Thetownend.com

Not getting ahead of myself here, but I like the way Wellens is seemingly building a squad ready for next season in L1.

If this lot don’t get promoted this season . . .

Not getting ahead of myself here, but I like the way Wellens is seemingly building a squad ready for next season in L1.

If this lot don’t get promoted this season . . .

If you look at contract lengths, loans etc then he isn't.  Nothing wrong with that, first things first.

We've a tricky game on Saturday, 2-0 win for Macc would see them above us.

Of players contracted for next season only 4 Fryers, Doughty, Lyden and Hunt might be considered starters. 5 are uncertain as to whether good enough for Div 4.  Reid, Broadbent, McGilp, Curran Twine

Both loan strikers are OOC at the end of this season - I presume a successful outcome would see them stay perm.

In the article, Wellens says that we can't afford players like this on perms so have to settle for loans.... it is what it is, so the aim is short term, get out of 4 into 3, if this is successful then Wellens may well be hunted by bigger fish. That's just how it is.

The corridor outside the manager’s office and the surrounding arteries of the County Ground are adorned with snapshots of Swindon Town legends of bygone eras – Glenn Hoddle, Paul Bodin and Shaun Taylor – but Richie Wellens is determined to give present-day supporters something to shout about. “That was my message to the players,” Wellens says, matter-of-factly.

“I’m not sick of it because I think old players should be remembered but they should be in the boardroom, in the upstairs rooms – not in the tunnel. The tunnel should be about the here‑and-now players but there have not been any here‑and-now players that have had any success. Why should they reward mediocrity by putting posters up? We need to start achieving.”
Big-stadium experiments give Women’s Super League a chance to learn
Read more

It is a case of so far, so good this season, with his free-scoring team fourth in League Two following two wins in a row, and no EFL side have more league goals than their 14. Wellens, who took charge in November, is ambitious, exposed to Sir Alex Ferguson’s standards as a teenager after being spotted by Brian Kidd aged 10 near his Moston home in north Manchester.

“Certain people have an aura about them when they walk in the room, where the feeling in the room changes, and [Ferguson] was definitely one of them,” says Wellens, whose sole Manchester United appearance came at Villa Park in 1999, five months after the club had won the Treble. He left the following year and went on to make more than 600 appearances before moving into management at Oldham, initially as first-team coach, then caretaker manager before taking the job permanently in October 2017. Before doing so, he picked up the phone to consult a trusted voice.

“I did ring Sir Alex up when I first got the job,” says Wellens, who cites Sean O’Driscoll and Nigel Pearson, former mentors at Doncaster and Leicester respectively, as other major influences. “At that stage I didn’t really want the role because I was seeing what was going on but I’d won my first four games and I thought: ‘I’m probably going to have to take this.’ I could see a takeover was about to happen; it was like: ‘Hmmm, it’s probably not in my best interests to take this.’ But sometimes you have to learn on the job, sink or swim.”

The 39-year-old continues: “I couldn’t switch off and I needed a few little bits of advice. The two hours you’re at the training ground with the players are the best two hours of the day. It’s the rest of it – the three hours before training, the five or six hours after, managing upwards, managing agents, managing players who are not starting. He helped me with loads of stuff that I’ve taken forward. He was just the master of everything regarding management. If I was even one-tenth as successful as him, I’d snap your hand off.”

His time as manager at Oldham – where he had two spells as a player – was punctuated by politics, financial problems and player-registration embargoes. “It’s difficult when you wake up on a Saturday morning and you do not know who’s available and who can’t play,” Wellens says. “It was all a big eye-opener. I had afternoon meetings with the chairman, discussions on who to play and not to play and certain players who had been signed and certain agreements with their parent club where they had to play.

“I had a certain say on some players but there were others that would turn up and I’d never heard of them or seen them play. The number of trialists continued to come and in and players I deemed not good enough were then signed. Sometimes as a young manager I had to bite my tongue a little bit and try and survive and get through it. I also thought it was a great learning curve because I thought: ‘No matter what job I get next I’ll never have to go through these scenarios again, so I’ll be a lot stronger for it.’ I needed a thick skin during my playing career but when you come into this side of it, it’s even tougher.”

Wellens acknowledges the rough and tumble nature of League Two – “It can be 100mph at times, Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday-Tuesday” – but he is unwavering in the way he wants his team, who host Macclesfield on Saturday, to play. “If you’re a long-ball team or just go to defend, you might win one game because you’ve put bodies on the line, the opposition have missed chances or the goalkeeper has made some great saves, but you cannot work long term like that. Look at the best teams in the country.”

At Swindon Wellens, together with his assistant Noel Hunt, first‑team coach Tommy Wright and the director of football Paul Jewell, is laying building blocks that he feels will put his team in the mix. “The club has been on a downward spiral for six or seven years so there has to be a time where it slows down, which we think we have done, and it turns into an upward direction. I would love to win promotion, don’t get me wrong, but my main aim would be to get a football team heading in the right direction every single time they go on the pitch.”

We've a tricky game on Saturday, 2-0 win for Macc would see them above us.

Where does he say that? It's not in the article that I read:

“Sometimes, you can’t compete with strikers’ money, so you have to move to the loan market. You get better quality players for a cheaper price.

Is that your prediction?

It was in another article.... mixed up the 2, but doesn't alter the substantive point.

Hahaha. I knew Reg wouldn't be able to handle the recent positivity.

That’s what I don’t understand about Wellens sometimes. According to him we were in for Maynard, Mayor, Devitt etc. Obviously they would have been perm signings - with associated wages. I’d imagine Yates would not have been on their sort of money and seeing as Bradford were desperate to get shot of Doyle and Rovrum seem disinterested in Yates I can’t see why they both can’t sign in January - especially with their promotion bonus looming!

They’re not out of our price range at all.

As usual, Reg has taken something that was said "“Sometimes, you can’t compete with strikers’ money, so you have to move to the loan market. You get better quality players for a cheaper price" and twisted it to fit his narrative. Wellens never said we couldn't afford these players at all. 

As usual, Reg has taken something that was said "“Sometimes, you can’t compete with strikers’ money, so you have to move to the loan market. You get better quality players for a cheaper price" and twisted it to fit his narrative. Wellens never said we couldn't afford these players at all.  

However as you never really say what you think I can only hazard a guess that you think both Brown and Wellens had the funds to buy strikers but just chose not to, for whatever reason. If you'd explained why there might be some logic in this view, then great I'm all for debate.

Taking Wellens statement, I interpret it as that he got the 2 strikers in on loan because they were better quality than what he could have got on permanent signings. Both are out of contract at the end of the season and, I guess, his intention would be to try to sign them permanently then. By which time we should, hopefully, be in a higher division and have a higher budget.

tbf, I don't think it's an unreasonable interpretation, either of what was said or the context in which Doyle and Yates came in to the club. Equally, Wellens isn't shy about being a bit cute about what we can/cannot afford or about our targets, so still wouldn't rule out Doyle becoming a perm deal in Jan. Yates might be less likely purely because Rotherham apparently rate him

See, I don’t think Rovrum rate him at all. Loaned out to Carlisle last season and us this. And he’s OOC at the end of this season and would go for nowt. It’s a strange scenario why they would loan a player for a season when they’ll get nothing for him. I suspect there may be a ‘buy’ clause in January.

See, I don’t think Rovrum rate him at all. Loaned out to Carlisle last season and us this. And he’s OOC at the end of this season and would go for nowt. It’s a strange scenario why they would loan a player for a season when they’ll get nothing for him. I suspect there may be a ‘buy’ clause in January.

I don't agree. If he had managed to shift Toums he would have had a larger budget and would have been able to pay for a permanent striker. I think it's common knowledge that he wanted to do that. It has nothing to do with "not being able to afford" a permanent signing.....it's just how he chose to spend the budget that he had.

That may be a reasonable explanation. Although I’d imagine any compo would be less than his worth if he wasn’t OOC.

Sorry, but I'm struggling to see the difference - if we'd shifted DT he'd have had a larger budget but we couldn't so he didn't? So he stretched the budget a bit further with loans. Also probably an element of "Try before you buy" I suspect

Sorry, but I'm struggling to see the difference - if we'd shifted DT he'd have had a larger budget but we couldn't so he didn't? So he stretched the budget a bit further with loans. Also probably an element of "Try before you buy" I suspect

A classic case of a poster actually agreeing, but preferring to argue with themselves in an empty room.....  it's very lucky manager who has a fully fuinctioning squad of fit and firing players without at least a bit of deadwood wastage

Yeah, maybe that was badly thought out...... ;)

With the budget he had he could obviously have bought some permanent strikers. He chose, instead, to get the 2 on loan that were cheaper and higher quality than what he could have got if he had opted for permanent signings. He could have bought either one and not got in Isgrove, for example. Personally, I think he did well to get all the players in that he did, whether on permanent deals or on loan. And if he manages to offload Toums, which I would presume is the intention, the money that is freed up could well pay for one of them on a perm.

It's nonsense to suggest we can't afford any strikers, which is how Reg interpreted Wellens' remark.

Also probably an element of "Try before you buy" I suspect

See, I don’t think Rovrum rate him at all. Loaned out to Carlisle last season and us this. And he’s OOC at the end of this season and would go for nowt. It’s a strange scenario why they would loan a player for a season when they’ll get nothing for him. I suspect there may be a ‘buy’ clause in January.

It's nonsense to suggest we can't afford any strikers, which is how Reg interpreted Wellens' remark.

Wellens also confirmed that Town’s playing budget isn’t at a sufficient level to attract strikers of Doyle and Yates’ calibre on a permanent basis.

He added: “With the money we’ve got, we can’t afford to sign Eoin Doyle on a permanent basis – hence the reason why we’ve got him in on loan.”

a bit more from Wellens....

 
I suppose you'll still carry on arguing that we could have afforded Doyle.....

Further Wellens says that Bantams can recall Doyle in Jan.

Let it go Reg. You're beginning to sound like a bitter and twisted old cunt.

Let it go Reg. You're beginning to sound like a bitter and twisted old cunt.

I am still not sure why it is a negative that we picked-up two, seemingly, good strikers on loan because loans cost less per week (it seems) for the the relative same level of talent vs a Perm signing?  There are clearly benefits to having your own players longer term, but our aim is to get up.  If we get better for a season by using the loan market, what is wrong with that?  Why would having a Norris type be better just because he might be here for two years instead of one?

It's no different to us taking a risk on a player like Isgrove because of historical injuries vs. taking lower talent with years of steady appearances behind them.

Each Manager gets a total budget and divides it up balancing those factors to get the best juice from the squeeze.

But Wellens would have been a fool not to factor in that risk when making the decision, so it's on him.  If we lose them both, don;t replace them and sink, he'll be rightly criticised.  If they stay and succeed, all is well, and if they leave but we replace them like for like, it should work out ok.

It was just that there was some mention of this being seen as negative, I see it as the complete opposite - it's risk and reward.  It's not specifically negative or positive - it's a decision, the outcome of which can go one way or the other, but the decision itself is not inherently negative, nor is it positive.

a bit more from Wellens....

 
I suppose you'll still carry on arguing that we could have afforded Doyle.....

Bit rich non?  ;)

So  you think it's OK to accuse me of negativity and having some sort of way of twisting facts to support a narrative, whatever that is. and then not expect some sort of comback when evidence is there, for supporting what I do which is observe and then interpret.

Not how I understand debate.

we can't afford players like this on perms so have to settle for loans

Sometimes, you can’t compete with strikers’ money, so you have to move to the loan market. You get better quality players for a cheaper price

I suppose Bradford could recall in January and ask us to bump up the proportion we pay

I haven't accused you of negativity.

Does that rule apply to people who emit a continuous stream of negativity on football forums as well?

here's an example..... context, people moaning about those who go to games and have a moan and a whinge.  

My take is a positive, at least they are there, paying into the club, fans have always moaned, always will

But no.... there are those who will insist it would be better if they didn't attend, usually those who don't attend.  

Oh, and just to clear this point up - just because I haven't (as far as I recall) accused you of negativity in this thread or any previous ones, doesn't mean that I don't think you aren't negative. To save you looking back even further through my post history let's just say that I do think you are negative. But a lot of the time it is deliberate negativity designed to provoke an argument.