The proper relegation thread.

[Boz]

Win all 4 and you wont be seeing me next year

Surely depends on how well Horwich do in your next 4 games

 

[masi51]

Surely depends on how well Horwich do in your next 4 games

and the town of Tranmere is where???????????

 

[saddler78]

until we appoint d-man and he takes us above you within about 8 weeks. nice one darrell

In league status not position and i said on here i hope he does better for you than he did for us we are in this position because of him wasting money on garbage fact.

 

[Robshep]

Surely depends on how well Horwich do in your next 4 games

You can be geography teacher to our resident cretin for the response to this.

 

[Robshep]

and the town of Tranmere is where???????????

Its in the Domesday Book. Tranmere was founded in 950 AD. A long time before your hometown existed.

 

[Valeite]

In league status not position and i said on here i hope he does better for you than he did for us we are in this position because of him wasting money on garbage fact.

Our budget isn`t massive so why would he jump ship? I doubt he wasted much money in keeping you safe from the National league for a while, whatever your chairman says.

 

[Valeite]

As Clarke managed to get a tune out of Guthrie yet? I believe I am correct in saying that he has yet to score for you, following on from not managing a single goal for us in his time at Bradford City. 17 months without a goal now.

Is he out of contract in the summer?.if so, he has no chance of getting another gig in the football league

He has yet to score but has played well on occasion and as he has proved in the recent past that he is more than capable at this level, someone will take a punt on him. I don`t know what you lot did to him!

 

[valefan16]

Our budget isn`t massive so why would he jump ship? I doubt he wasted much money in keeping you safe from the National league for a while, whatever your chairman says.

He said he has a far higher backing here than Walsall did, he was quite critical of their budget and ours will be pretty close to the limit from the summer I imagine.

No idea how true the website is but had our highest earners of £2400 a week (most of the injured ones ironically!)

 

[Luke Imp]

The players we lost from last season were Ryan Jackson, Luke Prosser, Brandon Comley and Frank Nouble, with Theo Robinson's loan expiring too. On paper, Tommy Smith should be an upgrade on Prosser - he's two years younger and has spent his career at a higher level. Comley was only ever a bit-part player and his replacement Noah Chilvers has been amongst the better players this season, so no issues there. Nouble was a loss in that he offers a different option, albeit he is back now. We're not scoring goals so we must miss Robinson, and Jackson has been a loss as Miles Welch-Hayes is a level below.

Recruitment hasn't been great, but much of the team has largely been the same as last season's who were always in and around the play-offs, so it is baffling how awful we have been as, if anything, the league table completely flatters us. The only other difference was appointing Steve Ball in the summer so that one clearly didn't work.

Since John Ward was manager, the same circle of staff have rotated through the different jobs - Joe Dunne, Tony Humes, Richard Hall, Wayne Brown, Steve Ball, John McGreal etc. Tony Humes had a go as manager alongside Richard Hall, when he left he became the Director of Football where he still remains and Hall went back to the U23s. McGreal and Brown were in charge of the U18s/U23s, Ball was at Maldon. McGreal has had a go alongside Ball and Brown was placed at Maldon to get senior experience, now Ball has had a go to be replaced by Brown and is believed to have dropped back into a different role so on. So it's largely the same faces, just swapping jobs, all working to a set philosophy which is primarily a 4231 formation throughout every age group - and playing with one up front hasn't worked in all of that time.

Robbie Cowling had his fingers burnt with Paul Lambert and Aidy Boothroyd (albeit, paid handsomely in compensation), and has since decided that he wanted to develop our own managers. But the whole structure, philosophy and coaching staff etc has basically stayed the same for years. Assuming we can scrape by this season, then it has to be a major wake up call that there needs to be a serious change in direction this summer or else it is just delaying the inevitable.

Thanks, it does seem that since Cowling said he would stage down his monetary support you've gradually got worse, probably accelerated this season and of course you lost Szmodics who was as big player for you and not aided by continuous internal appointments. The thinking is there but in reality a difficult one to get right.

 

[Kauto Star]

He has yet to score but has played well on occasion and as he has proved in the recent past that he is more than capable at this level, someone will take a punt on him. I don`t know what you lot did to him!

Valley Parade has become a bit of a strikers graveyard in recent years. The last striker to flourish for us was Charlie Wyke. That said, Guthrie looked awful and uninterested from day 1 with us. No chance of getting another football league club, unless your lot fancy offering a contract extension in the summer, would you be happy if that turned out to be the case?

 

[dedwardp]

Thanks, it does seem that since Cowling said he would stage down his monetary support you've gradually got worse, probably accelerated this season and of course you lost Szmodics who was as big player for you and not aided by continuous internal appointments. The thinking is there but in reality a difficult one to get right.

We did invest to try and replace Szmodics by signing Jevani Brown whose numbers that season before were as good as Sammie's really. The problem is they're both completely different types of number ten and Brown has never really managed to fit in here.

 

[Randolph Haggerty]

Valley Parade has become a bit of a strikers graveyard in recent years. The last striker to flourish for us was Charlie Wyke. That said, Guthrie looked awful and uninterested from day 1 with us. No chance of getting another football league club, unless your lot fancy offering a contract extension in the summer, would you be happy if that turned out to be the case?

He’s not uninterested.
He tries.
He’s just crap.
An incredibly lazy signing who played well against us for Stevenage 2 years ago and so was always ‘on our radar’
I’d be unhappy if he were on our books next year, but there’s at least a dozen that fall into that category and he’s far from the worst..

 

[Essex2Wessex]

We did invest to try and replace Szmodics by signing Jevani Brown whose numbers that season before were as good as Sammie's really. The problem is they're both completely different types of number ten and Brown has never really managed to fit in here.

Can't say that Brown did a great deal for us at FGR last season (not that he was on the field for immense amounts of time)

 

[Shrimper_95]

Think that’s curtains for us unfortunately

 

[Shrimper92]

Yep. No Dieng for two games either now after Saturday's "trick"

 

[BarraMatt]

At least there's a few more teams in the picture now. Bad result tonight but in typical Barrow fashion we lose at home in a game we should really be winning but then win at Cheltenham in a game we are expected to lose. With goal difference being worth a point, I in no way thought we'd be 7/8 points clear at the start or March.

 

[valefan16]

At least there's a few more teams in the picture now. Bad result tonight but in typical Barrow fashion we lose at home in a game we should really be winning but then win at Cheltenham in a game we are expected to lose. With goal difference being worth a point, I in no way thought we'd be 7/8 points clear at the start or March.

Welcome to League Two!

 

[dedwardp]

Are Colchester struggling because of Covid i.e. forced to let players go and head into this season with what they've had, or part of a wider cut in budget/poor transfers/been on the cards for a while etc?

To build on this one further, if you're interested the chairman went on the radio last night pre-match: BBC Essex Sport - Robbie Cowling: The club is struggling because of a financial decision I made - BBC Sounds

In summary, he made the decision to stomach all of the financial hits from covid this season in one go without deferring any payments etc like most other clubs. Most of our squad were under contract so we had no real wiggle room to take advantage of the cheaper market in the summer, but next season will be a full rebuild and he would expect us to be better off than many others who have kicked the can down the road.

Given that this season was effectively a write off, as long as we don't get relegated then it will have paid off and we can become stronger again next time around. If we were to get relegated then it's obviously backfired.

 

[Bottega Don]

The fact Dieng has been banned for his dive shows how diabolical the refereeing is in the league.

I don't understand how the ref saw Dieng push Clarke in the chest, Clarke push him back in the chest and somehow give a penalty and a red.

 

[Casey]

Dedwardp; makes a change for an owner to accept his decisions have caused the problems.

I cant see the bottom two catching you (stranger things) but are you worried the slump might become a depression?

Casey

 

[dedwardp]

The fact Dieng has been banned for his dive shows how diabolical the refereeing is in the league.

I don't understand how the ref saw Dieng push Clarke in the chest, Clarke push him back in the chest and somehow give a penalty and a red.

On BBC Essex last night, Mark Molesley was saying that he couldn't understand what Dieng had done wrong as if he didn't go down holding his face he'd risk getting dust in his eyes. The excuses get worse.

 

[Shrimpurh]

A manager backing his players nothing out the ordinary

Find it hard to see how Salah et al don't get banned every week if Dieng is to receive a ban, ludicrous.

 

[Super_horns]

Diving is widely accepted and probably coached by managers.

He probably thought the guy had got away with it by managing to win a penalty and get someone sent off.

No one in the top leagues seem to get punished for diving but you can for celebrating too much or your toe being offside which says it al.

 

[Soz]

id love a complete zero tolerance policy on dissent, diving, time wasting, kicking the ball away, blocking quick freekicks, stealing yards on set pieces etc.

empower the refs, cut out all the pathetic cheating. i think reffing would become easier but at the same time, reffing mistakes would be a lot more obvious which could then be hopefully learned from.

this fucking mental bullshit of a player falsely holding his face to get an opposition player wrongly sent off and then his team mates have to all pretend that they've seen it and his manager has to pretend that he wasn't cheating.

i noticed against Colchester at the weekend, both teams had deliberately blocked each other from taking a quick freekick twice each - but all 4 occasions the 'fouled' team was appealing to the ref as if they hadn't done the exact same thing. it is spoiling the game for me.

 

[Luke Imp]

To build on this one further, if you're interested the chairman went on the radio last night pre-match: BBC Essex Sport - Robbie Cowling: The club is struggling because of a financial decision I made - BBC Sounds

In summary, he made the decision to stomach all of the financial hits from covid this season in one go without deferring any payments etc like most other clubs. Most of our squad were under contract so we had no real wiggle room to take advantage of the cheaper market in the summer, but next season will be a full rebuild and he would expect us to be better off than many others who have kicked the can down the road.

Given that this season was effectively a write off, as long as we don't get relegated then it will have paid off and we can become stronger again next time around. If we were to get relegated then it's obviously backfired.

Thanks, you can see there's some thinking behind it then albeit risky short term. Momentum is a big thing in football so you'd hope that one bad season doesn't put you back.

 

[masi51]

Its in the Domesday Book. Tranmere was founded in 950 AD. A long time before your hometown existed.

Doomesday book aptly named

 

[Robshep]

Doomesday book aptly named

My god you really are retarded.

 

[pontoonlew]

Think that’s curtains for us unfortunately

Weird how people look at things, we’re in a worse position but one win & a slight ray of light has come through.

It’s likely to be us and yourselves but if we pick up 3 points on Saturday I’d say it’s certainly ‘on’

 

[GTFCfish]

Weird how people look at things, we’re in a worse position but one win & a slight ray of light has come through.

It’s likely to be us and yourselves but if we pick up 3 points on Saturday I’d say it’s certainly ‘on’

Yeah given our run in we have to be looking to pick up 3 points Saturday as it looks to be the easiest game left, although I’m hoping that what this unbeaten run will be doing is making the players go into every game with an attitude that they are not going to get beat, even with all the really tough fixtures that we still have left.

 

[pontoonlew]

Yeah given our run in we have to be looking to pick up 3 points Saturday as it looks to be the easiest game left, although I’m hoping that what this unbeaten run will be doing is making the players go into every game with an attitude that they are not going to get beat, even with all the really tough fixtures that we still have left.

I think the fact we didn’t concede late on at Barrow will really shift the mentality. You physically saw the players start to capitulate mentally the second we got the goal and let’s be honest, we were lucky we didn’t. The run in looks tough, but I imagine some of those teams will start to have nothing to play for, which must be tough on the motivation levels given there’s no fans. I look at Bradford, Oldham and Vale in particular, potentially Cambridge last day also if they’re up by then.