Worcester Owl

1 hour ago, Dave_Og said:

But can he hole a Dennis Wise under pressure?

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

1 minute ago, League one forever said:

Poor comparison.  Our owners moved us away from what Southend are still going through. . . 
 

The equivalent to Southend and Maher would be AL still being here and someone like Pete wild doing great job in horrible circumstances. 
 

Both our last two managers work for fabulous owners and a settled club. 
 

On your last paragraph - I wasn’t make a sack him point. Mellon is just a moving part in what has been a poor football operation for two seasons. 
 

Board decisions. 
Recruitmemt. 
Player performance. 
 

In my view things are disjointed on the football operation. With lots of contradictions. I hope in the summer there is a big meeting between the family, the board,  Mellon, and senior players to hold each other to account and have some honest conversations about where mistakes have been made. 
 

 

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? 

On 3/30/2024 at 1:36 AM, Sloshed Joe said:

Nuttall ‘does superbly’ (according to the Cheltenham Twitter admin) to assist the winning goal v Fleetwood as they fight for League One survival.

On 4/6/2024 at 5:48 PM, nzlatic said:

Nuttall scores. 

On 4/7/2024 at 3:19 AM, Sloshed Joe said:

Cheltenhams official report doesn’t describe it as one to remember…

 

’Late consolation as Nuttall fumbles it home from close range’ 

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

2 minutes ago, League one forever said:

Yeah,  I was specifically talking about his point regarding Southend. 
 

We keep hearing that it takes time, mistakes will be made, we can’t expect to much. . despite the club being in a fantastic position for success. And yet they’re working in an absolute shit show. . but have recruited well on a shoe string, have a good manager, and got the most from their tiny squad. What they achieved this season given the circumstances is excellent. 
 

Meanwhile we are aimlessly throwing money at the wall to see what sticks, and in comparison to them our whole structure of recruitment/getting the best from the players/consistency of performance put us to shame. 
 

 

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.

7 hours 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....

They had a full bench when they played Rochdale the other day. 

17 hours ago, League one forever said:

There’s no denying, that is embarrassing. 

His post certainly is. Even by his standards, it's as nonsensical as it is doom-ridden.

I played golf this morning and one of my regular playing mates seemed a bit agitated, odd as he's normally a very chilled out kind of guy. Turns out he was at Cheltenham last night as they lost 0-1 to Carlisle (already down) in a crucial relegation match for them. He was apoplectic about Nuttall, who apparently missed a sitter early on. Honestly, I've never heard him swear so much . Among his more repeatable comments about Nuttall were "can't bloody jump", "fucking useless", "sodding donkey", and he said if we don't take Nuttall back at the end of the season if not before, he might just stick my 7 iron where the sun doesn't shine!! 

10 hours ago, Londonboy said:

I didn't like Unsworth one bit, and thought he was completely out of his depth and was really glad when he was sacked..

However in his first season his win rate was about 35%....shit I know.

Mellons so far as about 33%

 

Whatever anyone says both  Mellons win rate and the teams performances have been no better than Rhinos.

He's been a massive disappointment so far, and started 10 of Unsworths squad on Saturday. 

Progress eh.....

If we're going to quote win % the only one that matters is league wins.

DU in his first season was 35.14% as you say, 13 from 37. By the time he left it was 14 from 46, or 30.43%. 

MM has 11 wins from 28 or 39.29%. Until the current poor run of 8 without a win he was consistently > 50%, which is a high threshold.

He is demonstrably a better manager than DU. I hope he is still up for the challenge - if so, he should be given a summer transfer window and the whole of next season (barring catastrophe, obviously) to show what he can do.

1 hour 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.

That, sir, is a gem. Take a bow. Would double upvote it if I could!

6 hours ago, spanishfly said:

StatsBomb. Been doing a little research as I`d never heard of it. Someone mentioned on here that no top team winning anything is without it. Really? Well, if lots of clubs have it; they can't all be winning can they? Competitive advantage comes from having decent players in a decent line-up, managed well. We are in non-league for christ's sake. A manager, and indeed anyone who knows anything about football, can see a good player when he sees one. It's just more nonsense created by the nonsense generation. Oh and anyone calling the beautiful game, soccer (which I saw several times on their website) clearly knows nothing about football either. I really do despair if Latics are relying on such drivel as part of their recruitment policy. The saying;  lies, damned lies and statistics wasn't made up for any old reason. It's because it has a large element of truth in it. 

 

Let the manager do the recruiting, full stop. He then lives or dies by his own decisions not some stupid bloody database on meaningless stats.

I never understand why some people get so worked up about the word “soccer”. It’s used by the Yanks a lot, yes, but sensibly in their case to differentiate it from American Football. It’s been used over here since the game was codified, and is simply an abbreviation/corruption of Association Football.

Hope springs eternal

5 minutes ago, Littlemoor Lad said:

I've never been one to boo the player's off,

If they've done what's expected of them I'll clap till my hands are sore

I do tend to head for the exit as soon as when I've been unhappy with what I've seen and that should be enough 

That’s very fair of you. TBH I’m the same, I don’t think I’ve ever booed Latics off, just fled as soon as the whistle goes and got as far away as possible. It’s fine to say that fans pay their money so have the right to boo, I get it, but it’s not like complaining about a product or service in the real world. This is football, and it’s our club, that we love in spite of everything. I just walk away, always have, or, worse, don’t go to the game.

3 hours ago, O.A.F.C. said:

There is no reason why we can't win all 4.  The reaction in the 2nd half against Altrincham showed real character.

I agree with your second sentence, the team showed fight and passion albeit we didn’t create many clear cut chances. On your first sentence, again, of course we could win all 4 but how many times this season have we played well 2 games running, never mind 4?

28 minutes ago, simplythemostimportantkick said:

Sutton too. Know what you mean tho. Not enough. I imagine they aren’t good enough or they’d be chucked in. It’s ok them standing out against other kids but to cut it against blokes is another story. 

Yes Sutton too, bad of me to overlook him. Apart from the disaster for the goal, I thought he played ok against Altrincham. 

I don’t feel overwhelmingly impressed by Darren Royle’s tenure as CEO so far, as opposed to the magnificent support given by the Rothwells. Just on the subject of the youth team though, pathways into the first team and the fact that only Vaughan has come through recently, and then with only a few games in the first XI at that: I don’t see that Darren Royle is in any way to blame, unless we are suddenly going to start saying that the non-football guys should have influence over who is selected for the first team - in which case we’re back to the bad old days of the Chuckle Brothers. If Unsworth and Mellon don’t think youth team players are good enough for the first team, then by all means disagree but it’s their right to take that view and nobody on the board has any right to influence that. As for whether we got enough money for selling Vaughan, again, we’re a small club and in the end have to accept what another club is willing to pay.

17 minutes ago, nzlatic said:

Yeah it's one place up for grabs now. Aldershot, Halifax or us.

 

Aldershot games:

Hartlepool A Draw

Gateshead A Gateshead win

Boreham Wood H Aldershot win

Dagenham A Draw

They need 8 points to be out of reach, assuming we win all 4. 

 

Halifax games:

Kidderminster A Draw

Oldham H See below

Barnet H Draw

Ebbsfleet H Halifax win

Eastleigh A Draw

They need 10 points from the other 4 games to be out of reach, assuming we win all 4.

 

Our games:

Rochdale H Draw

Halifax A See below

Oxford A Win

Wealdstone H Win

 

I think that 72 points might well be enough to sneak 7th. I just don't think we'll get them unfortunately.

I’ve put my forecasts in your post above!

That gives Aldershot finishing on 70 points. Ignoring our match v Halifax, they have 69 points from 45, we have 67 from 45. So we have to win at Halifax and given current GDs, we would then scrape into 7th ahead of Aldershot on 70 points.

Knowing us, we will probably beat Halifax but lose at home to Wealdstone in the final game to screw it all up. Or make the play offs and then make a swift exit!

2 minutes ago, jsslatic said:

 

I'd suggest that a barnstorming finish to the season winning our last four games would be the opposite of Typical Latics!

Yep, to be honest we’ve rarely finished a season strongly in the last few years.

I will admit my 72 point prediction is looking dodgy. We just need to win all four remaining games, and it would be typical Latics if we did. It’s certainly possible, whether it will be enough even then is now out of our hands.

1 hour ago, Andy Barlow’s dietician said:

Biggest wage bill

largest playing squad

2nd best squad measured by experience and EFL pedigree

18 months of investment and effort in the football enviornment by a committed board and a magnificent family ownership

Two highly paid managers recruited, both backed to the hilt to have whichever players they wanted

the best and most high profile centre forward in the division 

 

Based on all recent experience today is the day when all the above is finally chucked in the bin (for this season at least). A footballing lesson awaits from a team with a playing staff earning about a quarter of ours played on a ploughed field surrounded by some cowsheds with a fan base of a couple of thousand, oh and it’s live on TV, so lots more people get to witness it.

 

The utter shitshow of the last few weeks all stemmed from that disgusting display v Kidderminster. Teams with anything about them do not lose on days like those, it does not happen. Our lot simply did not have it in them to win that day, and in doing so, as a collective (management included) showed to us what they were all about.

 

of course the squad is imbalanced, but the 11 he puts out each week (even with Macgahey at right back and four centre mids) should have enough about them to win when it matters and get the points needed (from where we had ourselves pre Kiddy) to finish up about 5th.
 

The gaps in the squad is just an excuse and covers up for some clearly deep seated problems within the playing squad and/or the relationship with the coaching team. I don’t know what they are, but it’s baffling that 15 or so highly experienced players and a manager of the experience and intellect of Mellon has not been able to fix it. They have been together for months now, and cannot blame any external factors for their failure. 
 

That group, have royally fucked things up, and I hope in time we find out what has happened to cause this, because to me it is a mystery.

 

Play ugly but win was clearly the game plan, and with the tools available there is nothing wrong with that plan. Why has it not happened?

 

 

I still think MM should have a summer transfer window and then a decent spell of games next season to see what he can do, but that is an excellent post and I can’t disagree with any of it.

13 minutes ago, LightDN123 said:

Hitting the drink for this one, can anyone recommend anywhere beforehand ? 

There used to be a couple of dangerously good Belgian bars in Altrincham town centre, but I’m going back a few years. Strong stuff but you may need it!

12 hours ago, oafc1955 said:

No….I was at the game but avin a piss!

10 hours ago, mcfluff1985 said:

Absolute shocking decision. Even worse on the slow mo replay

That’s definitely April Fool material. Not even the Great Red Fleece himself would put CCTV in the men’s toilets, surely 

35 minutes ago, JED said:

The point being we all like to comment on the strength or otherwise of the squad and expect the owners to continue to cough up. If I was Frank I would be seeing season ticket sales as one of the indicators of the strength of support and MAY influence the budget, and we therefore should be willing to contribute ourselves where possible - accepting that for various reasons a season ticket is not suitable for all supporters.

I don’t think anyone reasonable expects the owners to continue to cough up. Most of us, ST holders and POTD alike, are just grateful to have such a beneficial owner, long may it continue.

1 hour ago, deyres42 said:

Sounds like the Foundation wasn't consulted.

 

Makes you wonder what is being discussed in the meetings with Royle...

Maybe you should offer to get involved and volunteer to help the Foundation, attend meetings, etc.

Then again, you wouldn’t be able to snipe from the sidelines, would you?

58 minutes ago, JED said:

Be good to see those NOT committing keeping quiet when there are questions being asked about the cost of the squad next season. Those buying a season ticket are contributing to the running of the club and backing Frank and co, and ‘buy’ the right to comment.

I find that an outrageous view, and I speak as somebody who often wishes that critics of the club/team would “keep quiet”! 
Everybody who attends a match contributes to the running of the club, and the POTD supporter’s money is as good as the season ticket holder’s.

13 minutes ago, yarddog73 said:

They've pissed enough money up the wall already to be honest, I don't think they need to worry about my three ton the amount they've spunked away since Frank came in. They are paying Alex Reid about 4 or 5 full price season tickets worth a week to sit at home on his arse for the next 60 weeks. That's around 300 paying customers just on that alone.

But are you saying that Reid must be included in the match day squad because of his wage, and to hell with MM’s commendable desire to enforce discipline? What’s the alternative?