I won’t beat around the bush with this post; I’m highly sceptical about our player recruitment strategy. For all of the brilliant work that has gone on behind the scenes at Forest since Mr Marinakis took over, I think our player turnover is a huge issue as we seek promotion back to the Premier League.
The number of signings seems crackers in recent times. The way it’s going, we are going to need a bigger team bus! Maybe it’s me and maybe I’m just old fashioned in my approach. I like the idea that a squad should be developed slowly over time. The manager sets out his expectations and players are moulded to his way of thinking with 2/3 tweaks per season to maintain group harmony. I’m barking up the wrong tree I know in expecting this at Forest.
Our transfer policy seems that if you buy enough lottery tickets, you’ll improve your chances of success.
Now I’m an average fan, I don’t know the ins and outs of the club’s finances nor the legalities around Financial Fair Play. This is an opinion piece which I’ve tried to back up with some statistics to illustrate my points (typed up from the back of a fag packet). The findings are interesting and they ultimately point towards the fan base being patient. I can’t really argue with it either.
I’ll present the number of in-coming player transfers from our 3 previous seasons. Combined with the 8 incomings so far this summer, Forest have committed to 66 player deals during this time (including those deals where players have initially come in on loan and then be re-signed the following transfer window).
I’ve broken the data down into player, position, age, cost and my own added ingredient, signing rating (out of 10). I’ve deemed a signing a success based on a 7/10 rating. A 6 score is average and a score of 5 or below equates to a waste of resources.
I’ve deliberately not included this summers transfer dealings as it too early to judge them.
2016/17 Season
The player recruitment from the 2016/2017 was probably the worst I’ve ever known it in terms of recent Forest history. For a man who was openly looking to sell the club, establishing a continental style set up in terms of coach (Phillipe Montanier) and Director of Football (Pedro Pereira) didn’t seem…well, very Fawaz. An initial deal to sell Forest to Mr Marinakis fell through shortly after the season started. Is it possible that Mr Maranakis was advising prior to the collapse? This certainly seems to be the start of a developing trend.
18 players were brought in during the summer and January transfer window of 2016/17. Out of those 18 signings, none of them met my own; above average ratings criteria. That is an 0% success rate!
By my reckoning, the highest scorers were Armand Traore and Hildeberto Perreira got 6/10 (and that’s potentially generous for the latter). The rest scored 5’s or below. Gary Brazil made 4 out of the 18 signings in the January transfer window of 2017. They all turned out to be absolute stinkers despite Zac Clough starting life at Forest reasonably well. 88.88% of those signings were a waste of resources in terms of long term planning.
Considering all of the 18 signings, there was an average signing rating of just 3.05/10. It’s my opinion of course, but given this information; it’s no surprise that we escaped relegation on the final game of the season – on goal difference.
Lica, Dumitru and Stojkovic are some of the poorest players I have ever seen in a Forest shirt. Niklas Bendtner didn’t show any real interest in being here, it seemed more a publicity stunt to appease the supporters after the sale of academy product Oliver Burke after just a handful of games. Ross McCormack was not in a good place off the pitch given his difficulties at Aston Villa. Out of those 18 players signed, only 2 players in Zac Clough and Gboly Ariyibi remain at Forest. The latter has never played for the first team, Clough has barely featured since. I’m not sure how this can be dressed up to be other than a disaster in terms of long term player recruitment. Perhaps FFP meant that this was as good as we could bring in given that we were just out of embargo? Perhaps. Either way, it’s not good reading.
2017/18 Season
With the new owners in place and the promise of stability, there was renewed optimism under Mark Warburton. Promotion was the aim based on the summer recruitment. Spending was frugal though, understandably the club were still in ‘intensive care’ after the previous ownership. Just over £6m pounds were spent in the summer transfer window with Britt Assombalonga sold for £15m.
Over the course of the season, 18 players were signed, with 5 coming in from overseas. There was improvement with regards to my own signing ratings, with 5 out of the 18 deemed above average, a 27.77% success rate in comparison to 0% the previous year. The average signing rating was still only 5.16/10 but based on the previous year it was a marked improvement on 3.05. The number of signings that I deemed a waste of resources fell from 88.88% to 44.44%.
Aitor Karanka’s signings in particular were an improvement but not significantly so. I’d argue that they took us to the next stage of development though. A platform to establish a competitive team. Those that I would deem genuinely great signings (8 and above) were only evident in the arrivals of Joe Lolley (10 score) and Jack Colback (loan). In fairness, the business we did for Joe Lolley was an absolute steal given his development.
A final league position of 17, reflected an improvement from the previous season however there were concerns at Christmas, that the club were returning back to a slump. Any chance of promotion had been blown well before the end of January but the threat of relegation was deterred following a significant investment in the January window of 2018.
Aitor Karanka had been well backed in comparison to his predecessor. 11 out of the 18 players remain at the club. Out of those 11, I would only consider Joe Lolley, Ben Watson, Tobias Figuerido, Tendayi Darikwa, Costel Pantillimon and Adlene Guediora as genuine squad players still at the club. It seems highly likely that the former 2 players have played their last games for Forest also.
2018/19 Season
Out of intensive care, the club really backed Aitor Karanka last summer. We’d not seen so much investment since Fawaz committed FFP suicide in bank rolling Stuart Pearce’s signings from the 2014/15 season. Taking into account players brought in by Martin O’Neill, there was a total of 22 players brought in. This included significant expenditure on key individuals. This was a new shift and had not be seen in the previous seasons under the current ownership.
Loan fees were unknown but I would expect that Forest had paid significant loan fees for the two Portugese players from Benfica and Monaco and Jack Colback from Newcastle.
I deemed that we made 6 signings that hit the above average threshold; Carvalho, Grabban, Robinson, Colback, Milosevic and Pantillimon (permanent deal). I classed Carvalho, Robinson and Colback as great signings (8 or more). With an increase in better players in the squad, this would factor into our final league position of 9th.
However, due to the increase in players being brought in (22), the average signing success rate was slightly lower than previous year at 27.27%. The number of below average signings was at 36.36% so a marked improvement in that area (down from 44%).
Given the significant investment last season and increase in players signed, the squad improvement was minimal. The average player rating increased slightly to a 5.5 rating.
Conclusion
The player recruitment stats do not lie. Signing success ratings have risen from 0% to 27.7% but then dipped slightly to 27.27%. A 0% success rating isn’t good as a baseline score by any stretch! At 27%, success rates aren’t great either. If Forest have aspirations to get promoted then it’s not hard to see where we have been lacking. The recruitment largely seems to have been flawed in terms of success rate.
However, there is no doubt that our match day squad has improved, year on year since 2016/17 with regards to individual player quality. Progress is being made in establishing the nucleus of a side.
In this day and age, FFP governs our spending and I think this has certainly restricted our owner’s ambitions. Our league positions back the improvement up also; moving up from 21st, to 17th, to 9th in the previous seasons. Even with my own frustrations over player recruitment, you cannot deny that there has been progress. As far I can see, even with a top heavy squad, Forest aren’t in danger of falling foul of FFP. Navigating it seems as important as on the pitch performance. It’s a stark reality. We are miles behind in terms of competing with paying large fees and wages to match, let alone even attracting those types of player. It’s about being savvy in the market. Along with everybody else, Forest are fishing in a highly competitive pond.
Whilst this summers signings are largely unproven in the Championship, I do feel that in comparing what has gone out to what has come in, I believe that we have improved the squad once more. If this is to be the case, then a play-off place may well be in reach given the gradual improvements in league position, year on year.
We all want stellar signings but it isn’t going to happen. We are making gradual progress. Patience is required from the fan base.