I got back late last night from my pre-season training camp in Snodonia;

had a pre-brekkie weigh-in this morning - put on 4+a bit pounds in 6 days, pure muscle, impressively gliding straight through large to XL on my shirt trying on session in the club shop - so, all in all, a successful week 🙈🙈🙈🙈

Anyway, iv drifted off topic; on way back into Biddulph, I saw James Wilson driving up Chell bank - just saying 👍😍

 

7 minutes ago, darren1810 said:

Almost as remarkable as posters suggesting people haven't seen him play.

Haven't watched a Premier league game since maybe December,  a bore fest. Title over, relegation over.

However I've watched a heck of a lot of lower league football and my opinion which means zilch in comparison to the genius McCann is that we've completely swerved one here, assuming we were in for him.

One can only assume Street is wanted by Lincoln. Now he's a player who transformed Doncaster from January onwards. 

Time will tell, but it's extremely glib to suggest people have only looked on Wikipedia. 

I think this is a major difference nowadays. With that Sky TV deal and a lot more games of teams in the lower leagues readily available there is a far better chance people will have seen them play.

A lot of the time when there’s a player with a less than stellar record they invariably invoke a variation of the incredibly tiresome “but Akpo Sodje” argument. Not realising for every one of him there’s a good few you can name where they ended up like expected.

17 minutes ago, valiant_593 said:

Or maybe sometimes looking at a record is quite a good indicator? Hanlon has recently spent 11 months out injured and has a poor record across a host of sides. It’s completely different to the Tolaj situation. (Who started off excellently until randomly dropped by Moore, then had no confidence and then had the poor touch) 

Not every player with a poor record will sign for us and be a success. Look at Loft, the majority of times they’re record is how it is for a reason. 

It makes me laugh on here. If you say a signing is great without seeing him too much it’s fine, but be ever so slightly so critical of the signing and it’s a case of you’ve only checked wiki, you’ve never seen him play etc. Most on here see Gabriel as being an excellent signing, without seeing him play which is all good, say Hanlan wouldn’t be great and it’s apparently not ok.

He may have done well, but I’m personally happy we haven’t got him, there’s plenty of players around with a record similar or better and plenty who haven’t just spent 11 months out injured. I’m more than happy for us to take a punt on someone not proven, rather than proven to not be particularly good. 
 

Irrelevant anyway as we haven’t got him. 

Wikipedia scouting is not a good indicator, no.

31 minutes ago, valiant_593 said:

It makes me laugh on here. If you say a signing is great without seeing him too much it’s fine, but be ever so slightly so critical of the signing and it’s a case of you’ve only checked wiki, you’ve never seen him play etc. Most on here see Gabriel as being an excellent signing, without seeing him play which is all good, say Hanlan wouldn’t be great and it’s apparently not ok

🎤 drop.

Some notable footballer manager/pundit/study recently claimed, "If 50% of new signings do well then a club has done well in the transfer market".

I can't recollect what the metric(s) for "Done well" is/are but keeping this in mind keeps new transfers into perspective.

19 minutes ago, JoeB2 said:

Wikipedia scouting is not a good indicator, no.

How about fbref scouting? 42 goals and 59 goal involvements at 29, only played enough mins to cover 205 games, roughly a goal every 5 games, hasn't scored a goal since 2023/2024. 

Don't get me wrong very very rarely people can prove you wrong but I'm happy we haven't signed him. 

 

You can't judge players based on their Wikipedia article, from a quick look at their stats, from an in-depth look at their stats, from what fans of other clubs have said about them, from what managers think of them, from how they've played against Vale or from how they've played in general.

So there.

On 12/06/2025 at 21:22, Bycarsbill said:

Is this the same Shorrock that's 18 yrs old, and IMO a potentially great talent. Scorer of what many people think was the goal of the season v Crewe?  I for one hope that he isn't out of the frame!

Think he'll - deservedly - be given a chance to show what he can do further up the pitch?

3 hours ago, JoeB2 said:

I think the striker we do sign will come with an unconvincing record, perhaps maligned at a previous club and the wiki page won't have many double figures on it, and he'll be written off without questioning what he specifically brings to this system under this manager compared to previous systems under previous managers.

 

You've just described Theo Robinson...

37 minutes ago, Dol Boy said:

You've just described Theo Robinson...

Theo Robinson had scored double figures for Hereford (League Two), Huddersfield (League One) and Derby County (Championship), then in between his two spells with us he hit double figures for Colchester United.

My conclusion being... yeah, let's not worry about having lost out on Brandon "never hit double figures" Hanlan.

 

I reckon this kid will be out on loan this season somewhere, possibly L1

9 hours ago, Walka003 said:

How about fbref scouting? 42 goals and 59 goal involvements at 29, only played enough mins to cover 205 games, roughly a goal every 5 games, hasn't scored a goal since 2023/2024. 

Don't get me wrong very very rarely people can prove you wrong but I'm happy we haven't signed him. 

 

I think a goal every 5 games in the football league is a decent record tbh.

Especially as Hanlan played a lot on the wing too.

Just now, valeparklife said:

I think a goal every 5 games in the football league is a decent record tbh.

Especially as Hanlan played a lot on the wing too.

Each to there own, but I'm not gonna shed any tears if we missed out on him. He's not young or prolific, I'm sure there's better out there. 

9 hours ago, Walka003 said:

How about fbref scouting? 42 goals and 59 goal involvements at 29, only played enough mins to cover 205 games, roughly a goal every 5 games, hasn't scored a goal since 2023/2024. 

Don't get me wrong very very rarely people can prove you wrong but I'm happy we haven't signed him. 

 

One things for sure, we use stats to identify targets.

If we were in for this player, we will be using a specific data set for the type of player we want which would have identified him. It wouldn't have been his goals record or number of starts!

I argued before a strikers role isn't necessarily goals and assists, depends on what the role is within the team.

I have zero ideas if this lad is any good or not - never seen him play. I also have no idea what our recruitment department are looking for in the backup striker.

Personally I like Sam Cosgrove - not really worked out for him in England with goals and assist,  a similar career record to Hanlon but the way he plays he would be a good backup player for Stockley. He's a handful when on his game.

 

12 hours ago, valiant_593 said:

Or maybe sometimes looking at a record is quite a good indicator? Hanlon has recently spent 11 months out injured and has a poor record across a host of sides. It’s completely different to the Tolaj situation. (Who started off excellently until randomly dropped by Moore, then had no confidence and then had the poor touch) 

Not every player with a poor record will sign for us and be a success. Look at Loft, the majority of times they’re record is how it is for a reason. 

It makes me laugh on here. If you say a signing is great without seeing him too much it’s fine, but be ever so slightly so critical of the signing and it’s a case of you’ve only checked wiki, you’ve never seen him play etc. Most on here see Gabriel as being an excellent signing, without seeing him play which is all good, say Hanlan wouldn’t be great and it’s apparently not ok.

He may have done well, but I’m personally happy we haven’t got him, there’s plenty of players around with a record similar or better and plenty who haven’t just spent 11 months out injured. I’m more than happy for us to take a punt on someone not proven, rather than proven to not be particularly good. 
 

Irrelevant anyway as we haven’t got him. 

V593. That's a very good point about him being out for 11 months. However, surely he will have had a (extensive) medical and gone through rigourous physical checks to make sure he's fit enough to do what we ask him to do. 

Other than that, I'm with Joe. There's a lot of people who seem to make yo their minds way too quickly. 

As others have said - in Darren we trust. 

UTFV