Players who could seriously help us not a promotion challenge?

Think Ethan chishlet from afc wimboldon would be a good signing though Dan kemp too but with mk dons in same league seems highly unlikely

 

Sounds like Chislett has had an offer from Gillingham but also has L1 chasers down south.

Kemp will be a first teamer ar MK next season. They released a fee wingers last week. Type of players we should be after though.

 

The back 4 and Lewis have done a solid job all season, our defence hasn’t been a major issue. Sure we could do with another LB but other than that I don’t see the need for a major overhaul of the back 5.

The WOAP highlighted our defensive issues with so many let in from set pieces (compared to Carlisle). That's a concern

 

Someone is playing well tonight...

 

How grim is this for Hughes

 

so our defence is an issue?

 

I used to wonder what the heck people meant when they said ‘have an eye for goal’. Surely every player has an eye for goal right?

And then I watched Gilliead, Clayton and Smallwood get 4 goals in an entire season between them. None of them have any idea what do to going forward, you are completely correct!

 

That's a shocking statistic and we cannot afford to stick with the trio next season.

 

As others have said, take Cook's goal contribution out of the equation and we'd have ended up mid to bottom end of the table. There's talk of progress this season but how much has there really been? We ended up in the top 7 mainly due to one player being in the form of his life. I think that's more down to luck than progress, considering Hughes didn't even consider said player as his first choice striker at the start of the season.

 

Lets face it, as a fourth tier club, you should never really 'settle' on players that don't make the cut unless you have to make financial calls on mid level players. For me, we need pace out wide again. Whether thanks wing backs in a back 5 or sticking to the 4231 (or a version of) but we need some penetration.

If we play two deep CMs like we do, we aren't going to get great attacking stats, that should jut be common sense to everyone, surely? Gilly, Smallwood, Clayton or East never really had spells of getting in the box, barely got around the box in helping out attacks. If that's happening for everyone who plays the position, it's clearly an instruction on the CMs. But it's not like the successful teams with 2 sitting CMs tore up the stats either, Orients Pratley & El Mizouni played together 41 times, had 4 goals and 2 assists between them. Northamptons Leonard & Sowerby played together 39 times, have two goals and 1 assist between them. Stevenages Reeves & Taylor played 41 games together and managed 4 goals and 5 assists between them.

Our CMs attacking output has been on par with the promotion sides, this to me just seems like another area to nit pick at, and doesn't speak to our failure to go up. It's the players between midfield and attack that haven't produced for us. In L2 our options out wide and in the 10 position gave us 21 goals and 9 assists across 7 contributors. Orients W/AMs scored 34 and assisted 23 from 5 contributors. Northampton only had 2 wingers get a goal or assist all season but they managed 28 goals & 14 assists. Stevenage didn't really use wingers much over the season, more a wing back team and 2 up front but the one winger they did use got 10 goals and 3 assists. Our lack of goals and assists was due to the fact we could never keep anyone fit or on form long enough to play behind Cook, more than our deep midfielders getting in on the act.

 

I might be the only one but I think we need to look to bring in better right across our backline. Halliday started and ended the season poorly but was largely OK in between. But he's a liability at the back post from crosses. Platt is an honest clogger but no more. Stubbs has excellent positional sense and is a warrior but his lack of pace is alarming and he too made a number of unforced errors in the final games. Ridehalgh is still OK defensively but is a shadow of his former self going forward. And none of them are that comfortable on the ball. The back up players are significantly worse apart from the Irish lad who seems like he could be a useful squad member. Plenty of room for improvement.

 

The one thing that stood out this year was our sheer lack of pace, we desperately need to get that into the squad - especially in the middle of the park where we always looked lethargic. It's okay having a player like Smallwood or Clayton, but you really can't play them both together, it's just far too slow and it exposes the back 4 - the amount of times you'd have an opposing player breaking from midfield and running at them was frightening.

Onto the back 4, I think we've got far too many problems in midfield and attack to fully focus on this area. Hopefully we get Critchlow back to partner Stubbs, I think Halliday will do at RB but we 100% need an understudy in this position as we have no depth. At left back, we need to improve on Ridehalgh - I do think Foulds is a decent backup to whoever we can get in.

I'd keep everyone that you've noted on your list, but really feel that we're going to not get Banks back on loan and think that we'll also end up losing Cook - so we're going to have fully rebuild that forward line.

Walker is fine to keep if he plays in a No.10 role and supports the striker, I just worry that since his injury he tends to go missing in games.

We've been crying out for width all season on the left and, with Chapman out, rotating between Osadebe, Nevers, Eisa in that position has been truly dreadful - then when playing Walker out there he loves to drift in too much so we just became far too narrow.

Very big summer ahead.

 

I believe both Clayton & Derbyshire we brought in because they were old heads with experience to help see games out ETC I hope neither are retained.

 

We've got Derbyshire for another 12 months.
TBF not a bad option to come off the bench for 20 minutes when we need a goal.

A bit like the role Connell played in 12/13.

 

I didn't realise he had another 12 months, yes that was the way I thought Hughes would play Derbyshire but until the lad picked up his injury he was a starter along side Cook.

 

3-5-2 is the way forward imho.