The Great Recruitment Shambles of 2022/23

Guest Blog by Jake Gallagher

If social media is any barometer there’s been a clear feeling within the fanbase that the club’s recruitment this season has been truly abysmal. And I agree. We all agree. Even the people doing the recruiting agree.

I wanted to understand how you can possibly get it so wrong, ask who is responsible and ultimately look at what the bones of the squad will look like next season.

Now if you include all the players who’ve been named in the matchday squad at least once – then the club has had forty-five (45) players on its books this season. Forty-fucking-five.

It’s a genuine shambles but I’ve tried to make sense of it. Here goes…

Yeovil Town Football Club signed thirty-six (36) players since the start of 2022/23. I’ve unpacked this into segments. It isn’t a perfect exercise but it’s enough to make conclusions thinking about these questions:

1. Who Signed Them?
2. How Many Have Been Successful?
3. Where Are They Now?
4. Will They Be Here Next Season?

Who Signed Them?

Believe it or not, eighteen (18) of the players were signed under Chris Hargreaves and eighteen (18) were signed under Mark Cooper. A perfect 50/50 split. Or is it?

It’s obviously more nuanced than that given the club has had a change of ownership or ‘stewardship’ since the beginning of March and a new recruitment process/mess has been in flight.

Therefore, the pie chart looks more like this with new owner Matt Uggla taking responsibility, as stated on social media, for six signings since SU Glovers’ arrival in town.

How Many Have Been Successful?

Very few is the short answer.

The chart below demonstrates that just four (out of 36), in my opinion of course, have been successful and remain playing for the club today.

Some that I’ve deemed successful aren’t at the club anymore. The likes of Alfie Pond, Sam Pearson and Jamie Andrews are all examples of good talent identification and go down as good signings despite the short impact they had. It’s just a shame we couldn’t keep hold of them.

These players are now playing at a higher level – you could argue if we were fortunate enough to hold on to them for the full campaign, we’d be the handful of points better off to be out of the relegation zone.

Overall though the recruitment has been bordering on incompetent. The process resembles a blubbering drunken lady walking out of Neo nightclub looking for a 2:00am barrel-scraping shag and turning up with Matt Grivosti. Just one single match scouting this player would’ve told you he’s not good enough for National League football. Certainly not right now anyway.

I’d suggest that just four signings can be deemed successful and for a couple of these you could accuse me of being kind. Owen Bevan, Charlie Cooper, Scott Pollock and Jordan Stevens are the names I have in the successful bucket. Bevan has bled green and white while Cooper is clearly good enough for this level – if you can ignore his persistent whinging at the referee which annoys me so greatly. Stevens and Pollock are similar types of players and are certainly ones for the future given their age.

So how then can you get it so wrong that just 11% of this season’s signings can be considered successful? That’s a hit-rate of just over 1 in 10!

I genuinely hand on heart believe that I, a person who works at football statistics website WhoScored.com, could’ve overseen recruitment at Yeovil Town and had a better strike rate than 1 in 10. I could’ve used Sports Interactive’s Football Manager game as my only scouting tool and had a healthier hit-rate.

Where Are They Now?

The revolving door at Huish Park is knackered but still we had new players joining into late March. I’m aware that’s not unusual – but needing to make six signings in March is surely not a sign of a settled squad.

Most won’t be here next season, of course, due to the nature of their deals while some were just not good enough for the level required.

Of the thirty-six signings made, fifteen played first team games and found themselves leaving via the A303 just weeks later. Gime Toure, Jake Scrimshaw and Louis Britton are examples of players were awarded permanent contracts and left by mutual consent after not making the grade.

We made two permanent signings that are currently out on loan. Ben Richards-Everton and Ollie Hulbert. You can file these under ‘didn’t work out’ I suppose.

Will They Be Here Next Season?

This is up for debate and in some cases will depend on relegation clauses and other information I don’t have access to.

The likes of Jordan Maguire-Drew, Zanda Siziba, Will Dawes, Alex Fisher, Malachi Linton, Charlie Cooper, Scott Pollock, Jordan Stevens and Jordan Young have been signed on contracts that should see them here next season. Whether they want to or not is another matter.

There are others such as Jamie Reckord who have an option for another year should the club and player wish to renew. Chiori Johnson has a contract up for renewal and could be given a new deal if the new management believe he’s at the required level. After Saturday’s needless and naïve second yellow card, I’d think twice about renewing.

On the ‘definitely won’t be here next season’ list are mostly loan players such as Miguel Freckleton and Will Buse and I’m going to confidently predict that Callum Harriott (too good for this level) and Ben Richards-Everton (fans haven’t warmed to him) won’t be playing for Yeovil Town come August despite being permanent members of the playing staff right now.

As it stands, we have twelve players on contract until at least 2024 and two with options to extend beyond the summer in Reckord and Hulbert. Any notions that we should ‘rip up the squad and start again’ are foolish. Clearly a reset is required but there are players at this club who should be here next season irrespective of what league we find ourselves in.

In among those twelve under contract are players who will be ready for football in the National League South and can develop as the club progresses. Players like Stevens, Pollock, Young, Linton. We need hang on to them – they are the young, exciting forward players we must get behind in 2023/24.

Conclusion

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that the recruitment has been embarrassing. It’s the main reason (though there are so many reasons) why we’re going down – we can all see it.

In true ‘An Inspector Calls’ fashion, absolutely everyone running the club is to blame. That’s everyone who dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s on the incoming transfers.

Chris Hargreaves’ summer signings of Jake Scrimshaw and Ben Richards-Everton didn’t give the team a solid start back in August and we’ve been playing catch up ever since. Mark Cooper’s early dealings bringing in Anthony Georgiou and Louis Britton were complete failures and left us short of quality. More recently our deadline day call to opt against bringing in Frank Nouble, a player who had all but been announced as a Yeovil Town player, showed a lack of joined up thinking between the management and new ownership.

All in all, our impending relegation has been compounded by the Uggla versus Cooper handbags that have been increasing in viciousness as each weekend passes with another L next to Yeovil Town’s form. The pair have continued to stoop to take swipes at each other, through the media usually, with a clear disagreement across the board including the abilities of our latest signings Reo Griffiths and Zanda Siziba.

It’s time for the people running the football club to put their egos away, put their big boy pants on and start showing some leadership without plastering their thoughts on social media. I believe we should part ways with Cooper sooner rather than later, he’s a bad egg whose obnoxiousness and goading behaviour is bleeding the fanbase of optimism in what should be an exciting time under new ownership. The only way is up from here.