You're right. De Wijsfor example was pilloried on here to start with (not by everyone) and many thought we were certainties for relegation, so if he stays Nigel Adkins might well build another mid table team. But again that feels like very much the most we could hope for. The only player I think we'll lose who will be impossible to replace would be Bowen but we'll miss Grosicki and Campbell too if he does go. That doesn't seem certain to me yet.
We had a miles better squad at the start of this season than we will have for the forthcoming season. Take Grosicki and Bowen out of this side and you lose the divisions top assist provider and one of the Championships leading goal scorers.
I think we’ll lose Marshall, Kane (loan), Henriksen, Bowen, Grosicki, Campbell, Martin (loan), Pugh (loan). Straight away we have no goals in the team.
A team of: Long Lichaj Burke De Wijs Kingsley Batty Toral Stewart Milinkovic Dicko Irvine isn't the worst in terms of standard, it's solid mid table, but that's literally the best we will have at the start of the season and one injury ****s the lot. It also means a bench of kids. I didn't like the sound of Nige's "we had a meeting to look over one lad we're targeting". One meeting for one player suggests to me they've got a prime target. Which we usually miss out on. Now we know we aren't going up, this international break should be used to draw up contracts, identify targets and starting the leg work for Summer, but how can that happen if our manager might not even be here? Rinse and repeat.
Our first eleven are as good as any at this level on their day.. Not a lot of depth admittingly but still enough to be challenging higher up the league then we currently are. It will be a long time before we get another Jarrod Bowen. His type at his age come along once in a generation if you are lucky. With a modest amount of investment in either window and a bit more belief from the manager in the first half of the season. this squad could have gone a lot further. How many points have we thrown away in the last 5 mins ? You add it up Kemps, you show me the games where we have been totally outclassed ( besides the last hour v Brentford ) and amazingly we are still not mathematically out of the race for the top six. Then tell me who is genuinely daft. Written off by most at the start of the season, not by me, and I still say we are underachieving.
Did you say more belief from the manager ? He believed when everybody else was calling him stupidly optimistic
More belief as in going for wins at home and not sitting back like we did against Leeds and Forest. Also we had a spell earlier in the season when we played with a loan striker.
