Those who were scared we'd be this year's Rotherham.

It's not so much having the balls to have an opinion...it's the balls to keep posting that opinion ad infinitum .

 

I wouldn’t be expecting that. At the most I’d expect a striker & a Townsend replacement. Any other signings likely to be u23 related.

No way can I see the strategy changing & January signings tend to be one of desperation where your team are doing crap or when you’ve sold players like us last January.

Our young players are gradually getting better & I doubt we’ll be getting any offers until next summer except for Yiadom who I expect to leave

 

I think he'd played 2 pre-season games with Blackpool, both against non league sides (if I remember right it was against Southport and AFC Blackpool), so he was lacking match practice. It made it impossible to form a valid opinion of him as such. That said, I said he looked decent that game against Forest where he took a pasting from our fans. He got one against Villa too when he looked injured and was out of position.

 

Why is it, if you are negative , its because you have the balls to have an opinion , but if you are positive , its because of the sake of it , a tad hypocritical for me

 

There are some but a greater number who if we had lost 76 nil against Barnstable United would still thing everything was rosy. For us in the middle ground it makes life difficult.

 

I've already explained that one.

 

Never thought for a millisecond that we'd be this year's Rotherham.

 

20/20 hindsight is fantastic, isn't it?

There are plenty of people on this board who now share completely different opinions about players, tactics and the management than they harboured a couple of weeks ago.

 

I will be the first to admit that I predicted a real season of struggle. I am very optimistic as a reds fan but thought we would really find it tough this year.

Delighted with the lads progress season far.

 

I hold my hands up to say i was in the category of this years Rotherham ...why should that make me a negative poster... it was my opinion given that we had either returned or sold the majority of our best players...that was my conclusion...the ones that are gloating if gloating is the correct word are maybe the very same people who if it had all gone Tits up would have been the very same people shouting from the roof tops we shouldnt have gone down the route of selling our best players and Hecky and the board should go.
we arent half way through the season and theres a 50...50 chance we could still be relegated ( God forbid ) ...its only a few weeks since a certain poster was giving it gloat gloat gloat on the said subject after i think 8 games and he was brought to task.
It might be that im 60 year old but it just seems like play ground squabbles to me and most of the squabbling is done by those you'd think old enough to know better...Hemsworth tyke being the exception to the rule ...if you get my drift ....One team a few thousand different opinions....lol

 

Mate you could power the national grid with the amount of wanking you do after a defeat.

 

Dunt really work that one I'm afraid "mate".

Any evidence for this load of ********?

 

i wish i could power the national grid ...id gladly **** after a defeat.....mind you id sell tickets ...pmsl

mind you Hemsy would most likely start a thread saying im doing it wrong and i should bring someone in who could do it better...

 

Being this years' Rotherham doesn't have to mean that we ended up with exactly the same points tally as them. As I recall it was used as an analogy to suggest that after a good season we'd have a very bad season which after the January transfer window shenanigans wasn't such an outlandish or overly negative prediction.

Hecky has worked wonders again and we're looking every bit the competitive championship team we did pre January last season.

 

I think we'll be next seasons Rotherham

 

I am not going to try and deny that I thought it was a distinct possibility at the start of the season that we would be this year's Rotherham. It didn't necessarily mean that we would get the same points as them. It meant that it was a distinct possibility that we would struggle all season at the bottom and looked doomed with a long way to go. I don't think having such thoughts was ridiculous at the time.

Right now, things are looking like that was overly negative assessment and I am thrilled to be wrong. I am liking the look of this team more and more with every passing week and think there are a number of real stars in it. And they all seem ready to die for the cause, which I love.

I don't think a couple of great results mean that we need to get carried away and still think we will be bottom half at the season's end. But if we stay well away from the bottom 3, which I now think we will be, comfortably, then that will be a fantastic outcome. There are more than 3 far worse teams than us, that much is already clear.

 

Given Hecky has the final say on who is signed, he's proven himself a very good manager and we've a recent history of scouting out good players, it was an odd decision for folk to be writing off the team before they've barely kicked a ball. Sure there was some waiting around for the players, but the patience looks to have brought in some good signings.

The fact we're better off than last season at this point (and whilst dropping a further 7 points from winning positions at home) shows we're more than capable of competing.

 

Have to admit I was afraid of what might happen. No Chief Exec for ages, late recruitment, loss of more good players and a squad that was very young even by our standards. There was potential for difficulty there. What has actually happened has been quite remarkable. Not only are we competitive but we are playing some very entertaining football at times. And the spirit and organisation within the team is absolute testimony to the ability of Hecky and his staff. The biggest challenge of the takeover now is to ensure Hecky's long term future at the club - in so far as it remains in our power to do so.

Regarding how people look at things, I don't think those who see the worst case scenario are necessarily all miserable ********. It's a way of trying to insulate yourself from the inevitable occasional (frequent?) disappointments involved in following any sport. What separates folk within that class is the ability to recognise when things are actually going better than anticipated, rather than continuing to maintain that everything is terrible despite mounting evidence to the contrary. I've wavered between happy clapper and doomsayer in my near-on fifty years of following the Reds. But now I'm demanding a new category - I am officially one of the "PLEASANTLY SURPRISED!"