Points needed for safety

Wood is our player. Signed permanently in the summer

 

I think 96/97 looks a good comparison. We had three wins at this point that season as well. We had three more points due to three more draws though. Late Oct/early Nov, we had two big home losses consecutively (0-4 to Crystal Palace - Hopkin scored the 4th & 0-3 to Oldham) then we blew a 3-0 lead to draw 3-3 at the, then, McAlpine Stadium. That result was the start of a run of six games unbeaten in seven and we are in need of a run like that to kickstart things.

A few things of note that season. Kamara was forced to try player after player to get us safe and the FA Cup played its part when we won 3-2 at Everton - itself part of a six game unbeaten run. But it took the odd cluster of wins and draws to keep us in touch before the two huge wins in the final two games to survive by the skin of our teeth.

There were low moments of that season but we somehow survived. Time will tell if this squad has it in them to do the same. Having them all available at one time would be a good start!

 

And yet their "great squad" still compromised their results when they had just six injuries

 

I simply think it's wrong to right off a bunch of new players, who've had two different managers and spent most of the season injured

Clearly Vardy was also "hapless" during his early Leicester days.

 

The squad of 2000-01 was almost totally out of his depth. Despite the money spent it was still a bottom five squad at best.

Any fair judge of comparing squads, knows that this is at least a top 10 (not that much worse than Portsmouth's actually) grossly under-performing largely due to injuries and been a bunch of strangers

Doesn't stop us been relegated though. The MK Dons squad was pretty decent and they got relegated

I simply don't believe that all the players we've signed who played decently for their former clubs have suddenly deteriorated by half a division

If they'd been fit and we'd had largely the same / best team - I'd be agreeing about relegation

 

You can't really compare us to Leeds. They have implemented a plan from the offset that started with the appointment of Marco Bielsa, a coach rated very highly by the likes of Pep Guardiola. Their first team is excellent and had a run of poor form but you know they will bounce back because they are now a very well run club. Our problem isn't individual players or injuries, its who put our strategy together and decided on the playing roster in the summer. Even without injuries the team of ours would struggle down the bottom because the whole system was fundamentally flawed from the start. Even a new manager in Hopkin cannot change round the woeful recruitment of players in the summer. A few of the players signed could probably move to other league one clubs and make a success of it, as i said its not the fault of individuals. The skill is buying individuals to fit a team formation and that has failed disastrously. Serious questions need to be asked of the recruitment partnership of Rahic and Abbott, they are the ones who have left us in this mess, to the blame individual players is an easy cop out.

 

Top ten!??

In the National League North maybe.

Fair judge of comparing squads? How on earth can THIS squad use the excuse of being strangers, but the 00-01 squad can't?!

Bizarre.

 

I think the lowest points total for this league is something like 25, around 2010. We'll be fortunate if we don't set a new low points total, which we will probably hold for decades. Success!!!

 

The stark reality is, that we need to win half of the remaining matches,and maybe a handful of draws,in
order to escape the drop.It is asking a great deal,and has been stated,it would take Promotional/Play off
form,to retain our 1st division status. But if it somehow, it was, to be achieved,then we must be optimistic
for next season,(with fine tuning, and additions in the summer), the squad could be candidates, for next
seasons Play offs,possibly. We live in hope for the rest of this season,and good luck to all concerned.

 

I still don't think you can pin the blame totally on Abbott. He is clearly working to Edins brief. If he's recommending steak but ER chooses to eat at McDonalds, thats not his fault. Plus, a guy who delivered Wells, Wyke, Kilgallon, Doyle etc...you're not telling me Kai Bruenker was his radar. The summer head coach recruitment process killed us along with a poorly executed pre season and no fitness coach IMO.

 

The performance against Portsmouth was encouraging and we now have two cup ties which we should look to win, to try and breed some confidence. I can't see Barnsley giving a stuff about the checkatrade when they are in the promotion hunt.

Normally you would want to rest players for these games but it is clear it is a confidence thing with this lot. try and put back to back wins on the board and take things from there. We have nothing to lose against Peterborough (Steve Evans will no doubt enjoy sticking the boot in during the build up) and Luton as everyone think's we've lost both already.

 

I'd have full 1st teams out for both cup games in the hope that some of them get injured.

 

lol

 

Hard not to agree with that, i certainly don’t proportion all of the blame on Abbott, but he is culpable to a degree.

Hopkin came in and his first signing was Jim O’Brien who, to be fair, has made more of an impact in a short space of time than any of the signings in the summer pre season. And he was available during that time as a free agent.

How much persuasion Abbott has in proceedings may never be known but as chief scout he has to be accountable to what has been three poor transfer windows on the bounce.

 

You can compare the impact of injuries. I don't see Hopkin been here and a fully fit squad struggling. Few on these boards complained about the signings in summer.

It is fair to say that the summer was amateur hour on several fronts, but actually he player recruitment wasn't bad

It shows how important the manager is and a decent fitness coach. Money, as I mentioned pre-season has little to do with it - for the majority of L1

 

The player recruitment was a joke.

No experienced right back to replace McMahon.

No target man to give us extra options we've badly lacked, no replacement for Wyke.

No vocal leader like Vincelot, until J O'brien came in.

Youngsters left floundering.

How can you seriously defend it? Because we signed four or five players with good reputations? How's it working out?

Oh, I forgot, Chicksen got injured for a while....

 

I think as fans we always get a little over excited when we as a club sign players form the division above, even players from our own division that we think could be better than what we have. And a few of the player signed rightly or wrong have come with some sort of rating from the fans before they've even seen them play, well apart from a you tube highlights reel. Players like Payne, Scannell and Akpan from a higher division, Riley because, well he plays for Man U innit, Wright because he has a famous brother, Doyle because he scored goals the season before in a struggling side, O'Donnell because we had been after him before. There are other signings but lets face no one really cared.

Now the trick is in football is to have a manager in place who has a strategy. You can then implement that strategy with your clubs technical director (if you have one) maybe a chief scout as well and come up with a list of names of players to fill those positions.

Now this is where it starts to fall apart. Because for three transfer windows now it has been an unmitigated disaster on the transfer front, this has led to this summers transfer window where 14/15 new players of varying experience have been brought in. And as i've stated before forget to a large degree what they did before, there are differences in circumstances as to how well they played at other clubs (quality of players around them, leaders in the changing room and on the pitch etc).

Which now leads on the question of was the recruitment of this group of players good or bad. The easy one to point to there is our league position. Being completely rock bottom paints the obvious picture. Doesn't tell the whole story though. There are some good individual players smattered across the 14 or 15 new faces, there are also some youngsters and some journeymen. Lets cut to the chase, the only signings that whet the appetite this summer were Payne, Scannell and Doyle. All rated players that had spent time in the division above. Forget the youngsters, no one has the first clue how good they are, U23s mean nothing. Forget the journeymen they just make up the numbers.

Now, how does this work as a first eleven? As a unit the team is reliant on a strong central midfield. Having watched most pre season this was my main worry. A team needs a strong spine and a strong central midfield is pivotal to this. I'd go as far to say it is the most important aspect, its where the majority of games are won and lost. And ours looked weak. Very weak. And very evident in a woefully underprepared and underplanned pre season. This are has only been rectified by a young but promising O'Brien and an older and tough tackling O'Brien.

Which is an example of to me where the problem has always been and is a fundamental error in how this football club has been running ever since Rupp and Rahic took over. This was never down to injuries or loss of form or any other factor you wish to throw into the mix. Pure and simply this group of players never stood a chance from the very beginning. The building was always going to collapse on such appalling foundations, it just collapsed quicker than anyone anticipated. Too late now though to go running to structural engineer when the cracks have already gone. By bringing back Julian Rhodes Rahic had admitted he has failed. Big time. The problem now is the role Rhodes now has to play is the one Rahic has dreamed about for so long. No point in having them both here.