Has he gone yet!?

[GazLaz]

McGrath miles ahead of Olowu?! I’ve heard it all now.

He said worst. And I agree. Yet mcGrath has looked like he is nervous as hell this year. Olowu always had major clangers in him and alot of the time was out with injury.

we were patient with Olowu and he came good in the end. Yes he had a mistake in him but he had pace to recover. McGrath for me has struggled at this level. Lots of errors, poor distribution and no pace to recover. Yet he remains in the team week after week. I dont get that!

Olowu’s potential was obvious, he’s a top of league one defender with potential to go further.

When McGrath leaves us he’ll end up in the National league.

McGrath would get in any league 2 side right now.

He wouldn’t.

[BradwellRover]

All I will say is that Grant is very lucky he is at our club, as at almost any other he would have been sacked for that really poor run.

[Thorney]

McGrath miles ahead of Olowu?! I’ve heard it all now.

He said worst. And I agree. Yet mcGrath has looked like he is nervous as hell this year. Olowu always had major clangers in him and alot of the time was out with injury.

we were patient with Olowu and he came good in the end. Yes he had a mistake in him but he had pace to recover. McGrath for me has struggled at this level. Lots of errors, poor distribution and no pace to recover. Yet he remains in the team week after week. I dont get that!

Olowu’s potential was obvious, he’s a top of league one defender with potential to go further.

When McGrath leaves us he’ll end up in the National league.

McGrath would get in any league 2 side right now.

He wouldn’t.

He would get into plenty of league 2 teams.

He was a big part of a league 2 winning team only last season.

He has had a baptism of fire this year but we have a very good chance of surviving relegation whilst being in a stronger league.

Whilst he has had some very poor games, it doesnt help by having a non-existint midfield in front of him (which i think have gotten away with murder this season whilst the defence gets hammered)

He is still young and has lots of improvment infront of him.

[GazLaz]

McGrath miles ahead of Olowu?! I’ve heard it all now.

He said worst. And I agree. Yet mcGrath has looked like he is nervous as hell this year. Olowu always had major clangers in him and alot of the time was out with injury.

we were patient with Olowu and he came good in the end. Yes he had a mistake in him but he had pace to recover. McGrath for me has struggled at this level. Lots of errors, poor distribution and no pace to recover. Yet he remains in the team week after week. I dont get that!

Olowu’s potential was obvious, he’s a top of league one defender with potential to go further.

When McGrath leaves us he’ll end up in the National league.

McGrath would get in any league 2 side right now.

He wouldn’t.

He would get into plenty of league 2 teams.

He was a big part of a league 2 winning team only last season.

He has had a baptism of fire this year but we have a very good chance of surviving relegation whilst being in a stronger league.

Whilst he has had some very poor games, it doesnt help by having a non-existint midfield in front of him (which i think have gotten away with murder this season whilst the defence gets hammered)

He is still young and has lots of improvment infront of him.

He did say any. He wouldn’t get in them all.

[Ian Nimmo]

It’s dull. Same crap every week.

The club is dull as dishwater. Something needs to change.

What does Cliff Byrne do? He’s a defender by trade and all we do is concede goals.

There is only one thing that is dull as dishwater. Its boring and predictable.

We lose, same message.

As he gone yet was my thought, but not Mccann.

I thought we played very well. Hanlan did well up top, which is encouraging.

Personally its just the odd thing, like reactions are slow and we clear the ball, we could clear it anywhere on the pitch but its always straight to their man. Personal errors not the managers fault, but really not much in it really.

Not getting into the McCann in or out debate (it’s not a debate, he should see the full season) but I wouldn’t call our defending from set pieces/balls into the box “personal errors”. It’s the bread and butter for coaches.

They are personal errors on the pitch though. Mols doesn't move at all, lets it go by him, thats not coaching. The balls that go across our box defenders just watch.

Mols was quite close to the goal line and he would have been aware that Byrne was marking there player behind him, unfortunately he wouldn’t have been aware that Byrne had let their player go. You were watching Mols, so you must have seen his the reaction on his face! It was shocking defending by Byrne.

The original post questions the management team and given the amount of goals we have conceded, second worse defensive in the league, it does beg the question who is the defensive coach and what is being worked on in training. Well clearly is not working.

[Usher wide.]

Having turned down an offer of £500k for McGrath we’d be very naive to ‘ditch’ him now.

He’s still very young & probably playing slightly above ‘his level’ right now however, this season can only make him more aware of what he’ll face again next season (I’m not having this we’ll be relegated rubbish) & he’ll think on that, work even harder during the close season & if the club wants to progress then he needs a ‘better & wiser’ head alongside him next season than he’s had since we ‘lost’ O’Riordan.

[Chris Black come back]

23 next month. He’s no youth player any longer.

[wing commander]

   For me I go back to when GM said we were going for two players in each position after last seasons injury's. That's all very good in principle however when you only have a certain amount of budget what you end up with is a squad full of average players and that's what we've got. Mols looks like he's found his level and Bails as much as we love him isn't a championship player imo. The rest are all bottom end league 1 at best so it's no surprise that's where we are.

[steve@dcfd]

In total agreement with that wing commander

[Rupee92ONLY]

We’re constantly talking about how good our medical department is now (no arguments here, must’ve spent a fair whack and Rennie has a great CV) so we can surely afford to have a smaller squad now?

Having a bigger squad has hindered us if anything… It’s given McCann more temptation to rotate the squad on the regular, to try find solutions, rather than building with some stability.*

*our best spells under him have been when naming the 11 was a piece of piss.

[sedwardsdrfc]

Having a big squad is needed for promotion pushes where you need to hit a level every week. A smaller higher quality group might fall short of promotion or top 6 but be nowhere near the drop because they’ll get 3pts regularly. A low quality large squad isn’t much use imo.

But the way Grant has been recently I’d be worried if we had a small squad. He seems to find reasons not to like players he’s signed. Apparently we can afford it with Pearson, Hanlan, Robinson, Haks, Middleton, Ajay, Maxwell, Gotts, Westbrooke, Sbarr, Broadbent, Hurst, Close and probably a few more all been players he’s signed or offered extensions to finding themselves out of favour at various points.

[Padge_DRFC]

Having a big squad is needed for promotion pushes where you need to hit a level every week. A smaller higher quality group might fall short of promotion or top 6 but be nowhere near the drop because they’ll get 3pts regularly. A low quality large squad isn’t much use imo.

But the way Grant has been recently I’d be worried if we had a small squad. He seems to find reasons not to like players he’s signed. Apparently we can afford it with Pearson, Hanlan, Robinson, Haks, Middleton, Ajay, Maxwell, Gotts, Westbrooke, Sbarr, Broadbent, Hurst, Close and probably a few more all been players he’s signed or offered extensions to finding themselves out of favour at various points.

Exactly just burning through money. Unreal

[mpc123]

Burning through money! Cant laugh enough.

[mpc123]

Alot of that squad who werent getting in earlier in the season are now. The cup runs were done by utilising the squad. Unless you want to play the youth team for all those games.

Some data shows this is the list of all clubs, if that is right data, then pretty much same or less than some for squad size.


AFC Wimbledon: ~25 players
Barnsley F.C.: ~26 players
Blackpool F.C.: ~25 players
Bolton Wanderers F.C.: ~27 players
Bradford City AFC: ~26 players
Burton Albion F.C.: ~25 players
Cardiff City F.C.: ~25 players
Doncaster Rovers F.C.: ~26 players
Exeter City F.C.: ~25 players
Huddersfield Town A.F.C.: ~28 players
Leyton Orient F.C.: ~25 players
Lincoln City F.C.: ~25 players
Luton Town F.C.: ~26 players
Mansfield Town F.C.: ~26 players
Northampton Town F.C.: ~25 players
Peterborough United F.C.: ~26 players
Plymouth Argyle F.C.: ~27 players
Port Vale F.C.: ~25 players
Reading F.C.: ~25 players
Rotherham United F.C.: ~26 players
Stevenage F.C.: ~26 players
Stockport County F.C.: ~25 players
Wigan Athletic F.C.: ~25 players
Wycombe Wanderers F.C.: ~25

[Padge_DRFC]

Burning through money! Cant laugh enough.

What do you call making dozens and dozens of signings and binning nearly all of them off?

[mpc123]

Burning through money! Cant laugh enough.

What do you call making dozens and dozens of signings and binning nearly all of them off?

I call it football

[Padge_DRFC]

Burning through money! Cant laugh enough.

What do you call making dozens and dozens of signings and binning nearly all of them off?

I call it football

[Chris Black come back]

We’re playing 3 of the current bottom 4 in the next few weeks, with 2 of them being at home and 1 of them probably against a side already relegated to all intents by the time we play them. We couldn’t have a better opportunity to stay up.

[drfchound]

We’re playing 3 of the current bottom 4 in the next few weeks, with 2 of them being at home and 1 of them probably against a side already relegated to all intents by the time we play them. We couldn’t have a better opportunity to stay up.

Let’s hope we can beat all three of them because I think we need four wins from the last eleven games and maybe a draw or two.

[Chris Black come back]

Port Vale still have to play Blackpool, Wigan and Rotherham. Can’t believe they will be focused on league given the Chelsea game. Or maybe playing for places in that game. Either way they’ve got a major fixture pile up to come. Very major.

[Draytonian III]

Also Port Vale’s game against Stockport will have to be re-arranged as Stockport are playing at Wembley that weekend !!!

[idler]

On the extended highlights of their game against Bradford City they looked terrible. The space for City to attack was unbelievable. City had 33 shots.