No doubt others mentioned Twine too but picked this comment from
@ElliotCAFC on last year's "Rumours" thread:
MK Dons landing Scott Twine is a great bit of business for them, I didn’t think they’d be the club to get him. He’ll most likely go for a lot more money within the next 18 months.
It’s a shame as I’d have liked us to sign him. It reminds me of when they signed Scott Fraser, clearly a good player but none of the bigger clubs seemed interested.
20 goals and 13 assists this season suggests that Elliot got it bang on the mark. Twine is still only 22 and cost MKD £300,000 plus 20% sell on fee. We've been crying out for an attacking midfielder of this nature (Lee has the best stats of ours with 3 goals and 4 assists) so how come MKD took a chance with him and we didn't? We waited for second "dibs" on Fraser instead! Could it just be down to the fact that we don't do our research early enough - look at the date that MKD signed him. On the 8th June. We were still looking three or four weeks into the season.
In SCP's total re-vamp of our squad we had Stephens, Green, Hollands, Wiggins, Morrison and Taylor all signed by 15th July. Yes one or two others did follow later (including Yann) but those half a dozen were instrumental in the the runaway success of our side. The other main reason for getting those signings early is so they can play together for the first time in pre-season and not once the season has begun.
Wigan succeeded in transforming from a side that finished one point off relegation last season to Champions this. However, the likes of Whatmough, Naylor, Power, Cousins, Wyke, Humphrys and Amos (oh the irony) were all signed by the 9th July ( four weeks before the start of the season) with most of them were agreed in June.
The question is - will we learn from that this year? If JJ is going then TS needs to sack him now and get the best available Manager in asap. If he isn't then he needs to tell JJ that so he and those responsible for recruiting (including any family members but not instead of the Manager) as a matter of urgency.
It's no use thinking that you are one of the biggest clubs in the Division if you act like one of the smallest.
Comments
And who the next ‘Scott Twine’ signing is that we should be going after?
Will be interesting to see the types of player we go for, whether it’s more established players like Fraser or unwanted like Dobson and Clare.
It would be great to think TS was under promising with talk of 2-5 permanents but more likely just being honest. Of course that could also change for the wrong reasons if we sell Dobson and CBT.
whether we were interested in Twine or not, we acted too slow last summer and hope lessons have been learnt
Milton Keynes signed Twine on 1st July, they sold Fraser to Ipswich 14-days later
Oddly they took the strange approach of actually signing the REPLACEMENT player, before they sold the player they then knew they could afford to lose... Thats my biggest frustration with our transfer policies the last few years.
e.g. Had we signed Twine, I doubt we'd have targeted Fraser as imagine Milton Keynes would have refused to sell, even if it did take us a further six months to finally get his signature
In the post match thread v Cheltenham in Sept, I said
The lad we nearly signed instead of DJ scored twice for Bolton today.
The “lad” (Afolayan) finished the season with 12 goals and 4 assists. Rated 7.11 (Twine rated 7.41).
Twine is the marquee signing that will make the difference but the "difference" is absolutely no good whatsoever without the underpin of solidity which the likes of Stephens, Hollands, Wiggins, Morrison and Taylor gave us. Our signing that made the difference actually came later in the shape of Yann but that was one that was very much under the radar and purely because of the relationship enjoyed between him and CP.
What did they achieve last season?
Randell Williams - 5 starts (4 league) 9 sub apps 0 goals for Hull
Two players who might be available this summer...
https://www.wearehullcity.co.uk/news/2022/april2/williams-remains-unavailable-for-middlesbrough/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Randall - he's been even more injured.
https://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/sport/football/peterborough-united/peterborough-uniteds-million-pound-man-visits-a-specialist-in-an-attempt-to-save-his-season-but-fellow-forward-back-to-face-swansea-city-3612532