Bit behind on this but I think it’s completely unfair to criticise Stendel for his tactics when you consider the lack of options. We can’t go long ball because we don’t have a target man, we don’t have a naturally defensive minded central midfielder with Dougall been injured & we’ve also been without both Diaby & McGeehan for several games & Mowatt’s even missed a game so we’ve simply not had the numbers to shore up the team in the middle of the park. We’ve also only got one defensive minded full back in Pinillos who missed most of pre-season. I’d love to know how he could’ve improved the team defensively given the players we’ve had available? You try & sit 10 men behind the ball with two foreign kids in the middle, two attack minded full backs not going forward & only one defensive minded midfielder who’s actually a full back in Sibbick & I’m pretty certain we’d have no more points but would’ve probably scored even less & been even worse to watch. I said before the international break that Stendel might get the chance to change things now he’s got players coming back available but that was before he left the building so we’ll never know whether he would’ve changed things or not. What I will say is he made us a lot more solid & hard to beat after Kieffer Moore got injured last season & we struggled to score as many so he’d proven he could tighten us up at a lower level.
I'd be surprised, but my point is that despite the fact we've been one of the most prudent clubs we've still always made losses that were covered through various means by Cryne. As per my post the other day though I don't believe being sustainable precludes having some experience. In fact I think it helps.
This season does not end until May 2020. The Financial Statements will not be available to view until March 2021. That is what I call a long wait for a pint.
The fact we have to sign 12 players every summer instead of building and gradually layering is why we incurr losses.
Yeah, I agree. I guess the first part of that strategy is to re-sign key players on longer contracts early, and sign new players on longer term contracts, which we've done. The problem in the short term is that in selling those who won't sign new contracts we've failed to bring in any experience. They've got the long term bit right but knackered it up in the short term. Although I would add we will always be trying to overachieve at championship level if we break even.
Difficult league the Championship. I don't think anyone is under any illusions about that. It's not an impossible league though. But we've made it so.
It definitely looks that way. After the Fulham game first thing I said to my dad was we've clearly signed some really good brave footballers who all want and demand the ball, but where are the old heads and leaders for when we go on a bad run or mistakes creep in?
Everyone has an opinion, yours is stated very eloquently and I think that because of that people can misunderstand that it is still just an opinion.
I have seen lots of impatient postings on here though, teams buy and sell players twice per season, sponsorship deals come out at a maximum of once per season and once these things happen you have to wait and see what happens over a whole season, the best part of a year, before making the next set of changes and going again. Mistakes cannot be fixed overnight.