Looking forward to the first game next season.

[Woodwardfan]

Nigel Adkins will have been with us for just over a year.

The squad will have been changed beyond recognition. We will have a younger, more mobile and generally quicker first team. We will have a new captain and a defined system of playing with players signed to fit into that system. There will be fewer seasoned, hardened older pros around. We will have spent a 'sensible budget' on a mixture of experienced and young recruits. The 'pathway' to the first team squad will be well worn with five former Academy players featuring strongly in all the pre-season friendlies. New signings will be a mixture of permanent and season long loan deals. We will have sold at least one of our two most expensive players partly because they wanted to leave, partly to create more budget and partly to help further create a new culture of youth and optimism.

Adkins will be as enthusiastic as ever and even more positive because he will have all his own men and boys around him. His positive interviews will have more credibility because his enthusiasm will be carried on to the pitch by the players and he excels at building on strengths and re-inforcing positives. He will talk of keeping the bulk of the squad together so that every player knows his role in the system and develops understandings with fellow players over a period when he intends the club to start it's gradual rise to the Premier League where he expects most of the current players to perform together in due course.

Season ticket sales will be down less than 5% and we will be third or fourth favourites for promotion because we have such a young squad and so many new players to integrate into the squad.

Then again we might win the play-offs this season and we'll be all over the place.

 

[Ricky]

It's just a case of cross your fingers and hope for the best where next season's squad is concerned. There are no guarantees at all, it could be anything. It could be even worse than this season's squad - it is a possibility, at least in terms of ability. There's a chance it could be what we've been wanting, but only blind faith could lead you to say that will be the case because unfortunately all the evidence suggests that we're far more likely to fail if we have to recruit players on a large scale.

 

[finlaytheblade]

Nigel Adkins will have been with us for just over a year.

The squad will have been changed beyond recognition. We will have a younger, more mobile and generally quicker first team. We will have a new captain and a defined system of playing with players signed to fit into that system. There will be fewer seasoned, hardened older pros around. We will have spent a 'sensible budget' on a mixture of experienced and young recruits. The 'pathway' to the first team squad will be well worn with five former Academy players featuring strongly in all the pre-season friendlies. New signings will be a mixture of permanent and season long loan deals. We will have sold at least one of our two most expensive players partly because they wanted to leave, partly to create more budget and partly to help further create a new culture of youth and optimism.

Adkins will be as enthusiastic as ever and even more positive because he will have all his own men and boys around him. His positive interviews will have more credibility because his enthusiasm will be carried on to the pitch by the players and he excels at building on strengths and re-inforcing positives. He will talk of keeping the bulk of the squad together so that every player knows his role in the system and develops understandings with fellow players over a period when he intends the club to start it's gradual rise to the Premier League where he expects most of the current players to perform together in due course.

Season ticket sales will be down less than 5% and we will be third or fourth favourites for promotion because we have such a young squad and so many new players to integrate into the squad.

Then again we might win the play-offs this season and we'll be all over the place.

Stop getting giddy Woody you've already got me chomping at the bit
the half empty fans will be jumping on board next and that wouldn't do
Would it.

 

[Smirth]

We shall see, I certainly hope it is turns out similar to what you hope.

I'm more sceptical unfortunately. The main reason being our first signing of the summer will be Dean Hammond on a permanent deal.

 

[Ricky]

We shall see, I certainly hope it is turns out similar to what you hope.

I'm more sceptical unfortunately. The main reason being our first signing of the summer will be Dean Hammond on a permanent deal.

In addition to not having much of a transfer budget.

 

[Smirth]

In addition to not having much of a transfer budget.

Yep. And a lot of the not good enough players will still be here (Scougall, Coutts, Basham, Woolford, McNulty, Freeman)

 

[Ricky]

Yep. And a lot of the not good enough players will still be here (Scougall, Coutts, Basham, Woolford, McNulty, Freeman)

Coutts, Freeman and Woolford will be hard to move on. Coutts and Freeman are the two I'm bothered about. Scougall and McNulty will have takers.

 

[BornOnShorehamStreet]

Then again we might win the play-offs this season and we'll be all over the place.

I think this will happen - best thing really as we can plan for an attack on the Premier League rather than buying/planning for another attempt at promotion

 

[Jehovah]

I couldn't wait for the gillingham game this season when we would have two new centre halves making a solid defence.

 

[Woodwardfan]

In addition to not having much of a transfer budget.

I'm not so sure about that. The prince has decisions to make about where he wants to be by say 2018. He'll still believe in Adkins no doubt although he presumably thought the "6th or 7th highest budget in the league" was sufficient last season ( estimated by Adkins last July at the Meet the Manager Meeting). Does the prince want to risk another year beyond next season in League 1 or not. I think Adkins will be given a sensible budget for next season and more than last season perhaps. Otherwise what's the prince here for?

 

[Tyler Durden]

We'll have a stripey kit too. This will render all our other on and off-field problems unimportant.

 

[Ben_1982]

If Dean Hammond has the right players around him I think his role will be just in front of the defence, winning the ball and passing it to a more skillful player like Ryan Kent, could work . Can have all these young uns we want with no experience around

 

[Kenilworth]

Nigel Adkins will have been with us for just over a year.

The squad will have been changed beyond recognition. We will have a younger, more mobile and generally quicker first team. We will have a new captain and a defined system of playing with players signed to fit into that system. There will be fewer seasoned, hardened older pros around. We will have spent a 'sensible budget' on a mixture of experienced and young recruits. The 'pathway' to the first team squad will be well worn with five former Academy players featuring strongly in all the pre-season friendlies. New signings will be a mixture of permanent and season long loan deals. We will have sold at least one of our two most expensive players partly because they wanted to leave, partly to create more budget and partly to help further create a new culture of youth and optimism.

Adkins will be as enthusiastic as ever and even more positive because he will have all his own men and boys around him. His positive interviews will have more credibility because his enthusiasm will be carried on to the pitch by the players and he excels at building on strengths and re-inforcing positives. He will talk of keeping the bulk of the squad together so that every player knows his role in the system and develops understandings with fellow players over a period when he intends the club to start it's gradual rise to the Premier League where he expects most of the current players to perform together in due course.

Season ticket sales will be down less than 5% and we will be third or fourth favourites for promotion because we have such a young squad and so many new players to integrate into the squad.

........ and then again, in a parallel universe, in a World of reality we all reside in ....................................

 

[Worksop II]

We'll have a stripey kit too. This will render all our other on and off-field problems unimportant.

Stripey, Yeh, but what colours though .....................

 

[Tyler Durden]

Stripey, Yeh, but what colours though .....................

Isn't it about 30 years since our iconic brown and yellow kit came out? I wouldn't mind seeing that since we're in the habit of commemorating stuff these days.

 

[The Crab]

Nigel Adkins will have been with us for just over a year.

The squad will have been changed beyond recognition. We will have a younger, more mobile and generally quicker first team. We will have a new captain and a defined system of playing with players signed to fit into that system. There will be fewer seasoned, hardened older pros around. We will have spent a 'sensible budget' on a mixture of experienced and young recruits. The 'pathway' to the first team squad will be well worn with five former Academy players featuring strongly in all the pre-season friendlies. New signings will be a mixture of permanent and season long loan deals. We will have sold at least one of our two most expensive players partly because they wanted to leave, partly to create more budget and partly to help further create a new culture of youth and optimism.

Adkins will be as enthusiastic as ever and even more positive because he will have all his own men and boys around him. His positive interviews will have more credibility because his enthusiasm will be carried on to the pitch by the players and he excels at building on strengths and re-inforcing positives. He will talk of keeping the bulk of the squad together so that every player knows his role in the system and develops understandings with fellow players over a period when he intends the club to start it's gradual rise to the Premier League where he expects most of the current players to perform together in due course.

Season ticket sales will be down less than 5% and we will be third or fourth favourites for promotion because we have such a young squad and so many new players to integrate into the squad.

Then again we might win the play-offs this season and we'll be all over the place.

Do you know what, I'd settle for all that, it'd be a real step forward.

I'd also settle for not being a fat forty something with a face like a bag of smashed shit.

Not much chance of either happening, but I doff my cap to your optimism.

 

[Barney]

I regret to announce you firmly established in cloud cuckoo land.

 

[Woodwardfan]

Do you know what, I'd settle for all that, it'd be a real step forward.

I'd also settle for not being a fat forty something with a face like a bag of smashed shit.

Not much chance of either happening, but I doff my cap to your optimism.

Have another read of the O.P. there is nothing optimistic about it from my point of view!! In fact I expect the team to be inconsistent because of all the youth and all the new players settling in. However I do believe it's the right way to go because we may as well be bringing on younger hopefuls than hardened non-achievers some of whom have just been getting over big injuries.. By all means bring in older players who have achieved things in their careers and yes Hammond fits that profile, but not non-achievers; we may as well play eager kids instead and the dressing room will be a much friendlier place for Adkins to do his gushing! Far less baggage to worry about, far less cynicism and much more hope and expectation.

 

[georgebernardshaw]

These green shoots of optimism don't sit right with me - I'd rather we retained the unremitting misery a bit longer

 

[pommpey]

Love it. This season is just slipping past the U-Bend and we are already chamioning the bright new horizon. As ever, you can spray all you want, but the vile smell of shit always gets through.

Woodwardfan - I kind of get your drift that you hope/expect the playing staff to be pollarded accrodingly. Senior staff/ingrained shitness moved on, and then some bright new input courtesy of somewhere-as-yet unmentioned to feed in these young bloods, eager to pull on the now-famously serially failing colours. Then you allude we will be bringing in players via the transfer market.

Now I ask where your working out is on this. McCabe has effectively told us there will be no cash input (and one can assume therefor no decent transfers in) unless we are promoted. As much as that is fucked-up algebra, I think we can assume that any cash generated by selling our best players in the past five years is completely gone and our chances of acquiring real, consistent, injury-free talent which could play in the division above are 'zero'. These players - and they need to be 'good players' not Barry Oddnobs - don't cost fuck all. And they'll want paying for their services.

Where is the capital coming from, please? The Prince? I'd like to see which statements he has made which I have not seen which reinforces your point of view.

Your optimism is laughable. My money is that a larger proportion of players you'd expect to be sat in the skip come June will still be here and we will at most sign two Barry Oddnobs from AFC Obscure and Neverheardofthem United whio will continue to disappoint. I'd love to be wrong but, y'know, I have the last five seasons as my witness.

And we agree on one thing. Either Sharp, Brayford or Done ... players we have actually bought who are any good and who are propping the side up will be sold and the money will once again disappear to pay off some or other vague club debt we didn't know about.

Stop being such a ridiculous, blinkered apologist for McCabe and his shower of incompetents and open your eyes. There will be no investment in playing staff whilst that twat is in charge.

pommpey

 

[The Crab]

Have another read of the O.P. there is nothing optimistic about it from my point of view!! In fact I expect the team to be inconsistent because of all the youth and all the new players settling in. However I do believe it's the right way to go because we may as well be bringing on younger hopefuls than hardened non-achievers some of whom have just been getting over big injuries.. By all means bring in older players who have achieved things in their careers and yes Hammond fits that profile, but not non-achievers; we may as well play eager kids instead and the dressing room will be a much friendlier place for Adkins to do his gushing! Far less baggage to worry about, far less cynicism and much more hope and expectation.

Apologies for mis-reading. I think it should be about balance in terms of the squad. Older players shouldn't be dismissed out of hand, as long as they add value in that position. Paul McGrath springs to mind, even as knackered as he was at the end of his career, considering all that I thought he was a very good player indeed.

Like I said, balance is the key. Based on Nigel Adkins aquisitions so far, I'd hope his close-season wish list will show a little more of that balance. Yes, experienced players in key areas (the spine of the side) but also lets see some young hungry players getting a positive lift from our support. For me, what happens in the close-season will be pivotal to the next 2 or 3 seasons at least.

 

[The Crab]

I regret to announce you firmly established in cloud cuckoo land.

Me? Yes probably!

 

[finlaytheblade]

Have another read of the O.P. there is nothing optimistic about it from my point of view!! In fact I expect the team to be inconsistent because of all the youth and all the new players settling in. However I do believe it's the right way to go because we may as well be bringing on younger hopefuls than hardened non-achievers some of whom have just been getting over big injuries.. By all means bring in older players who have achieved things in their careers and yes Hammond fits that profile, but not non-achievers; we may as well play eager kids instead and the dressing room will be a much friendlier place for Adkins to do his gushing! Far less baggage to worry about, far less cynicism and much more hope and expectation.

I think you have 2nd guessed what Adkins is looking for woody, to build for next season, infact I would say he's well down that road ( planning)
So I would agree with you 100%

 

[PTBlade]

Nigel Adkins will have been with us for just over a year.

The squad will have been changed beyond recognition. We will have a younger, more mobile and generally quicker first team. We will have a new captain and a defined system of playing with players signed to fit into that system. There will be fewer seasoned, hardened older pros around. We will have spent a 'sensible budget' on a mixture of experienced and young recruits. The 'pathway' to the first team squad will be well worn with five former Academy players featuring strongly in all the pre-season friendlies. New signings will be a mixture of permanent and season long loan deals. We will have sold at least one of our two most expensive players partly because they wanted to leave, partly to create more budget and partly to help further create a new culture of youth and optimism.

Adkins will be as enthusiastic as ever and even more positive because he will have all his own men and boys around him. His positive interviews will have more credibility because his enthusiasm will be carried on to the pitch by the players and he excels at building on strengths and re-inforcing positives. He will talk of keeping the bulk of the squad together so that every player knows his role in the system and develops understandings with fellow players over a period when he intends the club to start it's gradual rise to the Premier League where he expects most of the current players to perform together in due course.

Season ticket sales will be down less than 5% and we will be third or fourth favourites for promotion because we have such a young squad and so many new players to integrate into the squad.

Then again we might win the play-offs this season and we'll be all over the place.

Replace every "will" with may and that post will/may be spot on.

 

[Barney]

Me? Yes probably!

Nah, the OP.

 

[Trafford]

Stop being such a ridiculous, blinkered apologist for McCabe and his shower of incompetents and open your eyes. There will be no investment in playing staff whilst that twat is in charge.

pommpey

"Are you Barney, are you Barney, are you Barney in disguise......"

 

[The Crab]

Nah, the OP.

No worries, just that feels like exactly where I am at times!

 

[PeteBlade]

So I would agree with you 100%

This is unexpected...

 

[Barney]

No worries, just that feels like exactly where I am at times!

Well, just have another look at the OP and be glad you've not entered that kind of dream land.

when he intends the club to start it's gradual rise to the Premier League where he expects most of the current players to perform together in due course.

I had to take two minutes time out after reading that.

 

[1danewhitehouse]

I hope the OP is correct but after so much optimism for pretty much every season we've had down here, I'm pretty much spent. I have no idea how much funding will be available to Adkins and I have no idea how good a job he will make of the rebuild with the funds available. I hope next season is a positive one but it's far from certain.