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Wanderers Ways. Neil Thompson 1961-2021

Expectations this season.


Ani

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Just wonder what people thought was going to happen this year. 
 

Over the summer everyone just seemed to want a club. We were forced to play kids and everyone got behind them. 
New owners came in and they were a total breath of fresh air. Genuine seeming people with no false promises. 
Parky fell on his sword and moved on. Hill and Flitcrift come in scramble a team together. We are still under an embargo so are a million miles from out of the woods. 
 

We are limited by budget and can only sign players not wanted by others. Not much luck with injuries. 
 

The manager talks some shit but footballing wise what were people expecting ? 

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Literally anything would be an improvement.

Which has turned out to be true.

it is an improvement 

i don’t purposefully skip matches to avoid Parkinson.

and I’ve genuinely been pleased coming away from matches.

 

could do with a last minute winner away from home now and again though.

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Sooner or later the number of injuries suffered necessitates investigation of training methods, diet, monitoring etc.

Perhaps we can't afford as big a group of staff as we once had, but equally, lack of apparent fitness can't continually be put down to lack of pre season. Especially when plenty of players had one.

Couple this with no apparent improvement, players in and out, and crazy off-beat interviews, doesn't give much hope for next season.

And it is next season we were all looking at initially as a longer term view as few if anyone expected us to stay up with ease of at all.

It felt good to be able to go and feel a positivity again, and hopes were initially raised, but we've gone backwards.

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It's a fair question and the answer is that Hill has never done much better at this level and so once you take the embargo etc into account then he's doing as well as we should have expected - he's only 9 points off what he would have got if he'd been as good here as he was over his career at Rochdale.

We all would have liked it to be going miles better but it would have taken a miracle, fingers crossed we get it over the next 16 games one way or the other. 

The expectation people have for next season might be the thing that's more of a problem.

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I never once thought we could stay up really - but given we didn't get any further points deducted I thought we'd still at least be in a fight instead of what looks like a rather tame surrender. When Hill came in and got his team going we looked a decent side - we played some good stuff and had we carried on in that vein then I really think we might have had a very long shot at it.

But injuries hurt and also to me it seems like the fight went, the discipline and Hill has made some very odd decisions (or the club has whoever). And now we're down and have months to endure what seems like a pretty bleak time.

I saw it as a free hit - have a go hero stuff. We've not got that and I think are falling short of even cautious expectations. 

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I respect that Hill had a massive job on his hands to even contemplate keeping us up. The players brought in on August deadline day didn't know each other and weren't match fit. We've also been struck with injuries.

Nonetheless, on the 16th November we beat MK Dons for our third league win on the bounce. I'm sure we were only a couple of wins & draws away from safety then, and had games in hand on those above us.

We then proceeded to pick up 1 win in 13 games (2 of those in cups), up until the Tranmere game. Amongst that run, we conceded 16 goals in 3 games against Accrington Stanley, Lincoln and Burton. A truly horrifying thought.

Some of the goals conceded have been absolutely shambolic; there's been lots of chopping and changing, and no matter what defence is put out, nothing has changed.

I am willing to give him until ten games into next season. This is a man who got Rochdale promoted twice at League Two level, having been stuck there for the best part of 50 years before he took charge.

What I'm most annoyed about is that aforementioned run of dismal form after 3 wins on the bounce. I foolishly thought we could be looking up instead of down at that point and fully expected us to kick on much better than we did. Perhaps that run lead me into a false sense of security.
Why didn't we kick on though? My only reasoning besides looking at management is that we haven't had a pre-season and lack match fitness.

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We were down before a ball was kicked.

I'd honestly rather we'd been shoved into league 2 with no deduction and the embargo lifted. We'd probably have come up though which is why it didn't happen.

We'll all still be there next year and there's some new grounds for the mongalongadingdongdo's to get excited about.

Be reet lads.

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2 minutes ago, marple whites said:

Looking at the standard of the division and a number of the teams we have played, we should be expecting a few wins and certainly some points on the road.  Not expecting to stay up, but certainly something to keep us enthused.

Wait till you see the standard next season 

my mate goes all over watching oldham and bar a few teams the rest are dog shit 

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At the end of this year I'd be wanting us to making a good fist of getting out of Div 4 at the first attempt with a good mixture of young promising pros and more experienced types, some of them signed to good two year deals giving us a solid base to work from. I'd be hoping for average gates still being in the 11/12000 range. Before all that it'll have been nice to have had a Summer of decent signings (and let's face it it's going to be a far more 'normal' summer than the horrible shambles that last year transpired to be).

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26 minutes ago, victor meldrew said:

if we survive next season in L2 , that will be the starting point

chesterfield , stockport , spring to mind

Hartlepool, Yeovil, Aldershot, Barnet, Notts County, Wrexham, Halifax, York, Dagenham & Redbridge, Darlington, Chester, Hereford, 

Bet they all dropped out and thought they'd piss winning the league to get back.

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At the start i just presumed we'd be going down as it would never get sorted

When it did and we put a squad together and got hill i thought maybe but we're still more than just 12 points behind, we're missing a pre season too

After seeing how we played at home to Oxford and before December I thought we could make a fist of it

But not anymore

I'll give KH a clean slate and pre season with his own squad as there have been glimpses and i expect us to challenge next season

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A team that's hard to beat, well drilled and organised would be progress, we're currently completely the opposite. 

I'm not having the embargo as an excuse either, that's an easy cop out, we're restricted to paying players 2K a week or whatever it is and I bet the majority of teams in League 1 aren't paying more than that in players wages.

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