SHA Small Heath Alliance

Nikola Zigic- FEA

I would keep Ruddy as a back up now we've gone down.

I know we need a clean sweep but the relegation changes things and some good, wise heads to stay works for me. Also means we don't need to sign as many players.

I would 100% keep Ruddy and Juke just for the dressing room this season.

If we've learned anything from this season it's that characters are important.

I'd also trigger Anderson's option, he'll be one of the best players in the league and can go once we're promoted.

if we stayed up, i would have said no to all

but, the situation has changed and the dressing room is important. 5K a week for both players and it makes sense to take up the option of another year on andersons contract as he is on 5k too and could be really good in league one

321ByelzdarB

Jamie Cumming
Cameron Brannagan
Kwame Poku
Luca Connell
Macaulay Langstaff
Tyrese Campbell

All realistic.

cumming and connell would be fantastic

i would have said campbell as well but someone told me he spends more time on the physio table then actually playing football and that put me off

mjd2505

Rasputin

Vardy is a freak occurrence.

The wife is a Leicester fan, and they seemed to view him as a £1m gamble that didn't pay off to begin with, hell he wasn't even bought in as a centre forward. for him to have done what he has in the last 10 years is unlikely to be repeated soon.


It's all about formations and tactics - spending £3/4m on a L2 striker is one thing, but do we have the players and tactics to give him 15/20 tap ins or close headers a season?

Agree Vardy is a freak - but we don't need another Jamie Vardy, he doesn't need to be top scorer in the prem. And Langstaff has had more strong seasons than Vardy had before the move. That national league season was absolutely ridiculous - he got 6 assists in there too. No penalties either, all goals from open play.

Course it's all about formations and tactics - but we can build a side this summer that's designed to feed a striker like him. Half the battle is getting in the right positions - strikers who do that consistently are the best ones.

With all this talk about Jamie Vardy, how about we make statement and go in for him along with Wrexham?

Surely we can compete with wrexham in terms of money and appeal.

tandreou

mjd2505

Rasputin

Vardy is a freak occurrence.

The wife is a Leicester fan, and they seemed to view him as a £1m gamble that didn't pay off to begin with, hell he wasn't even bought in as a centre forward. for him to have done what he has in the last 10 years is unlikely to be repeated soon.


It's all about formations and tactics - spending £3/4m on a L2 striker is one thing, but do we have the players and tactics to give him 15/20 tap ins or close headers a season?

Agree Vardy is a freak - but we don't need another Jamie Vardy, he doesn't need to be top scorer in the prem. And Langstaff has had more strong seasons than Vardy had before the move. That national league season was absolutely ridiculous - he got 6 assists in there too. No penalties either, all goals from open play.

Course it's all about formations and tactics - but we can build a side this summer that's designed to feed a striker like him. Half the battle is getting in the right positions - strikers who do that consistently are the best ones.

With all this talk about Jamie Vardy, how about we make statement and go in for him along with Wrexham?

Surely we can compete with wrexham in terms of money and appeal.

Wouldn't say no for the right money at all. Wouldn't have to move to join us either

JourneyOn

David Xavis

Is Burrows any better than Buchanan?

I wanna see us make a statement signing, Langstaff straight away, there’s your 25 goal man.

Is Buchanan going to play in league 1?

buchanan is the only one in the team who has a contract til 2028, the longest contract then anyone in the squad.

it would take a big offer to let him go and if he sulks or any player that we want to keep for that matter, then let them sulk because they are ruining their own careers in the process.

i dont subscribe to if you dont want to play for blues or in the third tier then you can go or that a unhappy player disrupts a dressing room then we end up losing games, if they are professional they will have their sulking period and then get their head down and crack on with the job of getting promoted, as champions ideally. players who are under contract that we want to keep to help our promotion push will only be allowed to leave if a suitable, good offer comes in or if a relegation release clause has been inserted.

I'd like to think we could compete with the lower third Championship clubs when it comes to transfer targets.

Would they rather play for Tony Mowbray's free scoring League 1 leaders, train at a state of the art training facility.

Or slum it at Blackburn, Portsmouth or Cardiff.

Agreed

The global market will provide better value but greater risk. Langstaff is not proven at League One level and will cost 3-4 million. He's an option but would not be my first.

yeh i dont really want to sign him. i dont know enough about him, he scores goals in leagues lower than the third tier, would be a risk if costing 3-4 mil. and if handed a long contract if promoted could he up his level again to score goals in championship. also wrong age of 24. too many negatives than positives for me

Langstaff hadn't scored goals above Conference level until this season, then he won the golden boot in League 2. His third in a row.

Jay Stanfield hadn't scored above League 1 until this season and then he scored 13 goals in a shit team and won five awards at the end of the season.

Ollie Watkins hadn't scored above Championship level until he moved to villa and now he's in the England squad and has scored 19 goals in the Prem this season.

Players improve. Players rise to challenges.

Also, I'm not convinced there's much variance in ability outside of a few special players.

Look at how many players improve with a bit of experience, getting used to a system and having a good manager.

Tony Mowbray took a team that would have one shot a game and lose and turned the same players into a team that had 15 shots a game and won.

Using our neighbours as an example again, look at the player Watkins has become under Emery. He's got better every year. Brentford signed him from Exeter. We'd have turned our noses up at him.

Also close to home, Albion fans hated Kipre, he was on the verge of being sold, was loaned out to Cardiff and had just won their POTY after a brilliant season.

Players change and improve. Gold coaches get the best out of players. They have raw ability but they're a product of their environment.

Yeah they won't all work but Christ I'd be happy taking a gamble on a lad who's scored more goals than anyone on the planet for the last 3 years and seeing if he can do it again.

SHAKRO

WreckTangle

Keen to not dwell on the fact we'll be playing Burton Albion next season, I've started looking at players we could be trying to get in for the new season.

I've generally had a look at the young blood around who we might be able to entice. Will definitely need some experienced heads in there too. So far I've got:

Players Out of Contract:
Karl Hein (GK) 22
Harrison Burrows (LB) 22
Dan Kemp (AM) 25
Antony Evans (AM) 25
Ruel Sotiriou (F) 23

Players in Contract:
Lukas Jensen (GK) 25 (1 year)
Bosun Lawal (CB) 20 (2 years - sell the project)
Jesurun Rak-Sakyi (RW) 21 (3 years - loan option)
Macauley Langstaff (F) 27 (3 years - no harm trying!)

ive only heard of hein and burrows.

is lawal and langstaff good players then i take it?

Lawal played in League 1 for Fleetwood this season. Although they got relegated, he was their standout player. Scored 6 goals as a centre back. A couple of Championship clubs chasing his signature apparently, so Celtic might be interested in selling. A lot of potential there.

Tandy

Genuine question - how do those leagues (National League North, National League & League 2) compare to the leagues that Junior Dixon and Frank Tattum have been scoring goals in?
Obviously we need to sign 2 strikers, but could those two be considered for 3rd choice?

Just to confirm; you’re asking how a fully professional countrywide league of men’s football, littered with ex league teams and is of a higher standard than most of League 2 compares to a regionalised kid’s league?

Yes, when the 'kids league' are also fully professional and our team might be getting promoted from the Professional Development League to the Premier League 2.
If you look at EFL Trophy results, U21 teams from Premier League 2 are involved and regularly beat teams from these divisions. Obviously our U21's aren't in the Premier League 2 yet, but might be after this season, so we can't be far off that standard. I don't follow our U21's enough to know if they've been involved in friendlies against teams as this level and how we've faired.

Trialist

I'd like to think we could compete with the lower third Championship clubs when it comes to transfer targets.

Would they rather play for Tony Mowbray's free scoring League 1 leaders, train at a state of the art training facility.

Or slum it at Blackburn, Portsmouth or Cardiff.

This. Plus players are attracted by big contracts. We will most likely be able to outmuscle the bottom 10 teams in the Championship.

My Blue Heaven

Let’s be honest, if we offer players 5/6k more a week, we will beat some lower mid table champ teams to some players.

We are still enormous

Yeah exactly. The suggestions so far on this thread are very unambitious so far. I suspect we’re aiming quite a lot higher. We’ll attack it like Leicester did with the Championship last season.