Relegation beckons….

[gavcradd]

I hope Crewe survive on goal difference - nice local trip next year for us once we get promoted, a good party atmosphere and a guaranteed 6 points.

[joker1968]

On 25/10/2021 at 12:02, Phil1965 said:

I’m not sure what is happening with Lowery but he made a big difference when he came on, hopefully he can go to starting matches as he is a great talent. If we go down then that’s fine, we are a League 1/League 2 club!

Your'e league two and your'e down,didn't earn or deserve promotion and you will be back where you belong

[darren1810]

5 hours ago, FriedRice said:

Proof that Pete Morse is bat crap crazy

 

That denier is a disgrace anyway. 

[1]

Don’t make eye contact with Crewe as we pass each other. Keep your eyes on Stoke.

[Santa]

I was looking at having MK Dons on an accumulator yesterday and I backed off because this would have been the sort of game that Crewe of old would have relished and pulled out a shock result from nowhere.

I don't really see Crewe going mad in January, maybe one or two would come in to help the group and stop confidence from really hitting the floor; maybe the Crewe way is to accept this as part of the cycle and the next generation of young players file this under experience.

[Phil1965]

We have lost the core players from our promotion season in 2019-20, so we will start again in League 2 next season.

[darren1810]

1 hour ago, Phil1965 said:

We have lost the core players from our promotion season in 2019-20, so we will start again in League 2 next season.

2 seasons later you'd only expect to maybe have 4 of that starting X1 left anyway 

Always a big turnover in football. 

[blackdog]

3 hours ago, Phil1965 said:

We have lost the core players from our promotion season in 2019-20, so we will start again in League 2 next season.

Do you think you have the players on the treadmill ready to come through ? Those who have left have hardly pulled up any trees, so will the latest crop be any better ? and will they be ready for Div 2 ?

[Phil1965]

Woo woo! WE’RE ON THE FAST TRAIN TO LEAGUE TWO!!

[bycars rob]

The worry for Crewe must be that they could follow the examples of Stockport and Chesterfield and suffer a double relegation. 

[CAVALIER]

Is November too early for a 6 pointer? They’ve got Donny this week

[Joe B]

It's an interesting model and you wonder how long it can last.

Golden Generation -> Promotion -> Perform well -> Sell all good players -> Re-invest in academy/Dario's retirement fund-> Relegation -> Slump -> Bed in New Golden Generation -> Repeat

It's happened twice in the last decade (the Powell, Murphy, Westwood team) and now again (NG, Kirk, Wintle team). 

Their current team is really poor and wouldn't do much in League 2. They effectively put a lot of faith, probably correctly, on the academy to churn out another 5-6 excellent players in about 2-3 years time, by which point they'll be in the lower-half of League 2 and can bed them in against poor opposition.

I think it's a risk to expect a) the players will come through (although they probably know already) and b) they won't fall through the trap-door before they're ready (we've seen how close it can be).

From a Crewe fan perspective you have to question the futility of it all. Can the club not forego a firesale for 5 years to make a real attempt to get into the Championship? If they'd held onto Kirk, NG, Pickering, and Wintle, they'd have a real chance of promotion in the next 1-2 years and the financial boost that comes with it. Instead, it was sell them all off, sign a load of rubbish on a free, and seemingly accept relegation in order to reboot and do it again in 5 years.

What's the point? I get that it's all lovely and sustainable and 'respect to Crewe clap clap' from the bigger clubs, but if Vale worked like that, and I knew that every success was merely the prelude to a big sale and then a few years of rubbish, I'd get a bit weary.

It would seem the entire club is indoctrinated in 'The Crewe Way' of a certain style of football and a certain business model, even at the expense of tangible success/aspiration. Weird. It's great to be sustainable and have a philosophy but we support teams to see wins and promotions and success, not to have some smug satisfaction of doing things 'The Right Way' as the cycle reboots once more.

[Santa]

Fair points. As Darren said, all teams have a turnover of players to some extent or other and it’s up to the club to manage / mitigate for that. Crewe maybe had too many players with a similar length of time remaining on their contracts that they needed to sell at the same time.

On the positive side at least nobody else  has decided to pack it all in and become a beekeeper or whatever it was that they’d rather do than play for Crewe. 

[jjvale_03]

35 minutes ago, Joe B said:

From a Crewe fan perspective you have to question the futility of it all. Can the club not forego a firesale for 5 years to make a real attempt to get into the Championship? If they'd held onto Kirk, NG, Pickering, and Wintle, they'd have a real chance of promotion in the next 1-2 years and the financial boost that comes with it. Instead, it was sell them all off, sign a load of rubbish on a free, and seemingly accept relegation in order to reboot and do it again in 5 years.

 

 

I think the missing piece here is that they'd have to pay those players League 1 wages in order to keep them happy enough to forego a move to a 'bigger' club. Unfortunately for Crewe, they pile so much money into their academy to produce these players that there's not much left in the pot to play proper wages. So, when a Championship club comes and offers these lads 5k/week (or more), Crewe simply aren't inclined to compete on that front, even if doing so would long-term increase the value of their assets and give the club a better chance to reach the Championship. 

I wonder what Artell thinks of it all. I know we give him lots of stick, but on paper he's done a decent job at Crewe and it must be demoralising having the rug pulled from under you after so much hard work. On one hand, he's never going to get sacked but if he has ambitions to manage higher up the pyramid surely he has to move on at some point?

[Guitar Ray]

4 minutes ago, jjvale_03 said:

 

I think the missing piece here is that they'd have to pay those players League 1 wages in order to keep them happy enough to forego a move to a 'bigger' club. Unfortunately for Crewe, they pile so much money into their academy to produce these players that there's not much left in the pot to play proper wages. So, when a Championship club comes and offers these lads 5k/week (or more), Crewe simply aren't inclined to compete on that front, even if doing so would long-term increase the value of their assets and give the club a better chance to reach the Championship. 

I wonder what Artell thinks of it all. I know we give him lots of stick, but on paper he's done a decent job at Crewe and it must be demoralising having the rug pulled from under you after so much hard work. On one hand, he's never going to get sacked but if he has ambitions to manage higher up the pyramid surely he has to move on at some point?

In fairness, without knowing the infrastructure down there, the hard work may well already have been done for Artell by those involved in the scouting, youth recruitment, and coaching set up, prior to any prospect being selected for the first team squad.

Artell may not be hands on with the academy.  No pun intended.