Turgid, attritional

[drfchound]

Dutch

My two pennorth.

1) That side in 15/16 was gutless and not particularly strong. Looking at the players who played a lot of games in that run, it's not really surprising that we went down. Dickov left us with a squad where the players who had grit had no talent and the ones who had talent had no grit. And certainly Ferguson didn't help himself with his loan signings. But just look at the list of some of the players who played a large number of those games.

Evina
ATS
Lund
Calder
Stewart
Gooch
Middleton

Kids, (or good impressions of kids) let down by some woeful performances from senior pros like Tyson, Williams and Chaplow. The wonder is that Ferguson managed to take that squad to the top half before they collapsed. The current squad is stronger in pretty much every position.

2) The bad run t the end of last season and the start of this. It's no coincidence that the most important player in the squad was missing for most of that run. If Baudry stays fit this year, we're more likely to finish in the top 10 than the bottom 4.

Gooch only made 10 appearances and Calder had 12.
Some of those would have been sub appearances.

Also DF didnt help the situation by setting the team up to play in a way that didn't work with the players he had at the time.

[Chris Black come back]

Actually Ferguson issued a public ‘call to arms’ urging the players to push on for the title.

If memory serves me correct, we then failed to win another game, losing almost all of them.

[since-1969]

Actually Ferguson issued a public ‘call to arms’ urging the players to push on for the title.

If memory serves me correct, we then failed to win another game, losing almost all of them.

Don’t you just hate it when than happens !

[DonnyBazR0ver]

Actually Ferguson issued a public ‘call to arms’ urging the players to push on for the title.

If memory serves me correct, we then failed to win another game, losing almost all of them.

He let them go out on the piss to celebrate promotion before the season had finished, which I thought was bad considering the job of winning the title wasn't done. He since admitted it was a mistake.

[Jonathan]

Let me use a blunter proxy then. We have an average home gate of 8,300 which places us at #9 in League One. Unless our owners are picking the pockets of fans, we will all things just about equal have more or less a top ten budget.

Perhaps SM could give some broad indication - do we have a top half of bottom half budget this season, as far as we know?

Unless our owners are picking the pockets of fans? Seriously? Would that be to suppose that football clubs break even based on attendances? Surely not. All things simply are not equal in that assumption so it’s worthless.

I think our average attendances have increased because the owners have made a noticeable effort to set prices for the younger market aimed at growing the future of the club. I’m very happy with that, but I fail to see how it indicates where our transfer budget ranks in this division. I haven’t got a clue on that, neither have you.

What I do know is that we’ve started in a way that is around what you’d expect from a mid table team. And before the season began, most sounded like they would be happy with that. In doing so, it’s particularly important to be able to go away from home and pick up points like the one on Saturday. It’ll be even harder tonight.

What really does need to improve if we are to push on is the home form. I think everyone knows that. Going away to a play off chasing team and coming back with a point and a clean sheet is a sign of increasing resilience, even if it’s not pretty. There have been many times that people have called for just that.

[Chris Black come back]

It would be hard I would think not to accept the general rule that bigger attendences = bigger budgets. There may be some exceptions, but they are just that - exceptions.

I think the owners have done a fantastic job. The point is that we are sixth from bottom and have rarely risen higher all season - yet it would be hard to imagine that our budget is the sixth smallest. Indeed, we are told that it is “competitive” which most folk would accept means around average. We have though been consistently below average this season.

I also agree that the owners have made a welcome decision to keep season ticket prices down as much as possible. However, relatively for this league they are quite high. The average adult season ticket price is only beaten by six other clubs and the average young adult season ticket is around average for the league. For kids it is obviously a lot better. 

Also interested in the mid-table end point argument. There could be a reason for this, but why would a mid-table finish be expected to start with an early season performance that has consistently been in the bottom quarter? It could end up mid-table, but equally a club like Shrewsbury could collapse and end up mid-table. As I say, there could be a reason to suggest as you have, but I have missed this.

[BillyStubbsTears]

CBCB

why would a mid-table finish be expected to start with an early season performance that has consistently been in the bottom quarter?

But as I keep pointing out and you keep ignoring, we HAVEN'T consistently been in bottom quarter form.

We were at the start of the season. Just like Penney's team in 03/04 and O'Driscoll's team in 08/09. For the past 10 games, we've been in top 10 form. It's not stretching it too far to say that with a very small amount of luck, we would have been in play-off form over the past 10 games.

Strange that you won't acknowledge that.

[Chris Black come back]

Comrade.

I did not use “form” in the highlighted section. I used “performance”.

We have not I think been out of the bottom quarter since August. Perhaps on the odd day or so. That suggests strongly a bottom quarter performance.

[BillyStubbsTears]

CBCB

I'm trying to help you here mate. You're in danger of making the mistake that I made in 07/08 and 08/09.

My mistake then was being so convinced of the shortcomings of our manager that, by this time of the season, I was looking only at the overall "performance" (which was dire) and I was ignoring fact that performances on the pitch and results were starting to turn round. 

In both cases, I was extrapolating the "performance" of the first 15-18 matches through to the end of the season and expecting that we were in for an unsuccessful time. I over-focussed on the shortcomings and stayed blind to the improvements. I ended up looking a bit daft as a result.

Don't take it personally if I say I hope and think you and Copps might end up looking a bit daft over your anslyses here.

[Pancho Regan]

Bury and Plymouth would need to start playing title winning form to catch us or we would have to significantly drop our form.
So two places left

This struck me as a highly optimistic statement when I read it, and it looks even more so after last night's results.

[drfchound]

Five of the six teams below us picked up points last night.

[dickos1]

Bury and Plymouth would need to start playing title winning form to catch us or we would have to significantly drop our form.
So two places left

This struck me as a highly optimistic statement when I read it, and it looks even more so after last night's results.

The point was, people were saying if we carry on at our ppg for the rest of the season we will end up with 51 points, and for bury and Plymouth to reach 51 points they would need almost promotion form

[dickos1]

Five of the six teams below us picked up points last night.

Rochdale and Northampton both lost

[drfchound]

Yeah you are right, i feel much better now that only four of the six picked up points.

Do you feel as though we have spoken about this before ?

[dickos1]

Ha
Well don't put the same incorrect things on two different posts then 👍

[drfchound]

Ha
Well don't put the same incorrect things on two different posts then 👍

mmmmmm, you did correct me on two posts though. 

[RoversAlias]

To be fair though, a few weeks ago we won a game (might've been Bury, might've been before that) and gained points on almost the entire division because there were about 8 draws in 12 matches. Ebb and flow of a football season.

[i_ateallthepies]

Bury and Plymouth would need to start playing title winning form to catch us or we would have to significantly drop our form.
So two places left

This struck me as a highly optimistic statement when I read it, and it looks even more so after last night's results.

The point was, people were saying if we carry on at our ppg for the rest of the season we will end up with 51 points, and for bury and Plymouth to reach 51 points they would need almost promotion form

You do talk some nonsense most of the time Dickos.  Wigan are going at 2.17ppg.  For Bury to get 51 points they need to go at 1.3ppg, not even close to 'almost promotion form'.

[dickos1]

To get to the playoffs you need around 1.4-1.5 ppg. For them to get to 51 points they'd need 1.3 so not far off really is it.
And as they're current rate is 0.84 it's quite a significant improvement needed.

[since-1969]

Play offs !!! 

[drfchound]

Play offs !!! 

Are you thinking that Dickos is suggesting that we might get to the play offs ?

[dickos1]

Probably