I would have kept most with the exception of Dozzell, Skuse and Chambers. Bring in Bonne, Carroll or Morsy, Burgess, Edwards, Celina and Penney (yes I am choosing those with the benefit of some hindsight). I think that would have been more constructive.
We’ll have to agree to disagree,personally I think we’ve traded up all over the pitch and just have to give the new squad time to (yes!) gel!! In the meantime (second half of yesterday excepted) I’ve mostly enjoyed my visits to PR this Season more than I have done for many years.
The goalkeeper’s not better than Holy. The centre backs aren’t better than Nsiala / Woolfy. The midfielders aren’t an improvement on Downes and Bishop. With the exception of Bonne the forwards are not an improvement on Norwood. Fraser is not an improvement on Gwion Edwards. There was a gaping hole in CDM, no wide players, not enough good attacking options, not enough defensive cover and we have done well to address those areas, which would have been regarded as healthy transfer business on their own - but in other positions all we’ve done is replace like for like.
The new players are all better than what we had before. All the data supports that. Look at Fraser’s stats at his previous club for example, which is why he was the best 10 in the division last year. Take Piggot, he probably scored more goals last year than all our forwards put together. Lee Evans was at shef Utd and then Wigan in the championship holding down a starting place, the examples could go on. The team are playing an open, attacking style which is very hard to do. it requires stellar fitness levels to maintain fluid running out of possession and then in possession, which clearly aren’t there yet. It’s much easier to play negative hard to beat football, long ball etc, which we did last year because we had inferior players, in a broken club, with no plan and we not getting beat was the best we aimed for. Hence it was dire. If the current team were set up to play like that we’d be grinding out the 1-0 wins. Town fans all said (since MM days) they wanted attacking football over guaranteed results from hoof ball. Comparing this side with our previous one needs to account for how they are being asked to play. It’s night and day. Last year we cheered if we got a shot away in the second half. The fact that many of these players have come from higher up the pyramid and have won this division before would also evidence they are of superior quality to the players we had.
Sorry Buckyohare but I don't even know where to start with this! - having good stats for a season doesn’t make you a better player than anybody else. It doesn’t even mean you were a good player that season. It means you had good stats for a season. Fraser has been abysmal in the early games. - that they have had successful seasons elsewhere just shows they were playing in a successful team at that time. The same is true of players that Paul Hurst signed and look how they turned out. - none of these players set the world alight at other clubs, if they had we wouldn't be able to sign them. For the Championship players the fact they dropped down may be as much an indicator that they didn't have the quality rather than it being evidence of superior quality. - the current group of players are failing to perform with the style we have adopted so how could last season's squad have done any worse if they had played this way? A few of the players are clearly spectacular signings but for those others knowing the surroundings, Ipswich / Suffolk, the club, their teammates, having a settled family life might have been more valuable. That's the gist!
There is a really good book called " wheres your caravan" by Chris Hargreaves. It is about the life of a football player plying his trade in the bottom 2 divisions, quite interesting about how these nearly players struggle year in year out. When I read it we were still top half of the championship so didn't seem relevant, but now .....
Agreed. We may have to adhere to wage restrictions in League One but I've said before that we can still flex the financial muscle when it comes to promotion wage increases. I would expect there are such clauses in the contracts, especially for the players that dropped down. I hope they all have that carrot dangling, gives the players something to strive for.
And as ever it’s rigged a bit so to help bigger clubs so wages on players under a certain age don’t count. Think it’s 21. Harper must be one of our biggest earners and he’s excluded from the equation…
It’s the opposite of rigging it. If U21s counted then clubs at this level would have no chance of keeping academy graduates.
It struck me if Cook gets the axe there are some brilliant women managers in the WSL and international football who would probably relish the chance to come and manage in the men’s game even at our level. That might be the solution.
Now there's an interesting proposal, not as daft as one might think. Anyone who has served time and has a good record, especially at international record, deserves a chance to enter this oh so macho male managers world. I do worry about Cook's man management skills or lack of them, and stubborness not to change his ways. And why oh cant we go 442, with Bonne and Norwood up front. What a combo that would be.
Agree on both counts. Norwood is bound to miss games but as long as he's fit he'll score goals. Women managers in men's football will be a thing soon enough. It's already happening in other leagues. It's just who is going to be the first English league club to have the pick of the talent.
