Most liked posts in thread: January transfer window

It is fractured. Adams is right in his criticisms of the club. And the fans are right in their criticism of him. It's hard to see a way forward to get us out of this mess.

 

Sell at first opportunity

 

Won’t be in place of Gilliead that’s for sure.

 

We also had Warnock at the end of his career, and did a good job for us

 

Without a doubt Cooke's goal output for a player in his position is poor. But you cannot question the creativity he brings. If this club bothered to recruit competent strikers he would have 15 assists a season.

 

That shows assists and goals, not chances created. It only shows chance created which result in a goal. Most of the chances created by Cooke don’t end in a goal as we cannot hit a barn door.

 

Spot on. Cooke isn't perfect, but he's at the better end of what we've got, no doubt. Selling your better players ain't a sensible way of improving your squad.

 

Any signings yet?

 

Well the reason we haven't scored goals is NOT because we can't create chances.

We know we create chances, and we also know that Cooke creates more than anyone else in the division - whatever the quality of those chances is.

We know that with Watt and Cooke in the team, we've always given our forwards opportunities to score - and THIS is the problem, not the midfield. Without Cooke, we're next to hopeless. Without Cooke or Angol, we actually ARE hopeless. And how many games have we had both Cooke AND Angol? 4? 5?

Gilly doesn't score. Vernam can't shoot. Lavery isn't good enough. Robinson has out-performed all three in terms of efficiency, but 4 goals in 18 appearances is nothing to write home about.

I've said a few times on this forum, but selling Watt and/or Cooke and bringing in the best striker in League Two would be self-defeating. We did that with Eoin Doyle and gave him nothing to convert - so he didn't score...

 

There are 4 (minimum) games still to play in January 12 points !!!
We should have identified players by now and had them ready to sign contracts by the 2nd latest
Leaving it till the end of Jan could mean the difference between a play off spot or not
There seems no urgency at the club to rescue the season
Come on Mr Adams your reputation for getting teams with zero budgets promoted has already slipped and you got what you wanted with your own scouting team
Time to prove your bluster

 

In reference to the earlier posts about the supporter's board meetings, I've been attending all of them this season including the meeting that happened last Thursday

There were some questions that were submitted by fans before the meeting, although I don't know how many were actually sent in, as there were 5/6 that were given to Sparks to answer. However, all members of the meeting were given an opportunity to ask any question so this was the best opportunity to be critical. Perhaps the most challenging question was the one about where has the extra ST revenue gone to which Sparks said went to the playing budget and made us the 5th highest in League 2, although he didn't name all the teams which a higher budget everyone can certainly guess who they were

The previous meeting has probably been the most effective as it gave fans a direct opportunity to ask Sparks questions as there were several occasions where they've raised points by email and not been answered, expected as RS is busy with other business.

RS did mention that they've been planning for January for a while and he that he wouldn't commit to spending on players if he didn't believe we could get promoted. Also, he mentioned how often the best business is done late in the window (Minus Kurtis Guthrie) and sometimes things change throughout January (Andy Cook last year as an example)

As shown in minutes previous Sparks doesn't attend every meeting, due to his schedule and sometimes no need for him to attend. Usually, he would attend every third meeting.

Once working groups get in order the meetings should become more effective as other ones perhaps weren't that effective especially as they were all done in 30 minutes or so

There has been a few new members on the board this season and a few resignations due to other commitments etc. There won't be any new members elected until next season unless there's a big drop in current numbers.

Meetings are still on Teams as convenient for all

Thanks

James

 

Season's over because we've only signed a young lad on loan only 3 days into 31 days of the transfer window?? Jesus wept.

 

He isn't though , he never comes off his line, always gets beaten at his near post and is a dreadful kicker. Can't barely keep a clean sheet either.
Hornby isn't the best either, the goal Saturday was slack marking from Thelkeld, which any keeper would have struggled to keep out. In the first half he made a brilliant save from a cross that would have landed on a Barrow players head from point blank range. Added the that the dissallowed goal was punched in by their player.
Say what you want about Hornby, he's not special, but he's steady and not erratic like ROD.

 

Myself and others mentioned Tshimanga 18 months ago 2 summers ago, we could have even gone in for him in January.
Nobody can tell me Rowe, Crankshaw and Vernam combined cost much less than getting him from Borehamwood. Another example of our quantity over quality inept approach. We could be sat on a £500k+ player now and higher up the league.

 

Lee Mills was the best "big un" we've had since Bobby.

 

I'm going to play devils advocate here. Ward is seriously underrated by us, and had he played in a half decent team would have been as good, if not better than Mills. He didn't fall over, he was fouled because he was a handful and if he had been in the 98/99 team instead of Mills I think we would hold him on the pedestal that some have put Mills on.

Ward's goalscoring record is pretty similar to Mill's but Ward played most of his football at a higher level and Mill's is skewed by the 29 in 65 he scored for us. Don't forget, Ward played most of his games for us in that awful team of 2000/01 and wrote off what he was owed from us under his contract and if he hadn't we wouldn't have survived admin one.

When he was in a decent team, at Norwich & Barnsley, he was almost unplayable.