Mark Robins is a very good call but he’d be hard to tempt away as he’s been allowed to be the calming hand at a club where the ground situation has rumbled on for years. He’s patient with them and vice verse. Lots of very good young English managers making inroads at present though. Plenty to choose from.
Anecdotally I’m not sure I agree with the optimism around signings. Very often the exact opposite is true and how it turns out is sometimes obvious and sometimes not.
If you’d told me at the start of the season that our key signing was a tidy midfielder from Millwall that I’d not really heard of I’d have been dismissive. Equally the signing of a defender from Huddersfield looked good business but he’s a liability and a hoofer. Similar with Stephen Fletcher really. On the verge of retiring having been relegated with Dundee and nearly ended the career of Craig Gordon. We needed a fit left wing back and a “decent” striker to back up Mullin.
The wing back situation was apparently “solved” by the signing of James McLean. Love him or hate him a left wing back he is not.
The striker situation didn’t look likely to be solved by Fletch. His late sub cameos were a joy but he was never going to do 90 minutes with water on the knee. One surgery later and he’s a hat trick against the best defence in the division. A nifty one two; a free header which was nevertheless a textbook example of how to leap, hang and power a header home and a lovely little dipping header on the end of a move which you prayed would end in a goal as it was so lovely to watch.
I remember the first time I saw Steve Bruce play for us against Nottingham Forest we lost 3-1 and I said why have we signed him he’s too slow.
But of late we’ve not signed the players in the correct positions.
We’ve never replaced Tettey or Skipp as holding midfield but at the same time signed a plethora of wingers we have sent out on loan. It’s these obvious mistakes that have annoyed the fans.
Not entirely convinced Luke Williams will succeed at Swansea. More and more teams sussed out their high line and it surely can’t work at a higher level without significant tweaks?
A big red flag for fans of my club. Any manager can be tempted away at any time.
Notts County had at least £14m of debt last time I looked and, despite a serious injury crisis, have spent nothing to alleviate that. They assert themselves to have no financial issues.
Our debt is £10m and growing. We also assert we have no financial issues. Our last 2 purchases have been low rent to say the least (Waters and Boyle) and you get a sense both clubs are losing direction a little at present and there isn’t as much money in the bank for the squad as there is for capital projects.
I too have reservations about the sustainability of our club. I did not know the size of the debt but it is serviceable whilst we have the income from sponsorship and the documentary (is it?). If these streams of income go, for whatever reason, it will become very difficult to stay afloat.
I do however rationalise this with the thought that the club would not have been around if covid had not curtailed the season and we had got relegated
I am currently enjoying the ride immensely, except to say I was sooo stressed at the end of last season. Every game was a must win to enable us to get out of that hell hole of a division.
I am not embarrassed to say, I wept tears of joy and relief when PM got the 3rd goal against BW. For different generations to enjoy that sort of feeling makes it worthwhile for me. Who knows what the future brings eh Mike?
After holding Bristol Rovers 1-1 at home today I’m convinced the only things keeping Wagner in a job are Delia and a £90 million debt.
Thank heavens I watched the grandson play instead, especially as he scored a blinder with his left foot. It’s under nine level but they are way ahead of what I was at their age.
I did notice that one particularly well-informed fan posting on the Norwich report on the BBC website called for Farke and his whole team to go! I think the rest of the Division would welcome that.
Wagner has been in charge for a year and our team simply doesn’t looked to have been coached. There are frequent disputes between players when passes go astray which simply should not be happening. We transition badly resulting in overloads all over the place and look shambolic.
Compared to the likes of Leicester, Ipswich, Leeds and Southampton we look clueless resulting in a 541 formation in the hope of making the scoreline palatable.
Unfortunately, your views just reinforce what I can make out from press, internet & TV ‘highlights’ (not really appropriate word for the dross I am seeing), 400 miles away from CR.
2018 to relegation from the Premiership in 2022, are starting to appear as if they will be regarded as ‘golden years’ compared to now and what we seem to have to look forward to for the foreseeable future.
Wagner is not the only problem but, given unlikely changes in the ownership structure, he needs to go sooner than later & Knapper be allowed the opportunity to show what he can do with whatever facilities are available to him.
Goal of the season as Patrick Bamford finds his mojo and Ampadu trebles his career goal tally. Victory in the fruit salad kit as well. We’re in the hat, something of a rarity it has to be said.
Well, you could call Wrexham a bit lucky after a deflected goal but the aim of the game is to stick the roundy thing in the netty thing and we did that!
Any win away vs a team a league above is good for me.
Scrappy first half in which we were reminded that even average league 1 teams won’t give you 1 touch to control the ball. Thought Evans, Cleworth, Lee, Cannon and O’Connor were the worst culprits. Lee is very much out of sorts at present. Cannon has been excellent in recent games but his tendency to follow every loss of the ball with a chase and a deliberate foul will cost us dear at some point. Neither O’Connor or Evans have pace. All the more reason to move the ball simply, cleanly and quickly. But no, irritating turn after turn and endless repeats of the same issue where they are caught in possession because they didn’t bother to look before turning. Not getting away with it in league 2 away games and we did t get away with it here either.
Slops should have been 3-0 up at half time and we were very lucky. 2nd half we had lots of possession without creating much but Parky read it right and understood that there was no way they wanted a replay at ours. As they pushed the game opened up and when our half chance came we took it.
Even then they had 3 late and clear chances and couldn’t get any of them on target. Still, you get nowhere without luck and today it was our turn.
Worth putting in a good word for the officials. The game stopped a lot but it was hard to argue they didn’t get everything right. Truly wish McClean would shut up and stop the crowd gestures. He spends as much time sending our attacks backwards as he does winding people up and it’s overwhelmingly pointless. His output for the for the afternoon was 1 decent cross and a yellow card. I don’t care how hard he “tries” he’s a waste of a space.
MOTM by a mile for me was Tozer. Didn’t put a foot wrong; calmed young Max down and generally played like the only truly calm head in the team. Enjoyed Mullin’s performance too. Last 2 games he’s remembered to stand up and the difference is huge. Particularly enjoyed the comment that he makes every pass look good.
A few years ago we were debt free. We have since received three lots of parachute payments and yet we now hold a ridiculous amount of debt.
Difficult to see where we go from here except downwards.