s10blade
Member
- Joined
- May 18, 2009
- Messages
- 294
- Reaction score
- 562
Lots of understandable anger, frustration and despair on here at the moment. Thought I'd put together what I believe needs to happen to benefit the club in the long term.
Write this season off
I personally believe in Adkins but he needs to abandon this current team selection and set up. Let's plan now for next season. We are at a point in the season where we will not be relegated and certainly out of contention for automatic promotion. If we don't make the play offs then who cares really whether we finish 7th or 20th.
Whether they are better or not I don't know but the likes of DCL, Reed, Adams, K Wallace need to be seriously blooded into the team - not just sat on the bench and coming on for 10 minutes when we are 1-0 down. If they're not good enough, then at least we know for next season and can sell them on in the summer.
Release every out of contract player
This board IMO will be extremely tempted to hand out some 1 year extensions with the party line something along the lines of "We had no choice, there was nobody better available". The club MUST grasp the opportunity to shed the culture of losing. There is not one out of contract player worth keeping for a multitude of reasons. Release them and it will ensure the club works that extra bit harder to bring in new recruits.
Without scapegoating (because they're all equally shit), it's well documented the likes of Neill Collins have been here for 5 years. He was poor to start with and he's only getting older and slower.
Develop a recruitment strategy
Again, we've witnessed it time and time again. Teams come down and mop up the talent around us. But whether it be permanent or loans we seem to get it wrong. Sammon and Hammond are just two players in a long list of failed loan players yet we see teams around us loaning young talent from premier league clubs. Samuelson, Armstrong and McAleny to name just 3 off the top of my head. The depressing thing is I am confident these lads were not even on our radar.
We are desperate for pretty much all attributes a half decent footballer has - obvious ones being pace, power and strength but another one we need is work rate and mentality. Those players yesterday (bar Sharp) just looked like they didn't give a toss. Stop signing players on the way down.
Shut down the academy
And I do not say this lightly. I certainly see the value of having an academy but as with everything else at our club, it is evidently not being managed and utilised correctly. If we are serious about producing players, someone needs to take a step back and ask themselves why we only have 1 academy player in the starting XI (Long) in a League One side with another on the bench (Reed) who plays ten minutes here and there and looks lost as a result. It's embarrassing.
People will point to Kyle Naughton and Kyle Walker - and rightly so - but if we cannot produce lads who can get a game in this league why are we wasting everybody's time with it? All efforts and funds need to be focussed into the first team being promoted and seemingly the academy is nothing but an unwelcome distraction.
Fan engagement
I think we are lucky in a sense to have someone like Jim Phipps - who by all accounts is a great guy - on social media engaging with fans but he needs some guidance with it. The recent poll on fans' thoughts on the transfer window was nothing short of a piss take.
I think a lot of onus is being placed on fans lately which smacks of desperation. We are the ones who are being too ambitious, we are the ones who need to be positive and clap, clap and clap some more to get the players going and, no doubt, very soon we will be the ones to be asked about season ticket renewals.
The club should be revolutionary. Accept payments for season tickets when the next transfer window closes. Reserve now, pay later. Quite simply we can then go about our daily lives, no spin, no lies, no bullshit, no expectations and then at the end of the window fans can choose whether they want to pay £300+ to watch the likes of Sammon doing absolutely fuck all in a game. If it's going to take 3 transfer wi dows to sort why should I bother turning up next season?
This is only a starting point. The club is in a mess make no mistake. At the end of this season we will have seen 15 clubs gain promotion during our time in this godforsaken league yet I still do not see the penny dropping in the boardroom and it is nothing short of depressing.
Whatever difference of opinions we all have as fans, we all want the same end result. A club and playing staff that give a damn.
UTB
Write this season off
I personally believe in Adkins but he needs to abandon this current team selection and set up. Let's plan now for next season. We are at a point in the season where we will not be relegated and certainly out of contention for automatic promotion. If we don't make the play offs then who cares really whether we finish 7th or 20th.
Whether they are better or not I don't know but the likes of DCL, Reed, Adams, K Wallace need to be seriously blooded into the team - not just sat on the bench and coming on for 10 minutes when we are 1-0 down. If they're not good enough, then at least we know for next season and can sell them on in the summer.
Release every out of contract player
This board IMO will be extremely tempted to hand out some 1 year extensions with the party line something along the lines of "We had no choice, there was nobody better available". The club MUST grasp the opportunity to shed the culture of losing. There is not one out of contract player worth keeping for a multitude of reasons. Release them and it will ensure the club works that extra bit harder to bring in new recruits.
Without scapegoating (because they're all equally shit), it's well documented the likes of Neill Collins have been here for 5 years. He was poor to start with and he's only getting older and slower.
Develop a recruitment strategy
Again, we've witnessed it time and time again. Teams come down and mop up the talent around us. But whether it be permanent or loans we seem to get it wrong. Sammon and Hammond are just two players in a long list of failed loan players yet we see teams around us loaning young talent from premier league clubs. Samuelson, Armstrong and McAleny to name just 3 off the top of my head. The depressing thing is I am confident these lads were not even on our radar.
We are desperate for pretty much all attributes a half decent footballer has - obvious ones being pace, power and strength but another one we need is work rate and mentality. Those players yesterday (bar Sharp) just looked like they didn't give a toss. Stop signing players on the way down.
Shut down the academy
And I do not say this lightly. I certainly see the value of having an academy but as with everything else at our club, it is evidently not being managed and utilised correctly. If we are serious about producing players, someone needs to take a step back and ask themselves why we only have 1 academy player in the starting XI (Long) in a League One side with another on the bench (Reed) who plays ten minutes here and there and looks lost as a result. It's embarrassing.
People will point to Kyle Naughton and Kyle Walker - and rightly so - but if we cannot produce lads who can get a game in this league why are we wasting everybody's time with it? All efforts and funds need to be focussed into the first team being promoted and seemingly the academy is nothing but an unwelcome distraction.
Fan engagement
I think we are lucky in a sense to have someone like Jim Phipps - who by all accounts is a great guy - on social media engaging with fans but he needs some guidance with it. The recent poll on fans' thoughts on the transfer window was nothing short of a piss take.
I think a lot of onus is being placed on fans lately which smacks of desperation. We are the ones who are being too ambitious, we are the ones who need to be positive and clap, clap and clap some more to get the players going and, no doubt, very soon we will be the ones to be asked about season ticket renewals.
The club should be revolutionary. Accept payments for season tickets when the next transfer window closes. Reserve now, pay later. Quite simply we can then go about our daily lives, no spin, no lies, no bullshit, no expectations and then at the end of the window fans can choose whether they want to pay £300+ to watch the likes of Sammon doing absolutely fuck all in a game. If it's going to take 3 transfer wi dows to sort why should I bother turning up next season?
This is only a starting point. The club is in a mess make no mistake. At the end of this season we will have seen 15 clubs gain promotion during our time in this godforsaken league yet I still do not see the penny dropping in the boardroom and it is nothing short of depressing.
Whatever difference of opinions we all have as fans, we all want the same end result. A club and playing staff that give a damn.
UTB
