Guitar Ray

I thought the club stated fairly recently that the Railway Stand is sound. The Family Stand is simply a location for the scoreboard these days so no worries there. The Bycars is fine and we don’t actually need the extra seats that the Lorne Street could provide. Beyond any of this, there’s no way fixing the “issues” will cost more than building a new stadium so let’s put that old nugget to bed, unless of course there’s some funding from outside the club that nobody is aware of.

It won’t hurt but it hasn’t helped Forest Green who reportedly had one of the bigger budgets in League 2. Bradford must have a decent budget but they’ve floated around mid-table for years. It boils down to what you do with your money, however much that is. If you believe what Flitcroft said after the debacle of the January window it’s likely we didn’t actually spend some of our available playing budget plus clearly we wasted a good chunk on 2 shot shy forwards who found goals impossible to come by.

Agree with this. Clarke more skilful I would say and Gibbo maybe slightly the better defensively. The main debate, as you say, being which of the pair would spend more time on the treatment table.

If Carol cares to look at the plight of FGR this season she’ll see it’s not just about throwing money at it. Recruitment and stability at all levels are the key, just as they are in any business. Football's greenest club had dreams that weren't sustainable. The hope is they're recyclable THEATHLETIC.COM

Why do you need to figure out a preferred formation? Often it’s down to finding a system which best suits the players at your disposal. Anyway formations should be flexible and not too rigid. Players need to be able to move around to some degree, the main criteria being they’re at least good enough for the level and know and can perform their role in whatever system is employed. The main thing is to have decent players in each position and good cover so you’re not playing square pegs in round holes. For me the biggest question in the short term is around who we retain, how many of the players who’ve struggled this season would be good enough next in the league below. Moore may decide to smash it up and start again but then again may decide to retain a few who we don’t rate.

Any manager is only going to be as good as his players. Our squad was massively lacking and to make matters worse the former DoF was also dictating the style of play. Hopefully Moore will be able to recruit a balanced squad with strength in depth in every position before the 24-25 season kicks off. The likelihood is that it’ll take a couple of windows to do this but a bit of that will also depend on how many of our better players stay and how the rest of the retained players shape up in the lower league. One or two of the strugglers may be decent in League 2.

We had the same conversation at half time, I thought the same as you myself but someone pointed out lack of other available options today maybe got him the gig at RWB. He looked ok going forward but not much end product and didn’t look great defensively, so pretty much the same as everyone else who’s played in that position this season.

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.