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Will a LP & PB ‘Dream Team’ get us promoted this coming season? I know we have not got moving in the transfer market yet but listened to the radio interview yesterday on playback. I have to say given what we’ve experienced since the demise of Di Canio that i’m Really, really optimistic.

Time to move on from the Phil Brown yes or no. He has been appointed, time to look forward now.

Agreed. Can we change that thread to Phil Brown - The Ayes Have It!

 Simple answer based on what we know is obviously "no"  However football occasionally defies reason, rather like religion there will always be an element of "faith"

And there was me thinking you'd have us nailed on for Champions, Reg.

As ever, it will be a case of try & get to 48-50 points as quickly as possible then take it from there.

So, 50 points by Christmas, then same again in the second half of the season.
That would be promotion and also avoiding relegation twice, all in the same season. Result, all of the fan base is happy.

Personally, I regard the close season as a time to switch off.  We need to see how the squad is shaping up before arriving at  an idea of how things might work out.  However, if asked a question, I'll give an answer.

Impossible to say either way.

On balance, I'd say no. But he's done it before so who knows.
To back up my viewpoint:
   - Light in quality up top, where will the goals come from if Richards (and arguably Norris) are out/lose form.
   - Almost no midfield left
   - Key defender coming back from serious injury, the other two not contracted/getting on.
   - Stroppy keeper and suspect backup.

To save the bother of countering, since its going round my head already:
   - We scored a fair few last year, it wasn't goals for that was the main problem
   - An opportunity to recruit a better midfield then.
   - Lets see how he recovers, and was McGiven really that bad? Mayo will improve with experience.
   - Moore improved, A motivated Vigs is a major asset between the sticks.

As I say, can't call it either way. I am less worried about getting sucked in to the other end of the table though - for now :)

Spot on. You can't judge how next season is going to go based on some nice patter on the radio, think too many of us fell for that last year. I'm parking Town for now, so I can concentrate more fully on being disappointed by England. I'll return to being disappointed by Town in July/August

I've got a holiday and the world cup coming up! I'll worry about our lack of signings towards the end of July!

We are in a better place than a year ago, but of course that is relative as we'd just endured a season of historic incompetence.

More likely to be campaigning for the conservatives at the next election.

Having asked the question wouldn't it be better to engage in the answer, rather than a facile jibe?

For example I'd be interested to know what you base your optimism on. 

Browns experience.

Of course, Flitcroft also had experience of getting promoted from this league and many, me included, were won over by his illusory bollock speak.

Now exposed as a true spunk trumpet, he’ll no doubt screw up at Mansfield.

Brown appears to be that much more open about things. As always it’s almost impossible to hold a view until the new players arrive.

I do think Brown is an upgrade on Flitcroft. I'm not going to try and base any predictions on that, though. There's far too many variables.

It could be argued that with minutes to go the the start of our first game and on paper a cracking line up, there are still many variables going from that particular point in time.

Definitely

I will go with play offs - we should have reached them this season to be honest.  I'm not really much of a Brown fan, but I think he is better than what I saw from Flitcroft, so on balance I think that a pre season and some recruits should be enough to give us an improvement.

I am back in July, but it is entirely likely that England could have already exited the world Cup by my arrival date, so I can truly just have a a holiday.

In other words based on what you don't know.

What we do know is that since Power has been involved either as owner, or as part of Jed's merry men, we have yet to achieve a promotion.

A staggering observation. You missed out winning a convincing relegation.

I'm not optimistic now and won't be in August because I never am. Still, it's more fun to speculate about the new season than endure Russia-mania...

After the unconvincing season we've just witnessed, I don't know whether it would be best to keep the majority of last season's staple in the hope that they'll be better equipped to face a second season under a new manager with a full pre-season, or whether we need an overhaul and thin out those positions where we're overloaded (too many cooks up front at the mo'), and start again in other positions - the latter might be too pricey for Power.

The long-term injuries are problematic and risky. Fully fit Preston, Conroy and Lancashire should be good enough for Div 4. How long will Brown wait to find out?

Some positives from Brown's time in charge: Dunne, Moore and McGivern improved, so hopefully they can improve some more.

I'd feel more optimistic if Brown can sort out the spine: centre back pairing, central midfield pairing, striker pairing.

                              Richards     Norris/Mullin

                    Taylor     Linganzi     Dunne     Anderson

                    McGivern   Preston     Conroy    Knoyle

                                          Vigs

Subs:  Moore, Woolery, Lancashire, Iandolo, Twine, Romanski

Talking of training  grounds, any news ?

Thing is to get out of a league you have to have players that should be in a higher one. Could be bought, could be coming through the ranks. But that team bar one maybe 2 has div 4 plodders written all over it. That side would finish 10th-15th. Thin them out is the answer and hopefully find some gold in amongst the gravel doing the rounds this summer.

Having a couple of gems/gold would be great, but I'm not sure how you actually bring in players who should be playing at a higher level, other than by splashing the cash or getting a huge dose of luck. Gold coming through the ranks obviously means persisting with what we've already got, which is contrary to thinning out the current squad. Looks like we'll need Brown to polish some of our plodders.

A polished turd, is still a turd. I understand where you are coming from, and maybe we are slopping along the sides of the bottom of the bucket. Feels like 1984 all over again to me. Not much hope, until the catalyst appears from the fog. (hopefully)

Got to bear in mind that the other 23 teams also have their fair share of turds. Boils down to how well organised and polished our turds are by Brown compared to the other teams’ turds.

A couple of stand out players recruited, perm or loan, could sway things in our favour. In all honesty, I can’t see us being anywhere near as gash, especially at home, as we were last season.

That's what I thought at the start of last season.

Exactly. Thing is, Brown has a unique insight to what he has/had player wise at the final whistle of game 45 last season. He has acted accordingly with the retained and released list, offered contracts and subsequently future targets. Also he has a two month head start on what Flipflop had and if I may be so bold, more experience and probably better contacts. For the aforementioned reasons i’m optimistic enough to feel that PB will not only put together a promotion winning team but a team capable of winning the league, so much so that I shall put some money on it. My only negative is and this would apply to any manager at our level especially, is how good will he and his backroom staff be at polishing the current stones we have to sparkle a damn sight better than they did last season. Furthermore the prospecting of other gemstones from other sources before any other club does. Budget wise I wonder how much impact that actually has? Accrington being a case in point for L2 last season and Burton Albion a few seasons ago and even Bournemouth. Coming back full circle it comes down to Brown and his back room team and their gem polishing abilities, we need some Lou Macari magic.

Maybe, maybe not (personally think its better than that). But what you're not taking into account is the ability of a good manager and players with the right attitude to make the 'total more than the sum of the parts'. Looking at the individual players from the 85/86 102 point side, you would probably have said the same thing. I mean - Leigh Barnard? Charlie Henry?? David Cole??? After 8 games of that season 10th would have been looking wildly optimistic.

I really don't think we could have expected to land a better option than Brown.As always the outcome depends on the quality of any new signings,the majority of last season's lot just won't cut the cake

Some of what we know is based on PB's post match pearls of wisdom, I like his honesty but sometimes it's better to say nothing.  So as things stand we will have a number of players for next season who PB doesn't rate.... I quote.....

"I think there is a little problem we have in the changing room when we come up against any physicality,''

"We don't seem to have that strength of character to step up to the plate.

"I went up to the fans at the end of the game and I must admit they were very complimentary to a certain extent that I had inherited what I've got and that's all you can have.

"I disagreed with that to a certain extent because at the end of the day I'm a coach. I do try to improve individuals and hopefully that will improve the collective.

"But you can't change the character of somebody. If he's not prepared to head the ball, if he's not prepared to put his body on the line, if he's not prepared to wear the 2, 5, 6 or 3 with any pride, then we've got a problem, it's as simple as that.

"We can all blame individuals and it's very easy to point fingers. My job is to get something from the game and in the first half we just didn't play well enough, we didn't work hard enough, we didn't look like we were up for the challenge - and that was (as) a collective.''

"In the second half, having made two substitutions at half-time, I thought the difference was quite phenomenal,'' added the manager.

"The two lads came on, McDermott and Mullin, and all I asked them to do was run around and show some pride and some passion in the shirt.

"I think the fans responded to that in the second half and I think the team responded to that in the second half. But the first half was just a non-event.''

"We've been in there for 45 minutes. I could have gone on for three hours. You know what I'm like,''

"If it needs to be brought out, it needs to be brought out. One thing that stopped it at the end was one of the players said 'we've had these meetings for six or seven times this season and nothing comes of it.'

"What a waste of time that is.''

"Unfortunately I can't change the animal overnight and can't change the team overnight. But if given the opportunity to work with the team, I would certainly improve the side that's for sure.

There seems a lot of optimism with Brown.

PBs long term stats are terrible, the promotion with Southend (and Hull a million years ago) obviously good.

Genuinely don't know if he's another bullshit Billy that got lucky, or a good manger that has worked miracles in poor circumstances.

Or if he's just someone people have heard of.

personally I'll reserve judgement, but am happy that someone is on the recruitment case straight away.

The acid test as to whwther Power is serious about getting out of Div 4 upwardly, will be if Preston signs for us or Mansfield.

This must be true - it’s on the Mansfield forum

‘Yes you would think DF would sign a few before he went away, probably Banks snubbing us and Preston having second thoughts drove him to Skegness’

I see on the Mansfield forum they "think" they are likely to bring in Eisa, Akinfenwa, Doige and Ajose...they have some over inflated opinions of Mansfields pulling power in the transfer market :D

To be fair any of them players joining Mansfield wouldn’t be surprising execpt maybe Ajose.

It’s too early to have any kind of reasonable guess, but I’d say we should be looking at top 7.

Once the squad is complete we should have a bette idea, although to be fair in both the seasons we won this league we didn’t start well, in fact it was about October before we showed real signs of what was about to come

Mansfield wont be spending a million plus for sure, which is what Eisa is being touted at. The others no chance either realistically. They are in the same boat as us, with less geographical attraction.

I can't see Mansfield being overly confident in giving Flitcroft a fat budget.

This is true, in 1985 pre game on the 1st October we were sat 4th bottom after 8 games and in 2011 we were sat in 13th place on the 8th October.

Indeed, I can't remember there being any demand for the manager's to be sacked then, I fear a similar start next season will have the doomsayers out in force & the knuckle draggers calling for Brown to be sacked.

football has changed for the worse in that regard. since 1985 anyway. it's immediate results or out.

I

Agree with that and sadly Swindon Town are not immune from that virus.