Happy new year folks.
Here’s to Town moving onward and upwards and also to a spectacular winter World Cup!
Here’s to Town moving onward and upwards and also to a spectacular winter World Cup!

Feliz año nuevo amigos!
Can't believe we ain't signed anyone yet!!
I don’t believe there is some magic coaching wand he can wave to suddenly improve how good they are; u can either cross a ball on the run or u cant…
Rumours on TWTD (and they only appear to be rumours) that Fraser is off to Swansea.
We shoulda bought Stockton!! What a performance tonight…
The coaching thing comes up in plenty of books. Trappertoni said a coach can only add up to 10% improvement on a team, but badly coached they could drop by 30%. Which I thought was a interesting insight.
In his book, Vialli interviews wenger and he said if u got the top 2000 coaches 1900 could coach players as well as he can. What he felt the secret was is in choosing the right players for what you want to achieve and blending them into a team. Hence each manager brings in ‘his’ players because there’s only so much you can do with what’s there and underperforming.
you can be as clever as u want on the training ground but if the ability isn’t there to do a, b or c, that is hit a 60 yard pass, cross accurately or play possession football etc you can’t make it happen out of training methods alone. Surely it’s the right players WITH the right coaching methods?
km’s likely to be the smartest most ‘on it’ coach (and staff) we’ve had in a very long time but I think he’ll need some new players that can carry out his plan on a Saturday as coached in the week rather than trying to get the existing lot to do stuff for him they can’t.
take Edward’s; there’s a reason he’s hardly played any football at previous clubs; because he has the pace and perhaps skill for the PL but he must be 25 or close now and he’s wound up in L1. Can he really learn to add effective range of crossing and passing to his game now? I doubt it. But Christ I’d love it if he could…
thats fine if Hampy thinks Trappertoni is completely wrong. I’d think the 40% is the absolute extreme case and rarely are a team that far below their maximum potential and rarely do they get such a good new coach as to achieve a 40% swing. You’d have to discuss it with Trappertoni I guess Hampy….
But u could take Norwich now and even a 40% improvement in their performance (relative to their max potential which is very low) might mean they are still a relegation bound team cos they are so poor.
Ultimately KM needs additions because he can’t coach what we’ve got to achieve the success/league position that we want no matter how good he is. I guess it’s a bit like motor sport; u can put the best driver in the worst car and he’ll maybe finish a few places higher than with the regular driver. It’s only when U put him in a top car that he’s competitive at the top of the race.
There's definitely areas we can improve on in terms of signings particularly in terms of balance but that depends on the formation we wish to play. I think the left side needs to be strengthened whether that be a wide forward, Left Midfielder or left back. We could also strengthen the CM and CB positions as no has either stepped up yet or we don't have great strength in depth.
On the coaching side, whilst this is important and I'm sure can improve players surely this is most important in the younger groups, when it comes to the first team it's more about management of the players and getting the best out of them so about tactics and psychology, man management but also one think which I think is really important in the context of us is cohesion or gelling we've got 19 new players in, it takes time to understand your team mates game plus the managers way of playing and when that's every player and member of the back room staff having to do that understanding at the same time it can be difficult which we have found this season.
I still think we could have a decent second half to the season if we didn't sign anyone this month