nzlatic

12 minutes ago, BradKnowles1 said:

Madden staying in league two 

Salford? Can see them going for him. 

Watched a Stockport game this season where Madden played really well behind a front 2. Think I suggested it as a possible role for Norwood. 

9 minutes ago, Lee Sinnott said:

What a completely bizarre story to make up...

My memory isn’t great at the best of times but in the back of my mind I’m sure I remember someone on here complaining about a manager of ours travelling south to watch a midweek game. 
 

However, who am I to argue with the latics mind champion so maybe you’re right and I made the whole thing up. 

2 minutes ago, Lags said:

 

Penalties it is..... who will win it?

Whichever way it goes they’ve both been great and to use a well worn cliche… it’s been a great advert for the national league. 

Really enjoying this play off final. Great game. 
 

Shows how important working for each other is, this is worlds apart from the team we watched over those last couple of months. 

1 hour ago, BP1960 said:

I'll predict now Alfie Atherton will start next season after impressing in pre season friendlies - unless he's sold on.

Having 7 subs and being able to use 5 from next season is a game changer and hopefully should help massively with a pathway from the youth team to first team. 

So whoever has finished 17th down and the promoted sides get a fixture advantage in the next season? Seems fair

7 subs in the national league next season. Should mean more opportunities for the young players. 

Rock bottom for me was Crawley at home. Going to the ground for the protest then walking away before the game started not knowing what was going to happen to the club. 
 

Since the takeover I’ve felt we’ve been on the up. Although that feeling has obviously been massively tested with some of our results down here!!

8 minutes ago, BP1960 said:

 

Yes I can see that  aspect, but there's only one way to find out and that's to try them.

Remember how Chris Taylor relished his debut.

Yes I’d like to see more coming through. Maybe we’ll see a few in action pre season. 

I’m not convinced that putting youth team players on the pitch in those last few games with the atmosphere as it was would have been a good decision. 
 

Obviously no abuse would have been directed at them but they might have felt the pressure of that atmosphere. Plus the way the rest of the team were playing I don’t think would have done them any favours either. I’m more interested in what we do next with our promising youths, if any get contracts over the summer and if they get game time in the first team if everything about the club is more positive next season. 

2 minutes ago, Dave_Og said:

 Ronnie Edwards.  Never heard of him

Blimey. That's some return for Barnet, looks like he only played once for them.

3 minutes ago, League one forever said:

I’ve no issue there in principle. 
 

If he doesn’t want to play them, and it quickly becomes clear who is contracted but not fancied - then fine. 
 

But it’s not that simple is it. 
 

He banished Reid- and Kitching decided he didn’t want to play football anymore. 
 

Fine- banish Kitching, and sign a new left back. 
 

Kitching then becomes Reid this season- there. .  but never playing. . . and the cycle starts again. 
 

Mellon is very much my way or fuck off. Fine. 
 

But he’s not at a club and situation to be able to do that. He needs to adapt for the greater good, to buy himself the time needed to finish the job. 
 

Just saying- right, everybody out- none of you are good enough Is never going to work. He needs to be a lot cuter in how deals with players instead being so black and white. 

You keep implying that his words/actions can be taken by the squad to be him meaning all of them. I don’t think that’s the case with what he’s said. In fact he’s said a few times that he has good players who need others to come in and help them out. 

42 minutes ago, yarddog73 said:

Alty 1-0 up at Bromley, Linney goal with a Conn-Clarke assist.

 

Nobody can tell me that these playoff teams have more overall ability than we have, they just seem to have a plan and style of play and stick with it.

 

They are also proving as well that once you are in them anyone can progress.

Yep, so much of it is about organisation. And set pieces as well. We desperately need to learn how to defend and score from set pieces.

Watching that group of 13 year old pricks pretend charging the away fans and filming themselves celebrating is giving me mixed feelings about this game. Really don't want them to win, but then again I really don't want to have them lording it up over us for a 3rd time next season.

1 minute ago, Dave_Og said:

I do know that if that happens he'd be the first since Lee Johnson to start and finish a season 

That’s what got me looking at it. By my reckoning Les McDowell is the last manager who’d had a previous job to get a season and a half. Ronnie Moore with 14 months is the best since then. 

Stattos may have to help/correct me here, but I was looking at our list of managers because of our high turnover rate and I think I’ve discovered a bit of a weird stat. If Mellon stays til the end of next season that would be the longest time an experienced manager will have been given by us since the 1960s. Anyone since then who’s served longer has been in their first full time managerial role. 

4 minutes ago, Dave_Og said:

 

Every time since the internet was invented if I've been interested in a new job I've gone onto the potential employer's website to get a flavour of what to expect. I wouldn't have expected that!  For years the club has had a justifiably toxic reputation and now, just when we have hope, our manager is reinforcing it.  I honestly thought it was a disgraceful and disrespectful rant, made worse by the subsequent apparent revelations about what might have gone on. Reid was banished and fair enough as Mellon appeared to be setting standards. That's no good if he does stick to them himself.

I get what you’re saying and I’m not saying it definitely wouldn’t be a factor. But the emotions on display after being shouted at for 90 minutes then getting a microphone shoved in your face should be something players would understand so they might place a little less stock in it than the corporate world. We’ll have to wait and see, if we get another Southend away to kick off next season then we’ll know we’re in trouble. 

8 hours ago, Dave_Og said:

Any player he tries to sign will watch that. It's not a great advert for the club or him.

I dunno, I think it’s pretty unlikely that prospective signings will base their decisions on a post match interview. Or even think to go back and watch them at all. As Lags points out it’s much more likely getting booed on and chants about what a waste of money you are will put someone off. 
 

But is that such a bad thing? We need players who can meet the standards expected by the manager and the crowd, if they’re put off by those things then they probably weren’t the right signing in the first place. 

Now we can see why the NL bent over when it came to the fa cup. Ives probably has a cushy FA job lined up and will push this shite through first. Stinks. 

See, we didn’t need a self-flagellating statement from the club to cheers us up, just some good old fashioned positive transfer rumours!

2 minutes ago, League one forever said:

A good example is Kitching. 
 

Not the same player since Christmas- I wonder why. 
 

He’s in contract. 
 

But while Mellon may not his attitude he has 5/6 other priorities to shift out first. 
 

So he needs him for next season, is Kitching going to go back to the pre Christmas player because he has a new left winger in front him. . . Not for me. 

To answer your question above and in relation to Kitching, how I’d react as a player would depend entirely on what he has said to me in private or to the squad in private, not what he’s said in a post match interview. 

2 minutes ago, League one forever said:

Eh? I never said that.
 

You’ve literally made that one up. 
 

I said - ‘why would players (plural but not individual or everybody) he’s effectively (as in might as well have) called shit start to play for him
 

If I could be arsed I’d give you the direct quotes where he said numerous times that many of the squad aren’t good enough, but there’s no point because you’ll ask me for more evidence or he might not mean what he says in the media. 
 

I saw your other reply, where you found the pissboil funny. I think you’re anti pissboil- nothing is much of a concern because it’s all part of an abstract bigger picture that no one really knows about because the club don’t communicate. 
 

This is what will happen, and if I’m wrong I will hold my hand up. 
 

We’ll get rid of a few in contract and Mellon will sign 6-8. (If not more)  The majority will be older players. Next season the football won’t change. We’ll grind, results will be indifferent. Teams will out run us and look fitter, and we’ll still be struggling for pace in the side. Fans will get his on his back because results aren’t great and the football is poor and Mellon (with half a squad of his own signings) will be blaming everything but himself. 
 

Bookmark me on it. 

Yeah I've read that prediction elsewhere. I've no desire to bookmark anything. I'm sure if that happens you'll be the first to point to it!

But to go back to my response, I don't understand the point you're making then. You said "Even if half the squad can be changed he’s still got a half squad he’s said numerous times isn’t good enough". I took that to mean you saying he's called all the players not good enough. If that's not what you meant then I don't know what you did mean.

You can call a collective thing shit, but not mean that each individual is shit. Hawaiian pizzas are shit, but I don't mean every ingredient is shit in itself.

40 minutes ago, League one forever said:

Spot on. 
 

Even if half the squad can be changed he’s still got a half squad he’s said numerous times isn’t good enough. Why would players who haven’t performed him or effectively been called shit - suddenly start doing it for him. It doesn’t make any sense. 

He’s never once said that every player in the squad is shit. 

1 hour ago, Dave_Og said:

 

It's not really a massive change though - it's just a theory that may or may not come about.  If he has a squad largely made up of players he'd worked with before, and largely ones he's said aren't good enough, we're in big trouble.  It all seems to swing on how many of the out of favour we can offload and how much of their wages we will still be paying.  Room for manoeuvre is clearly very limited and means that the half a dozen or so that we will probably sign all have to work out, hit the ground running and be injury free.  On recent form in the recruitment stakes I'd rate that as being a very long shot indeed.

I guess I disagree that sweeping changes are needed and that the chances of them happening are miniscule. It's defeatist for starters, which I'd rather not be. But I also don't think either of those things are true. We wouldn't have needed to convert many of our draws to wins to be in the play offs (4 to be exact) and that's with a squad that had some major positional gaps. So I don't think we're a million miles away from competing higher up.

I also think there's plenty of scope for moving players in and out. Most of the contracted players who we may be wanting to move have had decent careers elsewhere.

There's a lot of time for them to make advances over the summer and I don't think it requires recruitment to be perfect to do so.