Earlier this week I got chatting to a Stevenage Borough fan (as you do) and he casually asked my opinion of their ‘managerial advisor’ – the man who they have appointed to assist Stevenage boss Darren Saril.
One Mr Glenn Roeder.
Having pulled an expression normally reserved for stepping in something nasty on the pavement, I felt obliged to justify myself;
“I remember Roeder for two things; the sarcastic put-down to a fan at an AGM and for getting shot of my favourite player”.
(More of ‘MFP’ in a bit).
On reflection I should have added that I hold Roeder responsible for convincing our then chief executive, Neil Doncaster that the days of long-term contracts were a thing of the past and the future of football lay in loans and short-term deals.
In the fourteen and a half months that marked his ‘tenure as Norwich City manager’, Roeder made twenty-five loan signings.
Twenty-Five!?!
That’s like popping round to your neighbours to borrow a cup of sugar, every day for over three weeks. Or to put it another way, it’s a bit of a piss-take.
Such was the churn within the squad that the dressing room should have been fitted with a revolving door. It felt as though each match marked the debut of yet another new face, introducing himself to his colleagues before kick-off;
“Hi, I’m Jonathan from Middlesbrough and I’m here until half-time”.
Having previously written about the importance of a team’s identity, perhaps I’m not alone in looking back at that ‘team’ with a genuine sense of detachment? Even those players who did show potential disappeared long before they could win a place in the fan’s affections.
It was unsurprising therefore, that Roeder’s policy and his ‘hired guns’ failed to hit the mark either on the pitch or with those of us watching on from the stands.
Of course if used correctly (and sparingly) the loan system has many uses and benefits.
It allows clubs to develop their younger players by sending them to a ‘smaller pond’ where they can gain experience and simultaneously provide another club with talent they simply couldn’t afford or hope to buy.
It can create a chance for club and player alike to ‘try before you buy’ and remove some of the risk from a potential permanent switch.
It can be used as a short-term fix to plug a hole in a squad or provide a player with a few games to gain match fitness.
And of course it can also be used to remove a surplus player from the wage bill when you simply can’t find another club willing to buy him (until Vitesse came along that is).
Over the years, our use of the loan system has sometimes been effective, sometimes less so and in the spirit of providing a balanced view here are my top three loan signings accompanied by a rogue’s gallery of the three worst.
The caveat here is that I have excluded those players whose loan moves became permanent on the basis that my top three list would have sounded like our traditional festive terrace chant:
Three Huckerby, two Huckerby and a Darren… you get the idea
The Heroes
1) Fraser Forster
Standing nine feet tall and stuck down the pecking order at Newcastle, Forster was a Lambert signing to replace the hapless Theoklitos in what Andy Townsend might have described as the “ultimate chalk and cheese type scenario”. Despite playing for us in League One, nobody can be surprised that he’s since represented England. Rumour has it that the permanent signing of John Ruddy a year later cost less than Newcastle wanted for us to borrow big Fraser for another season.
2) Ryan Bertrand
Ryan played fifty-six times in a City shirt over the course of two seasons. To put that in context, the much heralded ‘permanent’ signings of Leroy Fer and Ricky van Wolfswinkel managed only two more appearances between them. Left-backs don’t often capture the imagination but his calm and assured displays showed the potential that would ultimately lead to international recognition.
3) Peter Crouch
Even taller than Forster, the beanpole joined us on loan for three months from Villa alongside ‘MFP’ and at a time when our strikers were all crocked. He only played fifteen times in yellow but his signing was a show of intent in a season when City ultimately secured promotion to the Premier League. Despite scoring four goals, Carrow Road never bore witness to the robot dance. I have mixed feelings about that.
The Zeroes
1) Harry Kane
Less of a ‘harricane’ and more of a gentle breeze; it is perhaps unfair to judge him on three games in a loan spell that was cut short by injury? But life is unfair and the fact that he scuffed his one big chance when clean through against West Ham made his subsequent rise to fame all the more unbelievable and a little bit galling.
“We had him on loan, we had him on looooooaaaan. Oh Harry Kane; we then sent him home”
2) Antoine Sibierski
He was bald and rubbish. Next.
3) Alan Gow
Gow had come close to signing permanently the year before he arrived on loan from Rangers in 2009. In thirteen matches he failed to score and was most notable for flicking his floppy hair in a petulant manner that suggested he didn’t want to be here. Towards the end of his spell the feeling was entirely mutual.
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So over to you, the readers of MyFootballWriter; who are the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to City’s forays into the loan market and, more importantly, why?
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You can follow Steve on Twitter @stevocook
An enjoyable read Steve which brought back some unpleasant memories of the Hucks departure.
David Neilsen – I recall doing exceptionally well on loan and scoring in his first few games – until we signed him permanently and that was the end of that golden streak!
Simon Tracey – Need I say more?
Jan Molby – couldn’t move but boy could the fat man pass a ball.
Scott Parker – good loan signing but i remember questioning why we bothered as he only stayed for a handful of games. A months loan in total?
Leroy Lita – One Roeder got right?? Hat trick against the Wolves has to be up there.
Sadly there are for more zeros than heros. A quick glance at ‘Flown From the Nest’ 2008/09 is a woefully long list of very bad Rodent loans. And if you look at the other years it becomes very tricky to spot the decent ones!
Omozusi anyone?
Steve – Hated Sibierski for being cr@p but loved him for being bald 😉
Only just scraped through the edit that one!
Firstly – 25?! I had left Norfolk by that time and forgot how bad it was to follow, even from a distance.
However:
Good – Pape Diop. He didn’t know what he was going to do and was just fun to watch. Remember that, FUN
Bad – Andre Wisdom – that penalty against Sunderland. (I’m still bitter)
Ugly -Ched Evans – good player but enough said.
LETS GET A FEW GOALS THIS COMING SEASON..GET TERRY BLY BACK ON LOAN.
I think we had Peter Osgood and Martin Chivers on loan when I was a kid and they were both disappointing.
One who did really well for us was Kyle Naughton;I wish we had signed him, it would have prevented many problems that have occurred since.
That 2008-09 season really brings back some nightmares and summed up everything that was wrong with the Club back then.
All those loan players – 16 in all, one of whom didn’t even play for the club – although many of those were later signed by Gunn. And, to think we only used 33 players all season.
The most curious one of all was Omar Koroma, who was signed by Harry Rednapp, for Portsmouth and immediately loaned to us, without even kicking a ball in training for his parent club! Always seemed an odd decision, even before he played for City!
I remember thinking during the Grant/Roeder/Gunn era that if at some future date the Pink ‘un ever used a game from that period in their “Name the Team” challenge, we’d have no chance.
When you look at Flown in the Nest for the period around 2006 – 2010 it’s astonishing how many second-rate bit-part players we bought or loaned. At the time I doubt if any of us really had a clue how much the hands of Worthington, Grant, Roeder and Gunn were tied when it came to identifying and acquiring decent players. As we found out later we were heavily in debt and had no effective scouting system.
Roeder in particular certainly over-relied on loans, but I wonder whether he had much choice. There were of course a few youngsters supposedly coming through – Henderson, the Jarvises, Eagle, Spillane, Martin for example – and I dare say many thought they should have been given more of a chance. But apart from Martin not one of them has subsequently made his career even as high as Championship level so hindsight suggests that he knew they weren’t good enough. Don’t forget that us fans, having had one season in the Promised Land, were demanding immediate success; there was no mood of being willing to wait patiently for a year or two whilst we gradually and coherently developed a new squad.
Because we’ve suffered two relegations in three seasons a lot of fans on the Pink’un forum, and one or two on here, like to paint a picture of a mismanaged club in the middle of a crisis.
Just look at the squad we have now and compare it to the ones with which those managers were trying to get us back to the Premier League – that should put things in perspective.
My personal favourite was Neale Fenn in ’98. My recollection was that he helped influence our turn in fortunes & ensured we moved away from relegation trouble.
Excellent read. It goes without saying that Hucks was the best, but I salute (5) Don Harold for his comment on Kyle Naughton.
I will never forget when “Grasshopper” played stand-in CB for half an hour or so against Bolton. What a tidy little player he was and, yes, he would have solved a problem that potentially still exists to this day.
Worst? A toss-up (excuse the phrase) between Tracey and Sibierski. I’ll give the prize to Tracey for his famous “walkabout” – Sibierski never appeared to break sweat.
Great article and discussion!
Sibierski surely gets the prize (was going to say ‘takes the biscuit’, but that one must go to John Hartson) for breath-taking lack of contribution. Sorry, Gary.
Almost every manager, however bad, has some saving grace. And it’s true of Roeder. He signed Wes.
We signed Chivers on a permanent deal from Servette and it all went well to start with, Chivers scoring 4 goals in his first 6 games-stats we’d take from any striker.
But that was pretty much it as far as Big Chiv and Norwich were concerned & the ego that saw him fall out with Bill Nicholson at Spurs did the same for MC and John Bond.
Justin Fashanu’s elevation to the 1st team that 78/79 season saw Chivers place under threat and, after being particularly lack lustre in our 3-0 FA Cup defeat to Leicester (then in Div 2) he only played one more game before heading off to Brighton.
Thanks EdCL (11). Memories are hazy, I forgot about the good beginning.
Mbokani was ok. I never quite worked out why AN would drop him after a good game, for Jerome.
Neale Fenn, that takes me back. I remember him being at the centre of two 5-0 home wins in a row. Huddersfield and… someone else… Stockport?
Kei Kamara was useful, and seemed like a good guy to have around.
There was a guy we had on loan from Newcastle, a midfielder, around 96/97. He wasn’t around for long but he was decent. I just can’t remember his name for the life of me.
Ben – Swindon Town was the other, he scored in that one.
Without looking it up (for that is cheating) the two names that spring to mind are Des Hamilton and Garry Brady who I think were part of Bryan Hamilton’s ‘gang of 6’ as I like to refer to them. Although both of those were later than what you were thinking of so I may be completely wrong!
Dave, Des Hamilton sounds like the one. It could well have been later than I remember. 96/97 was just a vague guess as to when it was.