Sharpe on Transfer Window

An article that confirms this summer has been about cost cutting rather than extra investment. It's there in black and white from the horse's mouth, but those of us who said that was the case will still be berated for daring to criticise the powers that be.

 

We went from the promise of making investment in March to wage trimming by July/August. The mixed messages coming from the powers that be are going to keep pissing people off in the fanbase.

Anyone with a working set of eyes could look at the outgoings compared to incomings and see that we saved on last season for sure. There has been no extra funds for this team, and I don't buy into the "well maybe GA didnt want a lot of new players" or "we had a strong squad and just needed a few tweaks" nonsense because we've ended up bringing in 10 players. That's more than a tweak, that's literally being able to field a completely new starting team of outfielders, so GA cant have been that settled on what we had.

 

“Money on the pitch”. Seems to be his favourite soundbite. Also seems to be saying that most of the decisions are coming from GA. Swerved the question about ones that got away in the window. Unfortunately he’s on a hiding to nothing, as we’ve been lied to for many seasons. I don’t read his comments with any conviction. It’s the same old defend and justify, rather than be transparent and positive.

 

Simple question.
Do we look better as a team right now than we did at this point last season when players like Gilliead, Stubbs, Platt, Macdonald, Lewis, Derbyshire, Osadebe, Afoka and Tulloch were in the match day squad against Grimsby??

 

Have time agree with the reasons for moving folk on.

Almost nothing on the new signings, though, making for an unbalanced article.

 

For me that is a bit of a pointless question as very club will miss out on players, it's almost impossible not to.

Ultimately Alexander is the manager not head coach so decisions on players have to be his as that is his job role, if he says he doesn't want McDonald and that he feels players like Pattison can cover for Smallwood then the club has to go with him to get rid of McDonald.

 

To be fair anyone who believed Mr Rupps bluster that he would be investing in team strengthening or anything else for that matter needs to give their head a shake can't be bothered to find it but one looks at his statement to quell the demonstrations tells you all you need to know
The team is weaker and our current position is largely down to the poor opposition we have and are still to play it's a poor league this year
Am rapidly begining to think GA like DS are told what to say and when to say it dependent on the days narrative
We should have been signing players more than good enough to get us promotion AND consolidate in L1 (obviously Stockport and Mansfield didn't think they were up to it) instead all we have done is extended the queue for the treatment table

 

Tough one that.

 

Those lot didn't lose to Grimsby last season.... this current lot did. If matches against Grimsby are the specific criteria, then no.

I still don't think this team looks "good", maybe good isn't the word but they aren't that convincing to watch so far. But getting points whilst not performing is what promotion teams do. Looking at it so far with the way we've played, we were very lucky against MK with our only 2 real attacks ending in goals, one fluky goal at that and MK missing a boat load of chances. Salford game was a dud, Bromley we played against 10 most the game, Grimsby turned us over and we beat a very poor Carlisle side. If the refs had eyes against Salford we could be joint top, but also if MK had a finisher or Bromley had 11 men or Carlisles money bags played to their wages, we could be sat on 5/6/7 points right now around mid table or lower. We seem to be making the most of our moments so far, whilst still having another gear or two go find as we go.

 

I personally think we will do better than last season, but Rupp said there would be extra investment at a convenient time for season ticket sales. I said on here at the time that it felt like it would be actually on things like the pitch, but done in a way that convinced people it was for players.

Whatever happens this season, Rupp's talk of extra investment doesn't look like it has come to fruition at all. Fans rightfully want honesty from the custodian of the club, the sooner someone comes along and gives him an offer that will see him feck off the better.

 

A fairer comparison would have been how do we look now to how we did at the end of last season? Yes we do but then squad wise it would have been hard to look worse.

 

Good bit of context. We had some absolute garbage at the club last season. I like Gilly, Platt and Stubbs but apart from Callum Johnson, we don't have anyone as useless as that last 4 you named.
All the people that feel so strongly on here must have had a good excuse for missing the open night where they could have questioned Rupp, Gent, Sparks, Sharpe in person.

 

We got a point against Grimsby last year. They have already beaten us twice this year. There is your simple answer.

 

One fan did grill Rupp about the timing of his announcement at the open night. Rupps english isn't great but he basically said you're entitled to believe that if you wish but I didn't do it to try and stop protests. Decision was made after discussions with Sparks and if fans wish to protest they still can.
They hinted that they'd do a similar "open night" at the end of the season, Sharpe said to judge him in May. I'm sure people will have many more questions by then

 

I aint going to pull anyone to bits while the season has just got running but the extra investment was used to get people on board and lets be honest did anyone fall for it .............it never needed huge investment it needed people who know how to spend it wisely and recruit the proper players and sadly for us the folk who have failed year after year on that side are still in jobs.

If yet again we fail then surly the major aim is to get the right recruitment team on board that can make the best out of what they have.

You watch this season how many teams finish above us with far less budgets and in all honesty thats been the case for going on 6 years now

 

Regardless of how it looks in comparison with last season, the management of this club including Rupp is responsible for promotion or not!

Reading Sharpe explanation for why this player left or the players that arrived the overall message was that we were being prudent with our money, which is no bad thing, however the proof is in the pudding. We the fans have invested in this club for 6 years with precious little of entertainment. Have they cut to many corners? Have they not taken risks? Why was it prudent to take on Callum Johnson and not invest in Young or Gilly? These are the kind of decisions that the management have taken and are therefore responsible for the outcome. If it is promotion then fine, but I don’t see any investment for the future even if we get promotion but putting that aside, no promotion then there will be consequences and we won’t know that until near the end of the season.

 

At least the commercial side is still ticking along On Saturday I was looking about the stands and could barely spot at inch of our ground that isn't sponsored in some way other than when popping to the mens bogs! Although knowing City someone will read this and we'll announce some turkish barbers have signed a 3 year deal to sponsor every stall in the kop.

 

It's too early to tell whether or not we'll get away with a mediocre transfer window.

From what i've seen so far, I feel like we have more viable options all around the pitch in comparison to last season. Last season we seemed quite disjointed IMO.

After 5 matches (Just over 10% of the season played) we sit in 5th place which is an ok/above average start for now in comparison to our seasonal expectations. Though it must be noted all our opponents currently sit in the bottom half, with the exception of Bromley in 11th.

Walsall will be a truer measure of where we're at.

 

Fun fact.

Matt Derbyshire scored the same amount of league goals as Vadaine Oliver last year despite Vadaine playing twice the number of games.