Cheltenham v City 17th Sept

Only one man to blame and that's Bowyer. He'd rather offer new deals to Devine & Anderson and keep Akpan & Gibson.

But hey, its not his fault according to some on here!! Some folk need to wake up.

 

About time you grew up. I take it you went last night.

 

says the bloke born in 1975 on a football fans forum.

 

I'm not sure that can be used as an excuse really. Both exeter and Swindon recruited 10+ players in the summer and they've both started well. Like everyone says, midfield is our biggest problem, theres no link between defence and attack whatsoever.

 

Free kick should never have been given. Having said that we should have defended it much better. Hard work undone by poor concentration.

 

He's accountable for his decisions and those decisions seem strange to me.

I'm not on board with the 'sack him' talk. Its far too early and we need some stability as a club. All manager's make mistakes and we need to give him some time to ride out the mistakes he's making. He's doing some good things too.
The squad isn't promotion material in my mind and it was always going to be very tough to transform last season's shower into promotion material within 1 window.

At the risk of getting ahead of ourselves, next summer will be a much better base. The defence will be settled and will all be under contract I believe. Vaughan will be under contract, as will Ismail. Akpan will have moved on and we'll be able to do the same with other fringe players. It'll be a case of focusing on 5-6 players rather than 15. A much more manageable job. As long as the financial backing is there, Bowyer gets this season and then we can be much more critical of him next season as he'll genuinely have had time and a fair crack at it.

 

1957 actually. I'm a grumpy old git. What's your excuse mate?

It's only Bantam's banter at the end of the day, we all want the same thing. If you knew me you would know I am a wind up merchant.

 

No, they scored wonder goals aplenty, it's just us that score crap goals.

 

I thought I was harsh with my lets look how Bowyer is doing after 10 games, we've played 9, we are 1 point off a play off place and 3 points off 3rd auto place.
I'm not too sure some need to wake up, maybe some need a reality check the are 37 games left and 111 points to play for.

 

Yeah I think hes safe with suspension although he was holding the back of his leg and hobbling near the end. Hamstring injury?

 

I get your point but for me and many others, anything less than promotion this season is a failure and Bowyer will have to be held accountable for that.

 

I'm not having all this criticism of Anderson, a big improvement tonight.
That's the first time I've seen him get close enough to an opposition player to get booked for a poor tackle, fitness must be improving.

 

I read on here JV was holding his hamstring towards the end. Hopefully nothing serious. However, when the inevitable occurs and JV gets injured /suspended it will further show how unbalanced and the lack of genuine depth in the squad.

I originally went 10 to 12th and I've no reason to change my forecast

 

Imagine Bowyer in a play off situation though, he'd be crapping himself.......11 men behind the ball...!!

 

No I'm in complete agreement. I honestly think the size of the rebuild has been epic and as Bowyer quite rightly says, it will take more than one window to rectify. Were still glaringly short of quality in the middle of the park, and injuries to our best players like Vaughan will be really telling. I think we'll miss out on the play offs, think I said 8th/9th and still think the same. That said, another good window and free agent work between now and then that could be improved, yet it still wont detract away from Bowyers bizarre team selections!! Anderson starting last night?! Wtf?!

 

He’s won the playoffs before tbf.

 

There you go @king karl m8, plenty more traffic on here this morning and last night

Imagine a loss to Carlisle, you might have to upgrade the server.

 

I don't disagree as such, but step back from the emotional side of it - on what basis should we expect promotion? Of course, it's possible and some managers can adapt and shape squads very quickly. But for me, there's a much wider context. He inherited a complete sh*t show. A broken club in every sense. A huge repair job. As a club we have a poor record of bouncing back quickly from relegation too.

I'll take quick results but I favour a longer term, sustainable plan.We can't keep planning and acting on a cyclical, short term basis. If promotion doesn't happen, but we see gradual improvements in performance levels, a competitive spirit and the basis of a squad that could go up next season with 5-6 player changes in the summer, I think that's enough to stick with Bowyer for now.

 

I'm not sure, I think that's good in theory but not really practical. Another season of league 2 means another dip in season tickets and is rupp going to want to fund a league 2 club again? I'm not sure he would. And I'd love a long term plan too but pigs might fly before we get one of those from Rhodes and Rupp. Plus it's not like bowyer hasn't been backed because he has, he's just wasted wages on a few substandard players whilst ignoring the most important position on the pitch. If he had recruited better in central midfield, I think the performances and results would have been much better and we wouldn't have been having this discussion. That's how close we are and it's so infuriating.