Unity is strength

Yes & we also have to consider missed chances which have cost us big time , for example we are winning against Norwich & Moore & Thiam miss gobbers to make the game safe , we can go on forever & thats why when I say if we get relegated , you cannot blame individuals , its the team collectively which should shoulder the blame & there is no need to look for scapegoats . Out of interest , do you consider clean sheets down to the goalkeeper ? I personally I think you defend from the front but ultimately we have defensive midfielders & a back line , they all make mistakes & they are all culpable . I also think there is more than clean sheets that dictate your points tally, we simply have not scored enough goals either

 

I'm just saying that clean sheets are worth more than goals, and we should have had several more but haven't because of the cack goalkeeping.

 

Yes, our keeping has been below par, but our defending and midfield cover has been lamentable at times. You can't expect any keeper to save every shot, so the first thing to do is minimise the number of shots and balls into the box. We've been terrible at doing that and we've been punished time and again for it.

It's a team game - individual errors might cost you, but you win or lose as a team. If the keeper costs us a goal, there are more than enough minutes in a game to compensate for it. Not saying I don't wish we'd signed another keeper, but if we go down it'll be due to a lot more factors than goalkeeping errors.

 

Indeed it is a team game, but you're only as good as your weakest player - and having a good Goalie has an effect on the entire team, as Brian Clough said when talking about the deciding factor in their 2 european cups and league title :-

"I was asked by someone on our board why we should bother to spend so much cash on a guy who might not be in the game for 85 minutes, Shilton was the deciding factor. I'd have paid almost any price. With Shilton in goal, it gave everyone else more confidence. It spread throughout the side. We were full of ourselves."

 

We will have to agree to disagree , there has been plenty of cack defending that have cost us clean sheets as well as goalkeeping errors , they are all culpable & its wrong to look for individual scapegoats

 

My thoughts exactly.

 

The key thing (if we go down) will be what will the new owners do if we find ourselves in the same situation of other clubs wanting our best players.

You would hope that they fully understand what happened, and how far it has set us back.

 

As before, I think it will depend on contracts mostly. I’m not massively up to date with our players contract situation but I’m guessing Bradshaw will probably be coming into his final year next season so I wouldn’t be totally surprised if he was off. Although I like Bradshaw and could see him scoring at least 20+ in league one.

I would guess our centre backs would be the most in demand but they should all be on decent length contracts so I would say that unless a silly offer comes in, they should stay.

 

Sorry, should have made clearer.

I meant what would happen if we came back up and had a similar January to 2017 where we were doing OK and our players were again catching the eye.

You would hope that the new guys work a bit harder to keep our best players and have the contracts sewn up to favour us.

 

Oh I get what you mean.

You’d like to think so. Not only with us having more money, I’d also hope that we’ve learnt from the mistakes and we will have some know how with it.

That’s potentially very far down the line to be worrying about it now though!