Next 5 games

Word coming out from the dressing room is they they haven't given up on the idea of climbing out of the relegation zone. That might come across as fantasy to some of us, but there are a bunch of new players and after decent performances against Tranmere and high-flying Coventry (bar the defensive cock-ups) perhaps all is not lost? I reckon the next five games will pretty much tell us seeing that on paper at least, 3 of them are "must wins to have any chance whatsoever" despite the congested schedule.
First Doncaster - the club that made every effort to get us a heavier penalty from the EFL. I've nothing against Darren Moore but their chairman is a twat and I hope we stuff them. Currently they're 8th in league and have only lost 1 in their last 5 so it will be a tough, tough challenge but we couldn't have a bigger incentive than them having it in for us.
Then Wycombe at home, 2nd in the league and kicking everyone's butt. A free hit.
After that it's MKD (19th) away, Blackpool (14th) away and Accrington (17th) at home - all of which we really have to win - and if the team really is making the week-on-week improvements that KH talks about, should win.

Five games and giving KH the benefit of the doubt, 10 achievable points IMO - enough to keep the slender hopes of survival going for a while at least - even though we'd still be well short of where we need to be.

Can only see a win against Accy and maybe a point against MK Dons and Blackpool, the rest we will lose.

Still don't think we can survive this season unless we win every game from now till the end of the season which is as unlikely as Sluffy joining the ST.

No doubt Gary Madine will get the winner for Blackpool in the 95th minute. 


I've kept kidding myself that if we can just string a couple of wins and draws together we can get the impetuous to climb out of the bottom three. Sadly I now know it's League Two next season.

Cajunboy wrote:
I've kept kidding myself that if we can just string a couple of wins and draws together we can get the impetuous to climb out of the bottom three. Sadly I now know it's League Two next season.

As do we all but...there are small signs of improvement and the players that we have are good enough to compete now - unlike most of the season to date - and it almost seems as though with a few tweaks e.g. starting quickly, not gifting daft goals and maintaining the aggression we are not a million miles off becoming a winning team.
Painful to watch but there has at least been some improvement - just not enough yet.

I'm more worried about next season to be honest. We do look better as a team and will end the season looking better than we started but can we keep the current players? Some will be happy to stay no doubt but the vast majority will want to leave and we will have to rebuild again.

18 points from 4th bottom, no chance we're staying up, it would take us 11/12 wins out of 17 and MK Dons or Wimbledon to lose almost every game for it to happen, given it up now, here's to kicking some butt in league 2 next season (Hopefully)

We're going down. We'd need to get on a run of wins to make a fist of staying up, and I honestly don't think they have that in them.
At least we'll start League two on a level playing field, and we can build from there.
To think, we were promoted from League 1 with Sheffield Utd, and look at them now. It's a long road for us, but we have to believe.

We'll still be under a transfer embargo next season won't we?

Norpig wrote:We'll still be under a transfer embargo next season won't we?

Yes.

so not so level then 

Light relief.

Norpig wrote:I'm more worried about next season to be honest. We do look better as a team and will end the season looking better than we started but can we keep the current players? Some will be happy to stay no doubt but the vast majority will want to leave and we will have to rebuild again.

We only have five players who are contracted to stay with us beyond the summer - and four of them haven't even played much for us at all really so far - Delaney, Brockbank, Faal, and Edwards, with only Politic who can only be thought of as regular first team player.

All the loan players we brought in are contracted to their clubs next season, so they won't be joining us unless their clubs pay off their contracts (and they can't find a better team/bigger wage at another club than us!).

The same goes for out of contract players we have who have been regulars, such as Lowe, Mathews, both Murphy's and even the likes of Zuma, Emmanuel and even Darcy - all may find better deals and better wages at other clubs.

I did point out after the January window that I couldn't see any evidence of Moneyball so far, yet Hill confirmed in one of his rambling and mostly incomprehensible interviews that the second half of the season was the next instalment of the new plan.

What plan, I can't see it?

I think we are on a hiding to nothing for the rest of the season in that if the players play well, they will be off to better clubs who have noticed them and if they don't play well, we won't want them next season, even at fourth tier level.

The only silver lining I can see is that Buckley will be fit again by the start of next season - and no one but us seems to want him!

Norpig wrote:so not so level then 

We'd attract players on loan though, we're still a big club & will be certainly be the big fish in League 2.

BoltonTillIDie wrote:

Norpig wrote:so not so level then 

We'd attract players on loan though, we're still a big club & will be certainly be the big fish in League 2.

Yes but...

As it stands now we can't pay loan fees next season, so whoever we do pick up on loan would be players that the parents clubs want to 'prove' themselves at fourth tier level, so I guess less of a quality than the ones we had last season.

We will be a big fish at fourth tier level but being a big fish in your respective division doesn't necessarily mean automatic promotion - West Brom and Sunderland both found that out last season when many (including myself) expected it to be a stroll in the park for them.

Maybe I'm being over cautious but as it is now I don't think automatic promotion is a given as many people seem to think it is.

Perhaps the embargo may be relaxed a little bit for next season and/or the imposed wage limit of £2k per week is good money at this level (anybody know if it is?) but if they aren't, then I don't really see us starting the new season head and shoulders in front of everybody else, despite our three wise men (Kenyon, Phoenix and Hill) at the helm.

One thing about Kenyon, Hill etc is that in a very short period of time (5 months) they have managed to cobble together the best part of two teams of players who are on average borderline L1/L2 quality so they appear to be well connected and capable of operating with a very tight budget so there is some hope if we go down.
Given the number of players they have brought in under these circumstances, you'd expect their to be a higher percentage of donkeys, so I've no complaints about their signings so far and would say they are getting value for money, even if it hasn't quite worked out yet.

That said it can't have gone unnoticed that despite not having a team for the first 6 games and then getting in a new management team (and team) who were effectively starting from scratch, we have 23 points so far this season (from what is effectively 21 games) and had we had Hill and his signings in from the start the pro rata points for 29 games would be 31.7 points which is above the relegation zone. Despite the embargo and tight purse strings, they ain't done a bad job.

But we're getting off topic.
The issue is really about the players and manager believing we can still survive which means purely from a mathematical perspective that they have to a) get to the next level - can they up their game again? and b) get there very soon and start winning games consistently from here on in.

If it's going to happen - as they apparently believe it will - we'll be in for a treat.
They should more or less all be match fit now so it will come down to the manager to get them playing better IF they have the potential to step up.

Or it will all just turn out to be wishful thinking. Next 5 games will tell us.

wanderlust wrote:One thing about Kenyon, Hill etc is that in a very short period of time (5 months) they have managed to cobble together the best part of two teams of players who are on average borderline L1/L2 quality so they appear to be well connected and capable of operating with a very tight budget so there is some hope if we go down.
Given the number of players they have brought in under these circumstances, you'd expect their to be a higher percentage of donkeys, so I've no complaints about their signings so far and would say they are getting value for money, even if it hasn't quite worked out yet.

That said it can't have gone unnoticed that despite not having a team for the first 6 games and then getting in a new management team (and team) who were effectively starting from scratch, we have 23 points so far this season (from what is effectively 21 games) and had we had Hill and his signings in from the start the pro rata points for 29 games would be 31.7 points which is above the relegation zone. Despite the embargo and tight purse strings, they ain't done a bad job.

But we're getting off topic.
The issue is really about the players and manager believing we can still survive which means purely from a mathematical perspective that they have to a) get to the next level - can they up their game again? and b) get there very soon and start winning games consistently from here on in.

If it's going to happen - as they apparently believe it will - we'll be in for a treat.
They should more or less all be match fit now so it will come down to the manager to get them playing better IF they have the potential to step up.

Or it will all just turn out to be wishful thinking. Next 5 games will tell us.

Fwiw I don't agree with much of the above.

Mathematically we may not be down yet but realistically we are and have been since for whatever reason Hill sent back the two centre backs he had on loan and didn't bother resigning Chicksen when his contract expired and basically didn't replace them until the end of the transfer window.

We picked up just 1 point from a possible 15 in January.

As for how good a judge Hill is of players...

- All his loans signings from the first half of the season did not return - indeed he sent two back himself!

Of the eight players he signed for the first half of the season, he did not re-new the contracts of Chicken or Buckley (he had to later do a U-turn on that).

Bunney has yet to play.

Crawford (injured), O'Grady and Dodoo have been peripheral at best up to now...

...leaving only Emmanuel and Murphy as regular first teamers.

Hardly anything to write home about really, is it?  I'm sure most managers could have achieved similar in the same circumstances.

The truth of the matter really is the backbone of the side during Hills first half of the season has been comprised of the three first teamers he inherited - Matthews, Lowe and the younger Murphy plus the youngsters such as Darcy, Politic and Zuma.

I'm not knocking Hill but I've certainly not been impressed with him, mainly because of the tripe he speaks.

I suspect the plan is for him to "coach, coach, coach.." the players that someone else (the Moneyball team???) brings in.

I don't think Hill is the one ultimately to select the players he wants at the club although it appears (with the signing of Delaney for instance) that he still for now has some say.

The summer window might give us a better idea of what is really going on perhaps?

Sluffy wrote:

wanderlust wrote:One thing about Kenyon, Hill etc is that in a very short period of time (5 months) they have managed to cobble together the best part of two teams of players who are on average borderline L1/L2 quality so they appear to be well connected and capable of operating with a very tight budget so there is some hope if we go down.
Given the number of players they have brought in under these circumstances, you'd expect their to be a higher percentage of donkeys, so I've no complaints about their signings so far and would say they are getting value for money, even if it hasn't quite worked out yet.

That said it can't have gone unnoticed that despite not having a team for the first 6 games and then getting in a new management team (and team) who were effectively starting from scratch, we have 23 points so far this season (from what is effectively 21 games) and had we had Hill and his signings in from the start the pro rata points for 29 games would be 31.7 points which is above the relegation zone. Despite the embargo and tight purse strings, they ain't done a bad job.

But we're getting off topic.
The issue is really about the players and manager believing we can still survive which means purely from a mathematical perspective that they have to a) get to the next level - can they up their game again? and b) get there very soon and start winning games consistently from here on in.

If it's going to happen - as they apparently believe it will - we'll be in for a treat.
They should more or less all be match fit now so it will come down to the manager to get them playing better IF they have the potential to step up.

Or it will all just turn out to be wishful thinking. Next 5 games will tell us.

Fwiw I don't agree with much of the above.

Mathematically we may not be down yet but realistically we are and have been since for whatever reason Hill sent back the two centre backs he had on loan and didn't bother resigning Chicksen when his contract expired and basically didn't replace them until the end of the transfer window.

We picked up just 1 point from a possible 15 in January.

As for how good a judge Hill is of players...

- All his loans signings from the first half of the season did not return - indeed he sent two back himself!

Of the eight players he signed for the first half of the season, he did not re-new the contracts of Chicken or Buckley (he had to later do a U-turn on that).

Bunney has yet to play.

Crawford (injured), O'Grady and Dodoo have been peripheral at best up to now...

...leaving only Emmanuel and Murphy as regular first teamers.

Hardly anything to write home about really, is it?  I'm sure most managers could have achieved similar in the same circumstances.

The truth of the matter really is the backbone of the side during Hills first half of the season has been comprised of the three first teamers he inherited - Matthews, Lowe and the younger Murphy plus the youngsters such as Darcy, Politic and Zuma.

I'm not knocking Hill but I've certainly not been impressed with him, mainly because of the tripe he speaks.

I suspect the plan is for him to "coach, coach, coach.." the players that someone else (the Moneyball team???) brings in.

I don't think Hill is the one ultimately to select the players he wants at the club although it appears (with the signing of Delaney for instance) that he still for now has some say.

The summer window might give us a better idea of what is really going on perhaps?

I guess it comes down to what we could possibly have expected from the position we were in and personally I expected relegation by a country mile. I don't see there was ever any chance of signing players of the quality that would dominate this league and think that the best hope was to sign rejects that are perceived to have the potential to do better than their records suggest and better ones that have been overlooked which they seem to have made their plan.
Given the fact that despite the disadvantages of lack of preseason,
time with a stable team, continuity of playing staff etc they have done better than teams who had all the above.
As regards clawing back the penalty points, the only question for me is whether or not Hill and Flitcroft could get the rejects to exceed what they have done in the past/reach their full potential.
Tonight we were reasonably competitive against a top half team but lost because we gave away 2 soft goals - specifically because the defenders were ball watching instead of keeping an eye on the runners and unmarked attackers - again. (check out recent goals conceded) I'm not questioning their motivation because Hill has got them working, but....
seems to me they have a gung ho attitude towards defending - committed to blocking the immediate threat e.g. the shot on goal (bodies on the line etc) whilst neglecting the second ball/phase options and it seems to be a recurring scenario that the immediate threat is stopped only to fall to an unmarked attacker.
I'd be looking at midfielders tracking back and two defenders going for the same ball to resolve this. Sort out the defence and we could be a threat to many teams in this league.
Expect to lose v Wycombe but after that there are a bunch of winnable games.

PS. "as for how good a judge Hill is of players.....Bunney is yet to play" is not an argument.

wanderlust wrote:I guess it comes down to what we could possibly have expected from the position we were in and personally I expected relegation by a country mile. I don't see there was ever any chance of signing players of the quality that would dominate this league and think that the best hope was to sign rejects that are perceived to have the potential to do better than their records suggest and better ones that have been overlooked which they seem to have made their plan.
Given the fact that despite the disadvantages of lack of preseason,
time with a stable team, continuity of playing staff etc they have done better than teams who had all the above.
As regards clawing back the penalty points, the only question for me is whether or not Hill and Flitcroft could get the rejects to exceed what they have done in the past/reach their full potential.
Tonight we were reasonably competitive against a top half team but lost because we gave away 2 soft goals - specifically because the defenders were ball watching instead of keeping an eye on the runners and unmarked attackers - again. (check out recent goals conceded) I'm not questioning their motivation because Hill has got them working, but....
seems to me they have a gung ho attitude towards defending - committed to blocking the immediate threat e.g. the shot on goal (bodies on the line etc) whilst neglecting the second ball/phase options and it seems to be a recurring scenario that the immediate threat is stopped only to fall to an unmarked attacker.
I'd be looking at midfielders tracking back and two defenders going for the same ball to resolve this. Sort out the defence and we could be a threat to many teams in this league.
Expect to lose v Wycombe but after that there are a bunch of winnable games.

PS. "as for how good a judge Hill is of players.....Bunney is yet to play" is not an argument.

You're beginning to sound like one of Hill's interviews with all that meaningless waffle.

The post I initially responded to was one of you extolling positive views of how close we could possibly be to staying up, analysing Hill's point per games, extrapolating how they would add up across the season and stating in your opinion how Hill had done a wonderful job in finding the players good enough to possibly pull this off.

Now one game later and after I pointed out the reality of the situation and Hill's recruits, you've changed direction completely to telling us that you expected relegation "by a country mile" and that we could never sign players to "dominate this league" - obviously we couldn't - we are under a two year player embargo of course!!!

I remember you stating your master plan for this season before it even got going over on Wways where you told everyone we should scour the country for youth players and play kids throughout the season - to which I responded to by posting just two words - "utter madness".

Not only would the kids not have the physicality to last a gruelling nine month season (and why the original Doncaster fixture went on to be called off) and that the constant losses and abuse that follows from a goodly portion of the morons that follow ever football team would have effected them too (look at how Matthews seems to have caved into to social media comments recently for example).  Also many but the hardcore fans would quickly write off the season and stop going - what is the point in seeing a bunch of kids get battered every week, which in turn effects the financial position at the club.

Finally, "Bunney is yet to play" is a statement of FACT.  

Clearly you don't allow facts to get in the way of your arguments then!

At this moment I can't see us coming back up from League 2 at the first attempt.  The heart would like it to happen but the brain says no for a lot of the reasons stated above.
Mainly because we don't even have a team for next season....the current team is not good enough as it stands and half of them will be off anyhow. So we start over in the summer and who knows what sort of quality can be brought in. The Embargo is in place for at least another season. The EFL has done us in IMO.

When you read something like this you have to question Hill's mentality.

Asked if he was frustrated by the errors, Hill added: “You always are. But sometimes you have got to ignore them.
“You make mistakes at home – you keep being told you are making them it takes you into a different place, you’re contemplating ‘why bother?’ “If you keep reminding players all the time about the mistakes they are making they are going to fear going out there. You want them to express themselves and make better decisions but if you keep on asking them it becomes false, it doesn’t encourage. You make them fear.