It seems that Oliver Norburn is on his way out of the club. He's been made available for loan and has been told that he doesn't figure in John Ward's plans. This is a mistake in my opinion. He's one of the more talented youngsters at the club and he's only going to get better. We will almost defintely lose O'Toole in the summer, so we'll end up being light in midfield - why, therefore, are we letting one of our better midfielders go? http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/Oliver...istol-Rovers/story-20844450-detail/story.html
writing been on the wall for a while for him. he is out of contract in the summer and he cant even get himself on the bench in a struggling league 2 side. ward just gave new contracts to clarke and lockyer and they seem to be wards 1st choice in the middle of the park. doesnt look like norburn can nudge either 1 of them out the team and obviously norburn wont move o'toole out the side and then you have other players like clarkson who is available and would be better on the o'toole role than norburn. if norburn is on good wages then it makes sense to let him go as he cant get any game time. its just a waste of money to keep him. i think its good that norburn knows now so he can find a club now instead of finding out in the summer. obviously norburn has some talent and on his day he can be quality but for me he has been frustrating to watch. so many times he has gone for a hollywood pass when there were more simple and better options available for him. to me he is a league 1 player. league 1 you get more time on the ball and thats the type of player he is. when he has time on the ball he is very good. league 2 you need a different type. you need a battler in the middle to win the ball and forward on to the attacking players. we have a lot of these type of ball winning middle like clarke, lockyer, woodards and clucas. they all can play CM and are all very similar.
He's another one who's lost his way. The hardest thing for a professional footballer is keeping that consistency and improving with age. Too many of the youngsters think it's job done once they make the first team, when it has only just begun.
I think this is very unfair. Norburn is a fine passer of the ball and can run the midfield on his day. He is a bit like a League Two Adam Lallana in that he always has time on the ball, and, offers something different to Lockyer, Clarke and Clucas. All of those three are good players IMO, but too similar to play in the same side.
I agree - he's probably the best passer of the ball at the club. We should not be getting rid of him. Nor should we be letting Eliot go. His goals have single-handedly won two games for one of our main relegation rivals. I do not know what John Ward is doing.
Well we obviously need better quality players than what we currently have, so I am not bothered if any of our current players go, with the exception of JJOT and Smith, and both will most likely leave in the summer anyway lol
I think that we've got some pretty good players for this level - JJOT, Smith, Brown, Mildenhall, McChrystal, Lockyer, Norburn, Clarkson etc. I just don't think they're motivated and set up correctly - that's a fault of management.
I think we need Ward out more than any player out. Ward has had a whole season to do something with this club now, and has left us in pretty much the same situation as we were in when he got here. However, I also do not see the point in switching management every five minutes as it is getting us nowhere. I have resigned to keeping Ward for next season in the hope he gets it right this time..... **** knows what to do with this club really. Lets just cross our fingers and hope for the best, as we usually do and have done for yonks
IMO if JW had the personality of say Buckle then he would of been sacked a few months back but because he's a nice bloke more people want him to stay
this season ward has been unlucky with injuries and no funds due to the wage budget. you cant blame him for that. higgs obviously sees it the same and is just as frustrated as ward is and as frustrated as us fans are. although wards record hasnt been great (table dont lie) i dont think it would be fair to sack him. if he decides to leave then fair enough but i think it is very harsh to sack him. i doubt many managers would have been able to do things better than ward this season. he deserves praise in my eyes after a difficult season. half the season was wasted due to all the injuries he has had to deal with during pre season and at the start of the season. and when this happened he was unable to bring players in due to the wage budget. he got on with it without complaining or using it as an excuse. he had to rely on youth and inexperienced players to have a squad of 18 players and sometimes he couldnt even get 18 fit players and thats using youth! it wasnt until around xmas when ward was able to change things. he was able to let certain players go and use their wages to bring in players. our season really only started in january. considering all that somehow ward has been able to get us a very good home record and a very good defensive record. again ward needs to be praised for what he has been able to do with what he had available to him. surely people can see this. yes this season hasnt been good enough for us fans especially the peformances. it is disappointing to see us where we are in the table and with our budget we should be pushing at the other end of the table. ward has made mistakes along the way for sure but i am sure that if ward hadnt had the injuries that he has had, he would have got rid of certain players back in the summer and got in the players that would have been needed. he couldnt do anything about the injuries and couldnt bring in new players due to the wage budget. again ward has been very unlucky this season and looking at the whole picture - not just the results and performances - i think ward has done well considering. this season is a write off and quicker its over the better and work out what players were keeping and start building for next season for a promotion push. would be great to start the following season in a new division in a new stadium
Yes he has been unlucky. The problem is we will not get anywhere near the top end of the table with Wards tactics CJ. I understand he has been cursed with injuries, we can all see that. But to only win one game away from home is frankly a disaster. Our home form is simply the only thing saving us from relegation, and if that slips at any point (which looks like it could well happen) we will be in serious trouble. I think Ward should change his tactics. We simply do not score enough goals, or even look threatening half the time. If he stays, he really had better look at another formation, and get us firing on all cylinders next season, and start with a bang, otherwise he will need to go. I am sick of looking at the football league table and seeing us being rooted to the bottom 5 clubs. We are too good for that. Ward has made some baffling decisions as well. He removes Richards from the team and gives him to Exeter (one of our relegation rivals!) when he was playing well. Look at him now…. He plays Beardsley on the wing (HAHA!!) and loves Matt Harrold who when playing, we lose games (Not Harrolds fault, but we are not set up correctly to play Harrold IMO). He needs to really think about what he wants to do. You don’t win the league or get into the play offs (minimum expectancy for most of our fans) when you play one up front, don’t score many goals and don’t win away from home. I think he should have some time maybe to have a chat with the BOD, and set a plan for next season. Buy some good quality players (we should be able to bribe them with a nice shiny new stadium now, which is imminent!!) I think building on the defense we have, keep Smith if at all possible, and get in 2 or 3 top quality strikers. We should look to outscore teams, and with our defense, we will be fine.
we all had hoped that we would continue the form of last season into this season. but it just hadnt worked out. the bad luck we had with injuries earlier in the season basically meant our season was over before it started. obviously we all get and understand that. therefore we were fighting a losing battle this season as it was always going to be a struggle with the amount of injuries we had and had no wage budget left to do anything about the injuries. we relied on youth and to be honest they have done well. you can only play certain tactics if you have the players to do it. we havent had the attacking threat in the team to be an attacking team. we all want attacking tactics but we havent had the players to do it. we have to play to our strengths and that is defensive - be hard to beat and hard to break down and hope to get a chance or 2 in the game to steal the game. however there are many games especially on our travels where we didnt take our chances and then it came back to bite us on the ass. ward plays differently in away games. he is much more defensive as he believes the home team should be the team that does the pressing. that is why we are more attacking at home and why we have a pretty good home record. in away games he expects the home team to come at us and he sets the team up that way. most of the time we defend well and deal with it. however stupid mistakes like a lack of concentration then undo all the hard work and with our lack of attacking threat as we have no pace to counter and when a chance comes we end up failing to take that chance. i personally can see why some of his unfavourable decisions are made. it doesnt mean i agree with them but i can see why ward made them. im not saying ward is 100% innocent. of course he has made mistakes like all managers do. some decisions he makes is the wrong decision and we all (including me) have stated these things on here when it happens. i think ward should stay for next season. he has a lot of work to do as a lot of players will be leaving. i trust him to make the right signings. but these signings need to have pace and attack minded players.
