New signings - what is their fitness like?
For those curious like me, here's the data.
Anders HAGELSKJAER
Minutes played in 2024/25: 862
Last appearance: 67th minute substitute - 1st February 2025 - Cambridge United 1-1 Wycombe Wanderers
Previous appearance: 90+2 minute substitute - 18th January 2025 - Mansfield Town 1-2 Wycombe Wanderers
Previous appearance: 73rd minute substitute - 19th December 2025 - Molde 4-3 Mlada Boleslav
Last completed 90 minutes: 28th November 2024 - Molde 0-1 APOEL Nicosia
Adam REACH
Minutes played in 2024/25: 56
Last appearance: 64th minute substitute - 8th February 2025 - Preston North End 0-0 Wycombe Wanderers (AET)
Previous appearance: 55th minute substitute - 27th April 2024 - Sheffield Wednesday 3-0 West Bromwich Albion
Last completed 90 minutes: 10th April 2024 - West Bromwich Albion 2-0 Rotherham United
Alex LOWRY
Minutes played in 2024/25: 378
Last appearance: 64 minutes - 8th February 2025 - Preston North End 0-0 Wycombe Wanderers (AET)
Previous appearance / last completed 90 minutes: 17th September 2024 - Rangers B 5-0 Fraserburgh
Fin BACK
Minutes played in 2024/25: 1,120
Last appearance: *68 minutes - 17th January 2025 - Nottingham Forest U21 2-4 Chelsea U21
Previous appearance: / last completed 90 minutes: ^16th December 2024 - Nottingham Forest U21 2-3 Manchester City U21
*sent off for two bookable offences; ^ scored
Magnus WESTERGAARD
Minutes played in 2024/25: 1,751
Last appearance: 64th minute substitute - 8th February 2025 - Preston North End 0-0 Wycombe Wanderers (AET)
Previous appearance: 66 minutes - 1st December 2024 - Viborg 1-2 Randers
Last completed 90 minutes: 6th October 2024 - Viborg 1-1 Aarhus
For context Joe Low has played 2,820 minutes so far this season.
Comments
Interesting stuff. Do you know when Lowry's previous first-team appearance was?
His last first-team appearance: 62 minutes - 30th December 2023 - Hearts 2-2 Ross County
Thanks. Makes his performance against PNE all the more impressive I think. Hopefully just a case of rotation and not wanting to over-exert him 🤞
Your details on Reach not quite right.
Previous appearance: 73rd minute substitute - 17th May 2024 - Southampton 3 West Bromwich Albion 1.
Wow that is scary reading having spent all that money on these players. Let us hope someone knows what they are doing as we seem to be going through a poor patch at the moment.
His information on Magnus is also incorrect.
Magnus played in the quarter final of the Danish Cup over two legs on the 8th and 13th December playing a total of 135 mins. Viborg won and will appear in the semi-finals in Apr/May.
He completed two full games after 6th October both in the Danish Cup with his last full game being 8th December.
The Danish league has a huge winter break. Brondby last played at the end of November and only just had their first game back yesterday against Viborg. That’s an 11 week break!!
I think the problem is that we all saw big cash being spent and assumed these guys were good to go to improve the squad.
We needed a central midfielder and the Morely chase was clearly going nowhere. Boom here comes a million Euro player. 3x our record transfer fee this guy is going to be amazing and we can stop talking about the other guy back at Bolton. It’s now mid Feb and nothing. The other signings were for positions where we have cover and depth. Anders is well covered by Taylor, Bradley and Low. Lowry by Humphreys etc.
Wrexham, for example, signed a fit striker in the form of Smith. He’s playing a scoring. Therefore he’s improved their team. We sign 12 and 2 get in the team.
It was to me an irresponsible window. Especially with the fees involved. And to spend so much on players who are apparently not even fit enough to be in a match day squad is mind-blowing. Our 3 highest transfers in our history not one start between them. One to still make the bench.
Since 1st July, so our 24/25 season Anders has played 1341 minutes including 45 minutes for Molde 2 in the fifth division of Norwegian football.
I think it’s quite obvious that the upcoming change in financial controls meant that the club were forced to spend in January.
Otherwise should we not go up, our billionaire owner would count for nothing as we wouldn’t be able to spend. It could then take us years to put a squad together that’s able to challenge at the top of the table.
If we don’t go up this season, at least we now have several million pounds worth of talent to utilise in the next campaign.
This is exactly right. Had we not had one eye on the future no doubt some people would have been quick to criticise the club for lacking foresight.
In which case we're screwed on the Morley replacement as even if Simons is the answer, he's only here on loan till the end of the season.
As I understand it the loan is a view to a permanent deal.
Ok I accept that. But when we signed these guys we were told they were integrating into the squad and therefore needed time to be Wycomised if you will. Anders signed on the 9th of January, Westergaard one week later. One month is almost a pre-season in England. And we are yet to see more than a handful of minutes from our record signings. My concern was not so much about the future, having a couple of players ready for next season is amazing but these aren't kids. None of our 12 (TWELVE) signings in January (for over 2 MILLION) have made a significant contribution to the team with the exception of Bradley. We are 2nd in the league and we needed enforcements to consolidate that position not our campaign next season. The weaknesses we had 2nd of January are the weaknesses we have now.
If we were only looking at these signings for the future and not for the immediate why not sign them and leave them with their parent clubs?
Yeah, have we ever had players on the bench worth more than the 11 players on the field ? :/
We have signed 3 likely starters in the window. Norris, Simons and Sonny or Taylor ( if classed as a new signing) we have also increased the squad depth with the others signed.
We had a team in second place, we were never going to change it completely. But 3 is still a lot of change.
3 is a lot of change. And I don't have a problem with 2 loanees and a perceived upgrade on the keeper (even though the keeper we had arguably had the best record we could wish for but that's an argument for another day). I simply don't get why 1.2million Euros are STILL not in the squad a month after signing. If it was always the plan to have them for 25/26 that is odd if they turned out to be so far off the team when they arrived that is unforgivable. And as for Berry I think he hasn't played for a month now so he again appears to be one for the future. So 2 million of talent. If you say 3 is a lot of change and that three was 2 million I would be saying we have gone for it and gone for it BIG time. But like many January was a confusing transfer window for me with little cohesion and lots of comings and goings.
This is what I thought as well
Potentially contingent on what league we are in next season?
We never had to worry about this sort of debate when we were "Little Wycombe".
The times they are a changing.
No idea, could be I suppose ? The more I think about it, I think it might have been one of the Journo's on twitter, one of the reliable ones as well, that broke the news before Xavi had actually signed, that might have said it was a loan with a view to making permanent
But they have been in the squad, but has been mentioned the CM looks off the pace, he's having a pre season without games which is difficult. The CB, I've no idea, but he's arguably 4th choice anyway.
Berry ladt played on boxing day and didn't feature he came to us, though didn't play much before that, so may have a knock or recovering.
Even if that was the case it would still count as spending in the summer, after the new rules have kicked in. So if @Vincey is correct, we still won't be able to spend big on a Morley / Simons replacement. Unless I've got the rules wrong?
We've had a lot of draws lately, but only one real defeat. Defensively we are pretty (very) good. It won’t take a huge improvement to start turning the draws into wins, and then it will all look a lot better. We just need one of the new boys to step up and fill the Morley gap. I believe it will happen soon.
So you think it’s sensible to spend a club record transfer fee on a fourth choice centre back?
I’m not sure of the complexities of the deal. It may count towards this season.
Defensively we are very good. It's worth noting that we've conceded only 5 goals in our last 8 games. Of them, 3 have been absolute stunners (Huddersfield, Cambridge, Crawley) and one was a big deflection from a long range punt (Barnsley). The other was Mansfield, who took advantage when Grimmer was injured and about to go off
The Return of the King will make the biggest difference of course.
Potentially fifth choice after Skura.
I dont expect him to be 4th choice for long. We have 2 loans, one was in an emergency situation, and the other probably unexpected at the time.
But, i don't think the fact that he was a club record really matters, as money, isn't the same things, as it always was for the club.
If money is no object then we should have signed Morley, you can’t have it both ways