Sorry, I know I should have resisted, but as dear old Oscar said: "I can resist everything, except temptation"
I'm afraid "screwed" suggests a passive verb - we haven't been screwed, we've screwed ourselves. You can start where you like, but certainly the recent absence of Purse, accidental or otherwise, in relatively easy holiday season games, was a crippler. Given my rock bottom opinion of referees, especially away from home. I'm not prejudging things, but Hourihane's sending off is one of a trail of disruptive disciplinary failings. Making Fletcher's appointment permanent after 10 minutes in a caretaker role was rash, given he has no managerial experience. I'm not having a go at him, merely pointing out he may have been asked to take on a role which he wasn't ready for, which may do him, a long standing club servant, as much harm in terms of his longer term career as it does PAFC. The crazy idea of publicising a possible appeal against Purse's sending off [I wonder if Purse would have wanted it to succeed] and the decision not to call the squad in for training over the Christmas break betrays a lack of separation between players and manager. Would SAF have allowed his players to escape training at Xmas? I think not and there's clearly a campaign to undermine Rooney going on at the moment, consisting of omission from the squad and rumours of an outgoing transfer to emphasise no player is bigger than Manchester United even if it's not true at PAFC. All in all, we didn't do well enough in the recent run of 6-pointer games against those in the bottom third and now we face a series of much harder games. I hope we show further improvement. I'm not sure we will.
Well the scorelines don't lie do they. There is a growing call for the head of Fletcher and an even bigger swell of discontent even amongst those very green elements. We have improved of that there is little doubt given that not that long ago today would have been a mauling but only turned out to be a loss. But, a loss nonetheless and that is the problem isn't it. Improving is one thing but winning games is another one altogether. The red card tally is not getting better either. Another suspension. I've not heard Fletcher's post match comments but I suspect it includes the phrase "worked their socks off" as that one seems to be a stock phrase of his. I am beginning to wonder where we can get a run of results from because that is what we need and the need is ever growing as match by match there are less to play. Will Brent keep his word in that he did promise to finance insurance that we will not lose our league status. This is his first acid test and I'd guess he might just come up wanting in that. In the absence of a magic wand or genie of the lamp I really don't know what to think anymore.
Carl Fletcher talking on eatsleepsport.........said "we haven't got a problem with creating chances and scoring goals.......etc....etc." Fact...........played 25........goals scored 26...........1.04 goals per match. Definate Fact...........Carl......we have got a major problem scoring goals. But give credit where credits due..........you are right.......we have got a problem stopping goals being scored against us.
Its not looking good for us is it ..... didn't help that the ref was a homer ..... our discipline record is shocking .... you can't have a manager who is the players mate which Fletcher definately is ..... it just doesn't work !!
In fairness to Fletcher he is probably talking for now plymborn rather than all season long. We couldn't score now we can as the number of goals more recently bares out. Whilst I might kick him for some things I don't think it's fair to kick him for everything he says.
Ok sensible.....point taken. Reid...........P9...W0...D1...L8...GF 3...GA 19........good grief. Fletcher......P16...W4...D5...L7...GF 23...GA 28........achieved with men in the team.....not just schoolboys. Scored 1.4375 goals per match.....better........against...1.75 goals per match. Yes an improvement.........and he his right about having to improve defending. But how do you compare Reids schoolboys.........and Fletchers more experienced team ??? The obvious way is that Reid was bottom of the League.............and Fletcher is..........bottom of the League. In 125 years PAFC have never ever been so far down the League's pecking (not you Beau) order.
On current form-next two fixtures,both at home, Burton-we will loose (probably),Crawley-no chance.Expected points out of next two games=NIL=cast totally adrift at bottom of league 2.
To follow on,Port Vale away -might get a point and then Southend at home-probably loose,so over the next 4 games a realistic expectaion of picking up points is 1 (ONE) yes we are screwed.Based on of course current form.
Come on aka......your making sensible look like a Fairy Godmother full of sweetness and light........buck-up or we'll feed you to Ian Newell for breakfast and hope he gets indigestion. If we get two experienced players........central defender and another good striker........AND....bring in an attacking mid-fielder,then there is hope against these better teams. The problem with Walton being good from the penalty spot is that........it hides what crap he really is............also make Darren Purse team captain. Now about Carl Fletcher........whoaa I'm sounding just as dis-gruntled as you are aka......I better stop there.
I read what you say Plymborn but the little word with the big meaning comes into play "if" we get a good striker and a decent central defender.Taking into account many other clubs will be looking for similar players and that Fletcher has already come out and said "we will not be splashing the cash" it may or may not happen.Think it is time to make some changes very quickly-agree about Purse taking the captaincy although it will probably negatively impact on Walton,but hey hf course things could turn around and I am not going out of my way to negativise the situation but we are where we are.
By all accounts we were the better side yesterday but only 2 out of 10 chances on target tells the story, without Chadwick it's true. Also, even with Purse in the side, conceding 2 goals [excluding a dubious penalty] in every game is always going to be doing it the hard way. As someone else noted, we have a pretty hard set of games coming up and I'm struggling to see how we get out of this, unless there are some stunningly cheap & effective acquisitions in January.
The debate on pasoti seems to be hotting up re change of manager an online poll rates it as 65% in favour of an alternative manager.
It's all very well saying we will lose here get a point there but it doesn't work that way, you only have to try the predition game to realise that one. Argyle have always but always had a habit of beating good teams only to lose to bottom of the league ones. As I said before we need to do something and soon, be it manager, loanees or whatever but the sooner it is done the better.
Yeah am aware we have always beaten teams at the top in every season,i guess playing Crawley and Southend will give us that chance,unfortunately sometimes it does work out accurately in terms of form.
If football was that predictable then there would be no point playing 46 matches in a season. Given the low expectation of points gained over the next 3 or 4 games it would be just like Argyle to surprise everyone. We hope. I still maintain we don't have a problem scoring now. We did but not now. It is goals now that matter not what we did or didn't get previously anyway. Letting in goals however has been a reocurring theme and it is that which is most worrying. But we shall see won't we.
We shall indeed,hope I'm totally wrong but at the most can only seeing us getting 2-4 points out of the next 12 available.
Well I was surprised that Northampton beat Morecombe on saturday. It shows that the top teams are not invincible and have a habit of dropping points against lesser teams. Keep the faith.
