I know it won't make anybody feel any better but the other night Portsmouth drew 3-3 in a friendly with Bristol City, and their final last minute equaliser was scored by a Bristol City substitute who had to put a Portsmouth kit on because they had run out of subs and needed somebody to go on, so borrowed him for half an hour. Proper Sunday league that
Ah right, my mistake then. I thought someone had got hold of an official leaked report. Still, interesting that they found Burge lacking despite him having decent stats. My problems with him are hard to quantify with stats and I would have expected him to do well going off raw data.
It's why I was keen to see David Preece come into the club. He's a MLF, a respected goalkeeping coach and also massive on using data as a performance metric. He will know inside out what data to look for from a keeper's performance so would have been a great fit. Hopefully even if he doesn't join, his views have been asked for.
If it's the one I linked it was nothing official from SAFC it was just some data company doing their own analysis with their own metrics.
Johnson made some comments last night to try and hurry the recruitment team along (just like every other manager in the country) and all of a sudden we are in trouble and nothing is good enough. Buying quality takes time, we can't just jump in and buy any old rubbish like we have done for the majority of your 50 year and my 30 year watching us. If we started the season with the squad we have now, even with no new additions we'd still have a top 8, at least, squad imo. Wigan have bought Wyke and Power, and somehow are now world beaters. As for watching drab football we've passed it around alot better and quicker recently than in a long time. He said he wants to play front foot football, let's give him a chance to prove it
Anyway - positivity. Wouldn't it be great if LJs words last night triggered some urgency and proactivity this morning and we formalised a bit for Goode from Brentford. Would be nicely coincided with them confirming Ajer last night. Get those wheels in motion.
I agree with a lot of what you're saying and, of course, we all want the club back in the Premier League as soon as possible. What concerns me is that some of the views are almost advocating turning on the new owner and the new staff if we don't get off to a flying start. That's not constructive or helpful in the slightest and I would worry that this might effect the interest levels of the new owners. NE football fans used to have a reputation for being knowledgeable fans but I often question that these days. I hate seeing League 1 referred to as "this **** league", or other such terms. That's arrogant and disrespectful to other clubs at this level and in the vibrant and enjoyable world of football reaching down into the various steps of non-league. Some of what I'm seeing seems reminiscent of what we enjoy laughing at the Mags for.
you see how easy it is to discuss without resorting to childish name calling. Again though we are commenting on what we have at the moment, not what you think we may have. Of course it may well change but no one deserves to be called a bed wetter over it, its ****ing pathetic
I agree. The size of the rebuild job across the entire club is massive. It's not just the first team squad that needs looking at. The 2 years under Donald were a disgrace - not only did they not invest in the academy; they set it back a few years. They literally couldn't have given a **** about the playing surface that the first team played on! The task that Speakman and and the others have on is massive on and off the pitch at all levels of the club and will take years to implement fully. Patience is the key.
Yep, Burge is not great, but the best ( from a very poor list) that we have had lately. I personally do not have as a priority, a new keeper. Full backs and strikers of quality are a must! AOB does not make the cut for me and the jury is still out on Stewart. Kimpioka possesses pace but I have not seem enough of him to judge yet. There is of course the young academy lad..who may have an eye for goal if he can step up.
This is exactly it. I think there's still a lot of stuff that might need fixing behind the scenes even going as far back as Short or even Drumaville. From what he said when he arrived, I think that KLD has the long term interest of the club at heart. I really feel that we'll be successful with him in charge but we have to let him get on with it.
I think the former will be as a consequence of the previous failures. It doesn't make it right of course but it will definitely happen if we get off to a poor start and that is what saddens me. I also don't think people would have been complaining so much if Ipswich and Wigan didn't have new owners and started throwing money around. We've tried that and failed, but all of a sudden its promotion for them and we may as well not bother I hope to **** its all change by August, yes I accept that its good to have players bedded in but if my memory serves me right, i don't think Blackpool were serious contenders around Christmas time. However, equally as I said earlier, the club is a juggernaut when pulling in the same direction, but on the flip side when all is not well it isn't a nice place to be
It's easy for people to say 'sign some players' but we didn't have anyone to scout them so we needed to recruit people to do that, we had no commercial side to the club so we needed to recruit them as well, recruitment at board level etc. All massive tasks to go through to get the right people and structure in place. We all saw Donald making the phone calls to Wigan to get Grigg; there is no way KLD is on the blower making the deals. Not a ****ing chance. But the team to do the deals needed putting in place first otherwise we will sign more ****e just because a manager has worked with a player before e.g Remi Mathews. I'm relaxed about this season tbh, we may go up, we may not but I think we will see a more enjoyable brand of football with improvements from last season. KTF.
Definitely. If we don't go up, we don't go up. Its more important to me that the club is in a healthier position. Having said that, I think we will be promoted. I've got every faith that our squad will be stronger by the time the window ends than it was at the end of last season.
I don't know what the "current player recruitment profile of the club" is, no-one outside of a limited circle of people know that. I know that I'll trust the new hierarchy to make what they deem to be the best signings they can get, even if it bumps up against the start of the season/end of the transfer window. As long as the players signed are not stop-gaps/squad fillers/panic buys to placate the social media chunterers I'll be happy.
Agree with all of this and Olivers Army posts The Club was torn to pieces in the last two years Not just the playing staff but the whole infrastructure from top to bottom and the rebuild has only just started. Absolutely understand why fans get frustrated after the last few years however This is always the most frustrating time of year Transfers take time to get right pre season is a work in progress so the team often looks ****e Patience is the key just need to take a step back and let them get on with things Its not going to be fixed tomorrow but at least I have every confidence that we have "football" people in charge who may make mistakes but are definitely in it for the right reason. As my old man used to say "Children and fools should never see a job half done".
It's more than just buying better players, we are subject to a salary cap of 60% of turnover I believe. If we bring in the better players available to us they are hardly likely to accept average 3rd division wages. Maybe we should raise season card prices to pay the wages of better players.
