Guitar Ray

For me I’d like to see a bit more flexibility rather than just recruit for a style. One of the problems this season seemed to be we were so wedded to a system that we couldn’t deviate much. It didn’t help that we hadn’t recruited all the players we needed to play the style chosen by the DoF, but that’s another story.

Both times we’ve been relegated in recent times have been down to catastrophic recruitment. We had a steady side under Page before Sexman had a brainstorm then this season we failed to add the couple of players that would’ve been enough to keep us up. It would’ve been pretty straightforward to have avoided yoyoing in my opinion.

You definitely won’t be alone on that score, one or two around us are making the same switch. A fair few I speak to in the Hamil are just moving within that stand, some further back to stand up and a few the complete opposite.

Impossible to judge any manager fairly until they’ve bought their own players in to enable them to implement their preferred style of play. We did play some decent football at times earlier this season but common sense would tell anyone that without goals from forwards who can hit the back of the net with some regularity it’s always going to be a struggle, and so it proved.

How do you know they won’t cut it in league 2? Most of the players would be fine, that’s not to say great. The point being we can afford to retain some just as long as we bring in some decent players to augment those that stay. The biggest single issue this season was lack of goals. 2 half decent strikers would’ve been the difference. Uche and Loft simply didn’t score enough.

You could also argue we did it with the same powderpuff forward line and leaky defence. The bottom line is that league 2 is far more forgiving than league 1.

A lot of it will come down to length of contracts. I can’t see us paying all the contracted players off. Some of those players will be fine in league 2, if only as second choice.

He may be the right horse with his own squad of players. The least we should do is give Moore a couple of transfer windows.

They’ve imploded lately but Crewe recruited some decent League 2 players if you look at their squad.

You’ll not be there I assume.

Our future shouldn't be bleak with the right players added in the summer. In my view both Crosby and Moore would’ve been able to keep us up if we had a ten or twelve goal forward on the books. I’d sincerely like to hope that your own future isn’t as bleak as you think Rory👍🏻

Great post👍🏻

Didn’t we have wingbacks when we were promoted from League 2?

The difference between the 2 divisions is pretty wide overall. For example Smith has a promotion from League 2 on his CV which would suggest he’s a decent player at that level. The youngsters, those we manage to keep, will look better in League 2. A few of the outfield players plus Ripley will be decent. I honestly believe that the nucleus is there. Definitely no need for a mass clearout but whatever happens any new additions have got to be established players if we’re to do well.

It would depend largely on how much money we threw at it in the summer and probably again in the January window. The current squad has the nucleus of a decent league 2 outfit in my opinion but obviously our better players will be targeted by other clubs. Crewe have shown what can be achieved with some decent recruitment and a few young home grown players. No reason why we shouldn’t be able to emulate that.

The sad thing is it was so easily avoidable. The near miss of last season should’ve been enough of a kick up the backside for the powers that be to see what was needed, but no, some deluded footballing genius decided he had a master plan, we were suddenly going to play football in the style of Man City, but then he forgot to recruit the players to do so.

Not read through all this topic but I’d be fairly confident that much of this squad would be OK at League 2 level. No doubt we’ll lose some of our better players, maybe all. The biggest issue is that we still need 3, maybe even 4, strikers and if we do lose Garrity & Chiz then that’s a fair few extra goals we’ve got to find on top. Add the goals plus a bit of extra pace and power and we’ll be rayt. Oh, and you always need a sprinkle of good luck.

Very much from the heart. We’re all feeling the pain and frustration. Frustration that relegation could so easily have been avoided. Onto next season and its not just up to Carol, the staff and the players, it’s also up to the fans to stick with the club through the bad times as well as the good.

Yes all those pints have been essential this season.

Still raw after a year? Sorry, but are you related to the guy or have you gone soft? What will be raw is the feeling I’m likely to have at full time tomorrow barring some sort of fluke, not an ex-employee, albeit well regarded, from a year past.

As you say, mistakes happen, and can be forgiven. But what’s to forgive? An error of judgment. So what do you want? Some sort of grovelling apology for that? Why not simply let the club have their inquest, as per Matt Hancock, and state their findings. Discuss. Move forward. End of.

What’s to be gained from dragging this old chestnut up? Whatever the circumstances behind CG leaving he isn’t the reason we’ve been relegated.

Maybe you’re standing by that person with the wool still firmly pulled over your eyes though.

We’ll renew as normal the only question was in which stand. I did think about moving from the Hamil but we were talking about it again last night at the game and the consensus in our small group was to give it another season.

Very easy to say, but I just repeated your sentence and found my fist had punched a hole in a nearby stud wall. I’ll be needing some patch plaster before I can learn from it and move on. 😖