We seem to be picking up a lot of injuries during so-called friendly games.......is it just bad luck......or is fitness training not up to scratch. Have we taken on another injury prone player in Lowry .....or are we just unlucky. How does Fletcher pick teams for friendly games........does he just throw their shirt numbers in a hat and pick them at random ? Some of the combinations he has picked up to now begs believing.......some of the poorest teams on paper that could be possible. Or is it as some are saying.....that Fletcher is totally clueless and should go somewhere else on loan to learn his trade. Purse and Blanchard in my opinion kept Argyle up last season not Fletcher.
He did say that he wasn't bothered about pre-season results Plymborn and would not risk giving players 90 minutes until they were ready, ironically to avoid injuries. Instead, he said his focus would be to give everyone some game-time in small chunks. Whether that's the right way of doing it is arguable but it does explain what he's been doing so far.
Pre-season is about match fitness not results and never has been. It is worrying that we seem to be picking up injuries but I think that is more unlucky than anything else. The players have all been talking about the hard work Fletcher has made them put in for fitness so they can't all be wrong or making it up. Like Mrs lalala has said on the bar thread, it is hard to get excited about Argyle's chances this season given the news and lack of news coming out of Home Park. The anticipation regarding signings has turned into despair. There has simply been nothing to get the blood pumping or more people to sign up for a ticket. People are questioning this concept of a competetive budget that keeps being thrown our way via the media. It isn't looking that competetive given our aquisitions so far and the players other clubs seem able to both attract and afford. I think this season I am totally underwhelmed given the expectations raised.
The budget is presumably being measured primarily by reference to wage costs versus the cap, what the club can afford given its recent history and what others in the division spend, not transfer fees. As far as I'm aware, no ordinary fan is privvy to that comparison, at least until the supervisory board gets up & running, so there's no basis for believing it or disbelieving it other than taking what's being said at face value for the time being. The stats that are available [mostly from the PL it's true] do show that there's a correlation between spending and success but also that it's not a perfect correlation. Some clubs that spend a lot do badly nonetheless and some clubs who spend relatively little do better than they should [Fulham being a case in point I think]. That's no more than any football fan knows: money helps but a good manager is worth his weight in gold. We shall see [don't even bother Plymborn], but I trust at least we won't be going bankrupt, which is the main thing.
It's the expectation that has suffered notdistant. Given the rhetoric coming out of Home Park regarding budgets and then seeing the lack of any incoming to get excited about has led to the disappointment and gloom. I think the fault lies with the club for raising the expectations too far. You know what people are like. Give them a glimmer and they will turn it into a spotlight. I have never been one to get carried away but even I expected a bit more than has happened. We shall see is true. I suspect though that if Argyle don't get off to a reasonable start then the floating voters will think long and hard about coming this season. To have had to sit through match after match of crap last season was only sustained by the euphoria of the club not going out of business. There is a limit to people's patients and the love affair isn't going to last.
I don't think the club did raise expectations, fans did that all by themselves, unless I was reading about another club by mistake. The message was relentless: balanced budget, sustainable basis, spend only what you earn...... What did people think that meant? I agree, I don't think it will be a rip-roaring season, in fact I'll confess I'm quite worried we'll end up biting our nails in the bottom third again, I wouldn't be at all surprised if that's the case. But we go back to the same issue: the recent near disaster has proved beyond a shadow of doubt that there isn't a rich sugar daddy out there who's going to buy PAFC success. I for one, and probably a minority of one, am quite glad that is so as sugar daddies tend to dissolve after a while just like the real thing and leave you in a worse position than you were before.
I could also quote the "better/bigger budget than" and "this club should be in the Championship and I will do what it takes to get them back there". The fact is that our competitors appear, on paper, not to have allowed our bigger budget to outdo them with their signings compared to ours. The expectation with all the talk of bigger budgets was that we would be in a position to get better players. What have we got so far. The same people resigned from last season pretty much and a non league striker with "possible" potential. A local lad who is now out for 3 months who already is getting the tag, unfairly I think, of a "sick note" player. Looking at a winger who has not impressed the fans in 2 pre-season friendlies and a Welsh non league striker who is 32. The above is hardly startling is it. It maybe what we should have been expecting but not what people were expecting. I keep on about the word expectation and perceived expectations. The same applied with the Administration. Whether Guilfoyle did a good job or not was down to how it looked rather than maybe what it was. People thought it looked bad and therefore in folklore it has become bad. People were given a level of expectation for this season and to them it hasn't come about. It is these people who will form around half of the crowds this season and if they are totally underwhelmed with everything then they may not come. If they don't come then the wage bill will exceed the allowed 55%. I just think Brent could have done a little something to have helped. I cannot see where he has actually spent anything yet on the team but he sure as hell has a few business interests on the go outside of the club. Perception once again that just maybe he isn't the man that everyone thought he was. Jury still out for me but then again I have already bought my ticket to ride and I'm not the one to convince.
I can't help other people's misconceptions Sensible and we are in serious trouble if fans don't listen to what they are told and lapse back into old ways of expecting someone to buy success for them. Maybe Brent has caught a slight dose of footballitis and let his mouth run away with him, but I don't think the comments about the Championship are anything more than excess enthusiasm. He said the club should be in the Championship and we all know and have said frequently the same thing, that with a catchment of its size, it should be. But the fact is that it isn't and hasn't been very often and when it was, it couldn't maintain the crowds required to stay there. What I don't remember is Brent ONCE saying he intended to put money into the club other than that required to get it back onto its feet and completing the ground improvements on the back of a wider property development, which would also give the club a bit more non-football income - which hasn't happened yet and probably won't for a couple of years at least. After that it was all about self-financing i.e. whatever money fans contribute at the turnstiles and the club shop will be spent within the club and that's it. It has to be remembered also that the club may still be encumbered with unpaid football debts from its previous existence. We don't know the bottom line cash flow position - maybe we will after the supervisory board gets going. It's extremely fickle to turn against Brent so soon - after all, PAFC would certainly have been out of business and out of football without him.
I must agree with you notDistant........With all the mouthing off going on on other sites that Brent is on the make and asset stripping (what assets, other than his present development plans around the Mayflower)........Brent has promised no pot of gold to spend on top notch players........what he has said is that all football development will come from current budget .....which for a Div 2 team is one of the better budgets in the league........who can really say if Carl Fletcher is a good manager or not......last season was not a good season to judge any manager.......he did keep us up.......with the help of Purse and Blanchard....who brought consistency to a defence that once leaked like a breached dam. Only time will tell if Cowan-Hall was an inspired buy.....or if (if he has signed) Rhys Griffiths can do the business in League Two......then everyone will be patting Fletcher on the back........if it isn't the case then goodbye to Fletcher by Christmas......on the other hand is Brent the type that has knee-jerk reactions....maybe not.....he doesn't come across as that type. notDistant I do not need to remind you that Fletcher isn't my cup of tea.....as a player or a manager.......but maybe I should bite my tongue and let the season unfold first before mouthing off about his interview style etc etc. Today we see Championship opposition, Birmingham City (did they not come 4th last season)........please Carl don't sod about with selection.....play your strongest available team to start with, we need to judge our strength before the season starts.
And 0 - 5 was the result of that one so are you any the wiser plymborn? People do listen notdistant and I think you do them discredit for implying they do not hear. If Brent means one thing and one thing only then he should say it as it is and not leave room for people to get excited. He doesn't do that because frankly if he did then we would probably be struggling with crowds or at least season ticket sales. "I will do what it takes to get us back there". What is to misunderstand with a statement like that. He probably meant "eventually" and if he did mean that then perhaps he should have said so and not left room for people to misinterpret. I'm not particularly knocking Brent. I didn't expect huge sums to be pumped in. Simply there is nothing that has happened in this closed season to raise a smile or much in the way of hope. Another season of struggle will only see the numbers dwindle because I think a lot will not bother to go through it all again for a third time. I would argue that a bit of investment now, now millions but just some, might stave that off and raise moral a bit. I'm not particularly a Fletcher knocker either. He has faults in experience but he did do his bit in management to keep us in the league. His choice of player to bring in looks flawed however and if it doesn't come good then I think the small cry for his head will become a roar before long. That is the way of the supporter.
I'm not discrediting anyone Sensible - it was you that said some people's expectations [false expectations in my books] had been dashed! All I'm saying is that if you take the generality of what Brent [and Fletcher too to an extent] have said, together with the financial hangover from last seasons various crises, you'd be pretty hopeful to have expected big signings. I'm dubious about Fletcher too, in my opinion it wasn't in the club's interest or his to give such a difficult job to someone with so little experience. But what's done is done and to be fair, he did get us out of deep, deep mire last year. Given that there hasn't been a game played in anger since, it would be a bit harsh to sack him now and I think Brent is too fair and rational to do that. I don't put much weight on his poor speaking style, after all 90% of the people in football wouldn't recognise an adverb if it dropped on them from a great height. It may be that with a clean sheet and without relegation pressure, Fletcher & the players can blossom. However, there has to be a risk that escaping by the skin of our teeth last season was the best they can do and that we are in the bottom third come Christmas. Then there will be a decision to be made....
And it was you that said people were not listening notdistant. I'm saying they were listening but heard a different version to what was actually meant. That maybe due to the presentation rather than simple misunderstanding. I don't think Brent will fire Fletcher that easily either just because some are being loudly critical. It is a results driven business as we all know so whether he gets the hook will dependlargely on that. I also didn't say anything about big signings either. What I said was more experienced signings and apart from the squad from last season re-signing the experience up front which everyone says we needed does not appear to have been sought. We shall see as you have said. I am still in hope but it is only that rather than any confidence.
I simply cannot comprehend how anyone gets from all that's been said about balanced budgets etc etc to disappointment at the lack of signings.....
Is that a squad of 28 now. That is the problem with the competetive budget that people have notdistant. With all due respect you didn't sit through hours of crap football last season like a lot of these people including me. Not a criticism but it is easier to be disappointed that we retained so many ordinary players and have this size squad when we could have sacrificed a couple more from last term and had at least 4 less for this term. The extra 4 x £1500 per week or there abouts would have been a great big carrot to better players. Fletcher seems to have gone for quantity rather than better quality. Nobody was expecting some multi £200k plus signings. But there were plenty of quite good quality players on free transfers we could have gone for and offered a better deal than a few others who did sign them. I don't think it is that hard to understand why people are questioning Fletcher's managerial decisions.
So we get a penalty in pre-season....and miss it........the discussion then is who should be taking penalties now that golden boy Walton is no longer here. In normal circumstances that would be easy.....Wotton.......but there is a possibility that Fletcher might not play him all the time......don't ask me why I think that,I just think that that might be so. So who else....Feeney seems to have a reasonable record....but he might not also be on the pitch for long spells. Who other than Chadwick would do a good job......with goals being hard to get....missing penalties is not an option.
