NathStPaulHoundNathStPaul
Yes.
Guess that’s why they are in their jobs and you are in yours then
Yeah they have done a cracking job of recruitment in recent times, solid work at the club. Oh and be an arse all you like, doesn't make you any less wrong.
We have a brand new recruitment team and do not seem to be relying on Kia anymore, that may well have passed you by. Unless Bowen, Carey and Ince are dertermined to continue to be shit at recruitment as that is the clubs MO these days, then what we did before this summer is irrelevant in terms of new additions (bar it restraining what we can do).
I'm pretty sure that the club are talking to multiple targets but the process will be something like this for each one.
1. Identify target
2. Approach agent of target and make an offer or club first if a loan deal.
3. Agent and player consider offer alongside any other offers.
4. Player accepts, negotiates or rejects offer.
5. If accepted, details of offer go to the EFL for the 3 stage review we currently have to go through to ensure we are meeting the restrictions.
6. If OK'd by EFL, player signs.
7. Announce player.
Now for a player like Bouzandis, this could probably be done in a few days as wages will be low etc but for deals for midfielders etc, who may also be more in demand - we lose all control of the process from step 3 to step 6.
For example, we may have identified a midfielder who is out of contract at a fellow Champ side - we think he'll fit and make a decent based on our circumstances. This offer was made on 1st June. Player is on holiday but on returning on say 15th June, he and his agent agree that this would be a good move for his career and the money side is fine. Great.
Same day, we send off all the info to the EFL but we have yet to have it OK'd as there are some points of clarity needed or they may even say - "No, sorry you can't pay X, you need to lower that offer", so we have to negotiate again with the player and start with the EFL again - so very possible that a deal that was identified 4 weeks ago is still inching towards the line.
If it is a loan, we have the added difficulty of having to negotiate with the players club to get them to release the player for nothing, which some will be happy to do but only at X point - so we may have a couple of loans lined up but they aren't allowed to come until they have had a week or two training with their parent club first.
So you can get pissy about who we sign and in the order we sign them but due to the mess we have got ourselves in, we simply have close to zero control over the process now.