Players out of contract in June 2023 including Retained List

Comparing ourselves with other clubs is key, although not a direct like for like comparator.

 

That’s not bragging, he’s highlighting improved performance. That’s his job!

 

It doesn’t mean anything whatsoever.

 

Would he have plastered it all over linked in if the numbers had got worse?

 

The Chapman injury and the timing of it was massive. Losing Walker for the first half of the season also had an impact. Then you need to consider Oliver at the end. He was not first choice but we lost a valid alternative option off the bench at the business end.
Not a full on injury crisis by any means but certainly enough to have had an impact.

 

Of course it does. If they didn't think there was mitigating circumstances they wouldn't have given him a new contract.
For the last 5/6 seasons, Mansfield have a decent budget in League 2 and the brief is always to get promoted.

 

It's not realistic to run a 24-28 man squad and to go all season without any injuries.
That's why clubs run a 24-28 man squad because they know that injuries will come to a smaller or larger extent.

As I stated in an earlier post -
Stevenage had to use 4 GK's
Mansfield & Northampton 8-11 injuries going into the run in.
Northampton had to play the Lge 2 POTY as a right wing back they were so short.
There were many worse off than us for injuries.

 

Probably following the wonderful example of Marco Townson and his stunning ticketing success.

 

And it’s failed every time. Any managers brief is to get promoted, spending as little money as possible. That’s hardly novel Hudders

11 consecutive seasons in L2 ?

 

Nigel Clough on Colchester win - YouTube

Nigel will talk you through all the injuries they had.
I think they've had a couple who will miss most of 23/24 the injuries were that bad.

 

Agree with that but the problem for us with the Chapman injury in particular was that whilst we had lots of cover for that position, it soon became clear that none of it was remotely near good enough! As a result MH had to implement a radical change of system at the worst possible time.
That all does point back to the substandard January recruitment though..

 

In all fairness though, barring a few games before he picked up an injury, Chapman was very sub par. Walker also hasn't played to his potential (hype?) before and after his injury. I don't think we can blame injuries for not getting promoted. It's more of a fact that the players just weren't good or consistent enough throughout the season.

 

The two things are definitely interlinked. We may have had far fewer injuries than Northampton, but they still managed to finish in the top 3 whilst we missed out on promotion altogether. They had strength in depth to cover their injuries, we had a big squad which should have enabled us to do the same with our fewer injuries but unfortunately, the quality was not there.

 

Chapman spent a lot of time played out of position and that seemed to knock his confidence. Once he was back on his favored left side he started to hit a bit of form and you could see his confidence was starting to come back.

 

Totally agree. Costelloe/Nevers/Eisa were hopeless out on the left.
I don't think MH had any other option really than playing Clayton and going narrow on the left.

 

So MH is to blame then.

 

That I absolutely agree with. We always felt that bit short throughout the season, hence never getting above 4th place. For us to get over the line it was always going to need quite a lot of luck.
Accept the argument re Chapman but for much of the season he wasnt in his favoured position, having to play the Walker role. I really thought he was starting to look like the player we thought we'd signed just before his injury.
None of the above are excuses for us not going up. What I guess I'm saying is that clearly we didnt have a squad strong enough on quality to cope and adapt when hit with these inevitable setbacks

 

Partly yes, but we lost both Walker and Osedebe to long term injuries in the first game of the season and that's just bad luck and nothing anyone could have forseen.

 

Yes, we just fell a bit short. Not quite good enough to get promoted but the core of a good squad.
3/4 quality additions and we can go really close next season.

 

Really close still falls short though. Let's go for 5/6 quality additions and make sure of it