Have the players been let down

by our inept January?

We have a policy of signing young and hungry players, in other words ambitious.

They want to climb to the very top and with us only a point behind Wednesday at one time, we looked as though we were gonna be challenging in the long haul.

After selling our main assets, players like Bradshaw, Yiadom, Roberts, MacDonald and Davies must look around and think 'that's my chance of Premier League football gone' unless I move on like them.

Cracking policy we have in place bringing them into the club but there's definitely some holes regarding keeping onto them.

Yes, it's a repeatative post but I spent best part of £100 last night travelling down to London and back from Hull and not getting back until 2.30. Also taking a day off work to coincide with that.

 

Full respect to shelling out time & money last night, but to suggest that because we can't get promoted this season then the players will move, is to suggest that the situation that we are in now, is the situation as it always will be. It's a permanent state of flux - we have a summer coming up where we appear to be stronger financially than for a while, the manager has stated what should happen and you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that if things aren't done at the club as he wished - or attempts made to sign the players he wants - then he'll be off. I'm no fan of Cryne (heresy in some quarters) but I don't think he'll sabotage the club and undo the progress made. The 'plan' is actually looking like it exists and to varying degrees of success - works. It now needs to continue at a higher level.

 

Did I talk to you last night? Were you with Phil?

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I don't think players think like fans to be honest.

They're doing a job of work and getting paid comparatively well for doing it.

I think it's too easy to overthink these things.

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Something else has just come to mind.... winning bonuses.
If, and it is a big if, Hecky was stuffed by the overlords at BFC because we were becoming too successful then it follows that you "meekly" allow your winning players to leave and save money. Then heaven forbid you go out looking for winners to replace them.
A very stupid thought I know, but just something else to stir into the pot of misery.

 

Yeh mate, £4.60 a pint.

 

Agree to a certain extent. The "plan" will be tested severely in the summer. Let's be frank, the last few signings have yet to prove they can become saleable assets.

 

And so did the ones that went when they first broke into the team.

 

And at various times Hourihane & Winnall were marked out as not up to it. Hecky's proved that he can work with players and improve them, Mowatt in particular has been signed with specific regard to next season, as has that lad from Swansea imho.

 

The thing that continually killed us last time we had a run in the Championship was having to reset from zero every new season. It was bound to lead to relegation eventually.

I hope we don't have to repeat that formula this season. Cos we won't get lucky with L2 nuggets EVERY time, and a managers patience can only run so far.

That said, I'm no doom-monger. This season has been a pleasure. It is looking like we have no longer anything to play for, BUT, stranger things have happened and there are still some tasty games to come, and still the outside chance of a decent finish. We also don't know that Marley and Josh are DEFINITELY gone ....... and we don't know who Hecky has got lined up as part of the plan. I'd take our position over Rotherham any day. And Villa ....... and Birmingham.

So I'm still glass half-full as it stands. still enjoying the season. That will only fade if we start resetting from zero every close season.

 

I don't think any of our players signed contracts with a realistic mindset of "this is my chance of Premier League football", so it's a stretch to think that they'd now be thinking it's an opportunity missed.

Even at the heights of our achievements this season, we had at best an outside chance of a play-off spot. That's hardly a nailed-on certainty to be playing in the Premier League next season. I'm also pretty certain that Winnall, Bree and Hourihane could all have gone to clubs giving them a better short-term prospect of Premier League football than the moves they made. Primarily they chose to go for financial reasons (which will be the same main motivation for any of our squad considering moves in the summer).

The fundamental problem we have is that our relative success this season has raised expectations, in some cases to an unrealistic level. Even in 11th place, we're performing way above expectations and our relative financial standing in the division, but it's being viewed as some sort of great decline. If we'd have spent the first half of the season in the lower reaches and had reached the same place via an upturn in form we'd be viewing it as a minor miracle.

January has been and gone, and there's no doubt it wasn't as had been planned with regard to incoming transfers (e.g. the Morsey saga). Outgoing-wise, I don't think it was unrealistic to expect us to lose the players we did.

 

This is exactly what we were saying last night. People wanting like for like replacements forget that those players weren't overnight successes.

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