Otis Redding
Try A Little Tenderness
I won't dispute that I can be a grumpy old c*nt, but I'll leave it for others to judge the state of my sanity.
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Mason Holgate
- Thread starter Slim Jim
- Start date
Caveman Ninja
Fucjin g wot karate
It's all very well saying Everton are a rotten club and good players mysteriously turn to shit the moment they walk through the door but we were absolutely the Championship version of that for at least 15 years just now. I can think of so many players who on paper should have been great but turned to absolute wank the moment they pulled on the Garibaldi. Jonathan Greening anyone? Andy Cole? Even Lansbury hardly lived up to expectations...
Without meaning to halt the debate on whether he is good enough, what skill set he has and general ‘Everton tolerance’…I can’t see Everton selling us anyone given we are direct competition. Surely that alone makes it a non starter?
Edit: ‘Everton Tolerance’ is the official term used to define the impact on a players actual ability by signing for Everton.
Edit: ‘Everton Tolerance’ is the official term used to define the impact on a players actual ability by signing for Everton.
Chappers85
Can't Play Left-Back
More chance of Holgate Academy becoming a good school!
Ashley
Steve Chettle
In fairness, we signed a lot of those big name players (by Championship standards) when they were well past their sell-by-date. Everton take proven top flight players (both from the Premier League and abroad) in their prime and ruin them, whereas we often couldn't sign proven Championship players in their prime as FFP put them out of our reach.
Caveman Ninja
Fucjin g wot karate
That's undoubtedly true for the likes of Cole, but we've had plenty Lansburys who should have been great on paper but have just ended up being shit or permanently injured...
Ashley
Steve Chettle
Lansbury had the best years of his career at Forest and was sold at a profit to a parachute payment club who paid him eye-watering wages.
Maybe he didn't live up to his early promise, but we hardly ruined him either.
Proven quality Championship players who weren't ready for knackers yard were few and far between, as we couldn't afford them. Which lead us to mostly relying on players who were unproven, rejects from other Championship clubs with mixed records and has beens.
It's quite different from Everton, who are amongst the biggest spenders outside of the big six and regularly sign proven Premier League players (or from other top European leagues) in their prime.
Caveman Ninja
Fucjin g wot karate
When he came to us he had been promoted with every Championship club he had played for. Everyone thought he was going to make it at Arsenal. He was going to be the player who made the difference. Instead he played a lot of golf, got sent off a few times, hung around for a few years being a bit meh then f**ked off to Villa and wasn't missed. How come he was brilliant until he turned up here?
Ashley
Steve Chettle
Brilliant is a bit of a strong term. He made 15 and 13 starts across a whole season respectively for Norwich and West Ham.
Caveman Ninja
Fucjin g wot karate
Whatever, he came here in a blaze of expectation and delivered pretty much sod all. The wider point here is that promising players would rock up here and turn to shit. Zach Clough? Even Arter ought to have been decentish but crashed and burned
Bob Fossil
Nottingham's dirty secret
There's definitely a touch of the Surridge about this one.
If it's true then Cooper wants him & he's gonna smash it.
If it's true then Cooper wants him & he's gonna smash it.
Ashley
Steve Chettle
The expectation was more about his potential rather than him being a proven top Championship player though (had he been a proven top Championship player, Forest would have had zero chance of signing him as he'd have gone to a parachute payment club or lower Premier League club). Even if Lansbury didn't live up to his potential, he was still one of Forest's better players for many years and we were regularly rejecting bids for him (which meant that the club obviously rated him). Questionable attitude? Sure. Shit? Nah.
As for Clough and Arter, those two basically just decided to sack football off and sponge off the club for the remainder of their contracts rather than make any sort of effort to do good. More of a case of them ruining their own careers than anything Forest did wrong.
When you consider that we spent most of our time in the Championship selling our top players (both from the academy and young players we signed) for big money to stay afloat or in line with FFP, I find the opinion that we were some graveyard for promising young players an odd one to honest.
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Caveman Ninja
Fucjin g wot karate
I'm not so much talking about us destroying promising young players - we all know the academy has consistently churned out decent players. I'm talking about established players (as well as a few with a ton of potential) who look like they should more than hold their own in the Championship who turned up and either broke into a million pieces or just turned to absolute dog shit. Maybe you don't agree, and maybe in addition to the previously mentioned Greening, Clough, Lansbury and Arter you have have happier memories than I do of, off the top of my head, Jack Hobbs, Matty Fryatt, Aaron Ramsay, Djamel Abdoun, João Carvalho, Ishmael Miller...
Rzar
Bob McKinlay
Don't think Everton are in a position to pick or choose who they sell to. They need the cash
Ashley
Steve Chettle
I never said that I had happy memories of Greening, Clough and Arter? The former was well past his sell-by-date when he signed, and the latter two is more down to the players themselves.
Aaron Ramsey was a loan signing who played a handful of games with us to gain fitness, Ishmael Miller was a young-ish player (who wasn't established quality at Championship level when we signed him) that we gambled on that didn't work out (it happens), Djamel Abdoun was in his late 20's/30's, signed from Greece and had never played in England before. I'll give you Carvalho, though that was a deal done more in an attempt to get into bed with Jorge Mendes.
Of the examples you gave, only Hobbs and Fryatt were what I'd consider proven quality Championship players who weren't at the stage of their career where they are looking to top up their pension. And they weren't bad when they were fit, the problem there was their injuries.
The biggest problem when we were in the Championship was signing too many has beens on big wages (which led to us having to sell our better players) and gambling on players rejected by other Championship clubs with mixed records. Proven quality Championship players that weren't heading towards retirement age were few and far between (as was the case for most clubs without parachute payments).
When it comes to the few proven quality players we did actually manage to sign, our record is no worse than most others; some worked out (i.e. Paul McKenna, Robert Earnshaw, Lewis Grabban, Jack Colback, etc), others didn't (like the example of Harry Arter that we have discussed), that's football for you. And when it comes to promising/younger players, our record was actually fairly good.
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Rzar
Bob McKinlay
I don't think anyone is desputing that, it's football - it happens at every club. We could sign Holgate and he could be tosh.
Harrison
Jack Armstrong
A no from me. Can’t stand him.
Remember him walking up to take a peno for West Brom like he was something and then missing it. Need better.
Remember him walking up to take a peno for West Brom like he was something and then missing it. Need better.
Caveman Ninja
Fucjin g wot karate
We're going to have to agree to disagree. I disagree with your perception that at 32 Greening was finished or that Ishmael Miller hadn't looked like he was going to be dynamite while at QPR. I'm sure you get a few of these disappointments at every club, of course you do, but I would be seriously surprised if we didn't have a considerably higher (s)hit rate than most with this sort of thing happening...
Ashley
Steve Chettle
32 is one of those ages where things can go either way (that's the risk you take signing players that age), and whilst I had high hopes for Miller he wasn't a sure fire thing.
I'm not saying that our transfer business in the Championship was brilliant by the way (and if we are talking about hit rate we'd probably be closer to an agreement, if anything I'd probably be a lot harsher than you; to say I have a reputation for being overly negative about transfers on here is an understatement!
), but for me our problem was a poor transfer strategy (or rather lack of a strategy) rather than us signing good players and ruining them in the way that Everton do.
Thomas
AMERICAN IDIOT
I feel like it different here because of the fact that he was legit a main player for this Everton side under Rafa and Ancelotti(!!!) PRIOR to Fat Frank, he got injured and just never got his spot back. Trying to get ahead of Coady and Tarkowski is a very tough task.
Danga
Formerly JLingz
Caveman makes a fair point.
I’ve banged on about it for a while, and it is an Americanism, but culture and putting players in a position to be successful isn’t as easy as it sounds.
Like caveman says, we were the Everton of the Championship because the culture at the club was rotten and we threw shit at the wall in terms of players and hope something stuck.
Prime example being Rafa Mir. Hopeless at Forest, barely looked a footballer. But we never put him in a position to be successful in the first place. Then you look at his career post Forest, it’s night and day.
I’ve banged on about it for a while, and it is an Americanism, but culture and putting players in a position to be successful isn’t as easy as it sounds.
Like caveman says, we were the Everton of the Championship because the culture at the club was rotten and we threw shit at the wall in terms of players and hope something stuck.
Prime example being Rafa Mir. Hopeless at Forest, barely looked a footballer. But we never put him in a position to be successful in the first place. Then you look at his career post Forest, it’s night and day.
Ashley
Steve Chettle
I think that is more about our crap transfer strategy rather than ruining players themselves though.
Rafa Mir for example, was an unproven young player signed on loan to sit on the bench in a Championship promotion push, when really that is the sort of player you should sign permanently on a long term deal to develop. Still, we didn't ruin him, he was at the club for 5 minutes and has done well for himself since.
I can't think of many established (non-pension gravy train) Championship players we have signed that we have 'ruined' per say, a lot of them just weren't good enough anyway or were signed when their best days were behind them.
Everton have had (and still do have) squads that have massively underachieved when you look at their squad on paper. I don't really think you can say that about most of Forest's Championship squads, most of the players we signed just simply weren't that good.
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Quntib Hollox
Jack Armstrong
Zach Clough is a great example of an exciting prospect whose career hit a brick wall when he came here.(and never got his game back.)
Omar Devone Little
Mr Realistic
We had a transfer strategy in the Championship?
Apart from sign as many unknown players as possible and hope even 10% of them work out I have no idea what it was.
That's what you get when you change manager every 8 months. We went from an owner in Doughty that would sit on his hands until it was absolutely necessary to sign a player to an Arabian circus in Fawaz to the Greeks who until about 15 months ago seemed to just be using us as an Olympiakos dumping ground or somewhere to do an agent a favour. Luckily for them by luck or judgement they hit the jackpot with Cooper.
Apart from sign as many unknown players as possible and hope even 10% of them work out I have no idea what it was.
That's what you get when you change manager every 8 months. We went from an owner in Doughty that would sit on his hands until it was absolutely necessary to sign a player to an Arabian circus in Fawaz to the Greeks who until about 15 months ago seemed to just be using us as an Olympiakos dumping ground or somewhere to do an agent a favour. Luckily for them by luck or judgement they hit the jackpot with Cooper.
Jah
Jack Armstrong
More chance of Mason Greenwood