CambridgeDon

Just noticed that Raggett and Rafferty have been released by Pompey. There's little doubt we need some physical presence to bolster our defence (at 6'5" Raggett would be the perfect partner for Smith in a back four) and/or at full/wingback (where Rafferty has been excellent for Pompey). We could do a lot worse than these two but my guess would be that they are both out of our price range, which is a great pity. Just shows that there will be lots of really good players out there looking for clubs. Cheque book out, please Carol.

Interesting interview by two nice, well-meaning people who rescued the club when we were at rock bottom and poured millions in trying to improve us on and off the pitch. Listening to them made me think, however, that they still do not understand football nor what makes a successful club tick. At the end, it was only when things reached the point of no return with Flitcroft that they did what they should have done months before. And the same with Crosby, who should have gone much earlier in the autumn, and previously with Askey, when fortunately we had DC to bail us out. It tells me that the club was seriously lacking any depth and expertise to provide independent advice and guidance in how and when to intervene. So the biggest weakness in what we have seen so far is that we still seem to have little or no footballing nous or insight behind the scenes. It's alright saying the plan is to let DM and MH get on with their jobs but, in the absence of serious expertise on the Board to give our owners an objective assessment of the manager's performance and results on the pitch, who will she turn to for advice? How then will she hold DM to account? Who will advise her on when to step in? And more importantly, who will help her to develop a serious footballing strategy, a plan to implement it and the means to critically evaluate it? Imho, we seriously need some football hardened Non-Execs on the Board who know a thing or two about footy or we may very well find ourselves in the same place yet again. I wish them luck - we have a lot to thank them for.

We'll be lucky. Bromley's average home attendance this season is 2637 - lower than the average for the National - so they might manage one coach. Or we could get lucky and see Solihull Moors promoted. Their average home attendance is a whopping 1445 - the fifth lowest in the National - but at least they're local. This is what we're going to get in the bear pit that is League 2. More than one or two seasons at that level and our owners will have run out of money.

We are a joke. Fraudcroft's legacy will continue to haunt us for years unless a sizeable chunk of those on the retained list are dumped. What I fear will happen is that, out of the 16, it will be our best players - Ripley, Chislett, Garrity, and Ojo - that will go, leaving us with the dross that couldn't win a game in Hanley Park. And the prospect of us having Ikpeazu still on the books along with Loft, two strikers who couldn't score in a month of Sundays, fills me with dread. Absolutely insane. If I feel sorry for anyone in all this it's the manager who, after 17 games of watching this dross, will now be waking up to what he's let himself in for. I hope that there is some master plan behind this because, as it stands, we will be in another relegation battle. And he will be gone by Christmas. The person we need to hear from in all this is not DM or the Chief Executive but our hapless owners. We are looking already like we are National League ready and we are owed an explanation. What we need are some cast-iron reassurances about the budget, our recruitment and our prospects for next season. It is going to be a long summer.

Nor me. It was interesting that when Uche signed he remarked that DM had tried twice to sign him, so he was clearly an admirer. Whether he's still an admirer after some of the performances he's put in this season is another matter. It was also interesting to hear Sproey say repeatedly on Saturday that Uche would do well in L2, which has put summat of a doubt in my mind. I think we'll find that after Charlton's interest Uche has his sights set on a club higher than L2. If we do keep him and Loft, we would then be lumbered by two forwards neither of whom has a goal in them, or very few. Not my cup of tea I'm afraid.

Just watched Crewe on Sky scrape a draw at relegation threatened Colchester with a last minute goal courtesy of fighting till the last minute. I tell you, either of these two would have given today's Vale team a run for their money and I'm just hoping that nothing like our team today turns up for the start of next season or its another disaster in the making. Get it sorted, Vale! One nice piece of news though - Hanley Town finish their season with a 3-0 win and our very own Doddsy - in his very last game - scores the third. Even at 37, he might have done us a favour today after the dross we put out. Well done, Louis, fond memories!

Dire, drab performance summing up our miserable season. Time for a big, expensive clear out because there is no character, confidence or fighting spirit in this side, let alone quality. Unless we see a massive injection of talent, we will do nowt next season. Lost count of the number of times I asked myself how we'd ended up with such a useless squad lacking any sort of leadership or esprit de corps on the pitch. Looking back, that 7-0 drubbing at the start of the season was just a harbinger of things to come. And so it proved. Hope DM can turn this around - good luck to you, big fellah, you're gonna need it.

Ikpeazu is a complete donkey - complete open goal and he puts it wide. Needs to go!

Inconsequential half by a poor Vale side drained of confidence against a Cambridge side desperate not to lose (13 fouls and 3 yellows already, one of which should have been red). The table tells us everything and at -33 that's where we belong. The summer is going to be critical - needs a total rebuild. We look a mediocre L2 side already and unless our owners find the money to keep our best players, get rid of the dross and recruit players with some fight, it's going to be another long season.

Maybe they're lining him up as Gaza's goalscoring replacement 🤕

Which just shows how bad the rest of the team were...

Yes, you need the network to get chapter and verse on them but, as a starting point, the headlines are easy to find. Shortlisted for the Non-League Golden boot (in addition to the ones I listed in an earlier post) are Joe Taylor (Ramsgate, 40 goals), Dawid Rogalski (Marlow, 34 goals), Jake Reed (Lowestoft, 32 goals) and Marcus Wylie (Enfield, 33 goals). Enfield also have Sam Young on 27 goals, making a very effective partnership that has taken them into the playoffs for the National. So, yes, did we ever even consider them? What sticks in my mind (as I'm reminded living here) is how effective Cambridge's forward recruitment has been. After losing both Smith and Knibbs to Reading, they recruited Kaikai, Kachunga, Ahadme and Lyle Taylor - in addition to Okenabirhie - and these five strikers have scored 33 goals for them in 141 games, almost certainly enough to keep them up. We'll see how good they are on Saturday when they turn up at Vale Park.

We definitely should be targeting the National League where you will find players like Paul McCallum at Eastleigh (30 goals this season), Nicke Kabamba (Barnet, 24 goals) and Mani Dieseruvwe (Harlepool, 23 goals). If you drop one tier lower, you find strikers like Paul Blackett (South Shields 29 goals) and Ollie Pearce (Worthing, 40 goals). Several of these are on the short list for the NGA (ie non-league) Golden Boot award where there are also several other prolific goalscorers plying their trade in the lower reaches. Admittedly, not all or even any of these would make it in the EFL but I wonder how much attention we are paying to these players. Peterborough and one or two others seem to make a fine living out of it - and with the shoddy fare we've had to put up with in recent seasons, it might not be a bad idea to give them a look over.

Carol's letter is rightly apologetic but the one area where - in due course - we need to see more explanation is the need for restructuring within the club. On the playing side, this is going to be difficult, given the number of underperforming players still under contract, and expensive. To start with, we have to put right the glaring deficiencies we know about from this season including two full/wing backs, two strikers who can actually put the ball in the net, and at least one dominant centre half and one dominant midfield player. It's possible, even likely, that three or four of our better players will be leaving for other clubs, so they too will need to be replaced along with, I would say, four or five other first choice players so that we can relegate the dross we've seen this season to the bench. That's possibly as many as fourteen or fifteen new players so I hope that Carol has deep pockets because the thought of the majority taking the field now turning out in League 2 would be a recipe for disaster. Players aside, the one restructuring issue that Carol does not address in her latest letter is the most important (the elephant in the room you might say): how she intends to hold the manager accountable for results on the pitch. In our previous structure, she naively delegated all footballing matters to a single individual - with disastrous results. Aside from being too close to the DoF, she was, it appears, letting him mark his own homework for the lack of any depth of understanding and independent advice within the club. The Board (apart from Rudgie) appears to lack any depth of footballing experience or football strategy and without a strategic core of Non-Executive Directors who can fulfil this role (for example, experienced former players or coaches with management experience) she has no independent source of advice on the Board to help her steer the club through choppy waters. If we don't strengthen this aspect of the club, we are going to find that history will repeat itself. Lot to do then - and the proof of the pudding will be in the eating.

Neither does Dazza. Last time he was there with Wednesday, they lost 4-0 so my guess is he will have a point to prove on Wednesday. Let's hope so.

Valid question - how did it come to this? I stood in Cambridge Utd's pothole strewn car park this week, watching my car being washed and looking around at the portakabins, occasional skip and other assorted junk, not to mention their second rate ground and asked myself the very same question. This season, in addition to Okenabirhie, Cambridge added Ahadme (top scorer on loan from Ipswich), Kachunga, Kaikai and Lyle Taylor. These five have scored 33 goals for them in 128 appearances, goals that look virtually certain to keep them up. Last game, ironically, they put three past Wigan. Cambridge have smaller attendances than we do - and I infer, a smaller budget - and yet they had seemingly little difficuly in adding forwards to their squad having lost Smith and Knibbs to Reading in the summer. So we are entitled to ask some searching questions about striker recruitment. Cambridge are a well managed club, a community club, and they have an unrelenting focus on what happens on the pitch first and foremost. To me, therefore, our owners have got to have a serious look at where their priorities lie. This season may be too late (let's hope and pray not) but next season needs a complete change of focus. If not, we can expect more of the same.

Foyle? According to Wiki: "Foyle was named as Head of Recruitment at Northampton Town in February 2015. He went on to work as chief scout at Scottish Premiership club Motherwell the following year. Speaking in September 2019, "Well" scout Martin Corrigan credited Foyle with bringing a high calibre of players to Fir Park, calling him a "workaholic" with an encyclopedic knowledge of the English football's lower leagues. He returned to Northampton Town in his former role as Head of Recruitment in May 2021. He left Northampton Town in November 2021 to become Morecambe's Head of Recruitment. He left the role six months later. He joined Scottish Premiership side St Mirren as Head of Recruitment in June 2022." An interesting possibility, given his expertise in recruitment, which is something we desperately need after the last three windows.

Hopefully she will stay committed but her first priority is to find additional external investment for the club and to spend it on the playing squad - but absolutely not under Flitcroft's watch.

Lewk after theesen, yewth - tinner woth mekking theesen bad fer a game a footy 🙂👍

Free agents - the last refuge of the desperate 😀

Blessed is the man who expects nothing for he shall never be disappointed (Oscar Wilde)

Ha ha - but in Smudger's case it should be pinch 😀

Crikey, fearsome look, Maybe we should go four at the back with Lopata and Smudge in the middle. Scary prospect!

Sincerely hope we don't play Willo upfront where he is going to get kicked to pieces with predictable results. He needs to play off a bigger forward who will take the physical weight off him.

He's going to win us a lot of free kicks, starting on Saturday hopefully