A message from the Boys

[Sothall_Blade]

Originally Posted by Darren

"Spackman also had loads of money (Deane, McGrath, Stuart, Saunders, Marcelo etc). When he walked out we were in the play off places and had never looked like getting automatic promotion."

....apart from August until early December.

 

[Darren]

Originally Posted by Darren

4. Spackman also had loads of money (Deane, McGrath, Stuart, Saunders, Marcelo etc. When he walked out we were in the play off places and had never looked like getting automatic promotion

I conceded the point that we had briefly looked like getting automatic promotion that season, but most of it we didn't. I could be wrong, but I think it was only after the game at Reading that we were evr in the top two.

 

[Sothall_Blade]

I conceded the point that we had briefly looked like getting automatic promotion that season, but most of it we didn't. I could be wrong, but I think it was only after the game at Reading that we were evr in the top two.

We were actually in the top two after the 1st, 3rd, 10th and 13th matches.
Those figures are misleading because we had 2 or 3 games in hand over the teams above us (until December).

http://www.statto.com/football/stats/england/division-one/1997-1998/table/1997-10-21

 

[Darren]

We were actually in the top two after the 1st, 3rd, 10th and 13th matches.
Those figures are misleading because we had 2 or 3 games in hand over the teams above us (until December).

http://www.statto.com/football/stats/england/division-one/1997-1998/table/1997-10-21

Fair enough. I think the problem was that after wee lost our first game at WBA on 25/10/97 we went on a relatively poor run of form between then and the sale of Deane and Fjortoft. Our record between those two dates was P16 W6 D6 L4 - pts 24 - again play off rather than automatic form. In the last game before the D/F sale we lost 4-2 at Sunderland and were 5 points off automatic in 5th place.

I don't set much store by the November ins and outs. We lost Ward, Patterson and Tiler but gained Stuart, Ford and Saunders and saw the emergence of Woodhouse and Dellas. It would be a hard argument to say the team was made that much worser (and anyway the poor form started before the November sales).

 

[Sothall_Blade]

Fair enough. I think the problem was that after wee lost our first game at WBA on 25/10/97 we went on a relatively poor run of form between then and the sale of Deane and Fjortoft. Our record between those two dates was P16 W6 D6 L4 - pts 24 - again play off rather than automatic form. In the last game before the D/F sale we lost 4-2 at Sunderland and were 5 points off automatic in 5th place.

I don't set much store by the November ins and outs. We lost Ward, Patterson and Tiler but gained Stuart, Ford and Saunders and saw the emergence of Woodhouse and Dellas. It would be a hard argument to say the team was made that much worser (and anyway the poor form started before the November sales).

Dellas only made 2 league starts before March and only 5 in total. Woodhouse only made 4 league starts in total. They're a red-herring.
I can't accept it's mere coincidence that we lost 5 key players during November and at the same time our form started to deteriorate.
I think our form started to decline when McGrath got injured and gradually got worse as more and more players were sold or injured.
The signing of Saunders was totally unnecessary when we had so many other good strikers and arguably disrupted the team.
(A similar situation to when Newcastle signed Asprilla or when Warnock signed Akinbyi and Horsfield)

You keep saying that our form was not auto-promotion standard just before the sales started (i.e. November onwards) and I accept that.
But there are always peaks and troughs in form and it's entirely possible that Spackman's team could have regained their initial form if they hadn't been sold.

 

[alcoblade]

But there are always peaks and troughs in form and it's entirely possible that Spackman's team could have regained their initial form if they hadn't been sold.

Isn't the point that it's a widely held belief that we were certs for automatic promotion, but for the sales of deane and Fjortoft - yet the stats don't back this up. You can extrapolate different periods and get differant results - but overall the more sensible prediction was one of a play off place rather than automatic promotion.

Whilst nobody can seriously argue that selling your best players helps the cause, the idea that we just had to hold on to the players for 6 months and a pot of gold was guaranteed is often peddled, but doesn't have a sound factual base.

UTB

 

[Darren]

Dellas only made 2 league starts before March and only 5 in total. Woodhouse only made 4 league starts in total. They're a red-herring.
I can't accept it's mere coincidence that we lost 5 key players during November and at the same time our form started to deteriorate.
I think our form started to decline when McGrath got injured and gradually got worse as more and more players were sold or injured.
The signing of Saunders was totally unnecessary when we had so many other good strikers and arguably disrupted the team.
(A similar situation to when Newcastle signed Asprilla or when Warnock signed Akinbyi and Horsfield)

You keep saying that our form was not auto-promotion standard just before the sales started (i.e. November onwards) and I accept that.
But there are always peaks and troughs in form and it's entirely possible that Spackman's team could have regained their initial form if they hadn't been sold.

Ward was barely in the team prior to his sale. Are we saying that the sales of Tiler and Patterson made that much difference? I don't recall anyone saying Tiler was a stand our performer in the early part of that season and whilst Patterson had played well that season, he was obviously not one of our better players (he had lost his place the previous season and we sold him to ultimately relegated Bury).

On the whole it looks to me like the early season form was the abberation and that had the various players not been told we would have ended up with maybe 8-10 points more and 4th or 5th rather than 6th place and a better chance in the play offs. Unfortunately that was a season where you had to have over 90 points to get automatic.

 

[Ollessendro]

I think Sothall puts forward an interesting and quite conconvincing argument. We were not certainties for automatic, but we were in with a shout. We were in the top 2 on several occassions and had games in hand early doors. But at the same time I see Darren's (and alco) point. It was a tough division that year and even a team with McGraph, Whitehouse, Patterson, Deane and Fjortoft would have struggled to get automatic. My personal opinion was a fully fit team would have been very close to automatic, but we'll never know.

Did Deane not get injured around November time and not play again before leaving?

 

[bricktop]

We started off strongly, and until late December it looked like we would be involved in the promotion shake up at the end of the season.

Where it went wrong, is that we spent more than we could sustain on players, whilst we started off playing 3-5-2, and playing some excellent football, we quickly got found out, Whitehouse's injury was a key factor, as was the loss of form suffered by Vas Borbokis as soon as winter started setting in. In the end someone needed to go in Janurary and it was Deane and Fjortoft. Under Spackman we signed too many players without balancing the books, signing such as Dellas, Marcelo, Saunders, Stuart was maybe a bit over ambtious and we brought in players no better than who was there in the first place.

Looking back at that particular era, the rot set in the season before where the squad of players we had looked good enough, and strong enough to go up that year, but seemed to lose their way under Kendall, but seemed to bottle it towards the end of the season.

One thing that still pisses me off is that at the time the club was geared up for the top flight, and we needed a breakeven figure of around 16,000 and struggled to get 14,000. Very disappointing

 

[Darren]

.

Did Deane not get injured around November time and not play again before leaving?

No, he was pretty much a regular until he left and got 5 goals in December.