Honestly my perhaps most controversial opinion is that in all of the last four seasons we've got far more individual players signings right than wrong - we've just a) repeatedly appointed the wrong managers and b) not put anything like the support systems needed in place to help them improve their potential and perhaps c) just not signed enough players to begin with.
Like absolutely we've got some wrong but you can make a very fucking good side out of players we've signed under Clem, and lots of them have gone on to play at a higher level, just not with us. You could definitely complain about our ability to hold onto them though. But all the following are definitely good enough for this division in the right system:
(Not including this season as it's too early, but there are players in this squad better than they're performing)
GK: Wollacott, Brynn, Mahoney, Bycroft
DF: Odimayo, Conroy, Crichlow, Baudry, O'Brien, Cooper, Egbo, Tomlinson, Hunt, Hutton, Clayton, FBT, MacDonald, Kokolo, UGM, McCarthy
MF: Gladwin, Lyden, Payne, Gilbert, Williams, Reed, Grant, McEachran, Darcy, Khan, Kemp, McGurk, Ofoborh
FW: Simpson, Davison, McKirdy, Barry, Austin, RHM, Wakeling, Young, Glatzel
Some of those are definitely borderline and people will disagree, but you can make a damn good L2 squad out of the best of them. We just can't retain anyone for more than six months and cut ourselves off constantly at the knees by cutting every corner we can financially. Oh, and we play good players out of position or in systems that don't suit them all the fucking time.
I missed this.
I'll bite. The problem with listing every good player is you ignore the three bad ones in the squad at the same time. Some of those are not good enough either. But the biggest issue with this fantasy concept is that we could never afford to put together that type of squad, which is why a Kemp was on loan, and having to strike up partnerships with the likes of Shade and Cain, who will both drift further away from the top flight the longer they play. In fact, 10 of them were loan players at the time they joined, I think.
List the total number of players we have used as Pro's in the last four years, I bet it exceeds 100. That is fucking shocking and that is why recruitment has been bad. A blind man can spot one good player in a pile of shit, putting together a proper squad is not something we have done anything like a good job at.
