Luton

Struggled to get in the side when fit this season for Luton.

 

What grates with me about the Luton situation is that after their surprise playoff campaign they've built on it, whereas we completely fcked things up, despite them almost certainly having a budget no bigger than ours. Luton seem to be able to keep their squad together for more than 5 minutes. Why can't we?

 

I agree with the majority of your post but Woodrow didn’t give his all in his last season with us. He just didn’t. I watched him regularly shirk tackles & not challenge for headers.

He was still a very good player for us overall but he didn’t give his all in the relegation season.

 

I suspect Luton's wage bill is a lot higher than ours. It must be or there's no way they'd have been able to keep or attract the players that they have.

 

Simples ...but to some its all about the dosh.. must be socialists

 

So much this. The whole squad had lost any confidence, but his was the first head to drop when we conceded and I saw nothing to justify him wearing the captain's armband. No rallying, no encouraging, just a slow trudge back to halfway. His challenges for high balls had just become him backing in and throwing himself to the floor when the defender inevitably won the ball. It upset, rather than annoyed me, as I know he's a class player and couldn't understand why him and so many others had apparently just downed tools. I hope he gets back to full fitness and can play a part for Luton, hopefully in the Prem.

 

They released Jerome & Snodgrass last summer who will have been on decent wages.

Sold Bree & Cornick.

Managed to get the keeper, Dramah & Nakamba in on loan.

I really doubt Lockyer, Bell, Bradley, Berry, Doughty, Clark, Mpanzu, Adebayo are on big money. All come from lower leagues or cast offs from teams higher up the pecking order.

Even someone like Lansbury was released by Bristol before Luton got him & is towards the tail end of his career.

I would imagine Morris & Woodrow are the two biggest earners at the club & they won’t be on that much. We were touting both round to get them off the wage bill & there wasn’t a load of interest.

 

I'd expect Woodrow to be loaned out to a championship club next season if Luton get promoted.
Maybe us ?

 

Maybe. But if so, they have to be running at a huge loss, bearing in mind the capacity of their ground.

 

A championship club? Can't see it I think his best days are past him. Often injured when not injured struggled to get any game time. Past 18 months here he wasn't great. League one team will probably take him on loan would be my guess.

BTW that's not a dig at a ex player just an opinion I like django didn't think he was great the last 18 months here and I think he would struggle to find a championship team to take him on loan.

 

Motm last night!

 

They appointed someone who got sacked by Watford weeks before who had managed in the Championship for about four months because he fit their profile. It smacks of a plan, clarity of what they are & need and recruitment based on it. Ultimately, whilst I loved Val, he was an anomaly against the managers we'd appointed previously and the shift from him to Schopp was just massive. Coupled with us losing Mowatt & Dike and we were doomed.

But, in summary, I agree.

 

having watched both the games I can see why, they're about as subtle as a brick in the face, I hope they go up and get 0 points.

 

Styles been same for years he must have known that before he went. Why do you hope they go up and get 0 points? I can think of other premier league teams I'd enjoy to see get 0 points before Luton.

 

Were we doomed though? We only signed Dike in January when we were already going well. We identified readily enough that Schopp was a mistake, but then employed another gamble. Personally, I think if we'd have employed Warnock in the autumn and Morris had been fit all season we'd have finished mid-table. Even with Morris injured, with Warnock at the helm we'd have stayed up in my opinion.

 

Not getting Warnock in ranks with the most stupid management decisions this club has made, and its no even in hindsight - many people were asking for him, and he said he'd come as well, whoever didn't follow up or thought they knew better needs to give up on football and go do something else.

 

Shifting from val to schopp was massive, value football wasn't pretty far from it but it was organised and got results. We were really punching above our weight. Get the ball up field win the 2nd balls keep it in their half. If we had tried to play the likes of Bournemouth and play a passing game we would have got hammered.
We then went from one of the most organised teams under val to the most disorganised under schopp. I couldn't tell you what schopps style of play was it was so bad. One ball behind our wing backs and we were ****** Added to the fact we lost mowatt and palmer looked lost and Styles wasn't good or strong enough to play center midfield in the championship we were ******.

 

Do you think Luton would've employed someone like Warnock? Probably not, because he doesn't fit their model.

My point about being doomed was the fact that we changed so drastically the style of manager & ultimately the style of play expected. Val came in & built on Struber with some tweaks - Schopp basically wanted to take lads who 9 months before were being told to kick it out of play from kick off and get them playing out from the back. Just too big a shift imho.