| This league has destroyed our team... 10:25 - Dec 9 with 3066 views | Europablue |
and it's no-one's fault. This league has ruined our team continuity. We were forced to buy more players in, but we couldn't buy in expensive players and put them on the bench. Burgess didn't need to be replaced and Chaplin probably could have played more, but all those new signings for big money have to play, and it takes time for players to bed in.
Delap is very good, but with Hirst injured it is too much for him to deal with and his performances are probably going to tail off.
The goalkeeping position was a disaster. Hladky might have been a liability in the Premier League, but we will never know. Muric is a great shot stopper and comes out very well, but he also does that too much. Maybe he can be trained into a very good goalkeeper, but we might be down before that happens.
The Bournemouth game was a great example of why we haven't won a lot of matches we could have done, then not only did we not win, but we also lost. These other teams just have what it takes to get the result over the line, and we almost never have. |  | | |  |
| This league has destroyed our team... on 10:35 - Dec 9 with 2994 views | Ryorry |
It hasn’t “destroyed our team” - stupid comment - they’re all putting their hearts and souls in whenever they’re on the pitch - and more than just holding their own most of the time - won against Spurs, remember? |  |
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| This league has destroyed our team... on 10:58 - Dec 9 with 2912 views | Basuco |
No newly promoted team can compete financially these days, PL teams have a huge advantage and the gap in quality is getting bigger each year. Genuine PL quality is prohibitively expensive to buy and meet wage demands, all over the pitch, let alone a prolific striker. The step up in quality of play, strength and athletic and speed of thought in players is massive, and was the biggest shock to me. Town are catching up fast but it is so frustrating as we get closer to the level required. All is not lost and the number of doom and gloom moaners is ridiculous, they very obviously have not watched Town for very long. |  | | |
| This league has destroyed our team... on 11:04 - Dec 9 with 2876 views | bsw72 |
The good thing is no-one is overreacting on here  |  | | |
| This league has destroyed our team... on 14:35 - Dec 9 with 2552 views | Europablue |
| This league has destroyed our team... on 10:35 - Dec 9 by Ryorry |
It hasn’t “destroyed our team” - stupid comment - they’re all putting their hearts and souls in whenever they’re on the pitch - and more than just holding their own most of the time - won against Spurs, remember? |
do'h I got distracted and didn't proofread what I said.
I meant to say it has destroyed the fluidity of the team. We have lost that almost telepathic understanding that we had in League One and the Championship because we have replaced starters in the Championship such as Woolfenden and Burns, who are good back up, with players like O'Shea and Ogbene, who are a step up, then we have replaced players like Burgess and Chaplin who are good enough to keep out Greaves and other options for Chaplin.
It would have been reckless to count on Burgess staying fit and having no back up, so we recruited an expensive option, who at the moment is rightly being kept out of the team by Burgess. Burgess and maybe Chaplin were very hard done by to lose their places. Hirst was very unfortunate to loose his place to Delap, but that was mostly because of injury.
We have a major problem in that our players are not as good as players in most of the other teams and that is compounded by the fact that the players cannot make up for that comparative lack of quality/experience by being a group that knows how each player plays inside out. | | | |
| This league has destroyed our team... on 17:30 - Dec 9 with 2358 views | GlasgowBlue |
You've only got to look at the emotion on Chaplin's face after scoring his first ever Premier League goal yesterday to see that this team is far from destroyed. |  |
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| This league has destroyed our team... on 18:13 - Dec 9 with 2227 views | Cheltenham_Blue |
Another hot-take for the day. |  |
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| This league has destroyed our team... on 18:17 - Dec 9 with 2208 views | pointofblue |
I hate that many of those who worked hard to get us up were either moved on or are left on the bench or in the stands. Guess that's the hardest thing for me to get over, even though I can understand why. | |
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| This league has destroyed our team... on 18:22 - Dec 9 with 2190 views | MK1 |
| This league has destroyed our team... on 11:04 - Dec 9 by bsw72 |
The good thing is no-one is overreacting on here |
There are some very strange posts on here today. If we don't spend, the supporters would blame the owners for lacking ambition. Spend the money and supporters moan about it destroying the soul of the club. I know football fans can be a fickle bunch, but today seems to have brought out the very worst in some. |  |
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| This league has destroyed our team... on 18:48 - Dec 9 with 2110 views | Swansea_Blue |
I do wonder where we’d have been had we not made so many changes. The understanding the ‘old’ team had together shouldn’t be underestimated. Look at yesterday’s goal. That was classic ITFC of the last couple of years. Burgess knew exactly where Chappers would be. Just quality team play that nobody is going to defend against.
But then you look at how people like Cajuste can make space from nowhere on the ball, or some of the goals Delap has scored, and it’s pretty obvious why we signed better players. |  |
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| This league has destroyed our team... on 19:00 - Dec 9 with 2079 views | Europablue |
| This league has destroyed our team... on 18:22 - Dec 9 by MK1 |
There are some very strange posts on here today. If we don't spend, the supporters would blame the owners for lacking ambition. Spend the money and supporters moan about it destroying the soul of the club. I know football fans can be a fickle bunch, but today seems to have brought out the very worst in some. |
I did say that it is not the fault of the club, it is basically what the league has done to us. The only hope is that we can keep together, learn how to play together and pick up in the second half of the season. I did edit what I said because I didn't proofread properly. | | | |
| This league has destroyed our team... on 22:28 - Dec 9 with 1838 views | Sarge |
We weren’t forced to do anything.
We’ve bought some good players at a good price, we’ve bought some less good players at poor prices. We’ve replaced some players with others who aren’t as good or who aren’t good enough. But these were all conscious, deliberate decisions. I think it was a poor transfer window, but arguably the first one we’ve had in a long time so perhaps we were overdue. | | | |
| This league has destroyed our team... on 22:58 - Dec 9 with 1722 views | BlueNomad |
| This league has destroyed our team... on 22:28 - Dec 9 by Sarge |
We weren’t forced to do anything.
We’ve bought some good players at a good price, we’ve bought some less good players at poor prices. We’ve replaced some players with others who aren’t as good or who aren’t good enough. But these were all conscious, deliberate decisions. I think it was a poor transfer window, but arguably the first one we’ve had in a long time so perhaps we were overdue. |
Poor window???
Delap: upgrade on AA-H who was going out on loan
Hutchinson: one of last season’s standouts
Szmodics: upgrade on Harness
Ogbene: upgrade on Jacko
Cajuste: upgrade on Massimo
Clarke: potentially outstanding winger to challenge injury prone Broadhead
Greaves: intended upgrade on Cam who has been brilliant
O’Shea: upgrade on Woolfie
Johnson: upgraded on Janoi
Phillips: experience at the highest level for relatively low cost
Townsend: quality backup
Muric: everyone has a view. Hladky didn’t want to stay [Post edited 9 Dec 2024 23:14]
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| This league has destroyed our team... on 07:01 - Dec 10 with 1536 views | Stewart27 |
Don’t be so over dramatic you massive fanny. | | | |
| This league has destroyed our team... on 08:09 - Dec 10 with 1419 views | BlueBoots |
| This league has destroyed our team... on 18:48 - Dec 9 by Swansea_Blue |
I do wonder where we’d have been had we not made so many changes. The understanding the ‘old’ team had together shouldn’t be underestimated. Look at yesterday’s goal. That was classic ITFC of the last couple of years. Burgess knew exactly where Chappers would be. Just quality team play that nobody is going to defend against.
But then you look at how people like Cajuste can make space from nowhere on the ball, or some of the goals Delap has scored, and it’s pretty obvious why we signed better players. |
"So many changes"...we effectively signed a whole new team in the last window...
Muric
Johnson O'Shea Greaves Townsend
Phillips Cajuste
Ogbene Szmodics Clarke
Delap
The last manager to do that for us was Cook, and he struggled to get his team to gel which resulted in him losing his job. Big difference being that he recruited players who were easily good enough for the Championship when we were in League One, and McKenna has recruited players who for the most part were stand-outs in the Championship who are trying to adjust to the division above rather than the division below.
We also shouldn't ignore that not only are our players now facing better players week-in week-out, but McKenna is coming up against better managers than there are in the Championship, and teams that are a long way further down their journey than us that have had time to build the understanding that we had last season.
Did we need to sign so many players? Well, this is the team (sort of) that we replaced:
Hladky
JD Edmundson Ndaba Williams
Ball Travis
Jackson Harness Sarmiento
Moore
Would we have picked up more points by now if we'd stuck for the most part with the players we still have from last season?
Walton
Axel (or Clarke) Woolfenden Burgess Davis
Morsy Luongo (or Taylor)
Burns Chaplin (or Hutchinson) Broadhead
Hirst (or Al-Hamadi)
Maybe we would have picked up more points by now if we had stuck for the most part with the team we had last season, and integrated a few of the new players, but maybe not. But looking at the bigger picture long term, the more minutes the new players get on the pitch, the quicker they are going to integrate into the team and develop their understanding with the other players. It was always going to be a balancing act trying to maintain the momentum from the last couple of seasons when you've replaced half the squad and no longer one of the better teams in the division. |  |
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| This league has destroyed our team... on 10:16 - Dec 10 with 1223 views | Europablue |
| This league has destroyed our team... on 08:09 - Dec 10 by BlueBoots |
"So many changes"...we effectively signed a whole new team in the last window...
Muric
Johnson O'Shea Greaves Townsend
Phillips Cajuste
Ogbene Szmodics Clarke
Delap
The last manager to do that for us was Cook, and he struggled to get his team to gel which resulted in him losing his job. Big difference being that he recruited players who were easily good enough for the Championship when we were in League One, and McKenna has recruited players who for the most part were stand-outs in the Championship who are trying to adjust to the division above rather than the division below.
We also shouldn't ignore that not only are our players now facing better players week-in week-out, but McKenna is coming up against better managers than there are in the Championship, and teams that are a long way further down their journey than us that have had time to build the understanding that we had last season.
Did we need to sign so many players? Well, this is the team (sort of) that we replaced:
Hladky
JD Edmundson Ndaba Williams
Ball Travis
Jackson Harness Sarmiento
Moore
Would we have picked up more points by now if we'd stuck for the most part with the players we still have from last season?
Walton
Axel (or Clarke) Woolfenden Burgess Davis
Morsy Luongo (or Taylor)
Burns Chaplin (or Hutchinson) Broadhead
Hirst (or Al-Hamadi)
Maybe we would have picked up more points by now if we had stuck for the most part with the team we had last season, and integrated a few of the new players, but maybe not. But looking at the bigger picture long term, the more minutes the new players get on the pitch, the quicker they are going to integrate into the team and develop their understanding with the other players. It was always going to be a balancing act trying to maintain the momentum from the last couple of seasons when you've replaced half the squad and no longer one of the better teams in the division. |
It was a fairly reasonable to replace the players that we did replace. Williams, Travis, Sarmiento, Moore and Hutchinson were all loans last season recruited for the Championship. As far as I am aware only one of those players is playing the Premier League this season and he is our record signing. Then we have a lot of problems with injuries and a player like Luongo who is not capable of playing week in week out at this level.
Planning for a whole season or half season is very tricky. You don't know who will be injured and who will be out of form. That is why it is important to have cover for every position.
The main problem we have is that we have a new defense and a new goalkeeper. They can train together, but you can never fully simulate the intensity of matches or provide the same level of opponent in training.
We are coming out the wrong side of fine margins this season, and last season we did the opposite.
It's still all to play for. This year was never going to be as enjoyable as last season, we just need to stay behind the team and encourage them to get results. | | | |
| This league has destroyed our team... on 10:34 - Dec 10 with 1194 views | surreyblue |
The reality is that we needed to sign 10-12 players over the summer regardless of which league we were in. There were only really 13 or 14 players that played regularly for us last season and weren't on loan - the "L1 XI" (swapping Hladky for Walton), plus Taylor, Tuanzebe, and Edmondson. Ashton and KMc have always had thr philosophy of trying to bring in players who are better than we currently have and we saw that during thr transfer window. I suspect we still would have signed, at least, a LB (two if Leif left), and CM, a striker, 2 AMs if we didn't get promoted. | | | |
| This league has destroyed our team... on 11:19 - Dec 10 with 1126 views | Europablue |
| This league has destroyed our team... on 10:34 - Dec 10 by surreyblue |
The reality is that we needed to sign 10-12 players over the summer regardless of which league we were in. There were only really 13 or 14 players that played regularly for us last season and weren't on loan - the "L1 XI" (swapping Hladky for Walton), plus Taylor, Tuanzebe, and Edmondson. Ashton and KMc have always had thr philosophy of trying to bring in players who are better than we currently have and we saw that during thr transfer window. I suspect we still would have signed, at least, a LB (two if Leif left), and CM, a striker, 2 AMs if we didn't get promoted. |
You are definitely right.
For a brief moment, we had something very special, but there is a reason why back to back promotions are so hard and why we aren't walking the Premier League, it is very hard and circumstances conspire against you.
The difficult thing is rebalancing and spending that energy and time on something else rather than football and not letting yourself get upset by results. | | | |
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