It went wrong when the takeover took too long to get done meaning pre season was half baked.
Provided we get our business done before pre season starts I'll be more confident.
Exactly, Pompey got theirs done early this season and have won the league. Sometimes you’ve just got to accept paying a little more to meet a player/clubs demands early, rather than waiting for them to come down later in the window
To add to what others have said, the quality of corners and free kicks has been abysmal this season. Not only have we not had anyone who could take a decent corner or freekick, but we’ve had no one who could score from the corners we did take. Can’t think of a poorer season for dead ball delivery and conversion.
Agree with others that neither keeper is good enough. You would probably have to go back to Phillips for the last decent keeper.
Simple when we got hit by another injury crisis when at that point we were on a good run playing good attacking football and a scoring goals … lose Leaburn and Aneke at the same time was a blow at one point we had 12 players injured and our bench had just 16 -17 year olds on it …
It went wrong when the takeover took too long to get done meaning pre season was half baked.
Provided we get our business done before pre season starts I'll be more confident.
This is Scott's 4th transfer window at the club. He has to take a lot of responsibility for the squad we have no matter the excuses available. I get the first was when TS was owner, second was late in the window and 3rd was Jan but even so you would hope he would have managed a handful of decent signings. He hasn't - he wasn't here for May and Small / Ramsey are clear Jones influenced acquisitions. If he remains employed this is the first one he has zero excuses. I expect revolution; not evolution.
Get him out of the way for starters, leave it to NJ and Hart, loan out players properly, Henry and Mitchell prime examples of how not to do it. Hate the word rebuild but at the moment we have the job spec of The Sistine Chapel, The Taj Mahal and cleaning Big Ben on our hands all at the same time. No doubt NJ has players on his radar, but please no last minute 31st August signings like the one from Udinese that until HI reminded me I'd forgotten about
Get him out of the way for starters, leave it to NJ and Hart, loan out players properly, Henry and Mitchell prime examples of how not to do it. Hate the word rebuild but at the moment we have the job spec of The Sistine Chapel, The Taj Mahal and cleaning Big Ben on our hands all at the same time. No doubt NJ has players on his radar, but please no last minute 31st August signings like the one from Udinese that until HI reminded me I'd forgotten about
Not getting the pitch updated last summer. You can see the reason for the long balls was because the under invested playing surface was hindering precision passing. I'm glad this is being resolved. Big job for NJ to find the players to match the new pitch.
Simple when we got hit by another injury crisis when at that point we were on a good run playing good attacking football and a scoring goals … lose Leaburn and Aneke at the same time was a blow at one point we had 12 players injured and our bench had just 16 -17 year olds on it …
That never happened apart from the pizza cup. At one point, the bench had some youngsters but it was never full of kids
Said the same thing this time last year, and again during the season.
Last season we conceded 66 goals. This season, when I mentioned it part way through when we changed the defence about 6 times in a game, we were on course to concede 64 goals. And that’s exactly what we finished on.
Our record over the last 2 seasons is… Played 92 Won 27 Drawn 34 Lost 33 Scored 134 Conceded 131 Points 115
It’s pathetic.
Oir inability to keep clean sheets and defend as a team and constantly making the same errors over and over again is what our biggest downfall is.
We haven’t had a good keeper to help the defence, our defence has completely changed over the last 2 seasons and we still have seen no improvement, and the midfield other than Dobson, who is now leaving, has offered absolutely no protection.
I am not interested in sentiments or if a player has come through the academy or if they’re a nice person. This lot have not been good enough.
From goalkeeper, defence and midfield of those who I would keep (not including the departing Dobson) would be… Ramsay, Jones, REG, Gillesphey, Small, Coventry, Anderson.
Asiimwe needs to be loaned out for a year to get regular football. For Ness I am sure they triggered the extension to sell him this summer as he isn’t good enough for a promotion team. This summer is all about improving the 11, he doesn’t do that, not when we already have 3 other centre backs in contract.
That’s 7 players out of what should be about 14 or 15.
I don’t think people fully understand the overhaul needed to this squad if we are to even look like challenging next season.
Not getting the pitch updated last summer. You can see the reason for the long balls was because the under invested playing surface was hindering precision passing. I'm glad this is being resolved. Big job for NJ to find the players to match the new pitch.
The pitch didn’t seem to hinder other teams and fixing it won’t make a difference for the the other 50% of our games that are not played at the Valley. The long balls were probably more often to do with a lack of movement to provide somebody to actually pass to, or somebody that they could pass to but couldn’t be trusted to actually control the ball/not instantly lose it
Simple when we got hit by another injury crisis when at that point we were on a good run playing good attacking football and a scoring goals … lose Leaburn and Aneke at the same time was a blow at one point we had 12 players injured and our bench had just 16 -17 year olds on it …
That never happened apart from the pizza cup. At one point, the bench had some youngsters but it was never full of kids
Yes it was.
Cambridge at home in December our bench was:
Sam Walker (GK) - 32 years old, played a total of 50 appearances in the league in the 5 years before us, left in January.
Deji Elerewe - 20 years old, played 5 times of us. Since sold to Bromley.
Nathan Asiimwe - 19 years old, was 18 at the time. Started 8 times before this game. 6 of those were the first 6 games of the season.
Louie Watson - 22 years old, started 8 games this season, 6 of them before this game. Wasn’t included in any squad since his last appearance against Reading under Jones.
Tyreece Campbell - 20 years old, started 12 games this season, 8 before this game with his best run being end of September with 4 starts in a row. Played just 1300 minutes this season.
Micah Mbick - 17 years old, never started a game for us. Nowhere near ready it’s not fair and quite embarrassing from Appleton and the club.
Daniel Kanu - 19 years old, just returned from his loan spell at Southend and has since improved greatly but no one would’ve foreseen that happening in December.
We also started with Henry Rylah (17 years old) who came off at half time, another one of Appleton’s ridiculous and damaging decisions to start a young, unready kid.
Additionally, Chem Campbell was just 20 at the time and made just his 3rd start of the season.
It was horrible and this season had all the makings of a relegation season. We are just so lucky we had May and CBT (for half of it), as otherwise, we would 100% gone down.
We really do need to sort our player fitness out and make sure we sign players with good fitness records instead of talented cripples.
Looking at the 11/12 season we had one right back, three competent CBs and 1.5 good left backs. There was no cover for Solly at all and we were always two injuries away from having to play Gary Doherty, but it didn't matter because Morrison played 45 L1 games (rested for a banter game), Wiggins 45 (same as Morrison), Solly 44 and Taylor 40, and he only didn't play more because Cort got in towards the end and kept him out. The one game Solly was injured we played Wiggins at RB and it did not go well. Hamer played 41 games. He was also rested for the Preston banter game and missed 4 games because he didn't play for us yet. Basically, until Powell decided to use Cort ahead of Taylor on merit we played almost the same back line (we don't talk about Stevenage) every single game apart from one match when Solly was ill, which means there was only one game where Powell couldn't play exactly the defence he wanted to. We only conceded 36 goals that season.
Looking at this season the defender who played most for us was Thomas with 31(9). We played 13 different defenders in the league by my count and managed to pretty much split the keeper duties 50/50. No wonder no-one has any idea what's going on at the back. Granted, if we had 11/12 Solly, Morrison and Wiggins we would be more inclined to play them every week than Edun and Ness but we've seen Jones, Edun, Ramsay, Hector, Tennai and Isted go down injured at various points this season and Thomas has played the most just by being unkillable.
We signed a job lot of defenders in January for Appleton and it feels like he doesn't necessarily rate Gillesphey or maybe even REG so the best thing we can do is sign the manager exactly the players he wants in those positions and then keep them fit. It'll make such a huge difference having a consistent line up of decent players at the back and we can build from that.
When talking about consistent selection, you need a couple of things;
1) Players to be fit/not suspended, so always available for selection. 2) Players to be good enough to be selected regularly. I.E. It's no good having the same back four if they are all shit.
It's always a curious one....performance tends to improve with consistent selection but how long do you give it, if results are bad?
Simple when we got hit by another injury crisis when at that point we were on a good run playing good attacking football and a scoring goals … lose Leaburn and Aneke at the same time was a blow at one point we had 12 players injured and our bench had just 16 -17 year olds on it …
That never happened apart from the pizza cup. At one point, the bench had some youngsters but it was never full of kids
Yes it was.
Cambridge at home in December our bench was:
Sam Walker (GK) - 32 years old, played a total of 50 appearances in the league in the 5 years before us, left in January.
Deji Elerewe - 20 years old, played 5 times of us. Since sold to Bromley.
Nathan Asiimwe - 19 years old, was 18 at the time. Started 8 times before this game. 6 of those were the first 6 games of the season.
Louie Watson - 22 years old, started 8 games this season, 6 of them before this game. Wasn’t included in any squad since his last appearance against Reading under Jones.
Tyreece Campbell - 20 years old, started 12 games this season, 8 before this game with his best run being end of September with 4 starts in a row. Played just 1300 minutes this season.
Micah Mbick - 17 years old, never started a game for us. Nowhere near ready it’s not fair and quite embarrassing from Appleton and the club.
Daniel Kanu - 19 years old, just returned from his loan spell at Southend and has since improved greatly but no one would’ve foreseen that happening in December.
We also started with Henry Rylah (17 years old) who came off at half time, another one of Appleton’s ridiculous and damaging decisions to start a young, unready kid.
Additionally, Chem Campbell was just 20 at the time and made just his 3rd start of the season.
It was horrible and this season had all the makings of a relegation season. We are just so lucky we had May and CBT (for half of it), as otherwise, we would 100% gone down.
So one 17 year old and not a 16 year old in sight! The post said full of 16-17 year olds. If the post said with an average age approaching 20, it would have been correct.
Not getting the pitch updated last summer. You can see the reason for the long balls was because the under invested playing surface was hindering precision passing. I'm glad this is being resolved. Big job for NJ to find the players to match the new pitch.
The pitch didn’t seem to hinder other teams and fixing it won’t make a difference for the the other 50% of our games that are not played at the Valley. The long balls were probably more often to do with a lack of movement to provide somebody to actually pass to, or somebody that they could pass to but couldn’t be trusted to actually control the ball/not instantly lose it
Was a less than average attempt at sarcasm on my part 😉. Although we did play alot of hoofball at times.
Comments
Agree with others that neither keeper is good enough. You would probably have to go back to Phillips for the last decent keeper.
This is Scott's 4th transfer window at the club. He has to take a lot of responsibility for the squad we have no matter the excuses available.
I get the first was when TS was owner, second was late in the window and 3rd was Jan but even so you would hope he would have managed a handful of decent signings. He hasn't - he wasn't here for May and Small / Ramsey are clear Jones influenced acquisitions. If he remains employed this is the first one he has zero excuses. I expect revolution; not evolution.
Been saying 7 wasted loans but it was actually 8.
Last season we conceded 66 goals. This season, when I mentioned it part way through when we changed the defence about 6 times in a game, we were on course to concede 64 goals. And that’s exactly what we finished on.
Our record over the last 2 seasons is…
Played 92
Won 27
Drawn 34
Lost 33
Scored 134
Conceded 131
Points 115
It’s pathetic.
Oir inability to keep clean sheets and defend as a team and constantly making the same errors over and over again is what our biggest downfall is.
We haven’t had a good keeper to help the defence, our defence has completely changed over the last 2 seasons and we still have seen no improvement, and the midfield other than Dobson, who is now leaving, has offered absolutely no protection.
I am not interested in sentiments or if a player has come through the academy or if they’re a nice person. This lot have not been good enough.
From goalkeeper, defence and midfield of those who I would keep (not including the departing Dobson) would be… Ramsay, Jones, REG, Gillesphey, Small, Coventry, Anderson.
Asiimwe needs to be loaned out for a year to get regular football. For Ness I am sure they triggered the extension to sell him this summer as he isn’t good enough for a promotion team. This summer is all about improving the 11, he doesn’t do that, not when we already have 3 other centre backs in contract.
That’s 7 players out of what should be about 14 or 15.
I don’t think people fully understand the overhaul needed to this squad if we are to even look like challenging next season.
Cambridge at home in December our bench was:
Sam Walker (GK) - 32 years old, played a total of 50 appearances in the league in the 5 years before us, left in January.
Deji Elerewe - 20 years old, played 5 times of us. Since sold to Bromley.
Nathan Asiimwe - 19 years old, was 18 at the time. Started 8 times before this game. 6 of those were the first 6 games of the season.
Louie Watson - 22 years old, started 8 games this season, 6 of them before this game. Wasn’t included in any squad since his last appearance against Reading under Jones.
Tyreece Campbell - 20 years old, started 12 games this season, 8 before this game with his best run being end of September with 4 starts in a row. Played just 1300 minutes this season.
Micah Mbick - 17 years old, never started a game for us. Nowhere near ready it’s not fair and quite embarrassing from Appleton and the club.
Daniel Kanu - 19 years old, just returned from his loan spell at Southend and has since improved greatly but no one would’ve foreseen that happening in December.
We also started with Henry Rylah (17 years old) who came off at half time, another one of Appleton’s ridiculous and damaging decisions to start a young, unready kid.
Additionally, Chem Campbell was just 20 at the time and made just his 3rd start of the season.
It was horrible and this season had all the makings of a relegation season. We are just so lucky we had May and CBT (for half of it), as otherwise, we would 100% gone down.
And 3 fewer wins.
Looking at the 11/12 season we had one right back, three competent CBs and 1.5 good left backs. There was no cover for Solly at all and we were always two injuries away from having to play Gary Doherty, but it didn't matter because Morrison played 45 L1 games (rested for a banter game), Wiggins 45 (same as Morrison), Solly 44 and Taylor 40, and he only didn't play more because Cort got in towards the end and kept him out. The one game Solly was injured we played Wiggins at RB and it did not go well. Hamer played 41 games. He was also rested for the Preston banter game and missed 4 games because he didn't play for us yet. Basically, until Powell decided to use Cort ahead of Taylor on merit we played almost the same back line (we don't talk about Stevenage) every single game apart from one match when Solly was ill, which means there was only one game where Powell couldn't play exactly the defence he wanted to. We only conceded 36 goals that season.
Looking at this season the defender who played most for us was Thomas with 31(9). We played 13 different defenders in the league by my count and managed to pretty much split the keeper duties 50/50. No wonder no-one has any idea what's going on at the back. Granted, if we had 11/12 Solly, Morrison and Wiggins we would be more inclined to play them every week than Edun and Ness but we've seen Jones, Edun, Ramsay, Hector, Tennai and Isted go down injured at various points this season and Thomas has played the most just by being unkillable.
We signed a job lot of defenders in January for Appleton and it feels like he doesn't necessarily rate Gillesphey or maybe even REG so the best thing we can do is sign the manager exactly the players he wants in those positions and then keep them fit. It'll make such a huge difference having a consistent line up of decent players at the back and we can build from that.
1) Players to be fit/not suspended, so always available for selection.
2) Players to be good enough to be selected regularly. I.E. It's no good having the same back four if they are all shit.
It's always a curious one....performance tends to improve with consistent selection but how long do you give it, if results are bad?