year. The reaction to his signing (me included) was surely a reflection of the disappointment of losing our player of the season in much the same way that we initially turned on Wes when he replaced Huckerby.
You can’t beat a good old-fashioned moan to help get things out of your system. By the time Bournemouth come to town on Saturday, a combination of the international break and my pre-match beers will have made the disappointment of deadline day a distant and possibly fuzzy memory.
Like the rest of the Yellow Army, I will be fully committed to the cause.
See you there!
Some good points made there, Steve, and I’m sure many a fan will appreciate the reflection of the frustration they feel.
Like I’ve said before, I’m a long way from apoplectic with rage, but I do feel underwhelmed and disappointed with the way things turned out, as I’m sure many at the club will.
Johnson, I’m fine with. It was a decent amount to get for his services. Mbokani could be great; we haven’t broken the bank to sign him and I’m not one to advocate throwing money around. Similar with Jarvis. It’s just that threadbare defence. With Turner being allowed to leave, it really does look like someone dropped the ball on that one.
On the plus side, games might be a lot more fun if we have to score all the more to get results. OTBC!
Whoever you might choose to ‘blame’ for a lack of recruitment over the summer, let’s hope that Lee Darnbrough’s language in the relevant meetings is plain and simple.
This snippet from a 2013 ProZone article on his recruitment ‘philosophy’ doesn’t fill me with confidence;
“How do you lift someone out of their current environment, put them in your club and ask them to get on with it? You don’t. All you can do is minimise the risk elements around what you do and don’t know.
“Every signing is underpinned by a rigorous due diligence process. For me, it’s about making sure that your organisation is equipped to integrate that asset and maximise the chances of a good return on the pitch as seamlessly as possible.”
..sounds like he’s swallowed the manual.
However, if he engineered the Mulumbu transfer, then credit is in the bank.
Mulumbu seems like a very good player and an excellent addition to the squad but I would be surprised if Lee Darnbrough can claim much credit. The signing was announced by the BBC on 22 June (presumably after days or weeks of negotiation) and Darnbrough wasn’t in post until 7 July. Unless he brought Mulumbu with him to City as his calling card then it must have been down to someone else.
The transfer window recurs at stated and well-ascertained intervals, lasts for many weeks, yet always seems to take the club by surprise. We did comparatively little business and to add insult to injury, managed to project ourselves as first petty (offering £2 million for Brady when even the most optimistic observer would have reckoned him to be worth at least £4-5 million) and then desperate, with panicky last minute attempts to land Gayle.
We know that we are not a fashionable club, can’t pay top wages and are geographically disadvantaged but these problems have to be factored in early on when we look at targets. Strikers generally move late in a transfer window so not landing a second is understandable; but we did have months to find a centre back and really should have been able to do so.
Good article Steve, and both your comments and those of Bob in Diss (2) fill me with no confidence regards Lee Darnbrough. Anyone who spouts that kind of drivel in all seriousness sounds like they have no real imagination or competence to me. The fact that City could not identify and go for specific targets (other than Robbie Brady, and why did that take so long?) seems to have been a major weakness in the window.
At one point Alex Neil said about one in three of the ‘rumours’ had some element of truth to them, which is still an awful lot of chasing we were doing, with low bids being bandied around. Much of which sounds it was pretty pointless to me. We did need the CB, and it should have been done and dusted ages before the end of the window – as Stuart Maclaren (3) also says, good defenders are rarely last minute deals. I also don’t believe the argument that we could not have attracted a player of sufficient quality to Norwich.
All I can say is that I hope the club manages the rest of the season more professionally than it managed the transfer window. Fortunately that is now in the hands of Alex Neil rather than Lee Darnbrough. I will be interested to see if the latter is still in place a year hence. I’m not betting on it.
One thing is for certain, despite the late arrival of Lee Darnbrough, the list of potential targets was already well established before his appearance on the scene. This was not a significant factor for the lack of signings.
The Afobe situation is also puzzling, simply because you don’t just bid for a player without undertaking due diligence first. There must have been some inkling of a chance, whether from the club, the player, or his agent. Otherwise, unsolicited bids are in danger of being considered as “tapping up” of the player.
As regular readers know, I’m a founder member of the David McNally Appreciation Society. Like many times before, he did some effective business for us in this transfer window (Mulumbu, Brady etc).
However, the failure to sign a centre back – such an obvious need that we must have had a list of targets – has to be laid primarily at his door, I think.
It’ll be very interesting to see Mbokani, though this weekend may be a little too soon. Plenty of permutations are available for Saturday, and plenty of different ones are being proposed by our fans (including the absolutely daft idea of playing two up front). Alex Neil is seeing them all at close quarters, and I’m happy to trust his judgement.
Gary (5) the ‘Afobe situation’ lies at the heart of my concern. Wolves could not have been more forthright in their statements that he was going nowhere. Similarly I understand that the player has been quoted as being happy to continue his development in the Championship (can’t find the source however). The ‘inkling’ and ‘due diligence’ presumably came from our scouting operation and in light of how events unfolded would seem to have been wholly misguided?
The other point you raise is a good one. Raises a question as to what extent we were hampered by carrying the vacancy between March and July?
Stew (6 )As a fully paid up member of your DMcN appreciation society I find it hard to criticise. If we work on the basis that he has asked his scouting operation to provide a list of realistic targets (within the budgetary constraints he’s set) then I’d suggest our failure to land one of them is due to the names on that list?
I find it interesting that of the players we (reportedly) made multiple bids for (Afobe, Walters, Gayle, Naismith and Koulibaly) all remained at their clubs. This suggests that they simply weren’t for sale and as such were not viable targets… unless you’re a Man City who can pay whatever it takes!