Stronger or weaker?

[ROKERITE]

I fancied you for promotion last season and I do for the coming one. Obviously 23-24 was unusual with such a dreadful first 2/3rds and almost brilliant ending.

Do you think you'll carry on where you left off or are the players lost going to leave you weaker? From what I can gather five of the fourteen players used in the outstanding 0-2 first-leg win at Crewe have departed; Lo=Tutala (on loan from Hull), Adalakun, Biggins, Craig and Rowe. Am I right? How big a blow is their loss? Are you confident the new signings will more than compensate for those who've gone?

Looking forward to another season watching you progress from a distance.

[Donnywolf]

Well , if you trawl this forum you will probably find

Tommy Rowe probably had to go. Been magnificent Player for Club but time and tide etc

TL-T may have stayed if we had pulled off a miracle finish and played a Div higher

Ditto Craig. One for the future and Spurs will want him at least a Div higher

Biggins splits the Forum maybe 50/50

Adelakun , some still hopeful , but Clubs higher that us are said to be circling and lots on here are inspired by the replacements for Adel and the others

Chelsea keeper on a Season long loan and a few other decent looking signings as well

[Alan Southstand]

One hell of a question to answer, that, Rokerite. No easy answer to it, either. For me, GM has been very shrewd in the transfer market, bringing in, at least on paper, good solid replacements in all departments.
New young keeper from Chelsea, and it’s anyone’s guess whether he’ll fill the boots left by TLT.
Nixon back from Hull, this time on a permanent deal. A couple of midfield players that should be able to at least replicate what Rowe and Biggins brought to last season’s squad.
Up front, of course, we have our own striker back, who was injured most of last season - Miller - he’ll be like a new signing. Then, of course, we’ve brought in Billy Sharp, who you’ll know all about.
The only position we need to look at is who replaces the enormous contribution that young Craig made to the heart of the midfield last season. I don’t think we have an out and out replacement in the squad, however GM believes Broadbent will have a say this season. I’m not sure.
Other than that, I think we’re in for a good season.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

Midfield is my concern ultimately and hopefully the new GK can do the job.  We've certainly strengthened the attack but I still worry Craig hasn't been replaced.

[Colemans Left Hook]

I fancied you for promotion last season and I do for the coming one. Obviously 23-24 was unusual with such a dreadful first 2/3rds and almost brilliant ending.

Do you think you'll carry on where you left off or are the players lost going to leave you weaker? From what I can gather five of the fourteen players used in the outstanding 0-2 first-leg win at Crewe have departed; Lo=Tutala (on loan from Hull), Adalakun, Biggins, Craig and Rowe. Am I right? How big a blow is their loss? Are you confident the new signings will more than compensate for those who've gone?

Looking forward to another season watching you progress from a distance.

we didn't have a dreadful 2/3 of the season please break it down into sixth's or eighth's

[DonnyOsmond]

Craig will likely be replaced with Close, he's alright but injury prone. We may yet bring in a loanee aswell.
Rowe's legs had gone, he's been replaced with the energetic and versatile Clifton.
Biggins was a key player for us at the end of the season due to his pressing ability, but had little technical ability. We've replaced him with Sbarra who has both.
Lo Tutala replaced with keeper on loan from Chelsea, we'll see how that goes.
Adelakun gave us the ability to get behind defences, hopefully we've replaced that with Yeboah and Gibson but we'll see.

[GazLaz]

I was thinking about this yesterday funnily enough. Not concluded what I think yet but it’s certainly an interesting one. Given the run you have to fancy us, teams generally carry over good/bad form season to season but I have slight doubts about how we will start. That’s likely to be the overly negative fan in me but don’t think flying out of the blocks is a certainty. Need to look more into things before I really decide though.

[colincramb]

Of all those players that have left, undoubtedly Craig will be the biggest loss, closely followed by TLT in my opinion.

[Alan Southstand]

As a bit of a follow-up to my earlier post, I think this season’s warm up games are going to be very interesting, which is a massive change from the usual ‘I wonder how many triallists we’ll have’.

With perhaps just the odd loan that may or may not come into the squad, we’re pretty much ready to go. GM has been true to his word (and has had the backing required) in getting as many loose ends sorted before we even start pre-season matches.

He has, basically, given himself, and his management team, time to analyse if there is any loose ends that need sorting before August 10th. A lot of our supporters don’t particularly get up for the pre-season matches, but with the changes in personnel that we’ve had, in the areas we’ve had them, I think it adds a bit of spice to these games.

Finally, the other thing that came out of the summer break was the shedding of (and I hate the term) the dead wood. I don’t even need 2 hands to count how many players we now, arguably, need to shed to make the squad as strong as possible.

[GazLaz]

It’s impossible to replace the contribution that TLT and Adelakun added. There was so much over performance there that it just can’t be matched even though their replacements are likely to be great. LM was in the form of his life and Ironside made hay in this system. That’s not Mentioning Craig.

Couple that with the over achievement/ luck we had based on the underlying numbers. The start to the season can only be an anti climax after that.


The realist in me also realises that we also don’t have to achieve the levels of the unbeaten run to gain promotion.

[Colemans Left Hook]

I was thinking about this yesterday funnily enough. Not concluded what I think yet but it’s certainly an interesting one. Given the run you have to fancy us, teams generally carry over good/bad form season to season but I have slight doubts about how we will start. That’s likely to be the overly negative fan in me but don’t think flying out of the blocks is a certainty. Need to look more into things before I really decide though.

for the last 2 years I have said Mansfield wouldn't get promoted because of a small squad -- however they have made some very good signings and they will be very serious contenders this time

- so next Tuesday isn't something to look forward to

could say trouble at mill  (but not at Field Mill) 

This is what I thought about the division at the start of the season --- We all knew the 2 money teams would be up there  and I decided no matter how well Mansfield were doing - it took them a lifetime to lose a league match - the other two would get the check book out  - Stockport brought in lots of players after Christmas after a terrible run

But I didn't fancy putting money On Mansfield to be beaten by a cheque book late in the season - I never even made a prediction on here where we would finish

Will we do a Northampton who recovered after missing out on the play-offs after the "manufactured" was it 7-0 Bristol Rovers win to get promotion ?



Who knows   well done to our member who predicted the winners of all four divisions   ( my begging letter is in the post)

[scawsby steve]

I fancied you for promotion last season and I do for the coming one. Obviously 23-24 was unusual with such a dreadful first 2/3rds and almost brilliant ending.

Do you think you'll carry on where you left off or are the players lost going to leave you weaker? From what I can gather five of the fourteen players used in the outstanding 0-2 first-leg win at Crewe have departed; Lo=Tutala (on loan from Hull), Adalakun, Biggins, Craig and Rowe. Am I right? How big a blow is their loss? Are you confident the new signings will more than compensate for those who've gone?

Looking forward to another season watching you progress from a distance.

I'm probably one of the most negative minded people on here, RI, but I honestly fancy us this season, and the big reason for me is the owner, Terry Bramall, a very wealthy man, taking over as chairman.

The last chairman was dreadful, overseeing 3 years of poor managers, terrible signings, and complete lack of ambition. With Terry at the helm, things have already changed. Grant McCann won't have come for peanuts, and neither will most of this summer's signings, most of whom seem excellent recruitments.

[StocksArmy]

Defence is my worry. We won’t get a full season out of Wood, We never get a full season out of Anderson and Olowu is a liability so I think GM has left us short in that area. McGrath I feel will improve over time but not ready to be first choice and we don’t want to be resorting to Bailey filling in there again.

[DonnyBazR0ver]

It's probably natural to answer the question thinking about how we ended last season however, if we think about how we started last season, then I expect most will say we are looking stronger.

We have a nucleus of players who have been together for at least a season now, and know what McCann expects.

We are not carrying a number of injured players (touch wood). as we suffered with  in the first half of last season.

McCann has managed to assemble a full squad, well in advance of the start of pre season, which allows the new players to get bedded in much sooner.

Taking just those factors into account, we should be making a better start to the campaign, so we shouldn't have to climb to a steep mountain  as we did from February , Then we still have the chance to tweak and enhance things in January if we need to. 

[sedwardsdrfc]

Are we going to be stronger than the in form team that finished last season? Probably not imo. Craig can’t be replaced and Hakeem was in the form of his life.

The good thing is we don’t need to be as good as those last few months. Remember we were completely incompetent for large parts of last season. I don’t see that happening this time and we will have a much better bench by the looks of things.

So on points per game we’ll be stronger but we may never go on a crazy winning streak and hopefully won’t need to.

[Padge_DRFC]

Are we going to be stronger than the in form team that finished last season? Probably not imo. Craig can’t be replaced and Hakeem was in the form of his life.

The good thing is we don’t need to be as good as those last few months. Remember we were completely incompetent for large parts of last season. I don’t see that happening this time and we will have a much better bench by the looks of things.

So on points per game we’ll be stronger but we may never go on a crazy winning streak and hopefully won’t need to.

That run won't happen again ever.

[Monkcaster_Rover]

Are we going to be stronger than the in form team that finished last season? Probably not imo. Craig can’t be replaced and Hakeem was in the form of his life.

The good thing is we don’t need to be as good as those last few months. Remember we were completely incompetent for large parts of last season. I don’t see that happening this time and we will have a much better bench by the looks of things.

So on points per game we’ll be stronger but we may never go on a crazy winning streak and hopefully won’t need to.

That run won't happen again ever.

It may do. It’ll just be that everyone who currently posts on here will be brown bread.

[Drover]

I expect us to be much better this time round than the first two thirds of last season,but not as good as the we was in the run in,think we have strengthened in many areas from the starting squad last season,but not replaced the quality of certain abilities of Craig and Haks.
Hopefully new keeper will be better than we have but doubt he will be as good as TLT was for us.
Replacing Craig is hard if not near impossible for us at this level,and will result in us not controlling games,breaking down and winning/keeping posession of the ball for long periods like we could in the epic run in.
Replacing Haks is not a big loss as many may think,failing to replace him will only result in us missing his pace,directiveness and speed of counter attacks and maybe a few goals less,But we have really strengthened our attacking options and kept the best of our forwards Moly,Ironside,Miller.
So I expect us not to be quite as good as at the end of last season but with us being much better from the begining,I think we will be good enough over the season to win promotion.