Worcester Owl

Excellent, common sense post. I would double upvote it if I could.

Where on earth in @Gaz_Oafc’s post does he “big up” MM? Lost total control??? I’m sorry BP but you are talking absolute nonsense there.

Come off it. Reid wasn’t that good. If MM had let him off people would have said he was weak, too soft etc. Reid knew the rules and broke them anyway - he was either thick, or thoughtless, or both.

You assume that the way he talks to the media, with their frequently asinine questions, is the way he talks to the players. Do you have any evidence to back up that assumption?

A game we won, and followed up by winning at Maidenhead. You really are a genius, aren't you?

Reid publicly chucked his toys out of the pram at having been asked to train on Christmas Day, the poor lamb. We then won 4 league games in a row starting on Boxing Day. Norwood played in every game and scored 4 goals. The downturn in form would appear to have sod all to do with Reid being (rightly) banished.

But that wasn’t what you said.

Isn’t your barrel scraped enough yet?

Well seeing as @Guy Branston Pickle was rightly pointing out in his post that recruiting in January is a risk, and that it was poor recruitment last summer that meant we had to take that risk in January, then guess what - I will think exactly the same in November. Recruiting in January is always less optimal than in the summer, and last summer’s recruitment by Unsworth/the club was poor - neither of those points will be any less valid in November.

That's a great post and right on the nail but come on, there is little room for such a common sense observation on here.

You're clearly not listening, so I'll make this my last word on the matter. As an aside, I've noticed that you sometimes forensically dissect posts in an attempt to trip people up, claiming that they are contradicting themselves, when often they are not. If that floats your boat, so be it, but life's too short. You keep saying that we are "in good circumstances" or a variant thereof. Anyone would think we'd been transformed overnight from 30 years of being a mis-managed basket case to a model club, which should be doing much better on the pitch. We are at the very beginning of a long road to recovery under beneficent owners who are new to football and who will not get everything right but are hopefully learning as they go along. They were left with very little to work with by the previous regime and then made the well-intentioned mistake of sticking with a rookie manager for longer than they should. Now, Mellon has to pick up the pieces and after just 28 games people are moaning that he can't get us promotion and has to go. It's ridiculous. I repeat, patience is needed. That was the point I was making, in response to your facile "Southend terrible setup, Oldham model setup" comparison. You were happy to go along with MM as we rose up the table and got as high as 5th, and now, when it looks like the playoff push may be over, you seem to want to chuck your toys out of the pram and condemn him for "treading water" - fine, but I'll be more tolerant and wait to see what he achieves next season. On player recruitment, most if not all of the players signed at the start of the season and in January were praised as good signings by many on here. If you in your infinite wisdom saw through this recruitment as haphazard and scattergun at the time, it's not a recollection I have. I am happy to give MM a full summer window, and hope he won't be too restricted by the deadweight he inherited.

Ha, well he can be a bit of a Douglas Bader on the greens!

I wasn't making a comparison - I'm not interested in Southend's situation though I note, as pointed out elsewhere, that they have had the same manager since 2021. Maybe giving a guy a sensible amount of time to build something is an idea. We are all disappointed in how the season is ending. Very few people questioned player recruitment at the start of the season (under Unsworth) or in January (under Mellon). This is a tough league to get out of, full stop, and patience is required. Moaning about the board/players/manager and talk of pub teams (what are we, then?) gets us nowhere. MM deserves the next season to show what he can do. Results will determine his fate and it's futile speculating about whether we have a poor or disjointed football operation - which of us knows the intricate details of how other clubs are organised?

I refer you to my Cheltenham-supporting mate's assessment in the Playing Squad - Summer 23 thread!

You don't think our board/owners have been working in a shit show, given what they inherited from the Chuckle Brothers? They got the Unsworth appointment wrong, for which we can probably blame the Royles. They have now gone for an experienced manager, who has so far had just 28 league games - hardly more than half a season with no proper transfer window and a legacy squad that is clearly not one he would have wanted - to show what he can do. We were 22nd in the league when Unsworth left, and plenty on here said Thompson and Redfearn weren't the answer after three poor draws in a row. MM at least threatened to get us into the play-offs, and may still do. But fine, sack him and let's start all over again next season. I sometimes wonder if as fans we get the performances we deserve.