This messageboard is for Adults 18 years and over.
If you are under this age please leave the board.
Luton Outlaws accepts no responsibility for the content of this messageboard nor any other
content posted on it.
Luton Outlaws disclaims all liability for such content to the fullest extent permitted by law.
What you read on here is 100% conjecture, fiction, lies, bullshit and complete bollocks.
If you want to be taken seriously, you are in the wrong place.
Any potentially libellous comments that might jeopardise the future of this messageboard will therefore be deleted, and the person posting them will receive a
ban.Enjoy.
Recruitment so far
Posted by Ninja on 24/8/2025, 9:03:13
Feels like quantity over quality.
The biggest concern is that after promises of lessons learned, the recruitment still doesn’t feel strategic. To not recruit some out and out full backs is criminal, particularly when MB has played four st the back in his entire managerial career.
Why has MB gone against what’s worked for him in the past? Trying to pigeon hole players into a formation and system that has led us to failure in recent seasons. Just madness.
Now we’re stuck with an unbalanced, big squad and reliant on players leaving to recruit more.
Let the CEO focus on the new ground and get a wise (and experienced) football brain in to pull some sense and strategy together. Without NJ we seem rudderless and MB cannot be expected to tackle this alone. Decent Director of Football, even if for a few years on consultancy.
Re: Recruitment so far
Posted by Kenny Powers on 24/8/2025, 10:05:56, in reply to "Recruitment so far "
NJ’s recruitment was spot on. Decisions made by him and his close knit recruitment team. Mostly young players bought on an upward curve in their careers and who were the best around at what they did and who were mostly good blokes.
It was then shit when he left the first time. And has been shit since he left the second time.
Strategy is out the window now. Scatter gun. Buy a few young lads, a few has beens that no one else wants for ridiculous fees or on ridiculous wages. I’d like to know who’s calling the shots because I doubt the fault lies just with MB.
It was poor under GJ but when NJ returned and we got Stoick in it was superb for 3 seasons. It started going to shit when we got promoted.and tbf most of us agreed that we got in players who would help us bounce straight back if we got relegated from the PL. I still think the players were good enough, Edward’s just lost his fucking mind and we were left in the soup.
Well, whatever the fans thought, obviously the players we thought could help us get promoted again to the PL weren’t good enough / lacked the bottle / didn’t give a shit / didn’t want to be here. Maybe good enough technically, but not the same sort of characters NJ got in. Rob lost his mind because of the stress of defeat after defeat and Tom L obviously.
Tbh, reading between the lines, Mick has been kept on in ambassador type role. He’s very much taken a back seat now. If he wasn’t a club legend, he would have been sacked alongside Phil Chapple.
The common denominators still involved with recruitment - Soicik, Sweet and Mooney (negotiations). I’d be looking very closely at them, relating to our incompetence..
No, I haven’t. I spoke of the common denominators, leading recruitment in recent years. Yusuf has been here since September 2024 and Tracy since the start of this summer.
I don’t see a problem with Soicik. He was part of the team under NJ that excelled. Worth looking at our recruitment though since Yossef joined. Not just who we’ve signed (and missed out on) but also values and wages. Absolute mess. And criminal to blow all the good work of NJ up so quickly.
Of course Yousuf and Tracy now come under the microscope; but firstly, I think it’s fair to evaluate the persons who have been at the club in the last few years, overseeing multiple poor transfer windows.
You make an interesting point re Socik. He was a part of NJ’s successful recruitment team, but he was very much a data analyst of targets. His role has increased over the years and now he and Yousuf are overseeing operations.
Ultimately, who is responsible for appointing the recruitment staff and setting the budget, parameters and ethos of the recruitment.. it’s the CEO. If he’s making the wrong appointments in the recruitment team, it’s on him.
Think it’s becoming clearer by the day, that NJ, for the disloyal rat he is, was a monumental reason for our rise up the divisions. His work at Charlton, whereby he’s inherited a project of a club, a similar ish size, reinforces that.
It’s impossible to tell who’s at fault atm. Someone like Socik - who was very highly rated by NJ - might still be very good at his job, but totally undermined by those around him. But he worked well with such an excellent manager/ head of football/ scoutss when NJ was around. I also got a sense NJ didn’t let anyone else - the board - get involved in transfers. He ran the show. Yossuf doesn’t fill me with confidence. His record in Holland maybe beginning to speak for itself.
Re: Recruitment so far
Posted by Sandgrounder on 24/8/2025, 9:42:11, in reply to "Recruitment so far "
MB did play a back 3 a reasonable amount at Wycombe last season as well as a back 4
You can't buy what isn't available so don't buy until it is. Mr J.C. Lomax having been called upon to give his opinion upon the proposed formation of a Town Club, said he was most emphatically in favour of a proposed Luton Town Football Club - 11th April 1885
We've had nearly a 3rd of a year since west brom. We've been told many times the club is 24/7 looking at players to improve us. They knew Bell and Doughty(probably) were going months ago. If a totally unfit Bramall, a player that Pompey didn't use and no one else wanted, is the best they can come up with, they're either lying about constantly having a list of players, really, really shit at identifying players or trying to do it as cheap as possible. Personally I'll go with a bit of all 3.
It is not just everyone has their price, you seem to think its like a computer game. 1 The selling club has to agree to release the player for what you are offering. 2 The player has got to want to come 3 The player has to accept the wages you are offering. Cant offer too much otherwise upset existing players 4 You have to agree with the greedy agents involved
1, Many good players are out of contract at the end of a season. So the selling club have no way of keeping a player unless they renew the contract.Its common knowledge within the game when a contract is coming to an end.
2, Why would we not be competitive on wages. Footballers sign a contract accepting that wage.If they want more they have to negotiate that on their next contract.
3, "The player has got to want to come", that's down to the management group to sell the club to the player with competitive terms.
No it's not a computer game but to sign an unfit, below average left back is a laughable with the resources we have just earned. To spend a quoted 2.8 million on a striker with no pace,average touch,can't head and can't score somebody needs to be held accountable.
Even so, you would have thought the club realised they might need a new left back a while back.
And you would have thought our recruitment team identified a list of targets for different scenarios.
So, here is our 1st choice, 2nd choice, 3rd choice, 4th choice if we stayed up and the same again if we go down.
You then would have thought a bit of research pre transfer window would have happened. A quick chat with the agent, is he interested, what do we need to pay to get him out etc?
I find it genuinely staggering we don’t appear to have done this. Or if we have, and we cannot secure any of our targets, then we need to work out sharpish where the process is breaking down.
It’s inexcusable to not have addressed the full back position. And we need more than Bramhall.
I retain a positive outlook on this season, but clearly there are positions that need to be addressed in the next 8 days.
Very few fans would disagree with that.
Most would have said the same had we won yesterday.
Nordas for example is not good enough to play 40 games as a #9 in a promotion winning team.
He simply doesn’t have the pace, fitness (still) and ability to convert chances at this level.
Put a “James Collins” into that team yesterday and you would have a far better chance of taking at least one of those opportunities.
Wells had a poor day but Nordas particularly in the second half had two decent chance. The one where we kicked the ball into his right foot was comedic. I was exactly in line with it.
Who has turned a club round in one window? NJ took 5 windows to get us up as runners up to Accy. Mr J.C. Lomax having been called upon to give his opinion upon the proposed formation of a Town Club, said he was most emphatically in favour of a proposed Luton Town Football Club - 11th April 1885
NJ didn't have the assumed resources that we should have now, money wise. So I don't think it's unreasonable to have expected more quality in the building and better results.
old hat nailed it above. Added to which we are on a downward spiral and some players did not want to come south.
In addition, our best ever manager, David Pleat signed some right duffers - Shurlock, Sperrin, Harrow, Herbie Smith etc so it's not as clear cut as you portray.
Mr J.C. Lomax having been called upon to give his opinion upon the proposed formation of a Town Club, said he was most emphatically in favour of a proposed Luton Town Football Club - 11th April 1885
The posts made on this board are the opinions of the people posting them and do not always reflect the opinion of the board
administration.
Luton Outlaws is a totally independent forum, paid for and run by supporters of Luton
Town and is not associated with Luton Town Football Club, lutontown.co.uk, lutonfc.com, Loyal Luton Supporters Club, Trust in Luton, Luton Town Supporters Club or
anyone else for that matter and is declared a 100% Tombola Free Zone.
Luton Outlaws accepts no responsibility for the content of this messageboard nor any
other content posted on it. Luton Outlaws disclaims all liability for such content to the fullest extent permitted by law.
What you read on here is 100% conjecture, fiction, lies, bullshit and complete bollocks. If you want to be taken seriously, you are in the wrong place.
Enjoy. Admin contact - dilligaf.outlaws@gmail.com.
on 24/8/2025, 9:03:13