What Next?

We will have more money than most whoever we sign will make no difference unless they fit Hughes tactics. They didn’t fully this season. The management duo are dogmatic I just can’t see them changing their thinking so the type of player we bring in will be interesting to see

 

Stevenage, Orient, Mansfield, Carlisle and Northampton teams all had a nucleus of 6ft 2-3” athletic , pacey players covering most of the formations they fielded. Winning headers, picking up second ball, outpacing the opponent, on and off the ball, Look at the attributes of our squad, I don’t see a comparison anywhere in our main outfield 10 anywhere?

3-5-2 for me going forward with two pacey wing backs, a pacey, mobile athletic middle larger than 6 ft
Root and branch formation and squad change IS required. Let’s all be honest what we have isn’t/ wasnt comparable.

Getting the wing backs and the midfield is key . Oh for Headley of Hudders type players.

 

That's not how MH will have us playing. He wants to control the game and possession. If we want that style we've got the wrong Manager.
I don't buy 'the style clearly didn't work'. It had us a couple of wins off the auto's.
We just need to get better at it. We need more from the 3 behind Cook. They need to be contributing 30 goals between them. Banks/Wright/Chapman/Walker probably got about 15 between them.

 

It didn’t work because of squad / player content. The right squad it can work, but getting the balance is the key.
Today is the first day “back at the office” , so let’s see what transpires here on in.

 

Some pace and more creativity from the three attacking midfielders and we won't be far away again.

 

And one right back and two wide men. Basically 75% of the team

 

That's exactly my worry too Park. Going into January, we were set in the playoffs and top 3 was there to go at. Our needs were obvious: A creative midfielder, more pace and creativity out wide, possibly another striker and a backup centre back. We brought in Bola, Stubbs, Clayton, Nevers, Costelloe, Derbyshire, Kelly. Deary me, that's a really poor window.

In fact, if you look at our transfer incomings overall and rate out of 10, I reckon you'd get something like this:

Lewis - 9/10 Excellent buy
Platt - 6/10 steady
Kelly - ? Hardly seen him
Bola - 2/10 See above, but looked awful when we did
Halliday - 7/10 decent, shame he had a shocker when it mattered most
Crichlow - 6/10 mixed
Odusina - 3/10 Who?
Smallwood - 6/10 plodder, who desperately needed someone more mobile and creative next to him
Clayton - 6/10 plodder, who desperately needed someone more mobile and creative next to him
East - 4/10 looked ok but hardly featured, squad player at best
Costelloe - 2/10 good lord
Osadebe - 3/10 Unlucky with an awful injury, but looked like Bambi in ice after coming back
Oliver - 3/10 3 year contract??
Derbyshire - 4/10 every bit the knackers yard washed up pro we expected
Chapman - 6/10 has ability but no end product
Walker - 6/10 has ability but no end product
Perreira - 4/10 forgot he was here
Young - 4/10 started well but obviously ran over Hughes cat or something
Harratt - 2/10 the least said the better
Nevers - 1/10 good lord
Banks - 7/10 decent, will be a player when he learns to make better decisions in the final third
Wright - 8/10 Excellent

Far more misses than hits, and anything close to a hit has generally been a defensive player. Hughes can't spot what it takes to build an effective attacking player or team this season. Cook has done what he's done in spite of Hughes tactics, not because of them.

 

Interesting,our goalkeeper at the end of last season,Bass, who was on loan from Portsmouth,went to be second choice at Sunderland,and no fee was involved.I dont think Lewis is yet a player a club would pay money for.

 

I've got a lot of time for Halliday but he was awful on Saturday. Like he'd never seen a ball before.

 

What exactly do you want them to say? For me, to start again is just the worst thing we can do but some want that...mad!
I'm hoping MH has learned from this season, seen what it takes, the kind of players needed and that he improves how we play.

All i want is for the Board/RS is to fully back MH....seems i'm in the minority though.

 

We’re all a bit gloomy after Saturday myself included and I agree about a poor January window and a lack of legs in midfield and especially a lack of goals. However despite the many faults in Hughes and our tactics we were 7 points off automatic promotion, a win against hapless Rochdale at home and hang on against Gillingham and or Mansfield Swindon when leading in injury time and we’d all be celebrating. Having said that I’m still grumpy and this defeat is taking some getting over.

 

You ain’t.

 

Exactly…..As I said over the weekend….we didn’t gain promotion because we lost over two legs against Carlisle.

 

We lost too many points over the whole season and the playoffs highlighted our inadequacies. MH should now have a good idea of what it takes to get out of this league. Now is not the time to be navel gazing and looking for scapegoats, let’s learn from our mistakes and push on.

 

I think 3 things contributed badly to us missing out this season Tyreik Wright moving on in January Chapmans injury when he was starting to look good. And the form of Walker who I believe has been playing through injury most of the season. The loss of the former two lead us to be very unbalanced and lost us the pace we needed.

 

Over exaggerated…I knew you couldn’t resist .

More like 50% though.