Play Offs

[Tombwfc]

According to Capology, Luton's wage bill is 7.8m a year. Leicester's is 79.8m. Jamie Vardy is on 7.2m alone.

The playoffs are brilliant, no need to piss around with it.

[Zico]

As it happens, the highest placed play off team won in 4 out the top 5 league play finals 

4th place Stockport lost to 5th placed Carlisle 

[desperado]

Sarcevic ready for his summer hols before another crack at L2 

[Johnnyrotten]

17 hours ago, desperado said:

I like our exchange of views on here, always makes for good discussion.

And I’m pretty self-aware that I’m mostly ultra-positive, probably bred out of loyalty and passion for us to achieve the best we can.

But I also feel I do this based on evidence and trends, not misplaced faith and belief that we’ll improve.

If Evatt has improved us year on year for 3 seasons, it’s not silly is it to believe he’ll do that again? 

And thats often been against the grain, when we’ve lost good players from the team, when the stakes have been higher and when our (Evatts) style of football has been questioned.

There’s only this January’s transfer window that’s been questionable (and even then we went on to achieve more points than we did in the first part of the season.) And its not unreasonable to think there’s a tune still to come from some of those.

So I don’t think it’s too much beyond standard optimism to think that a bit of clever recruitment will have us achieving our ambition of promotion next season. 

A good argument, as ever. 

There is no doubt the general trend is up, and I'd be happy for Evatt to be here for the next 5 years and really see his project through.

If we'd had the conversation a year ago I would agree 100% about the constant upward trajectory we've enjoyed under him.  I feel as if its gone a bit the other way in the last few months compared to the calendar year 2022, but I don't intend to get into that discussion again, its just my gut feeling, happy for others to disagree. 

12 months ago I think we were eagerly awaiting this season to show that the team that finished 2021/22 could really push on in the top 4, with or without additions.  I think Iredale and Bradley were the only additions that got into the squad from the start (Toal didn't make an impact for a few months, great signing though).  The point being we didn't need to change the squad, it was already there, just a bit of tinkering.  We aren't in that position now are we?  It feels like we are in need of a relatively major overhaul, as much as some have said we could compete with what we have (plus a GK), I disagree, I think we are short in a few positions currently.

As you say, absolutely no reason to think IE won't sort it, he has the track record now and I've got every faith in him.  We have to bear in mind that all the other teams are in there fighting for reinforcements too (budgets permitting) and whereas a year ago I thought it was them that had to catch us squad-wise, I think we are starting with more of a level playing field now, its all to play for.

[woolli]

I think nearly everyone is in agreement that progress as been made year on year with Evatt, but, a couple of thinks we need to improve. One is  consistency against the poorer teams. We lost 20 points to the bottom 8, which if gained, we would be in the championship now. Secondly, a plan B.  Surely we need to be more direct when losing with 10/15 to go? Thats all that Sheff W do, and its been successful for them. Im not so sure that tippy tappy football will get us out of this division, only time will tell. Its going to be an interesting summer with regards to incoming players.

[Wanderlust]

1 hour ago, Johnnyrotten said:

 

12 months ago I think we were eagerly awaiting this season to show that the team that finished 2021/22 could really push on in the top 4, with or without additions. 

Not sure about that Johnny. We needed strength in depth but also better quality and Bradley, Dempsey and Toal provided that IMO. If JDB hadn't been injured we might not have brought in Victor and Dan - although neither are as good as JDB who can hold it up and finish IMO. The sale of Dapo meant we had to make a move but that aside - and in the absence of injuries - I don't think last year's squad would have done as well. We just didn't quite get it right this year although we came bloody close and had a good season overall, but the buzz of anticipation we had then (having just been promoted) isn't the same because now we know we have to go up a few more notches. Hope more than expectancy ATM I reckon.

[Johnnyrotten]

20 minutes ago, Wanderlust said:

Not sure about that Johnny. We needed strength in depth but also better quality and Bradley, Dempsey and Toal provided that IMO. If JDB hadn't been injured we might not have brought in Victor and Dan - although neither are as good as JDB who can hold it up and finish IMO. The sale of Dapo meant we had to make a move but that aside - and in the absence of injuries - I don't think last year's squad would have done as well. We just didn't quite get it right this year although we came bloody close and had a good season overall, but the buzz of anticipation we had then (having just been promoted) isn't the same because now we know we have to go up a few more notches. Hope more than expectancy ATM I reckon.

We already had Dempsey; Toal as I said is great, but nobody was buzzing about his signing, he was very much an unknown quantity (to us), as you say to add to squad depth but not starting for a good while. 

I could be wrong, I just thought there was a relative certainty about our predictions for top 6 last year, without the caveat of "if we have a good transfer window" as there largely is now.  It should make for a slightly more exciting summer of transfer business anyway!

[SatanGreavsie]

On 27/05/2023 at 11:29, SatanGreavsie said:

as one poster says: " no wonder the world thinks we're backward" 😆

Just a little follow on from that. Looking at Carliseways again about how their day went, there's further proof that things are a bit different up there:

"The best one I heard was some bloke on one of the CUSAT buses put his bag in the luggage section then when he fancied a bite to eat when reaching up he was bitten by a Bat! Not sure which coach company it was."