nzlatic

Jesus. Where did I say that?! And I’m the one supposedly going to extremes! You aren’t involved in the business but yet you’re talking as if you’ve got full visibility of every facet of the business, it’s targets and it’s success/failures. Whereas in reality you’re looking solely at what is happening on the pitch. And yes the past almost certainly has an impact on footballing matters even after Frank came in. Our reputation for how we dealt with agents or other clubs for example, our reputation with players for not paying them. A new owner just doesn’t wipe all those things away immediately, it takes time to turn around. Our non existent scouting network. The facilities we could offer players. Our coaching infrastructure. All these things needed building from the ground up. You don’t get every decision on that journey right. The football side of things need improving. What has gone wrong has to be understood and put right. Processes need to be improved. Personnel may need to change. But to say that what happened in the past has no lasting impact is nonsense. The same can be applied to Mellon. He’s had 6 months and made a few signings so the failure to reach the play offs is on his shoulders alone and so he needs sacking? I don’t agree.

Stop what? Saying Mellon should be given time or criticising fans who are trying to hound Norwood out?

If a business has been underfunded and mismanaged for a decade or 2, you don’t turn it around in less than 2 years just with good intentions and chucking some money at it. It’s not an excuse, it’s just not how business works. At all. We have new people in pretty much every position. All working together for the first time. Mistakes will happen. It can’t be avoided. Plans will be made and then changed. Take recruitment, our issues could be because the process was wrong last summer. So that could take time to fix properly, who knows? This is all perfectly normal though - it will take time to get the set up of the club working to its best in every department. More time than 2 seasons. Some people want to respond to adversity by torching everything and everyone and starting from scratch. I might be wrong but I don’t think that’s the way to go for long term health of the club.

That’s a bit different. It should go without saying that I don’t think every manager gets unlimited time to get it right. Unsworth had a long, poor run to start with. He then had a good 2nd half of the season but even then he didn’t pick up points at the rate that Mellon did over his first 20 games. He then had the full summer to recruit which he didn’t do as well as he should have done. And then had a shocking start to the season. He also had no track record outside of youth football. Mellon picked up points at nearly 2 per game. He’s got multiple promotions under his belt all after at least 1 full season. We’ve now had a run of 6 draws and 3 defeats and we should sack him? It’s a massively over the top reaction to something that happens in all clubs, even ones that get promoted.

That’s how I felt on the terrace today. It was horrible. Actively singing against your own player for missing a chance. The guy who is the only one who’s scored goals with any regularity this season. I just don’t see how we can truly move forward as a club if the fans are frothing at the mouth whenever the team or a player has a bad run of form. There’s lots to fix, of course there is, but is that a massive surprise given what has happened to the club over the last 10/15 years? But no one gets time. It has to be quick or you’re out.

I stood there and listened to some fucking awful stuff today. Absolutely irrational negative bollocks. If I was James Norwood I would 100% be looking for another club this summer off the back of today. I don’t think I put any irrational positive bollocks on here but if you’ve found some I’ll happily address it.

Sack him. Sack the players. Sack the board. Sack the statistics. Then if the new lot aren’t top of the table in 6 months, sack them all too. Give medals to the fans who were signing anti James Norwood songs loudly and repeatedly for the crime of… checks notes… missing a chance. They’re the real heroes. This toxicity is fucking performative and farcical. I can’t be arsed with it.

If we don’t score in the first 15 minutes it feels like the players and fans lose the pre match optimism and things get worse from there.

I have no idea what the process was with Freeman but they only gave him a 6 month deal so they obviously didn’t feel confident signing him up for longer. I’d be more interested in the process for those we give longer, permanent contracts to.

Really good point in last para. The whole journey back to L1 won’t be a straight line either. There’ll be lots of ups and downs and mistakes made. I’d guess mistakes will occur more frequently in the early years too. Just because mistakes happen, we have spells of bad form, appoint the wrong manager or sign the wrong players doesn’t mean we’re not on the right path.

Absolutely. And this is how they are being used I think. I’m sure it’s been said that the stats tools are used to identify possible players from a wider selection. They are then shortlisted and scouted in the more traditional sense. The way some are talking is as if DR is using statsbomb like top trumps, seeing a striker with 10/10 for shooting and signing him to a 3 year deal.

A medical room with all these new fangled machines and devices to help physios deal with injuries and rehabilitation better? What tosh. Nothing wrong with a bucket and a sponge.

We were 2 divisions higher then so better loanees were much easier to come by.

Probably explains why people say a manager needs a few windows to properly sort a squad. Trick this summer will be this to replace 6 that haven’t worked out with 6 as you have described there. 2 great, 2 ok, 2 not ok. Then we’re 4 players better off.

Who would have to pay to police 1800 away fans if it’s held at another ground?

Love the enthusiasm! Plenty will say there’s no chance but if that was the case why bother watching sport? Slim chance of it happening, but as you say there was a slim chance of us winning the last 3 in 1993. You never know…

Yeah seems massively unfair on us. We could have had a lot riding on that game (might still I guess!) but get left with just 38 hours between matches.

Will it be us specifically or just the pure numbers? Barnet and Ebbsfleet will be much lower numbers. With our game it’ll be an extra 1500 at least to police.

You forgot to mention they’ve had the same manager since October 2021

Yeah I saw that. Bit strange, would have thought he’s done more than enough to get the gig.

Gateshead is the one team in the top 10 that's changed manager mid season other than us. Given Williamson left and took players with him he's done a great job.

Solihull manager was appointed Jun 28th 2023.

He’s 52

And a couple of rugby games in between no doubt.

Would it have to be behind closed doors if moved to another venue at this late stage?