Match Thread Exeter (A) Tue 16/11/2021 & Tue 30/11/2021 19:45

He needs to pick and gain results!!

Everyone is scared of him at the minute, so no fights here but his record currently is unacceptable.

 

I think a lot of us are more annoyed that Sparks was quoted as saying that Adams WILL get us up at the first time of asking. That this WILL BE OUR SEASON. Stuff like that. I'm very happy to go along with the "process" if that's what this season has been outlined to be. A building process with a new manager etc etc. However, that's what we weren't told. We were told we'd be going all out to win promotion. In fact I seem to recall the quote of "nothing less than promotion will do".

 

Yes but we both know from watching games with our own eyes we just havent killed teams off. You can play well and lose and play badly and lose. We aren’t the latter.

 

He’s in danger of regretting those words for sure. If he doesnt back Adans in Jan he’ll look very silly.

 

I agree Cook isnt clinical.
We have not been a good team since Stuart had us in the playoff final in truth.

we started ok under bowyer but got found out. This season is the first time we’ve produced good data underpinning the performances for ages (the numbers were bad under the caretakers).

if you put a decent striker in this team we go up - its very simple imo.

what isnt simple is finding a decent striker when we are in L2 and the chairman is reluctant to spend.

 

But we might create chances and look half decent but we have no ruthless streak and no winning mentality. We have a soft underbelly where we let in silly simple goals and really don’t keep many clean sheets for a side who are supposed to be up there. In fact we have kept 3 all season and one of them was on the opening weekend. And that’s not an error we have kept 3!
It’s ok saying we should be scoring more but look at Man City a side who create bucket loads and everyone says they should score more. Do we think we have a god given right if we sign a striker in January we are gonna bang the goals in?
We need to be realistic.
I think we will finish mid table. No danger of relegation despite the current run but there’s a lot to fix before we are pushing for promotion

 

The football hasnt been bad though has it. There was a short period where it seemed to be going belly up but in the main we can see how performances have improved from last season.

the problem is that sparks talked so confidently in the summer that fans now expect us to be top three all season.

i can see improvements have been made so am still fully behind Adams. But if he’s not allowed to bring in a few in January then my stance will change.

 

What are these improvements?

 

See the attached. We are an enormously improved side under Adams and create so much more than we did under the caretakers.

you’re welcome.

 

Lets be honest, there's not a lot of point putting the new scouting structure in place if he's not changing the squad round in January - if he doesn't then who knows if they will still be here next summer! I agree overall we are a better watch this season but trust me this team lacks more than just a decent striker to make us a promotion outfit - sadly we still don't have that killer instinct and winning mentality in the team

 

Created chances and expected goals don't put points on the board am afraid
Same as a salesman who does lots of quotes but gets no orders doesn't earn commission

 

Thats not a problem as FCD needs to come in for Threlkeld anyway tbh. Bit of cortisone for Songoo and he can play alongside Watt, or Cooke could play deeper (and should be ready for a recall anyway soon).

we’ll win on Saturday. Somebody is due a pasting off us soon

 

So everyone keeps telling me.

But there is a reason why football clubs at the top level employ performance analysts, whose job is to work with performance data like this.

If City fans know better then so be it.

come back to me in May, lads, we’ll see who is right then.

 

We need to try win 3 or 4 on the spin, get that winning mentality in the group. Then not get injuries like earlier in the season when we strung some wins together, it was halted by getting a lot of injuries.

 

I’d advise people to watch moneyball although baseball the fundamentals are now being used across all sport, moral of the story is data is a big part of sport and the dinosaurs are being left behind.

 

Yeah, very good point, something everyone is forgetting. Robinson and Lavery just didnt click straight away and it meant overreliance on Cook, who understandably then picked up an injury

 

You can look at it that way…..I accept we’ve drawn far too many but we are only four points off seventh to fifth - all tied on 26 pts.

There’s everything to play for when injured players - key attacking men - are due back. We badly missed Naz when he was out. Plus, we just haven’t had much good fortune in our matches and bad luck with the chances we’ve missed won’t carry on to that extent forever.