Tick Followed Tock
Posted by Ben on 1st February , 2010Wasn’t it Arthur Guinness who told us that the best things come to those who wait?
Maybe it’s an Irish thing. Because Mick McCarthy has also been telling us something similar this transfer window as we staggered and fumbled our way through 31 infuriating days of inactivity.
Morgan - Made big promises following promotion
I could have downed the whole bloody Dublin brewery in the time it took us to sign anyone of repute this window – and at least the hangover wouldn’t feel as lousy as I’m currently feeling about the ‘3 Ms’ right now.
The ultimately fruitless pursuit of the Emerald Isle’s Stephen Hunt has certainly made me choke on my beer, as I wonder what strategic plan was ever in place for this month of misery. Oh well, at least Mick said we ‘tried our best.’
According to Jez Moxey, things are as black and white as a pint of stout when explaining our pathetic attempts to bring in some desperately needed reinforcements, so we must forget Stoke, Wigan, and most definitely Birmingham, as the rules are different for them.
Remember the mantra…We can’t jeopardize our long term future, just look at Portsmouth. We can’t force players to come. And then there’s the best argument that some fans claw onto like some sort of grim lifeline. ‘Could be worse, we could have the Bhattis back in charge, so count your blessings.’
I’m sorry, but I have just about had enough spin from our board and this shambles of a transfer window has confirmed what I already knew about Jez Moxey, if not Steve Morgan.
If we really wanted Stephen Hunt and made four bids for him in January, then why not just buy him in August? Ahh yes, I forgot…it’s difficult and you can’t force these things. And Hull has a lot going for it, remember.
A summer of being gazumped by Birmingham (who had no board in place!!) for players we so desperately needed has now been supplemented by two unknown Belgium lads in January, and more hot air than Max Clifford. Again. Next time Jez, just stop insulting our intelligence. At least Morgan keeps his gob shut.
So to really rub our noses in it, I’m told to be grateful for the hard work, as I don’t understand the intricacies of the window, and how tough it is to bring players to the club.
Maybe I don’t. But let me state what I do know.
· I know that on March 19, 2009, Jez Moxey said: “If you draw up a table of the average over three years of where teams finish and then correlate that to their wage bill, they’re going to be very well aligned. “Having been there and spoken to people in the Premier League, it’s fair to say money is the be-all and end-all. So you’ve got to be competitive.”
· I know that only Burnley has a lower wage bill than us.
· I know that on June 17 2009, Moxey said on missing out on Scott Dann: “In all honesty I don’t think any of us at Molineux are that upset with that transaction.” Hmmmm.
· I know we have spent less in transfer fees this season than WBA did last season, who we were told we would not replicate by our CEO.
And let’s not forget 2003, even if everyone wants us to.
After years of telling us that Dave Jones was backed to the hilt in our one season in the Premiership, Moxey finally admitted on March 19 that:
“In 2003-04, we were clearly not well equipped to deal with the challenges.”
So what lessons have been learnt by our club since the shambles of back then?
After tick followed tock, followed tick, followed tock, I’ll let you all be the judge of that one.
Plus ca change, i’m afraid. Plus ca change. i agree with you Ben,and share the frustrations. We come up as champions, then seem content to see our Premiership season as, again, nothing more than a fight for survival. Do we really think we can do it on a diet of championship players and a shoestring approach ? Apparently so. Its been said many times before, but the fans deserve more. At the very least, some honesty from the club. i hate to be so negative, but we have been here before, and i do believe we are now, following this transfer window debacle, fully equipped for a swift return to the Championship.
Unfortunately, there was very little movement this transfer window. For all teams.
Ben i have to admit i expected a little more spleen to be vented from your good self. In saying that i’m so annoyed, frustrated, angry and let down that i can’t bring myself to rant about it.
GREASY WEASEL OUT!
Going down, going down, going down!
I’m sure the early birds will be dropping through the letterboxes soon. What a joke… we have learnt nothing from 03
Spot on article!
The lack of ambition is staggering and at best we will be an Albion ie. a Yo Yo club.
We could survive if first eleven stay fit but we only have one striker who can cut at this level and some of the squad are disasters waiting to happen e.g. notably
Elokobi, Maierhoffer.
Hence with further injuries particularly to Doyle and we are stuffed!
“Definition of a waste of paper.”
The early bird scheme propaganda that is winging its way through my letter box. Although it might be useful as toilet paper I guess. Put simply we have all been lied to by Morgan and have been given the true picture of his lack of interest and ambition in wolves and further proof that Mccarthy is unable to attract the players we need to stay in the division. Lets face it we are going down because we have not taken the challenge seriously (yet again) and it is time to start asking some serious questions. All in all a very bad day at the office and a PR own goal of biblical proportions.
Total lack of ambition by management
Although i do agree with a lot of what was said, i will say this. We did offer 5 million for Hunt which was knocked back. Phil Brown said they’d only accept silly money. He aint worth more than that is he?
I do think we could have tried harder to get someone like Beattie through the door though, looking at our strikers other than Doyle.
As for going down, the 3 sides below us haven’t improved their squads so the chances of that haven’t really changed.
It says it all about MCcarthy’s judegement of a player when he thinks an average player like Hunt is worth 5mill. Let alone paying 2.5mill for Halford , who is not even a bench warmer.I’m glad we didn;t get Hunt, but, we badly needed a true left back and a striker.Lord help us if Doyle gets a knock.
Good blog. I agree with earlier comment that we should not have offered more for Hunt, but why was there no back up plan in place?
Loan signings were the name of the game this window. For some reason, we targeted the Belgian leagues instead of the Premier League for our loans. Hopefully they turn out to be worthwhile, but my main concern is up front.
An injury to Doyle and a few championship clubs will be able to boast a better strike force than us.
For me, the damage was done in the summer.
Some of the players we got in made very little sense. Players like Surman and Halford were no better than what we already had. All they did was add numbers.
Another mistake was not shipping out enough players. Our squad is massively bloated, with a lot of players of similar ability. For instance, why get The Hoff, when we’ve already got Iwelumo, Vokes, Keogh, SEB and Doyle? That’s six forwards and we haven’t got one player that can cover the right side of midfield.
It all just smacks of bad planning from everyone involved.
My personal opinion is that Mick is too close to some of the players to make cut-throat decisions and just say, ‘you’re not needed, we’re moving you on’.
I do think this group of players is good enough to finish 17th, so I just hope we’ve achieved that come the end of the season. If we don’t the backlash could be quite nasty.
For me if we were willing to pay £5m for Hunt, which is way over the odds for him by the way, then why wouldn’t we see loaning a player like Robbie Keane for the rest of the season as a decent investment. Not sure what his wages are reported to be but say at £70k a week, from now to the end of the season it would have cost us £1.5m. That to me would be money better spent than £5m on Hunt!! Obviously it’d mean breaking our wage policy but can you imagine the lift getting a player like that would have given to the fans and players. I’d definately have said it’d be worth changing the policy for. That being said, Keane would have wanted to come to us – which I think i’d be deluding myself if I thought he would!! But the principle is the same for us making a signing like that no matter who it was!!
We also seem to be overlooking the obvious question which is why didn’t we sign Hunt in the summer for £3.5mil? MM clearly has rated him for a long time, his brother in law was signing for us at the time, he was at a good price and he was exactly the sort of player we needed. The only reason i can think is that the 3Ms thought we were good enough. Now that’s been proven incorrect they’ve panicked massively.
GREASY WEASEL OUT!
I think MM claimed last night on ESPN that we were in for Robbie Keane on loan?
This is a great blog by the way.. I’d be interested to know what reply you’d get from Moxey if these points were put to him. When I was younger I’d just turn the computer off and start again if I screwed up on Championship Manager.. I imagine the 3Ms would like to do the same right about now. They’ve failed to achieve the targets they set for themselves let alone what we expected! And its not just the fans who deserve answers – what does, say, Kevin Doyle make of all this?
Great blog Ben.
What price Early Birds? Bet Moxey puts the friggin price up as well just like last time when he said we would need the extra revenue to fund strengthening the squad!!
No thanks Jez – you’ve just blown it big time!
Thanks for replies everyone. Glad I’m not alone in frustration! I now read that Moxey did infact bid more on wages for Adam Johnson than Man City did, and that Hull were imploring us to buy Hunt. I bloody bet they were, knowing the whole time that we were wasting precious hours, and failing to address the weakest area of the squad. Did Jez really fall for that one?
And did he really think, at any point of the window, that we would get Adam Johnson, a player destined for full England honours and linked with Chelsea, Madrid and Barca?
Every honest Wolves fan knew that he’d never come here, so why did we waste the time and effort? That’s if you believe anything he says anyway.
So Jez will offer record wages in January, but not an extra 3k a week for a player Mick was desperate for in June.
If we were that hellbent on Johnson, why not offer the package in August? Or buy Hunt in August? So many bloody questions!!!!
We have a wage cap the one minute, none the next.
We have a declaration that 17th is a failure the one minute, then relegation is ‘no disaster the next.’
Just admit it Jez, you’ve fucked up and whatever plans you had failed. I’d have far more respect for you if you just came clean, instead of acting like some paragon of virtue.
Moxey certainly hasn’t made any friends this season.
Great blog Ben. A lot of good points you make. I think that this squad is good enough to stay up. And if they do, they are nearly all 23/24 with a years experience of premier league football. There are a few players at our club who most know can make it quite far into the game.
Hennessey (only 22 is he?)
Foley
Stearman
Mancienne (on loan)
Kightly
Jarvis
Milijas
Doyle
Vokes
SEB
And not to forget our superstar (as long as Mick doesn’t ruin him for us) in Zele.
We have a good young squad, with a couple of very good old heads that could get much better next year.
I see why people are so angry, not getting Dann and even Hunt. Why not go for Johnson in the summer. We just have to live with it for now until the summer.
Great Blog.
Personally, Im tired of feeling miffed at the (in)actions of WWFC.
We are perennial underachievers in the transfer, notorious cheapskates and now, as we stand ready for the push of our premeirship lives unable to add an ounce of experience to our squad.
For some unbeknown reason you get lambasted for knocking mccarthy – quite why dave jones wasnt shown the same consideration i’ll never know – and though you could argue that he has created a bloody good side for £2.75, im not convinced its a premiership side…
I think we are one of the 3 weakest sides on overall performance this season, so it is going to take a mr Kightly, or a mr SEB, or a mr someone to step up to the plate and help defy the odds.
Mick, Moxey and MOrgan you have not done enough, we will now have to rely on individuals within the squad to save our souls.
Good luck with those ST sales.
Yes its all very disappointing and more should have been done in the summer but it wasn’t and january was the quietest on record. Im consigning the whole saga into the past and survival is now the key with our transfer policy to be examined at the end of the season.
If we survive hopefully we can buy, if we dont, thats when the serious questions have to be asked again. Im not trying to trivialise the situation but its importance wont now been seen until may!
Louie – i expect Ismail will go the same way as Mark Davies, Danny Jones et al
Rich, that could be very true. Mick has donevery well spoiling our academy’s good players Wolves careers.
hopefully, Chris Evans is right and he is world class. I don’t think the others (maybe Davies) were.
After reading tonight’s express and star i have to say we did everything we could to get some good players in. Ok maybe we should’ve done more in the summer, ok we should have had more back up plans (is that not where the two foreign lads fit in).
If Keane and Johnson/Hunt wanted to come we would have been dancing in the streets.
And for those saying we’re not prepared to chuck money at it, we offered over the odds for Hunt and offered 70 grand a week to Robbie Keane.
Rich, you are falling for the Molineux spin, Moxey will tell you we bid 80mill for Rooney next… its all bollocks, but to be honest would you want to play for that sour faced clown of a Manager? W eplay the way he looks….depressed , morose amd negative. ..get rid
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