basilrobbie

Obviously I have little (no) insight to offer on this. However, I would be interested in your answers to two questions : a) how ready do you think the club is for a return to the EFL? b) linked to the above, to what extent is this season's "failure" a potential blessing in disguise?

I make you right about what they have achieved. They had barely enough players to fill the bench for the first three or four months of the season. Their recruitment - when they were finally allowed to do some - has been very good. The big challenge for the new consortium there will be keeping Maher. I'm sure plenty of clubs will be looking at him with covetous eyes.

I've just read on Twitter that Halifax have moved their home games on Saturday and Tuesday to Accrington. Has anyone else seen that?

It's funny how quickly things can change. Barely a month ago I thought you were nailed on for top seven, even if I didn't really expect you to go on and win the whole thing. But this is a pretty invidious position you find yourself in now. On the plus side, I don't see the Division being stronger next season and it is certainly hard to see there being an outstanding side. On the down side, most of the current top half will fancy having a real crack at it. Andy's statistic about five years being a benchmark for success in getting out feels intuitively right to me. The academy dilemma is a tough one. I appreciate the financial realities of fifth tier football mitigate in favour of short term thinking. But if you feel you need options in changing what is a difficult paradigm I would want to continue to develop, and try to retain talent of your own.

Cheers mate. We are too inconsistent I think, our current position of 9th feels about right. We''ll see - if we do make it it will because we have suddenly found something, and you know what we are like when we do. Actually, we are, after five years or so under Mr. Sadler, pretty much exactly where we started in terms of League position. And he has put around £16m in so far.

I've been on holiday for a week so this thread caught my eye. I assumed it must be someone bumping an old thread to make a point ...... but it seems it is actually serious. I'd say it was incredible, when you consider your last thirty years of miserable under-achievement, but I have to tolerate the keyboard warriors at Blackpool, who behave in exactly the same way - irrational, volatile and unable to contextualise what they are seeing. And then there is the overwhelming sense of entitlement..... I don't watch you at all, and am quite willing to believe that you are not easy on the eye. But so what? You are playing in a muck and nettles Division, and sometimes you have to adapt to what you are faced with. All I know is that after a worrying start and a change of manager, you are now in the thick of play-off contention, getting significantly more good results than bad ones and giving the impression that the club as a whole is getting to grips with what has been a precipitous fall from grace. You seem to have done all that without waving a cheque book in the style of Wrexham or Stockport ; given how competitive the Division is I'd be inclined to give the manager a bit more credit for getting a tune out of this squad. And I wholly accept it is easy for me to look dispassionately at it. I think around 72 points will be good enough for 7th. That means going something like W4 D4 L3 from here in. If you managed to (say) go W6 D2 L3 you would have a shot at 4th and a home tie to start in the play-offs. Obviously, given the tone of the debate, that may not be the advantage it is usually is. But I would rather the board was tilted in my favour for any one off match. I don't think the main issue is whether you can make it. It's any six from eight, and they are normally decent odds. I think you have a tough run in, but so do others. The key issue for me is momentum - I know a lot about winning play-offs, and when we have done it we have almost always gone into them in really good form. So there seems to me to be an awful lot to play for. It's a good time for excitement, ad a very odd one for the panic-stricken OP and some of what has followed it. All in my opinion, which of course counts for bugger all.

well, for what it's worth : I thought Mellon was a very solid appointment. He's effective without being showy and - dare I say it - based upon results, your team look as though they are beginning to reflect that. I take part in a NL prediction League elsewhere, and a year ago I would normally back against you as often as not. Nowadays I fancy you to get a result most weeks albeit you do have a tendency to struggle against teams towards the bottom. All that said : I think you need to finish top five if you want to have a good chance at winning the play offs. Having one home draw would be a big help. I think Bromley and Alty would be the big dangers, and it would be nice to finish high enough that you didn't have to play both. It's a really interesting league this season, from places 2-24. and will be even more so next season as the current bottom two in L2 are not likely to pull up a lot of trees.

Hello, did someone call me? What do you want from me?

Whoever is behind that account seems intent on stirring up mischief. Or struggling for relevance.

Both very fair comments.

Good Pod. I agree that it is too early to write the season off, but equally trying to win a promotion play off from 6th or 7th is very hard in the NL format. I must say I am surprised that you haven't kicked on from the second half of last season and the section of the conversation about recruitment being a common denominator in your recent problems rang true with me. It may be me, but Mellon does NOT come across well in interview. He sounded a bit clueless to me, to be honest. Clearly, there is more to him than that. But he seems to be getting you used to the idea of a big rebuild in the summer. The stuff on MCOs interested me. I think UEFA are belatedly looking at it, but it may come into sharp relief in the new, expanded form of the World Club Championship, where it may be almost impossible to keep clubs from the same stable apart.

I knew what it meant.

Would "Dawg" be safer?

You're welcome, Mr. Dog.

Good post, and on the two highlighted points : (1) Always a risk, but Labour have consistently offered the Government a cross-party approach to getting this on the statute book. I think there is every chance of that happening, should it need to. That could possibly include "nodding it through" if a General Election comes earlier than expected. (2) there isn't a regulator on the planet who could promise to head off all failures. But a system of licensing backed by regular inspection reduces the risks, and I hope that DCMS all be bold and create a wide range of powers along the lines that the FSA asked for in its evidence to Crouch. We will see.