There was no clear reason for our performances to collapse to 6 points from 10 games and 13th place.
Thorpe was sacked. NOT because we failed to make the play offs, but because it was clear for anyone to see, that the team had regressed during the last 10 weeks. What is less clear is the reason for this total regression ..........
Given the upheaval resulting from it, surely it's important to ask why the final third of the season took the course it did? Rick says there was no clear reason for performances to collapse, Mike says the reason is unclear. But Thorup carried the whole can for it. Did he really deserve it? I don't think so. And I think NorthCity's post #83 is a start in looking in the right direction. Even allowing for the target being top six rather than promotion, the points he makes still apply. Take recruitment: how many of those signed in the two transfer windows with the deliberate intention of reducing the average age of the squad and the wage bill, look like signings for a serious tilt at top six this season rather than e.g. next? Knapper claims we have a very talented squad. We do. But how much of that talent was really ready for the gruelling Championship campaign ahead? How much of that talent was signed with an eye for adding resale value rather than an immediate payoff in terms of a top six finish?
Summer window: Doyle (loan), Chrisene, Cordoba, Forson, Slimane (loan), Schwartau, Crnac, Gordon (loan)
October: Marcondes (belated acknowledgement of a need left unfulfilled in the summer?)
January window: Jurasek, McConville, Dobbin (loan), Wright (loan)
Who in that list was supposed to fill the Sara- and Rowe-sized holes? Is Cordoba the equal of or an improvement on Gibson? What other club intent on a top six push would start the season with one, injury prone, striker, plus a talented 20 year old Croatian with a lot to learn, not expected to play much of a part in his first season?
A lot of talent signed, yes. A great deal of potential, yes. A talented, balanced squad ready for a gruelling Championship top six campaign, no.
Which leads on to the issue of fitness. Eleven of the first team squad are aged 21 or under: Reyes, Doyle, Chrisene, McConville, Fisher, Mahovo, Jurasek, Wright, Schwartau, Forsyth and Crnac. Young bodies are vulnerable, varying in their ability to stand up to the physical demands of a highly competitive environment. Ideally their minutes are carefully managed. But when this group constitutes almost 40% of the first team squad, that can become difficult. Doyle, Crnac and Fisher proved resilient, but all succumbed at a crucial time late in the season; both left backs, Chrisene and Mahovo, have been long term absentees, as has Forsyth from midfield; Jurasek has barely featured. Add the four 22-year olds, Forson, Gibbs, Dobbin and Springett, who have a total of 17 starts between them, and we're talking about over half the first team squad.
Which leaves Gunn, Long, Stacey, Duffy, Cordoba, Marcondes, Sorensen, Slimane, McLean, Nunez, Hernandez, Sainz and Sargent. There's a decent spine there for a Championship side challenging for a top six finish -- Gunn, Stacey, Duffy, McLean, Nunez, Sainz and Sargent. If five of those seven -- Gunn, McLean, Nunez, Sainz and Sargent -- had matched Duffy's availability and consistency, we might well have been in the mix. But injuries and stupidity meant they didn't. Three of them, Sargent, Nunez and McLean, all missed roughly a third of the season due to injury or suspension, Gunn came sixth from bottom of a performance table he'd been third from top the previous year, and Sainz's performances fell off a cliff after his ban just before Christmas.
Like NorthCity, I think it's Knapper, not Thorup, at whom fingers should be pointed. People will say that Thorup acquiesced in the recruitment; no doubt he did. But Thorup thought he was working to a timescale which allowed for potential to be developed even if results suffered. He was perfectly capable of sending a team out to keep a clean sheet; he did it at Fratton Park. If he had wished to prioritise points above embedding a style of play and giving youngsters a chance to show what they could do, he could easily have done so. He didn't because he took the brief he'd originally been given seriously. When questioned latterly in pre-match interviews about whether he planned to change tactics for the upcoming game, he replied "No, that would not be us". His every word and every action, and Riddersholm's pre-season interview, are proof that Knapper's claim that top six was the
target from the very start, and everybody knew it, is a lie. Riddersholm didn't know it; Thorup didn't know it; had they known it they would have managed games differently.
In his latest interview Knapper refers to the problems caused by availability and fitness. But he talks as if they were mere inconveniences rather than major determinants of the season's outcome, nothing to do with his recruitment. His entire interview is an exercise in diverting blame from himself. He repeats the canard that Thorup failed to improve those playing for him; Fisher, Crnac, Doyle, Chrisene, Forsyth, Mahovo and Wright have all testifed to the contrary. Also disgraceful is Knapper's brushing off Thorup's accusation that the goalposts had been moved as the sour grapes of a hurt man. That's not the Thorup we have come to know; but it sure tells us something about Knapper.
