Worried

[dickos1]

It won the chuffing league

[Copps is Magic]

Top three teams in this league are currently Burton, Gillingham and Walsall. They won't have had much bigger budgets than us this season if at all. All you need for success in this league is a competitive budget (and we certainly had that this season as the Port Vale chairman indicated himself) and then to get the on field matters right.

I don't go in for this mellow dramatic why don't we increase the budget indefinitely stuff. The revenue gap between the championship and league one is so big I don't really think it's worth worrying about attendances that much either if you have a concerted effort to try and get out of it. Given the cost cutting exercise that happened in January, I take it that will happen next season.

[MachoMadness]

Think it comes down to the manager and board working as one, having a vision and a goal and building a squad rather than just picking up misfits and castoffs who happen to become available. Penney, Saunders and SOD all had a clear ethos and built a squad to fit. Dickov never had that and just signed a bunch of misfits, basically, leaving DF to pick up the pieces. Money helps achieve those goals, but first we need our identity back so we know what to spend it on.

[MrFrost]

Frosty

Pointless discussion once again. You dismiss a title winning side because it had no quality.

Bye.

All pointless because you say so.

Thankfully, I pay little attention to your posts, although mine clearly hit a nerve with you.

[wilts rover]

Mr Frost

The team who are 5 points clear at the top of the league, 27 ahead of us, brought in 8 players during the summer, guess how much they paid for these 8 in total? Yes, nothing, they were all free transfers. To strengthen their squad for a promtion push in January they brought in Stephen Bywater. They have four players on loan.

Thats the team 5 points clear at the top of the league, 27 ahead of us, who have got there reliant on free transfers and loans.

It isn't working for us though is it?

Go on have a guess how much Gillingham have spent? The team in second place 22 points ahead of us.

If only we could match the budget of these two clubs and 'the likes of' big spending Walsall, Southend, Port Vale and Rochdale.

[MrFrost]

Think it comes down to the manager and board working as one, having a vision and a goal and building a squad rather than just picking up misfits and castoffs who happen to become available. Penney, Saunders and SOD all had a clear ethos and built a squad to fit. Dickov never had that and just signed a bunch of misfits, basically, leaving DF to pick up the pieces. Money helps achieve those goals, but first we need our identity back so we know what to spend it on.

I'm not sure we have an identity now Macho.

You mentioned those managers and goals. They all had one common factor driving their goals, which I feel we are sadly missing at the moment.

[vaya]

Frosty

Missing the point mate. Point being that you've assumed that we can only pick up dross on free transfers and loans. Whereas the record shows that we can and have picked up some all-time greats on free transfers over the past few years.

It's down to the manager's skills and the salaries. Increasingly, at this level, paying mo Ey for signings is fan porn. Makes you feel satisfied but it's not where the real work on building a team goes.

The last team we had of any real quality at this level was built on a sizeable transfer budget.

The Saunders team was devoid of any real quality.

Appeared to have had sufficient quality to get promoted automatically.

[vaya]

Free transfers since we got back into the League include.

Rob Jones
Chris Brown
Richie Wellens (twice)
Paul Green
David Cotterill
Billy Paynter
John Oster
Neil Sulivan
Andy Williams

Money signings include
Sean Thornton
Theo Robinson
Byron Webster
Harry Forrester

Just saying, like.

Using examples for your argument I see BST

Money signings also include

Billy Sharp
James Hayter
Matt Mills
Jimmy O Connor
Brian Stock
Paul Heffernan
Gareth Roberts

Just saying like

Mills was on loan when we were promoted.

[MachoMadness]

Think it comes down to the manager and board working as one, having a vision and a goal and building a squad rather than just picking up misfits and castoffs who happen to become available. Penney, Saunders and SOD all had a clear ethos and built a squad to fit. Dickov never had that and just signed a bunch of misfits, basically, leaving DF to pick up the pieces. Money helps achieve those goals, but first we need our identity back so we know what to spend it on.

I'm not sure we have an identity now Macho.

You mentioned those managers and goals. They all had one common factor driving their goals, which I feel we are sadly missing at the moment.

Well yeah, which is my point. We still need to find one which won't happen mid-season - we lost all that under Dickov and the dead wood is still weighing us down.

[Bentley Bullet]

That league winning side was the worst league winning side I've ever seen, although the comparative quality of it compared to our current side is, well beyond comparison.

Spurr......Cotterill...........Brown..................................Even Furman, Hume and Bennett are mouth watering memories in comparison to the present lot.


Apart from Connor Grant of course. When he plays well, we win. When he plays bad we lose, and when he doesn't play.......We're absolutely shite.

[Chris Black come back]

I don't think we need to worry too much about the budget. It will always be one of the larger budgets in this league.
 
Look at the miracle that Saunders performed in taking us to top of table. That was a squad with the odd 'star' (Brown, Cotterill) but the rest were honest and committed players without a massive name attached to them. Getting them all working together towards a clearly understood game plan (winning by playing the worst possible football) was more important.

I think we have to put more emphasis on the manager folks rather that retreating to comfort zone of stacks of cash that are never going to materialise these days.

[The Red Baron]

TRB.

None of the bottom 7 currently has a season long PPG close to 52 points. Only one (Blackpool) is currently on target for more than 47.5 points.

If 52 points ends up being the target, 4 of the bottom 7 are going to have to up their performance significantly over the next 15-17 games. None of them are looking like going so at the moment.

As I said, 48-49 might be enough, but I wouldn't bank on it.

I hope we're not scratching around for that sort of total anyway, but it's hard to be optimistic after a performance like yesterday's.

[BillyStubbsTears]

TRB

If we ARE scratching around for those sorts of points totals, I hope we go it with a bit more analysis and sense than we did 3 years ago.

[dickos1]

We will have 50 points by the end of March

[The Red Baron]

TRB

If we ARE scratching around for those sorts of points totals, I hope we go it with a bit more analysis and sense than we did 3 years ago.

That is true. It didn't make sense to try and chase three points when we could have banked one and moved on. Although I'm not sure this team is very well equipped for shutting up shop.

[Rich_The_Conisbrough_Rover]

Next season will be different, personally I think the back room staff and DF are already planning ahead. Let's get the 50 points needed for survival and concentrate on a good summer break and come back bigger and better next season. 

[Bentley Bullet]

That's always intrigued me, how do you play for a draw?

[BillyStubbsTears]

BB

Go and look at the second half of the Reading match in April 2014 and have a think.

[Bentley Bullet]

BST

So removing the hindsight factor, How do you know we'd have drawn that game had we shut up shop?

[Bentley Bullet]

BST

Also removing the hindsight factor, how do you know we only needed a point to avoid relegation at that point?

[BillyStubbsTears]

BB

1) I don't know that we'd have gained a point if we'd shut up shop. What I do know (no hindsight; I was screaming it with the veins on my neck bulging at the time) was that chucking on an unfit Wellens for Furman at 1-1 was making it far more difficult to cling on for a point. And so it proved. Wellens hardly moved as the Reading midfield took us apart.

2) I couldn't say for certain that 1 point would have been enough. But in that situation, you play the percentages. The real world ain't like Hollywood, with Bruce Willis ripping his shirt off and taking on the entire Universe against all the odds. It's about making sensible compromises. In that situation, on that day, at that time, 45 points would have given us a far better chance of staying up than 44. Going balls out for the Hail Mary option might look good in the movies, but it often ends up with the real world kicking you in the b*llocks. As it did that day.

(And none of that is hindsight either - go and look st what I'd been predicting for the safety target since January of that year.)

[Campsall rover]

The board have clearly stated their goal is to get back to the championship as quickly as possible.
Does any body think DF would have taken the job at Rovers if he thought their was no ambition from the owners!
DF said himself that their is tremendous potential and the club is extremely well run.
He will have discussed budgets for next season before accepting the job.
I would be surprised if there are more than 5 clubs in league 1 this season with larger budgets than us.
Stop moaning let's face it Dickov was a nice guy but he messed up big time and it will take Fergie 18 months at least to sort it out. Give him time Rome wasn't built in a day. If we don't get promoted next season and I believe we will be very close to it if we don't achieve it, we will be promoted the following season.
Patience patience patience. 

[Bentley Bullet]

BST

Playing for a point by shutting up shop could have been disastrous even if it had paid off. What if Birmingham had then gone on to beat Wigan at home three days later?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Anybody got a brick wall so I can just cut out the middle man?

[Bentley Bullet]

AND you still haven't explained how you play for a draw.

[BillyStubbsTears]

*Big deep breath*

You don't "play for a draw". Anymore than you "play for a win".

You make decisions about whether you put the emphasis on holding and absorbing, or on attacking and taking risks.

Is that alright for you now? Can we move on.

[BobG]

Some people are born great Billy. Some people achieve greatness. And some have greatness thrust upon them....

Cheers!

BobG

[Campsall rover]

Let's face it if we had gone on to get promoted this season how many of our current squad would have been good enough to keep us their.
The only ones worth keeping would have been
Stuckman, Coppinger, Keegan, Williams and due to their ages I would say Evina, Lund, Middleton, and Mandeville.
So we would have needed 14 new signings just to take the squad size to 22
So in hindsight getting promoted this season would be one season too early as DF would not have been able to unload some of the players due to contracts extending into next season.

[Bentley Bullet]

No mate, not really. If you don't know that a draw will be sufficient you play for a win. Besides, against a quality team trying for the play-offs, attempting to hold and absorb them could have been disastrous.

[BillyStubbsTears]

As opposed to the astonishingly successful approach we actually took?

I'll have one last go before I curl up in the foetal position in despair.

It wasn't about whether 1 point or 3 points were the better option. If it was, anyone would have gone for 3 points.

There was a third possibility. The one that we actually ended up with. The possibility of getting zero points.

What we did in the final 25 minutes of that game was unforgivable in those circumstances. At 1-1, we had a decent chance of staying up. It meant that Birmingham (who were shit) had to get two points from their final two games to pip us, even if we got zero at Leicester. By going balls out for a win against a very good dude who were battering us in the second half, we effectively threw away any chance of holding onto one point. And that tipped the odds dramatically towards Birmingham.

It was f**king stupid. It was taking the infantile approach without thinking the situation through.

Your approach by the way, taken to its conclusion, means that you should never dig in and try to grind out a draw. Because that point might not be good enough at the end of the season. You should always throw caution to the wind and try to win every match, regardless of circumstances.