Ambition/recruitment

I'd argue this season we still have on paper a great midfield and 2 strikers for this league Phillips, kane and connell would get in any league one team. Williams and cadden were standout wing backs last season but have gone backwards. The defence isn't great and we have a weak bench I agree with the rest.

 

So you telling me its not been tippy tappy rubbish look at Northampton game Blackpool away we were battered plus many more.

 

I never said anything of the sort. What I'm questioning is why you believe our team that look poor, week in week out, could easily finish in the top two?

 

A good manager would have played to players strengths playing them in correct positions with pressing game not sitting back. Been proven when play pressing game we much better team than trying to defend one goal leads.

 

I'm sorry but that's just nonsense. He did the best with what was available. Were we a good team? No, absolutely not. And yet Collins got us in the playoffs and outscored almost every other team in the entire football league.

You didn't like what was served up? That's fine, it was dull. But the argument that someone else could have delivered better with the players available is bunkum.

 

This list shows that we can identify players with potential. But our overall positions shows we're not particularly adept at bringing in players that make up a good team and a balanced squad. We bucked the trend under Ismael, but that involved spending a fair bit of money, and bringing in players regardless of age. End result was that we couldn't, or didn't want to, keep the CEO at the time.

Could also list players such as Jordan Green, George Miller, Clarke Odour, Aapo Halme, Luke Thomas, Isaac Christie-Davies, Oli Shaw and Max Watters as examples of where we don't do so well.

Ultimately, the club's approach means we lose money as well as get worse on the pitch. I've not attended a single game this season, can't think of when the last time that happened bar the Covid season. I'd be more likely to go if we genuinely cut our cloth, sold players, brought in a bunch of frees (young and old), and had a dig.

 

But if we failed to get promotion then it would be all about how the club have not spent any money and showed any ambition. Cheap options. Only taking players cos no one else wanted them…
It’s the mindset of football fans that needs to change. And not just ours.

 

Fair point, but within football fans are always going to be divided unfortunately. Something that is great to one person is the opposite to another.

Opinions, eh? Very much like bumholes, everyone has one but sometimes they can be full of s**t

 

And I’m not that interested in anyone’s apart from my own. And even then not in a weird way.

I get your point though, although I don’t think it’s just about opinions, I think it’s more about entitlement and expectations.

 

I don't think it's that like already said had we kept the stendel side together and maybe added 1 or 2 I think we would have had a great chance of going on and doing what Ipswich have done this season. I think maybe our finances don't match our ambition.

All the players you mention expect luke thomas and possibly watters cost the club very little. The experienced ones of lita, turnbull, treacy, matt Mills, oulare, iseka etc will have cost the club much more.

 

One of the problems is that we won't sign experience, so every signing is a gamble - when it comes off - great! We get a bargain, but then they leave after a season and we're back to square one. We all so what impact having some gnarly "old" vet in the team can do with Norwood last season. We don't need a team of 'em, but we desperately need a few older heads at times.

 

I don't think we necessarily need older players, just good players. You can have a good team with just young players. But there are as many good players (probably a lot more) in their late 20s/early 30s as there are in their late teens/early 20s. If you're only looking at younger players then you're limiting the players available and making the task of identifying good players much more difficult.

I don't want us to spend lots of money and get ourselves in debt. I'd be happy for the squad to be much smaller and so we're not sending out players on loan. But I want us to use the budget to sign players who will combine to be the best team, not necessarily a squad that has the highest resale value.

 

How do you define experience? Cosgrove had played 160+ games when we signed him (40 goals), Cadden 200, O'Keeffe 120, Phillips 100, and Cole 200. Williams has played 150 for us, Connell 110 in total, Kane 180 in total, even Russell is pushing 100 games.

These aren't inexperienced players.

 

This is the issue of only using data to drive recruitment. It is the context that makes the data useful. So, appearances alone doesn't tell you whether a player's experience is useful to you. Within that list, there isn't a single centre back for example. Then there's the question of how much has a player experienced within the appearances they have made. Compare Corey O'Keefe to someone like Matty James when Dane Murphy signed him. Probably a similar number of appearances when they signed. But O'Keefe had played 20 games here, 30 games there, while James had been part of a squad for 10 years that went through relegation, promotion and a league title win. Who's experience would you say was more valuable?

 

Yes, people would be shouting for the owners to spend money, that is fair. But what we have now is the worst of both worlds. We spend money badly because we seem to look at every individual player in isolation, or even worse, believe the stats before our own eyes (e.g. Watters).

 

Mostly L1 or lower except for those players who got Championship experience at BFC.

 

But we have plenty of experience in this squad and experience doesn't always mean they will be any good iseka, lita, matt Mills, treacy etc etc

 

But we're only playing at league one level so we don't need players who have experience of any higher. People spoke about how we miss norwoods experience the bloke never played any higher than league one.

 

I don’t have a problem with us signing relative unknowns that come good. We’ve unearthed some gems in the past and have good track record. It’s the ones who we sign that are absolute dogger, yet we somehow think it’s a great idea to get them in on a 4 year deal. We’re just wasting good money over bad. How long have we got Watters for FFS?

 

Norwood had played over 400 games when he joined us, over 70 at League one level, Cadden, for example, had never played a league one game when he joined us.