The meltdown if we lose

Colgates_shaving_foam said:
We are starting this season stronger than we started last season.

The people with their knickers in a twist seem to be the ones agonising over us 'losing' Ramsey, Archer and Giles. Two of those only joined in January.
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This. The only players we have lost are those we had on loan. It's increasingly the case that clubs in our division rely on loans from the 'premier' league and the best loan players from those clubs don't become available until near the end of the window. It's a scummy system but it's what we have.
 
But on the same token we might be stronger than the start of last season but we are also a hell of a lot weaker than how we ended the season.
 
You have to go back to 14/15 season to find us a win on opening game.
I don't think we will win , I'll go for a 1-1 draw but think it mainly comes down to the intensity of Millwall's play. If they have learned in their last 2 friendlies to get the tempo up they will have something on us already , because all that came over the radio in our last game , was no tempo at all , from us . I don't expect us to be able to switch that on in 1 magical motion. Plus Millwall seem to have a full regular squad fit and ready , looking at who played for them over the last 2 friendlies.
Last season I thought we were the last team to win a game on our 6th attempt. Anything but that again, please.
 
Colgates_shaving_foam said:
We are starting this season stronger than we started last season.

The people with their knickers in a twist seem to be the ones agonising over us 'losing' Ramsey, Archer and Giles. Two of those only joined in January.

I think we will win on Saturday.
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I don't think we are starting this season stronger though.

The squad is weaker.

No first choice striker.
No fit right backs.
1 fit left back and he's a fringe player who we strangely offered a new contract.
Akpom injured and probably leaving.

The only potentially better position is the manager, and arguably midfield though even that is questionable with Howson injured.

Last season has shown that even a really bad start isn't fatal, but it's still not a great position to be starting the season in.

We've just got to hope that we get a surprise package like Akpom stepping up.

Hoppe hat-trick from the bench will do.
 
We seldom win our first game of the season. If we continue this perennial event, no biggie.

Play shyte, Millwall play us off the park and stroll to a 3-0 win.......alarm bells will certainly be going off.

But, if I were a betting man I'd be looking at a 1-1 draw. Play well in bits, crap in bits, meh in other bits. Miss chances. Dieng makes a couple of big saves.

🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️
 
Ratedr69 said:
But on the same token we might be stronger than the start of last season but we are also a hell of a lot weaker than how we ended the season.
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Are we though? If you think about it, our season sort of fizzled out a bit. I think we peaked about a month too early. I think some people posted this on here at the time but I dismissed it, which with the benefit of hindsight was probably quite hasty.

I think once we’d sealed our place off we eased off a bit, I suspect that’s quite a natural thing for a team to do in that situation. But I would say that save for the first half an hour at Coventry in the first leg of the playoffs, we ended the season with some generally quite flat performances. Akpom quietened right down, Ramsey was injured so out of the team, Giles wasn’t as effective as he was in the first few months under Carrick, I think Howson was carrying an injury? He didn’t look fully at it to me. Fry was out, Jones was having his issues.

So Ramsey wasn’t even in the side that finished the season pretty tamely and Giles was off the boil, Akpom was quiet. You could say that we’re only Archer and Steffen down on what we finished with really. Giles was good over the piece and needs to be replaced but you would expect something is in the pipeline with that if they’ve let Bola go.

The rest of it, I think we’ve enough to go on with. We’ll pick up 2 or 3 loans again and probably add another punt or two. But, again, I think every other team in the land is in the same position, from Manchester City to Maidstone United.
 
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viv_andersons_nana said:
Are we though? If you think about it, our season sort of fizzled out a bit. I think we peaked about a month too early. I think some people posted this on here at the time but I dismissed it, which with the benefit of hindsight was probably quite hasty.

I think once we’d sealed our place off we eased off a bit, I suspect that’s quite a natural thing for a team to do in that situation. But I would say that save for the first half an hour at Coventry in the first leg of the playoffs, we ended the season with some generally quite flat performances. Akpom quietened right down, Ramsey was injured so out of the team, Giles wasn’t as effective as he was in the first few months under Carrick, I think Howson was carrying an injury? He didn’t look fully at it to me. Fry was out, Jones was having his issues.

So Ramsey wasn’t even in the side that finished the season pretty tamely and Giles was off the boil, Akpom was quiet. You could say that we’re only Archer and Steffen down on what we finished with really. Giles was good over the piece and needs to be replaced but you would expect something is in the pipeline with that if they’ve let Bola go.

The rest of it, I think we’ve enough to go on with. We’ll pick up 2 or 3 loans again and probably add another punt or two. But, again, I think every other team in the land is in the same position, from Manchester City to Maidstone United.
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What?

Nobody has stated that we are so much weaker than precisely how we finished the season Viv man ffs. We fizzled out because of key injuries and a weird approach to the last few league matches and the play offs.
People seem to be saying that Archer, Ramsey, Giles, Akpom, Howson, Hackney, Forss, Lenihan were all on fire from January, with an improved Steffen and that team was what cemented us in the Play offs and on the verge at one point of possibly more.

Archer, Ramsey, Giles and Steffen have all gone and either not been replaced or we've been to a lucky dip.
Howson is injured and Akpom has disappeared either injured or leaving.
In addition we have chronic injuries at right back.

This window was always going to be challenging as I posted in May, and Akpom was laways going to be pivotal, but my word 3 days before the season starts ours has been a terrible window.
 
indeedido said:
What?

Nobody has stated that we are so much weaker than precisely how we finished the season Viv man ffs. We fizzled out because of key injuries and a weird approach to the last few league matches and the play offs.
People seem to be saying that Archer, Ramsey, Giles, Akpom, Howson, Hackney, Forss, Lenihan were all on fire from January, with an improved Steffen and that team was what cemented us in the Play offs and on the verge at one point of possibly more.

Archer, Ramsey, Giles and Steffen have all gone and either not been replaced or we've been to a lucky dip.
Howson is injured and Akpom has disappeared either injured or leaving.
In addition we have chronic injuries at right back.

This window was always going to be challenging as I posted in May, and Akpom was laways going to be pivotal, but my word 3 days before the season starts ours has been a terrible window.
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You’re saying players haven’t been replaced and those those have have been replaced with sub-standard players? What are you basing that on? This time last year everyone was up in arms about the idea of Akpom starting, about not signing a midfielder, about needing a winger. Look at what Carrick did with some of those players last season. It was ridiculous.

You don’t know what he’s going to do with Coburn, Van Den Berg, Silvera… how Jones is going to fare, whether Barlaser can step up. Dieng is an international goalkeeper. This is something we will have to get used to IMO because aspect of building a new scouting and recruitment department that scours the globe is that we’ll sign young players we’ve never heard of, it’s the idea that some players will come from nowhere and hopefully go on to become first team regulars and we either go up or sell them on and reinvest.

We do need some quality players but so does every other team. We have the same discussion every summer. How many other Championship teams have completed loan deals for the best young players from division above? I think Leicester have done a Manchester City player but Maresca was his coach.

There will be loads of activity between now and the end of the month. We need to replace Archer and Giles. But as it stands, nobody has any idea of how these new players are going to get on. To dismiss them or talk them down after the work Carrick and the coaches did with certain players last season is bizarre IMO.
 
Scrug said:
It’s mad how things change in such a short space of time isn’t it? When we signed those 5 players in a day, everyone was singing Scott’s praises and hailing this new model of ours.

Now the transfer window has been a disaster?

I don’t get it.
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Who was singing Scott's praises after signing:
1. A Goalkeeper who let in the second most goals last season and had a series of mares.
2. A Left sided forward from the A league, one of the worst leagues in world football.
3. A reserve keeper from the same awful league.
4. A forward who has done nothing so far, but get a few Blackpool fans to say he has promise.
5. A forward from Brentford who again has absolutely no league experience.
6. A third goalkeeper from Wigan stiffs.

Van Den Berg is the only recruit that stands out given that other clubs were seriously pursuing him.

Some of these lads may well develop (I hope so) , but christ a light, they are all we have signed, we have massive holes and are 3 days from kick off.
It has been an awful window, so far.
 
indeedido said:
Who was singing Scott's praises after signing:
1. A Goalkeeper who let in the second most goals last season and had a series of mares.
2. A Left sided forward from the A league, one of the worst leagues in world football.
3. A reserve keeper from the same awful league.
4. A forward who has done nothing so far, but get a few Blackpool fans to say he has promise.
5. A forward from Brentford who again has absolutely no league experience.
6. A third goalkeeper from Wigan stiffs.

Van Den Berg is the only recruit that stands out given that other clubs were seriously pursuing him.

Some of these lads may well develop (I hope so) , but christ a light, they are all we have signed, we have massive holes and are 3 days from kick off.
It has been an awful window, so far.
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Loads on here were, I can’t be arsed trailing through the threads to find it.

Right, but that’s the model. That’s what we’re trying to do, buy young promising players, build them up and sell them on. That’s the club we are now, in that aspect it’s been a good transfer window.

I would take this over signing the likes of Dwight Gayle, George Savile any-day.
 
viv_andersons_nana said:
You’re saying players haven’t been replaced and those those have have been replaced with sub-standard players? What are you basing that on? This time last year everyone was up in arms about the idea of Akpom starting, about not signing a midfielder, about needing a winger. Look at what Carrick did with some of those players last season. It was ridiculous.

You don’t know what he’s going to do with Coburn, Van Den Berg, Silvera… how Jones is going to fare, whether Barlaser can step up. Dieng is an international goalkeeper. This is something we will have to get used to IMO because aspect of building a new scouting and recruitment department that scours the globe is that we’ll sign young players we’ve never heard of, it’s the idea that some players will come from nowhere and hopefully go on to become first team regulars and we either go up or sell them on and reinvest.

We do need some quality players but so does every other team. We have the same discussion every summer. How many other Championship teams have completed loan deals for the best young players from division above? I think Leicester have done a Manchester City player but Maresca was his coach.

There will be loads of activity between now and the end of the month. We need to replace Archer and Giles. But as it stands, nobody has any idea of how these new players are going to get on. To dismiss them or talk them down after the work Carrick and the coaches did with certain players last season is bizarre IMO.
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We finished 4th despite having some high quality players. We needed to improve to have a greater chance of going up.
We have not improved at all, we definitely have massive holes to be what we were, let alone what we need to be.
 
Scrug said:
Loads on here were, I can’t be arsed trailing through the threads to find it.

Right, but that’s the model. That’s what we’re trying to do, buy young promising players, build them up and sell them on. That’s the club we are now, in that aspect it’s been a good transfer window.

I would take this over signing the likes of Dwight Gayle, George Savile any-day.
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We do need proven quality for the here and now though these signings are for the future. In 3 days time the title charge has to begin and we not really ready for it
 
Scrug said:
Loads on here were, I can’t be arsed trailing through the threads to find it.

Right, but that’s the model. That’s what we’re trying to do, buy young promising players, build them up and sell them on. That’s the club we are now, in that aspect it’s been a good transfer window.

I would take this over signing the likes of Dwight Gayle, George Savile any-day.
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There are a hell of a lot of possibilities in between those ludicrous extremes.
 
Boro4life said:
We do need proven quality for the here and now though these signings are for the future. In 3 days time the title charge has to begin and we not really ready for it
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I don’t think we’re going for the title this season. The club will say they are because that sells season tickets, but behind the scenes I doubt they’re targeting it.
 
It’s also worth noting that our best assets (Akpom aside) have come through our academy. Hackney & Fry.

They’re probably banking on a few more coming into the fold this season.
 
We signed all those players a month ago, all but one of them has been brought in as a back-up option, those that were pleased will have been so with the expectation that key positions would still be filled before the season started.

I have no issue with any of our new signings, but I certainly did not expect us to be going in to the opening game without a first choice left back or striker.

You can make good signings and still have a poor window.

There's still just under a month to go, and there's time to fill the gaping holes still, but if the window shut now then I definitely would not be classing it as successful.
 
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indeedido said:
We finished 4th despite having some high quality players. We needed to improve to have a greater chance of going up.
We have not improved at all, we definitely have massive holes to be what we were, let alone what we need to be.
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The high quality players included Akpom, who was a laughing stock this time last year, Lenihan, who swathes of people were dismissing as a waste of money after the first half a dozen games or so, and Steffen, who improved immeasurably as the season went on but was getting pelters after the first few games. Especially the QPR game. McGree was getting pelters at times. Same as Paddy, even Forss was.

Giles, Archer, Steffen and Ramsey were only on loan. No top young players at the top end of the league above have gone out on loan yet. We may well get one of those Villa lads back. This is just the nature of loan deals. If we did some good loan deals last season why can’t or won’t we do them again this time out?

Again, this chat we’re all having now is almost identical to what was being said this time last year only it’s Akpom apparently on the move instead of Tav.

Look at what Carrick did with Akpom. Why can’t he have a similar effect on Rogers or Gilbert? The bottom line is that we don’t know what’s going to happen. It would not surprise me if two or three of these new lads turned out to be very shrewd little deals. Though you worry about how people will react when we inevitably have to sell them on in the future.

There will be more business done in the coming weeks, I’m sure. Every single club will be adding as the month progresses.
 
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