Rhodes: Decision Time !

As I've said previously a couple of hundred thousand on a headless chicken of a young striker or a couple of hundred thousand on an experienced striker who played correctly will score a ton and has at least a couple of seasons left in him - I know where I'd spend my money.

 

Agree, some seem to have forgotten already the size of the kicking we took. Dejavu to some; get rid of a manager while still in the play offs. The last time we did this, it sure worked well. I'd go as far to say that if Dracula had backed Stuart as much as he backed himself, we would have left div 1 by the ladder and not the snake.

 

And for me that was the last season, we were in a league where there wasn't a single team, demonstrably better than us

 

Which season?

 

They had Devine, Palmer, Akpan and Gibson playing behind them then though. I agree we would need to use the big three differently and rotate them rather than shoe horning all into the side, but there are better players around them now. Cooke, Pritchard, a fit again Ismael, a fit again Reeves and Connolly.......they will give us a better balance potentially. it is a massively different side now. Devitt to come back from injury too.

 

And for me that was the last season, we were in a league where there wasn't a single team, demonstrably better than us

84/85!!

 

Sorry I seem to be having an IT problem today posting - the original quote was missing

84/85

 

A far different kettle of fish to Bradford City unfortunately .

 

He's like you @Fordy117, he's not interested.

 

Or loan him back to us ?.

 

Could say that about this season. Probably covers most of the division. Only seen 3 or 4 teams who actually try and pass the ball about, Swindon, Crewe, Exeter and Plymouth. I'm trying to remember if league 2 was as bad last time we were in it, the standard at times borders on criminal.

 

When we last got promoted, Gillingham won this division with their, er, technical flowing passing game which Martin Allen is well known for (not)

Port Vale, who also got automatic, were managed by Micky Adams (nuff said!!)

Exeter, easily the best team passing team I saw that season, didn't go up

League 2 is always bad. I remember watching a match against (I think) Scunthorpe around 1980 and the two teams spent literally 20 minutes heading the ball to each other at Midland road end!!

I suspect you are somewhere near my vintage (57 - apologies if you're not) everything tends to have looked better in the past

 

Haha no mate i'm 48, just feels like 57. Your summing up of league 2 is pretty fair to be honest, its the lowest professional league in the country and it shows and always has. And sometimes our expectations are way above what the level of players in league 2 are capable of. I just wish we'd drop this five at the back, its very defensive and yesterday showed what a difference going to a four did, it lifted not only the supporters but the players too. You can tell the players aren't happy with the formation set up, Vaughan especially is just feeding off scraps. If we go back to flat back four and a more positive forward set up i guarantee the negative mood will lift. We have the players available to do it.

 

not like city players downing tools and not being professional has ever happened before or anything.

I agree on the fee for Doyle though, they'd be daft for not paying circa 200k given it would be cancelled out by the promotion he would almost certainly fire them to. Frees up another approx. 3k a week for us if the 8k rumour is true and if we can also get whackpan off the books we could really strengthen well in jan and add those couple of quality players I think we're short.

Also, sacking bowyer now would indicate we've learned literally nothing from last season or the one prior. The football is shite (I've been a few times when ive been back home), but given we were statistically the worst pro team in the country last season we've progressed massively. We're hard to beat and a team of nasty bastards with a reasonable ability to grind out results which will do for me this season provided we get promoted, which I think we will.

 

I'm OK with this defensive style, to a degree, as I can't see us ever getting turned over and also it's an excellent base for next season. I also think after last season, it's best to rebuild by making us solid at the back first - but yes the footie has been terrible at times

There is no reason why the players can't make it play better, but frankly that depends on having an entire 'back five' that has the intelligence to go forward, i.e. Wood is fairly OK at this and both the O'Connors are fine going forward as their passing is as good as a defensive midfielders. Henley is rubbish though and seems to have this kind of "it's not my fault:" attitude, he's not even a great RB as he's so easily outbattled and then he lacks the bottle to make any kind of decisive forward runs

Mind you we could play a back four with the others as I think either of the O'Connors would make a better RB than either Henley or even Mellor. Ironic that RB is our achilles heel this season and that we now wonder what Riley could have done

I think 3-4-3 is surely the way, given our good midfield and width options

Significant that the best move of the match (and it looks better on replay) resulted in the goal - so we have the attacking options it's up to someone on the other side to have the same desire as Wood (surely our most improved player and yes I know that's not a hard thing to do!!)

 

In fairness to Bowyer, I don't think that this football is his DNA style, i.e. we know what Mourinho, Parky, Warnock teams etc are about - Bowyer's philosophy is that of his Dad's Forest playing career

The problem is and this used to happen to Forest (look at the result every time they went to the old Wimbledon team) such passing philosophies have no great place in the lower leagues. You either need lots more money that your rivals, so then you can play who you want as you can afford the best in every position twice over, i.e. Wolves in the 2013/14 D1 season or keep a decent relegated Championship team together - like Barnsley did last season, which in itself was high wages squad

Exeter, who now have the dubious distinction of been the best team I've seen in our last two L2 campaigns are a classic example. Known to play good football, it's part of their philosophy - but they've still not been promoted in 7 attempts

Back to Bowyer and I think if we had a RB with the brains and skill to play the role needed, we'd look a lot better. Unfortunately, it only takes one to be rubbish in the current system and the whole thing then looks mediocre at best

The calls for Bowyers sacking are hilarious. He's lining up to the best manager, in the last 30 years, I've seen outside Parky and Jagger. I admire the way he has the confidence not only in the plan but in the players, even though he clearly realises we don't like it. I remember Parky's regime been one of constant moaning about his style - until a year after he'd left and now those same critics make him out to be some kind of Bill Shankly

 

It would be difficult to play a passing game on the VP pitch as it is at the moment.

 

Swindon are skint and playing the loan market. There’s no way they’ll come up with a six figure fee for a player of Doyle’s age. They will no doubt take over his wages and pay a token undisclosed fee.

 

13 pages into the thread every aspect of the Doyle situation has been covered, I was for leaving him at Swindon if they took over all his wages.
The reason being he is scoring for Swindon he cant play against us but as Wednesdays game at Plymouth he stopped Plymouth gaining any points on us, that situation over the season could be the best option for both City & Swindon, that is if Power can stump up his full wages, win win mate
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