by URZZZZ »
11 Jun 2019 00:33
SCIAG Snowflake Royal Only if you ignore Stam's second season.
Easily conceivable that he could have take us to 12th and 8th.
Stam's second season was bad largely due to some of our worst recruitment since the Burns era. Bod was our only decent striker, Beerens and Al-Habsi got homesick, at least three players had career-changing injuries, and we were bogged down with Aluko and Edwards as well as having to play the likes of Pelle Clement and Sam Smith.
McDermott did a lot of good work here but he never had to pick Tomas Cywka 28 times.
I guess I can imagine McDermott deciding to keep Meite and Novakovich at the club and having plenty of striking options... but then he wouldn't have been able to recruit half the (useful) players Stam recruited. Certainly not Joey or Beerens, probably not Moore or Swift.
If we had signed Baker and Oliveira (both of whom Stam wanted) instead of Edwards and Aluko, Stam would have got us to comfortable mid-table or better imo.
Obviously based off estimations but think we'd have a team similar to this had McDermott stayed:
Al Habsi Gunter McShane Cooper Obita McCleary Evans Williams New Signing Kermorgant Rakels
Difficult to say, but I don't think it would have looked *too dissimilar to Stam's with Al Habsi, Gunter, Obita, McShane, Evans, Williams, McCleary and Yann all regulars. Obviously playing style etc would be different but I think he would have recruited in his own different way, your lower league punts
And I think McDermott would rather have played Cywka 28 times than Piazon
As said above, think we'd have meandered around mid table first season, then pushing up top 6 the next couple. Obviously these predictions are based off estimations and no real logic
Don't agree with the last point either - Baker didn't exactly excel at Boro that season - maybe that a kick up the arse for him after his decent spell at Vitesse? Same with Nelson at Norwich