Dave_Og

Quite possibly but, more importantly, who'll sign ours...?

Yes they do. Sutton did it I think, not a great investment as it turned out

There might be less logic but there's still some. Unless we just chuck money at ii

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

I think we'll know sooner than that. If we get to within a fortnight of the new season and have failed to sign most of a new starting XI we'll be in bother

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 doesn't stick to them himself.

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

If he'd said what he said in thirty seconds I'd have given him the benefit of the doubt. But to say it will over and over again for nearly fifteen minutes was beyond the pale for me

I see Marta has retired; another dream dies

Ah!

Ok m certainly not going to listen to it again but I'm sure he said relegation

He said at the other end of the table, with crystal clarity

I wasn't particularly defeatist until Mellon's interview which I found absolutely extraordinary. I'm usually of a mind that managers shoudl be given plenty of time but I change my mind on that after listening to that. Just diabolical

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.

Perhaps because we cannot make a single mistake in recruiting those 5 or 6. That's a very unlikely scenario at the best of times.

I'd rather they had some conversations in house and told us next week. Are pre-contract deals really much of a thing down here?

Seems bit weird to be in a position to release the released/retained list when we are still in May if we want to retain any of the players that are coming to the end of their current contracts. The contracts don't end till the end of June so if we are interested in retaining one or two then plenty of time for a discussion with them. Today's news item seem pointless

Bit harsh given he missed four matches because of a refereeing decision that was simply wrong

Fondop might have had enough of this anyway

Has any youth player we've released in, say, the last decade gone on to have a decent career?

I play pool on Tuesdays for the local pub (not especially well - it's more of a social thing) We were in Division Two of Three this winter, there were eight teams of which three were promoted and three were relegated. Division One is way too serious (One bloke I played from up there in a cup competition had a whole sleeve of pool based tattoos!) so we weren't really fussed about going up but we are competitive enough not to want to go down. Mission accomplished, we finished fifth. Love a comfort zone!

Yep, team game - but teams rarely win promotion when they have weak minded players in their regular starting XI

There's a real dilemma here. It's just bizarre that so many of our players appeared to be weak mentally - Many have played at a higher level, many have achieved things in their career that are what we as a club aspire to. But they're mentally weak? It makes no sense at all. Mellon seems to have preferred experience over youth during his career but here he has a team of largely experienced players who have proved they can play at this level, at least, but we're left with spineless performances against clubs with a fraction of the resources. OK, we were light at right back and in midfield but it doesn't excuse some of the stuff we've seen which has looked a lot like throwing in the towel. So, we'd prefer a good blend of young dynamic players who, pretty much by definition, will be taking a step up if the come here even if they are coming from a higher level club where they played in, say the U23s, and gnarly NL experience. If our first question of that younger cohort is can the cope with the pressure of playing for the mighty Oldham Athletic and the only way of finding out is by signing and playing them, then we really are stuffed because the chances of getting that right, say, 75% of the time seem to be pretty remote based on recent experience.

Many things that I struggle to get my head around, one would be Lundstram.Apparently he'd struggled to adjust to being at a bigger club? He's not got much of a career ahead of him if that's really the case. It's not like he's moved to Real Madrid

Agreed although it is a bit of a joke of a league - only nine teams and the only points that two of them are likely to get are when they play each other. Further tests to come when they play the only realistic challenger and hopefully next season