nzlatic

10 minutes ago, Oafc11 said:

Playing next Thursday will be a punishment for us as well, why should we have to play 2 games in less than 48hrs because of Halifax’s farmers field!! 

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. 

9 minutes ago, BradKnowles1 said:

Looks like no police force wants to host us 

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. 

2 minutes ago, League one forever said:

Southend really have embarrassed us. 
 

Awful owner.

 

Club in turmoil. 
 

Transfer embargo. 
 

Tiny squad, sometimes not able to name a full bench. 

Above us in the table 

 

Would be 5th without the point deduction. 

 

Us.

 

Brilliant owner.
 

Takeover nearly two years ago. 

 

Big budget - and spent a relative fortune. 
 

Massive squad that doesn’t have one contracted professional in certain positions. 
 

Finished 12th and now sat 10th. 
 

 

We are massively underachieving. 
 

 

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

1 minute ago, Lee Sinnott said:

I'm pretty sure he's still only interim manager too...

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

17 minutes ago, yarddog73 said:

Very true look at Gareshead who have about 14 players and a manager only in place since October, lost their Captain, keeper recalled sold their best players in January, they'll do well to stay up. Hold on....

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.

20 minutes ago, deyres42 said:

Impossible, every manager needs a summer transfer window or they can't possibly improve anything.

Solihull manager was appointed Jun 28th 2023.

2 minutes ago, Charles or Eddie said:

A younger up and coming manager who is doing things, like the lad at Altrincham for example.

 

Not another ageing manager whose innovative days are way behind them. Or an untested mate from everton

He’s 52

1 hour ago, BradKnowles1 said:

Two games in quick succession for Halifax on that pitch before they play us. More rain due as well

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? 

7 minutes ago, GlossopLatic said:

 

Look it's the first attempt at trying to get promotion it's not gone well but it's not the end of days. We could be at this level for another couple years the important thing is we learn from it.

 

Look at Chesterfield the first season down here they were fighting relegation in 2021-22 they finished 7th. 2022-23 they finished 3rd and lost out to a penalty shootout at Wembley (I bet that bloody hurt) But this season they recovered again learned more and won the league at a canter.

 

I'm sure Frank Rothwell had all manner of failings in his early business career some of them could well have been quite painful but he learned his lessons and built himself a successful business it's the sane process here. All we've done this season is find a way not to get promotion it's an opportunity now to learn from that and come back stronger next year. Trust the process.

I’ve mentioned this a few times now so it’s probably getting boring!.. Chesterfield were right at the top end of the table in Feb 2022 when their manager left and Cook was appointed. They’d played 26 and had 54 points. Cook came in and got 23 points from 18 games, they clung on for 7th. 
 

Did he improve them? Clearly not. He hadn’t won anything for 5 years. Did they give him time? Yes. Next season they were flying high but had a bad 10 games and dropped down again. Again, they didn’t panic and they won the league by miles in his second full season. 
 

The 8 above us on the league all bar one (Gateshead) have managers who’ve been there at least 1 full season. The top 4 have managers that are in their 3rd seasons at least. 
 

We just have to give someone some proper time. 

4 minutes ago, Lee Sinnott said:

That's not just here, it's everywhere. Every manager in the modern day who has been given "time" has been given the time because they've gone in and won football matches. Wild was mentioned earlier - people point out he was given 3 years at Halifax. The reason he got 3 years is because he went in and immediately won games of football.

 

Flip side of that is Noble at Wealdstone. Gone in there, can't buy a win. Sacked. It isn't just an Oldham issue...

Mellon did that wouldn’t you say? 11 wins and 4 draws out of his first 20 league games. Then a bad run followed. But it seems for many that bad run of 8 games is enough to get rid. 

3 minutes ago, League one forever said:

Good post. 
 

Mellon said that Lundy has struggled playing for a big club in the division, and he wasn’t alone. I think you’re right and that applies to managers as well. The challenge of big club in a small pond is too big for a lot of them. 
 

I know wasn’t this division. But the only two managers who I’ve felt didn’t seem fazed or under pressure, and consistently looked to galvanise was Dowie and Johnson, surprise surprise both left for bigger jobs. 
 

The rest fall into- come in with varying past records - look full promise, then quickly unravel citing- budgets, false promises, what they inherited, defending poor runs. After a while longer they look completely haunted in post match pressers. 
 

The closet I’ve seen to Dowie or LJ down here is Williamson, I don’t think anyone else touches him. (For up and coming, can handle a big club, doesn’t seem fazed) 

Only 2 games to go off so too early to tell yet, but there are signs with Lundstram that Mellon was right and they’ve worked with him on those issues and we’re now seeing a better player. 
 

Hopefully that can be applied to others too. We may not need a massive overhaul to the squad if so. Mellon should have enough behind him to not be fazed by the job. Might just need…. time!

This is Parkinson’s 4th season in the national league. He’s finished 17th, 14th, 17th and is now in the play offs. At a club that was part time til recently and probably had very little expectation from the fans or the board. 
 

Would he get that sort of time here? Would he be able to handle the pressure of a big club at this level? It’d be a massive punt. 

1 hour ago, TheBigDog said:

 

 

 

 

SIX years ago - the league has changed hugely in that time.

 

He really has shown that he knows the National League hasn’t he?

 

33 minutes ago, Londonboy said:

This. 

NL now is a different animal than then.

Pretty much all teams are now full time, with money and ambition.

To me he has shown no evidence that he knows  how to get out of this league unless someone can tell me differently.

He's won 10/30 games in charge which is a piss poor win rate in this league.

Who has shown the ability to get out of this league more recently than Mellon who is also a realistic target?

21 minutes ago, TheBigDog said:

The one thing we did not try (and should have) is to appoint a manager who knows the National League.

Mellon?

We’ve tried young unknown coaches, we’ve tried experienced managers. We’ve tried club legends, we’ve tried outsiders. 
 

One thing we’ve not tried for a decade is starting and finishing a season with the same manager.
 

Even if we start slowly I’d be surprised if we’re in relegation trouble so I’m of the view that Mellon needs to be given the full season next year. 

8 minutes ago, League one forever said:

Re - writing history there. 
 

What you had, was posters offering balance to poor football at home. 
 

We talked about away form - because it was very good at that time. 
 

We talked about the form table- because at that time it was very good. 

Exactly. No one, no matter how positive they were (myself included), was crowing about things being brilliant. 

22 minutes ago, OneSizeFitz said:

It's quite simple really. A striker of Norwood's age will never score 30 goals a season at this level. But it's a reasonable expectation for Norwood to have scored 30 goals this season at this level. And he hasn't lived up to that reasonable expectation to score 30 goals this season, so he's underperformed and it's largely his fault we're 9th. And we know that this is what the club expected of him when they signed him because they never came out and said it.

 

Case closed.

Perfect summary. 

They’ve got to play 3 games in 6 days on that pitch starting Wednesday. Surely any sort of rain on the day puts any of those games in doubt. 

17 minutes ago, deyres42 said:

I can't imagine they thought he would only be on 17 goals at this stage of the season, no.

13 minutes ago, deyres42 said:

It's not hard, I don't think it is realistic for a guy in his mid 30s to score so frequently, those who signed him obviously did or else they wouldn't have done so.

Some grade a stuff here eyresy. You said he hasn’t lived up to expectations. Just to check, is it your expectation he’s not lived up to or the board’s with his 1 in 2?

Was looking at Chesterfield centre mids…

Naylor 12 goals

Dobra 10 (is he centre or wide?)

Banks 8

Jacobs 5

Oldaker 1

36 goals from central mid, or 26 if I’ve got Dobra wrong. 
 

For us…

Sheron 6

Dickenson 5

Gardner 2

Shelton 1

14 goals. 6 of those from players pretty much not played in 2024. 

Looks even worse if we start comparing forwards/wide players. 

7 minutes ago, BP1960 said:

 

The question was theoretical, how many if he'd scored them all abd Norwoods tally without them?

Looks like he’s scored 5. So Norwood would be on 12 and Sheron on 11.  
 

If Hudson had taken them then he’d be our joint 4th top scorer. 
 

1 minute ago, BP1960 said:

 

If Sheron had taken and scored all the penalties taken by Norwood how many goals would each have scored this season?

 

Penalties aren’t open goals. Sheron wouldn’t have scored them all. 

Sheron being our 3rd top scorer is more an indication of our problems than it is of his ability.