One for the pessimists

[jmjhb]

We're winning our home games routinely now which is a marginal improvement from last season.

Got to break that away record hoodoo starting at Burton, 3 goals in 5 matches isn't cutting it. A couple more clean sheets wouldn't go amiss either. 

[Johnnyrotten]

16 hours ago, Eddie said:

Exactly this. Might be unfair on Stevenage, but being realistic they aren’t going to keep this form up.

Huddersfield spent a fortune in the summer, and cash usually comes to the top by the end of the season in this league.

Not if its IE spending it 😀

[Johnnyrotten]

4 hours ago, Lt. Aldo Raine said:

I'd imagine that at this stage, this is still likely to be more of a reflection of how much money they've taken on the three clubs rather than their considered opinion

They might also think we're legitimate contenders, of course

Bookies also aren't going to give big odds on any team that can still potentially go out in January and sign half a dozen top players for loads of money (for L1).  They know the likes of us, Luton, Cardiff, Hudds, Plymouth are likely to have money to spend if needed, and its a safe bet that Stevenage won't.  Bookies are vulnerable if they write off a big team before January. IE proved that money doesn't equal good signings, but law of averages and all that.

[Lt. Aldo Raine]

2 minutes ago, Johnnyrotten said:

Bookies also aren't going to give big odds on any team that can still potentially go out in January and sign half a dozen top players for loads of money (for L1).  They know the likes of us, Luton, Cardiff, Hudds, Plymouth are likely to have money to spend if needed, and its a safe bet that Stevenage won't.  Bookies are vulnerable if they write off a big team before January. IE proved that money doesn't equal good signings, but law of averages and all that.

Yes, law of averages

But as you note, it's a reflection of the size of the club itself and not necessarily an opinion on the quality of our squad/performance so far

[Whitesince63]

Bradford are the only one of the 3 in themselves Stevenage and Lincoln who I think will still be in the top six at the end. They have a really strong squad but also a very experienced squad which will certainly count as the season goes on. The other night they should have been well ahead before Rotherham scored and certainly Rotherham ended up very lucky to cling on after Bradford brought on the battle hardened in Cook and Humphrey’s. They have money and a following to match anyone in this league so they’re one I certainly wouldn’t rule out of staying there.

[frank_spencer]

I'm still very much on the pessimism train yet to see anything that makes me think we're promotion material.

[wakey]

If it helps, Bruce's promotion winners at this stage had 1 draw and 4 defeats from 5 away games.

 

And if it doesn't, they still did.

[desperado]

15 minutes ago, wakey said:

If it helps, Bruce's promotion winners at this stage had 1 draw and 4 defeats from 5 away games.

 

And if it doesn't, they still did.

You just know there’s somebody out there with a “Yeh but…..” 😂

Edited October 5, 2025 by desperado

[Johnnyrotten]

56 minutes ago, wakey said:

If it helps, Bruce's promotion winners at this stage had 1 draw and 4 defeats from 5 away games.

 

And if it doesn't, they still did.

After 12 games, we had 12 points.  And in that 12th game we were 2-0 down at Chester.  Then McGinlay scored his first goal for us...

[Tonge moor green jacket]

All this talk of positivity is great.

But, as yet, I'm not getting it.

Up one week, and down the next.

Yes, a positive result yesterday, but we have to start winning away too.

Don't care how we achieve that- whether it's the same team putting their chances away and being more resilient, or a change in formation to make us more solid, or whatever.

Pragmatism time.

Get that right, and yes, I'll join the optimism club.

[Stig]

1 hour ago, Tonge moor green jacket said:

All this talk of positivity is great.

But, as yet, I'm not getting it.

Up one week, and down the next.

Yes, a positive result yesterday, but we have to start winning away too.

Don't care how we achieve that- whether it's the same team putting their chances away and being more resilient, or a change in formation to make us more solid, or whatever.

Pragmatism time.

Get that right, and yes, I'll join the optimism club.

I've liked this, because it all logically makes sense. But against all that logic I still think we're going up, we've got a properly robust team for the first time in ages that won't be rolled over. Yes it's taking time to get consistent results but (I think) that's coming 

[Tonge moor green jacket]

That's fair enough, but for me, some of that required robustness is missing.

Plenty of examples.

Some tough looking games coming up, and we should have a better idea of where we are after them.

I'm not confident we will get positive results.

[Take Hunt Off]

Someone on here suggested not starting with two wingers away from home  playing an extra body in midfield . Plenty of narrow pitches in this league & not much space to run into . Our current ‘away plan ‘ doesn’t seem to be working.

Not going a goal down would help but I genuinely feel that we have been a bit ineffective away from home & our line-up needs tweaking to be more resilient in midfield, Dalby could  be used in these games as well eg Burton away , not so pretty but who cares  . Gale could stay on the bench & come on after seventy minutes if requires at least he won’t be knackered by that point & we avoid him being replaced by Cissoko.

[Johnnyrotten]

52 minutes ago, Stig said:

I've liked this, because it all logically makes sense. But against all that logic I still think we're going up, we've got a properly robust team for the first time in ages that won't be rolled over. Yes it's taking time to get consistent results but (I think) that's coming 

Someone will probably say this is being pessimistic, but we're allowed to base comments on facts too.  So in answer to the "robustness", teams score from about half their shots on target, so it always feels like we're 1 opposition attack away from potentially conceding.  And because we hardly score away, that's 2 reasons we can't win those games.  There's nothing to base the "consistent results are coming" on.  Until we win away, or even look like winning but are unlucky eg last min pen conceded or whatever, its pie in the sky.

If we get 4 points from these 2 aways, I'm right on board.  Until then, we're doing worse than last season so the optimism will be on hold, it needs to be based on actual results not what we should be doing with this squad.

[Stig]

43 minutes ago, Johnnyrotten said:

Someone will probably say this is being pessimistic, but we're allowed to base comments on facts too.  So in answer to the "robustness", teams score from about half their shots on target, so it always feels like we're 1 opposition attack away from potentially conceding.  And because we hardly score away, that's 2 reasons we can't win those games.  There's nothing to base the "consistent results are coming" on.  Until we win away, or even look like winning but are unlucky eg last min pen conceded or whatever, its pie in the sky.

If we get 4 points from these 2 aways, I'm right on board.  Until then, we're doing worse than last season so the optimism will be on hold, it needs to be based on actual results not what we should be doing with this squad.

Statistically you're correct, but there's something about this years team that on the eye looks a lot less likely to get bullied, a lot more likely to get stuck in, and a lot more capable of getting promoted than we've seen. 

[Johnnyrotten]

32 minutes ago, Stig said:

Statistically you're correct, but there's something about this years team that on the eye looks a lot less likely to get bullied, a lot more likely to get stuck in, and a lot more capable of getting promoted than we've seen. 

I do get the "not getting bullied" bit - Simons, EE, Burstow/Dalby in particular improving that side of our game.  We still have a smattering of less robust players, ie the 3 wingers!  A slight concern is how much we're relying on one player (Burstow) for goals.  7 is fantastic, but only 6 other scorers and 3 of them are no longer getting picked (Randall, McAtee, Toal).  Our other scorers are ACD and Gale/Forss.   Who's still on the pitch after 70 minutes that is likely to score, is it just ACD?

Last year upto the end of October our scorers were Charles (6), Dempsey and McAtee (3 each), Vic (2) and 1 each from Sheehan, Tomo, Toal, Schon, Collins, Williams, Lolos and Santos.

I'll be more confident when we have more obvious goalscoring potential - my hope is Dalby and Dempsey to step up.  

[Lt. Aldo Raine]

I think this is all pretty much irrelevant at this point

Get Saturday's match out of the way,and then the performances/results in the next two should tells us far more about what we are

[Wanderlust]

13 hours ago, Take Hunt Off said:

Someone on here suggested not starting with two wingers away from home  playing an extra body in midfield . Plenty of narrow pitches in this league & not much space to run into . Our current ‘away plan ‘ doesn’t seem to be working.

Not going a goal down would help but I genuinely feel that we have been a bit ineffective away from home & our line-up needs tweaking to be more resilient in midfield, Dalby could  be used in these games as well eg Burton away , not so pretty but who cares  . Gale could stay on the bench & come on after seventy minutes if requires at least he won’t be knackered by that point & we avoid him being replaced by Cissoko.

Schumacher is heavily invested in playing with wide men so the narrow pitches thing is very relevant to our prospects of consistently getting results away from home, especially when pitches start turning to mush as some do. Not yet convinced he is prepared to drop wingers in favour of a narrower, more compact system when required but I do think that would help in certain games.

All this talk about this or that team not keeping up the pace seems like pure guesswork to me - I genuinely think there’s not much difference between all the teams this season and seeing as so far we’ve failed to stamp our authority on the league we’re in the middle of a scramble for points that could go anywhere.

[burnden]

performance data for the first quarter of the season 

 

[Zico]

21 minutes ago, burnden said:

performance data for the first quarter of the season 

 

Great 

However 

 

[Wanderlust]

I’m guessing performance data doesn’t cover scoring more goals than the opposition?

Maybe if football was scored like figure skating with equal points for aesthetics and technical ability we’d be top of the league?

We certainly do an excellent artistic impression of a top team at times.

 

[gonzo]

Shows we aren't far off.

 

[Stig]

24 minutes ago, gonzo said:

Shows we aren't far off.

 

Yeah, 6 points isn't too far. Not interested in the other table

[Zico]

1 hour ago, gonzo said:

Shows we aren't far off.

 

Stevenage have a game in hand though 

[gonzo]

1 hour ago, Stig said:

Yeah, 6 points isn't too far. Not interested in the other table

The XG stuff is only a reflection of what we can see.

Tons of positive play. Just sometimes poor decision making in the final 3rd let's us down.

That generally doesn't carry on.