oafc1955

We would this season…we’ve 32 players!!

No chance the game will be moved at such a late stage!

But no rain from 7.00pm tonight until 11.00am tomorrow then light rain up to kickoff with strong winds which may actually help to dry out the pitch.

If that ain’t an incentive to get the pitch playable nothing is!

That probably applies to all Mellon’s signings….maybe he got lucky with Stones. I suppose 1 out of 7 ain’t bad!!

So….should we have stuck with Unsworth then? I would back any manager that showed incremental progress, but Unsworth was going nowhere. We are a huge club for this level and expectations are huge too and rightly so! Mellon, for all his experience and cute CV, IMO, hasn’t improved us one iota. Even allowing for our obvious deficiencies he should surely by now, be able to get 11 out of this squad of 32 players playing to a decent and consistent standard. Apart from a smattering of youngster’s these players are experienced pro’s who’ve done it before at this level and several in divisions higher up! Out of the 6 players he signed in January non are regular starters and a couple can’t even make the match day squad! We didn’t need squad players, we had enough of them, what we needed were players able to go straight in to the side and make a difference, otherwise, what was the actual point! I really hope he comes good but IMO he’s done nothing to suggest that he will. If we are struggling around Xmas time and not firmly in the playoff places do we just stick with it?

New manager bounce maybe but 1 win in 10 and 8 points from 30 at the business end of the season is absolutely dire and we’ve never looked like reversing it either! I think he’ll survive and will start the new season but the board must be shocked and disappointed at the way the season has capitulated and I’m sure his position will have been debated. If it continues into next season he will come under mounting pressure no doubt but unfortunately he’ll probably have spent a large chunk of the budget by then!

And then some!!

Looks like we might have to play this game next Thursday…could be interesting if the final playoff place hasn’t been decided by then!

Changed back to heavy rain again tomorrow….if that’s the case it’ll almost certainly be postponed!

Not quite, currently at 1.5 ppg under Mellon which after 43 games would put us on 64.5 points just behind Aldershot and 69 for the 46 game season which also wouldn’t be enough.

It was a while ago mind!

It’s pretty pointless running an academy and sort of defeats the objective if teams can take our top prospects without any need for compensation. The role of the academy is to identify young talent that we can nurture and hopefully, in time, promote to the 1st team squad or sell on for profit. The fact that EFL clubs can now come in and hoover up all the best talent for free is quite frankly ludicrous and needs sorting as a priority!!!

Because he’d done it before and had several promotions on his cv I think we went for a quick fix with Mellon, hoping he could get us up in one or two seasons at the most. I think next season will follow a similar pattern and we will have failed miserably. Maybe it would have been better getting in a young and hungry coach, advocating entertaining football and with a long term plan. As I said I think Pete Wild would be perfect! Apart from blaming everything that happened prior to his arrival nothing Mellon has said or done since has inspired me at all. I think if we could get the right guy in I would probably get shut of Mellon and start again! If and when Mellon does go that is the route I would take next time.

The problem is if he spends the money available in the summer and this form continues we are in even deeper shit aren’t we? I’m glad I’m not making the decision!

It’s getting the right one we seem to find difficult!

That’s for the board to decide. If we could get Pete Wild I would get shut right now. If we’d pushed the boat out for him instead of Unsworth I think we’d be in a much better place right now. We’d have the perfect set up but that’s not happening. We may as well stick with Mellon for now, who else is available who we could realistically attract?

He certainly needs to hit the ground running next season but it will be difficult with yet another swathe of wholesale changes and another bedding in/time to gelperiod. If he is the manager for the 1st game then barring total disaster we should be giving him the full season…..there is absolutely no point allowing him to make ‘his’ signings if we then sack him at Christmas because we are 10th!! Think Darren & the board need to sit down with MM and reassess as to where we are and where we need to be. On the playing side we have completely wasted 2 seasons and MM has to take some of blame for that. We cannot afford another fruitless season and fans will not put up with anymore of this ‘ale house’ football where BP performances (where it matters most to the average fan) have been absolutely dreadful. The Board have a big decision to make and the season ticket take up may well be an important indicator!

No heavy rain before Wednesday, the forecast is now for light rain & a gusty breeze.

It’s still equally shite!

And Tuesday too!

Like you are most of the time!

And they have 8 points from the last 30, exactly the same as ourselves!

No problem, we can play crap on any surface!!

It’s just dawned on me that we could actually be playing against Curzon Ashton in a competitive league fixture!!