its great to have all the excitement, initially, when we start the new season with who will come and who will go but it drags on. We now only have 2 months to " take a breather", with early season friendlies commencing in July probably less time. We all used to or do look forward to our 33days or so of annual holiday time from work, for some additional weeks at Christmas or Easter. Footballers of course don't get our weekends off Christmas or Easter, but a period off in the tween seasons. For some it is a worrying time and no relaxation will I wont I and importantly where if not here. Many years ago TRANSFERS were simplistic affairs, the odd player moving at anytime, the majority of players home town born and bred and players from outside our shores few and far between. End of season the vast majority would go off on holiday relax have fun get blotto a few times and a few weeks later turn up to carry on where they left off. Now its saw so and so ( he's actually there with wife and kids on his jolly) outside the *****stadium in Spain Italy or France and its all over the papers ..so and so is talking to ******* and could be moving. The biggest crack if true must be the 3 black suited imposter guys taking on the hospitality of a football team in Spain..wined and dined etc etc then doing a runner at the 11th hour. Bale leaving and Felliani, did a cracking job at Everton last season, joining Man Utd. Liverpool mean business....As do Arsenal and Tottenham with Chelsea allowing quite few to go on loan in the Prem A VERY CANNY MOVE IT YOU THINK ABOUT IT! and of course Man City off loaded a few and got a new defender......... ............ a genuine perm 4 from 6 for the European cup and a real open who will top the prem..this year watch the prem divide last season between 7th and 8th it was 12 points but between 5th and 8th it was a massive 23 points, bear in mind QPR MANAGED 25 POINTS. Our league........... well we do have a derby game with the gas that's exciting, a cup game against Soton might end there and the prospects that in the not to distant future we might win a league game. We have the bits so now its time to put them together and do something, of all the managers since Gj's first season in the championship...the manager "has got" the majority of what he wants? he has brought in a whole team so no excuses....instant success, no , but certainly lets go and win 15 games and draw at least 15 and say well we did well after a sticky start now next season we should win it!
A league win is certainly and seriously long overdue, and whether you tag this winless run in the league onto the back end of last season or not, we're still without a win in 5 league games in this division this current season. It's too early to panic, and we had some reasonable tough opening fixtures, although aside from Wolves we shouldn't have feared any one of the other 4 clubs we've met so far, but fans who've been deprived of genuine success for decades and who are still watching the club spiral downwards through the football league with no sign of stopping yet wont keep quiet forever. We need some decent results in the next half dozen games, end of.
I don't think we are spiralling downwards - the Board seem to have a plan and we have a sensible steady manager who is following it - there are no quick fixes and I'm optimistic about the long term future for us
I think you are right we aren't really spirally down..out of control anyway but more of a sedate sinking since 2008/9 and the future can only be rosy! A massive team like Sheff Utd is in their 3rd season Soton took 2 seasons Norwich Leics Peterbro rebounded, PETERBRO ON A HATRICK!!! so its not all plain sailing
I agree that there are no quick fixes for the mess that the club has allowed itself to get into. As for spiralling down, if it's not a spiral down then we are still sinking at the present time as JGF2 says and the longer it goes on the worse it will get.
It doesnt take a genius to see what SOD is putting together. Lots of young talent and potential, and solid foundations. He wants to develop the youngsters and that takes time. Its the only way with a club like BCFC (unless you have a few million you can lend the board for players Angelic )
Quite simply, SoD is "doing a Lambert" (Paul) by completely changing the squad and dynamic of the club. Lambert did it in one season with Norwich, it took him a little longer as he threw away the old and started from scratch at Villa but they look a much more attractive propostion now to the tired old club that they had become and there are many parallels with us in that regard. Mostly importantly, the fans at both clubs bought into the philosophy which at Villa was vital as whilst they struggled in the rebuild last year, the crowd could see what Lambert was doing and were behind him all the way. The team still lost BUT, the differnce was that they were playing a hell of a lot better than the dross served up and the fans appreciated what was happening. By the same token, we are massively changed from last year and what we have to remember is that this group has played a total of 7 competitive games together so the players are still forming their style, pattern of play and getting to know each others game so, whilst the start could have been better, we are not "continuing" anything. This is a NEW GROUP just setting out on a journey and any comparisons to the club over the last 3-4 years are completely POINTLESS. Forget what has happened, its gone - concentrate on the now and watch the team evolve...
well he has brought in the equivalent to a new team, more than 11, +whats left from last season...12-14 players ? other than Kilkenny and( Fontaine.. gone) ... the whipping posts for the mindless boo boys the rest seemed to perform "reasonable" so SOD must feel reasonably well with these "left overs" and the new ingreidients to see him go forward. This division is quite fluid, the more I look at it teams seem to have more "+/-" patches than the championship or Prem.. so 10 games with 3 wins 3 draws and 4 losses followed by 4 wins 3 draws and 3 losses, well that's almost safety and will do me for now...............
And this just about sums up the club and it's ambitions, so let's just settle for safety in L1........
I disagree I'd rather we built from a position where we were not looking over our shoulders however the performances against Reading and Bournemouth gave most, myself included, a slightly false sense of optimism because we forgot that a young team, which we have, will make mistakes as they are learning to play together look at Aston Villa last year the rebuild with younger in the main players nearly got them relegated but this year after playing together for 12 months they look so much better. Because we are in a lower division so it is easier in a sense to rebuild with youngsters I don't expect us to have the same problems for 2 reasons Sean has managed to get a number of potentially good players as well as a few players at AG who could turn out to be better than just good(Bryan, JET, Baldock) the second reason is JET and Sam seem to be working well together and the back 5 are slowly working out who does what where and when but remembering they are still effectively learning - Flint was non league a couple of years ago - Williams and Wynter hadn't played a league game until this season - Pack had never played above L2 until this year when you add in JET has hardly ever had a run of games at any club except his loan spell at Donny(because of his laid back style he always seems to first to be dropped for not trying) Bryan and Reid had only a hand full of games for us before this season and that is most of the team, they will make mistakes but fewer as the season progresses at least that is my opinion.
SOD has certainly got a nice young mix...and spot on with your comments what we do have have is a bit of expieience from almost half of the team members left having played Championship and backs against the wall football
we now need to transfer cup games to league games...Carey's back..a rest...but do we need it? probably not next round of the JPT will be harder than the gas !
