28 days in

And the board have singularly failed to help the Head Coach out by strengthening a squad who's quality drops off a cliff after the first 11 players, and instead have chosen to rob him of a player for the last 2 matches who would have significantly improved the team because they are desperately trying to extract the maximum cash for him.

Instead, Collins is hung out to dry and has to field the clearly below standard trio of Russell, Shepherd and one of Watters and Cosgrove (admittedly obviously the wrong one) and we lose ground on the main contenders.

Idiots criticised Duff for walking away when he was clearly willing to stay for the long run if he had been backed in any sort of way, and if this month of incompetence continues who can blame Collins if he departs in similar circumstances this summer.

28 more days of inaction and ineptitude. Rubbish.

Spectemur Agendo.

 

Have your opinions, but don't make **** up to back up your arguments mate.

 

We have nothing to worry about, we’ve just been linked with a LB from Newport who’s played 5 games in League 2 this season. Let’s not stress about it…..

 

8 years at Cheltenham as a player
12 years at Burnley as a player
5 years at Cheltenham as a manager

Yeah, he seems like a real flit about, fly-by-night, chase the money guy.

He was explicitly clear he was up for staying for the long haul. Widely quoted by many of the divs on here. Yet it's only us that he walked out on after 2 minutes. Funny that.

 

I always took it Duff left because we missed out on promotion. We lost on 29th May and he was off to Swansea by 22 June. Had we gone up we’d have probably been able to sign Bobby Thomas and Isted, and hopefully Mads and Kitching.

I think he believed he’d done as well as possible short of getting promoted, and went out with his stock high, for better money and supposedly better players to work with.

Bit harsh to say he wasn’t backed in any way, because we signed Norwood early on and also Isted and Thomas were very useful additions.

 

May be things happening which you're unaware of.
May be potential deals on the table conditional upon Styles moving on.
Always morbidly fascinating to see criticism of tbe club when people don't have all the facts before them.

 

I don't doubt there are things i'm unaware of. I certainly bloody hope so. The fact remains that it's now the 28th January and there's a palpable failure so far to address a demonstrable need. Dress it up how you like but those are the unarguable fact so far.

Are you somehow trying to say we shouldn't offer an opinion an anything unless we are privy to every element of the clubs inner workings? If so, let's shut this board down now.

 

Didn’t get the chance to walk at Swansea!

 

1 defeat in 12 games is hardly car crash stuff, for sure we need strengthening but a team consisting of Kane, connell and hopefully pines would look significantly better.
January is a difficult window the low hanging fruit of the summer window isn't there, it maybe that what we want to fit the model and budget just isn't available, if that's the case it's pointless signing players fir the sake.

The pines deal on balance looks great business but anybody who thought we'd be going crazy is deluded. Neerav said at the last engagement that money was available if the right player was available, I doubt they've been sat doing nothing it's just a difficult window, I think it will be a couple of loans which usually go to the wire with players moving in to the parent club freeing them up.

 

We needed bodies and freshening up on Jan 1st it’s unforgivable that the only action is a CH who’s going to take ages to get up to speed, the 11 game run just papered over the cracks the entertainment has been very poor but we’ve left it till the end of the window yet again!
If players leave which seems likely it will be too late and the season will fizzle out.
As much as I don’t like Kane and Styles can only be bothered occasionally yesterday we were thread bare.

 

Of course not, but just like you I'm expressing an opinion.

 

We do need strengthening but if they aren't the right fit it's pointless.
Nice to see McCarthy start for Swindon yesterday so can only presume been left out of the squad not based on fitness, perhaps his face didn't fit, wonder if it's the same with Cundy, both of whom would have arguably been better options.

 

Probably sane with Lopata too he was our best defender till getting injured now he’s Sat getting splinters whilst Shepherd gets hung out to dry.

 

Problem is that we’ve recruited so much rubbish before and now have a bloated squad sadly lacking in quality. So many poor players are stuck on long contracts and no one wants them. Our wage bill must be massive for a league one club.

 

I prefer to wait until Friday morning to judge IF the only business we do is Pines as important signing he will hopefully he turns out to be it will be very disappointing to say the least. The waters we swim in are always going to be waiting to see what players other clubs can bring in, we aren't going to make an offer no one can refuse. Hopefully some good will come out of yesterday we have been getting away with it the under belly is very soft,they still have chance to do something about it.we are still in with a chance with automatic let's just keep our powder dry for a few more days and hope they can see it.

 

We used to have a sign on the wall at our local football club it said “ Fail to prepare Prepare to Fail “ maybe we ought to get one for the directors room ?

 

Russell
Cosgrove
Watters
Sheperd
Lopata
O'Keefe
Killip
Cundy
Benson

All the above out of their depth or injury prone, & all of the above we rely on for cover & a couple regular starters lately.
This just shows how much we are lacking in depth, particularly when Connell has been out for the majority of the season so far, we have inferior quality to replace him with.
Recruitment has been absolutely pathetic to be honest.

One player signed after we already established he's not good enough
Two of the players signed from non league
One of them signed from the worst team in the league last season
The goalkeeper signed from lowly Hartlepool, he wasn't even their no.1!
The latter 2 its been apparent for a while now they are babba.
Cosgrove the only signing that made sense at the time, but for whatever reason hasn't had a proper run of games.

 

There's always somewhat of a domino effect it may well be we've got things in place but other clubs are also waiting for incoming deals to be done before letting players leave and so on and so on, pretty sure that's what's happening with Styles, allowed to go but only if we can get ours in.

 

100% a very difficult window is January lots of teams fighting for something be it promotion or relegation and don't want to come out of window weaker,very much as you say domino effect.

 

It's difficult really. Where we shop we generally have to wait for the scraps at the end of the window - but obviously we really need to strengthen, particularly the defence and up top.

Just goes to show how good of a job Collins is doing tbf.