Well, Clive has sucked out a lot of the potential enjoyment from this season, but only by stating the obvious, so it’s not his fault. This is an all out, one time only push for promotion, if we don’t do it this year we’ll be selling the good players next summer. I implicitly knew this, because we kept adding to the squad while not letting anyone decent go, and adding players who even if they are towards the end of their careers aren’t going to accept rock bottom wages, which is all we can afford medium to long term unless we are promoted. But now the tension will rack up, the first loss and bad run assume disaster movie proportions, we aren’t dark horses, we are going for it and everyone knows it. **** it up and it’ll be a long wait until the next serious go. Now I’m really nervous. As for Monsieur Andre, I was unaware of his history and if this this the only time I hear about it I’ll be happy.
TIP: Don't read these reports. I never read Clive's report because the last time I did about 7 years ago I fell asleep half way through! I would rather read your guys opinions to get the gist.
I'm not so sure this is $4!t or bust. We've proven we can re invest smartly already. If we get a combined £30m for Dickie and Willock I think we can build again even if it means one more mid table year between promotion pushes. Some replacements may even already be in the club in Kelman, Masterson, Dunne and Walsh.
At the end of the window, It looks like we swopped Carroll for Dozzell. Maybe Carroll is the better player now, but age is on Dozzell's side.
For sure, this is going to be a make or break year for this squad and, if we don't achieve promotion, one or two will either have to be sold or will, justifiably, want to pursue their careers in the Premier League. However, the Brentford model shows that it's NOT necessarily a one-off opportunity. They were around the promotion places for a few years before achieving it and, each year, they seemed to make at least one major sale of a star player, generating useful income in the process. Yet they managed to recruit decent replacements and kept banging away until they made it. If we don't get promoted this season, I will be worrying about who we might lose and whether we can get decent replacements for them but Brentford have shown that it can be done.
I was looking forward to a surprise promotion, but prepared for a near miss. Now I’m expecting it, and a near miss won’t be good enough. Don’t know about Rodney, but I don’t have as much time as Raving for ‘rebuilding’. I hope you chaps are right and if we are not there this year we will be soon after……. ….for what it’s worth I think we’ve been winning/drawing pretty ugly so far, and that’s a really good sign.
It's different when you have a player on loan. If they misbehave and breach certain codes of behaviour, they can be sent back. Contrast that to the situation with Kane, where we've struggled but succeeded to eventually get rid of him.
I think it's about becoming a club with good vibes, good team spirit and a proven track record of being a great place to further your career. We don't have to be a club where the top players will stay until they retire. We can be a club where great talent at this level feel they can make progress. And when the players make progress, they take the club onwards and upwards with them. Which is what seems to be happening.
I would hazard a guess that there aren’t many on here who have done things or said things that they massively regret……I’m a big candidate for that one.
I have a feeling Austin will be annoyed with this signing. He wants to be the big dog. Hopefully that will make him hungry.
How long a list do you want.....I was a total **** as a youngster, not much changed just get on with it
Comes across as being very sanctimonious, as he quite often does imo. Plus, it may have been a good idea to have read through what he'd written, to avoid repeating identical paragraphs. Finally, how contradictory to admit spouting bollocks years ago himself, but then call out Gray for doing the same (admittedly what Gray said was abhorrent, but he's apologised and says he's moved on and matured). Clean slate for me.
