Thetownend.com

In my eyes, we've regressed massively from last season. Players have left and not been replaced. The system has changed resulting in players not playing in their best position. Should anyone be held to account for this? The new board and Danny Wilson have improved this club massively on and off the pitch since they took over and that shouldn't be forgotten. But football is a results business. We're a long way off from being promotion material at the moment, when we were nearly there last season. So far 10/11 has been one step forward, two steps back. Has Danny Wilson massively misjudged his squad, or has he not been backed?

Is there a point where as a fanbase should start to ask questions? Or in light of how the club has improved, should we just keep accepting 'we'll be better next week'? I don't want to jump the gun and be too negative too soon, but I'm just a little fed up of the same excuses each week. Last season showed such promise for the future and it just seems to have been thrown away.

We've just scored four, away, against a recently demoted side. Our striker has just returned from a month injured and we just beat Rovers (a feat our perfect side of last season not only couldn't manage, but fucked up twice).

A little perspective required perhaps? :suicide:

"Take the scissors away from you wrists."

It wasn't until about this time last season that we started putting runs together so don't panic just yet. No one's running away with it either so not the end of the world.

for fucks sake

last season was a one off, just like 03/04.

Of course the majority of fault lies with the players who are under performing and the manager who went into the season with an incomplete squad who he has playing a different formation every week. We've not got a settled formation or starting XI - which was one of our strongest points last season.

Most of all its our fault for believing the guff Wilson fed us at the start of the season about wanting to go one better this season and what not. The club set our expectations high and like the mugs that we are, we believed it.

but you know blah blah blah saved the club blah blah blah, going backwards blah blah blah is better than having the old owners blah blah blah the club mantra for life blah blah

*Bangkok red sarcastic comment about how we are all ridiculous*

*flammableBen off topic nonsense*

*usual wrist cutting jokes*

End

I actually agree with Dave.

Honestly.

No joke.

So Wilson doesn't want to go one better? Sometimes you talk complete shit.

4 points worse off than at the same point last season......

I want to win the Euromillions.

Doesn't mean you have  to believe I am going to win it

That really adds fuck all to your argument.

How dare you inject reasoning into this thread.

I've always said, and still believe, that after the Christmas games is when we'll know how well we can do. We will always lose games but what annoys me is how fickle our fans are.

I really think we're on the up at the moment. We really shouldn't read too much into yesterday. They are a top top side at this level and will push for the title, no doubt. We ran them seriously close and if their keeper hadnt pulled off three worldies or JPM actually shot rather than dribble the ball back to the GK when clean through we could have nicked it. We showed great fight and creativity at times, and there are huge positives to take from yesterday.

Before yesterday we were joint top of the form table with 4 wins from 6. We'll be in the playoff mix again this season so long as we can field our strongest 18 more often than not.

I agree with you PP, the only time I've seen where we've actually played poorly was at Dagenham. Yesterday was a cracking game, and will live long in the memory, way more so than the win against Southampton for example. I'm convinced we'll be in the mix at the end.

Agree with you both.

If we had defended like we had for most of our games this year then we would have got 3 points yesterday.

I thought we were really threatining going forward yesterday and it looked like we would score every time we go forward.

And with Charlie, Sheenhan and Caddis back, i see no reason why we cant push on, we just need that consistencey. The next 4 games are really important for our season.

Lets just hope Dougie and Lucas werent seriously injured.

 There's a tautology at the heart of this question namely, we can't judge who is accountable for this season until it is over.

 We can reflect, however, on the early season form, which is at best sketchy. That is not exactly surprising given the end of last season and the need for squad rebuilding...can we find the necessary consistency?  No idea, but we've a winnable game coming up, so let's focus on that.

we don't look as good as last season and anyone who believes everything wil be alright needs to pull their heads from their backsides

Reg it's rare i agree with you, but your final point is a good one. We now need to focus on Orient this weekend, a very winnable game, and then on to Yeovil.

Dave, no we don't look as good as last season yet, but "everything will be alright", I've got every confidence that we will be in the mix if we can keep the majority of our important players fit.

Who takes accountability for our fans being so fucking moany?

Did we the fans really apprieciate the fantastic football we played the second half of last season?

The world was a happier place when we could blame Ralphy for such things...

Fact is all of us fans see things in a various light.....am i happy with this season so far...no is the answer if i am honest.
Good wins v Gas,Hudds and Saints and it is much too early to go doom and gloom on this season...for fuks sake we could end up winning the FA Cup!

For me we havn't replaced Paynter and we play to many styles of football for our players to play consistent.....JPM must wonder what the fuck he is doing most weeks....We got good money for Cox and decent money for Greer and some of it should have been used to replace Paynter.
The old chestnut about players wages dont wash....Greer and Paynter were on good money here so there wages were freed up.
So for me untill we buy a decent striker or two i wont be completly happy.

My dad wants to move his season ticket in the middle of the South stand because he says the whinging starts at KO and rarely ends before FT. Hes been to a lot of games, over a long period, but its his first season ticket.

I accept that there is some underachievement going on at the moment. This seasons games against Orient, Brentford and Dagenham have been a big dissapointment. I think its right we have a small squad, focus on quality, cut out the wasted wages, but weve had a lot of injuries, including our most important player out for a month. With Peterborough and Brighton weve been narrowly beaten by two teams who will battle it out for the league. Yes, Wilson has also had to change the formation to this diamond, which I dont like, but again thats making do with a small squad.

But the quality is there and we can make the top 6. At the end of the season, if we are top half and not in the play offs, that is not a disaster. Yes, going down would be a disaster, but so would it be to lose a good manager to fans persistant whinging and then find we cant get anyone near as good to take the role. Lets see what the lads can do over the next 5 games? Lets see what commitment and desire the lads can produce against teams they need to beat.

What really annoys me is some of the fans apathy I saw towards the end of last season. A season, that was a classic in modern STFC history. Why are the fans turning so quick? Where is the loyalty?

Spence...Man U have arguably the best manager in the game...been the most succesfull side for years.......but i guarantee that after there match v West Brom the fans would have been venting there frustrations,its not just Swindon fans its global..............fans pay big money to watch there teams home and away these days,if they want to whinge thats there perogative.
If it gets personal i think that is a different matter and i wouldnt hold back in telling an individual to shut up if i hear obscenities ie race etc.
Duke was a player in case..........took awfull personal abuse..sad days.
Get used to it Spence............if your in for the long haul like me it has always and will be always the same.

I'm sure Wilson wants to go one better, hell, we all do. However, just because Wilson says it doesn't mean we all have to believe we can go one better.

The team and squad aren't as good as last season. We won't go on an amazing unbeaten run like last season November onwards. We won't make the play offs unless we do fantastic business in January.

I understand that, but it's all about whether you believe Wilson can do that bit of business. I don't think we're a million miles away from where we need to be, nor do I think our squad is significantly weaker than last season. Sure, we lost 2 key players, but the players Wilson has brought in so far, Prutton, Rose, Ball and Ritchie, are starting to show what they're capable of.

At the beginning of the season everyone wanted a new, experienced CB, then Morrison came in and we were ok apart from a backup. Now everyone wants a new CB playing.

Pericard was apparently shit at the start of the season, he covered for Charlie quite well, got important goals and people began to re-think. Now, he's shit again?

Too many people on here only see in monochrome.

We won't this, we won't that...

We're one player away from being as good or better than last season - replace Paynter with a goal scorer = frightening attack.  Can't do that, ok, replace Greer with an experienced CB, preferably with a little bit of pace = decent defense.  (disclaimer - so long as we can keep hold of Ritchie...)

If we can get both then we easily have one of the best six teams in division.

I just don't get the point of doom and gloom at this stage, it's just not good for you.

I'm never going to be one of those people who uses football as a scapegoat for their lives, unfortunately as a nation far too many people do.  There are far too many people out there who are desperate for something to moan about and I'm sure it's an addiction otherwise those people would find another past time?

If you really do have to rely on the performance of other people to validate your life then there's something wrong.

Don't interpret that as a lack of passion on my part, I just don't see it as a reason to be down for weeks at a time if we lose on Saturday.  I used to be like that a bit when I was younger and took poor performances personally - it made me feel shit and it was stupid.

Yes, you pay the money you can say what you want about it but why pay the money just so you can have a go?

"Too many people on here only see in moanochrome."

Fixed it for you.

Fuck me, people moaning about people moaning.

No team is a perfect team, there are always areas to improve. Whether you interpret an observation as a moan is up to you. In my eyes a fan that identifies weaknesses for in which the team can improve has got it more right than a fan that always thinks the team is perfect and does not moan/observe areas to be improved..

Well I'm fucking sick of you moaning about people moaning about people moaning :)

I'm not moaning i'm 'observing'  ;)

I don't mind constuctive critisism at all but I see little demonstration of this.

Ah, OK. My apologies. Carry on :)

Fuck off with 'that is your opinion' yes it fucking is.  Are you saying you're a better fan because you criticise the team more than I do?  Balls!

I'm quite capable of criticising the team thank-you very much but but until I've got a more reasoned point than what the usual guff is on here (see my posts in the match thread) I don't see the need - it's counter productive.

Too much is emotive on here.

Oh post removed above my last post...

[/quote]
No you've got it completely wrong, I'm saying fans should be able to identify weaknesses and not be criticised for it

Everybody should be able to criticise everybody's opinions. That's the point of debate/discussion/arguments/whatever.

Not all opinions are equal and if the only way you can back it up is with "boo hoo but it's just my opinion cry baby not fair" then maybe it's not a particularly well informed opinion in the first place.

No, I'm afraid I haven't...


That's what i was replying to - I have seen little constructive criticism and that is what I don't like, just mindless toys out of the pram scenarios.

I welcome consructive criticism, that's more than ok

I dont think we are a million miles away either, but the spine of the team is lacking. I'd call it 3 key players from last season. Ward has been amply replaced by Ritchie this month! Its give or take how long Ritchie will be here for. I hope its like 5 years or something! you never know with Portsmouth

...and I release what you have said is generalized to the forum. I've never once changed my stance on the players missing

This is correct and what a number of people (myself included) have been saying since the start of the season.  Issue being, we're now 12 games in and don't appear to be any nearer finding adequate replacements.  I think this is what a lot of supporters are unhappy about.

However, the current formation involving Ritchie and Ball seems to be working well and may possibly have alleviated the need for a direct replacement for Paynter (other than for cover purposes). 

It is fairly clear though that we still require an experienced defender.  As strong as Sean Morrison has been in some games, he has been as weak and naiviety has shown in others.  At 19 years old it’s perhaps too much of an ask for him to play week in and week in out and be consistently good?  Also, we have no real cover if either Cuthbert or Morrison get injured, as LJF is still struggling.

Peterborough have scored 21 goals in 6 home games this season and won 5 of those. If we had got a point there it would have been a cracking result.

It sounded like we gave it a good go to win as well, something which we've all wanted for a while (if we go behind we come back to win). Sometimes it doesn't come off, yesterday and the Plymouth game are examples.

The difference this season for me is the form of individual players - they're not consistent enough. Wilson was praised last season for getting the best out of the players, I'm sure if anyone knows how to get the boys playing consistently it's him.

It is what i and many others have been saying all along.

If we had secured adequate replacements for Paynter, Greer and Ward i am sure we would be much higher up the table.

Believe that unless we do this, the best we can hope for is mid table this year.

Thing is Bart, it may be time for those people to move on. We aren't getting those players back, moaning about it is not going to help, in fact it just makes you look like a dick head.

 :)

 We might have a cup run in the JPT, would that be a good thing Bart?

Reg yeah a good run in the JPT would be great.

Si- aint moaning, just stating facts. We have not adequately replaced last years departures- agree we need to  move on now- but unless we bring in adequate replacements i cannot see us emulating anything close to last seasons finish.   

The problem is that there isnt a bucket load of players like that available that can just go out and get.  Its bloody hard for managers to bring in players they are certain will improve the team.

In order to find a gem of player you will proper have to suffer a few duds.

Bart hasn't said he wants them back to be fair Si he is saying we havn't replaced them which is right. My worry at the moment is we are playing formations to fit in certain players and not sticking to a system that worked so well earlier on in the season. At the begining of the season it was clear Douglas and Prutton couldn't play as a two so we changed our whole system to move jpm in with them.This has had a knock on affect with Amanjawaah and so on.

Also as much as i like Phil Smith not knowing who is in goal ecery week hasn't helped because as much as a lack of consistency in results is a problem so is the lack of a consistent starting 11.

Yeah but that's all he ever posts. A bit like Dave seems to post that we sold Greer every time we lose, it's ridiculous.

That being the point surely.....if you want to watch a team that is happy with there team every week then go and watch Chelsea.......there is plenty of fans who are not happy,or a little miffed....or just cannot understand certain things...most of them are constructive in the critism and to be honest i get fucked off by people keep getting shot down by people on here who think that we should be happy with our lot........as i said i am a big admirer of Danny Wilson but the logic of not replacing your top striker and then to continually chop and change tactics is going to get the fans chatting............when things are not going great.

Quite so....it is not as though we didn't try to get Ward back, and Darby (and i suppose we still might get him).  No-one asked Paynter to give up and go off to Leeds where he has played.....how many games?  Everybody tears into Pericard, then gradually admits that he is not bad...and then when we lose, its all his fault again.  Do we want players of international quality or not?  If so we have to accept that they are going to be absent during the season....Ball is earning his keep, Ferry has come back, and now Ritchie, who has been a target for ages has arrived for however long... I don't understand why people are accusing Wilson of not doing his level best to get the team we need.  That they are not clicking every week is obvious, but we potentially have one hell of a good team.  Peopl have very short memories - when Douglas was suspended last autumn, the team fell apart.  We are definitely stronger than then.

My memory is that the first quarter of last season was really frustrating. We were playing OK, but my strong memory is that we couldn't buy a goal. Paynter got dropped because he was knackered and the season didn't really catch fire til we added a non-league thunderbolt to the mix.

I think this squad is stronger and deeper than last years and we'll be up and around the playoffs when the season ends.

all this stuff about us starting slow is bollocks too. We didn't start as strongly as we finished,  but we still had an 11 game unbeaten run after the first game. people altering history as it suits them

...and you seem to only post about me.

I think it's a mix of a lot of things really. Firstly there's the obvious factors of losing Greer and Paynter. I'm not going to refer to Ward because we knew he wouldn't come back here and he wasn't our player in the first place. We all know Wilson has been an admirer of Ritchie for a long time. I'm sure he'd have bought him in sooner if it were possible.

When you look at last season we started with barely any strikers. Our main problem in the first 12 games was that we didn't score enough goals to win games. That was down to lack of options upfront and Wilson was keen to bide his time to find someone and he did in Austin. Now this season it's been the complete opposite. With the sale of Greer we've been short on CBs and it's left us looking weak in that area. As a result our defence has suffered and we are shipping goals but at the other end we continue to score them. So what if Danny finds the next Gordon Greer within the next few months just like he did when he found Austin? Maybe it can help turn our season.

One thing you have to remember about last season as well is that it took us so long to find the right system and players. Take a look at the starting 11 of the first 10 games and compare it to the starting 11 that played the last 10 games. They are totally different. Already we're seeing that this season as well. Since the opening day Wilson has bought in Sheehan and Ritchie. I'm sure there will be more additions in January or even in the next few months with some loans. I still think it's too early to judge how well we'll do come May as I still think we have a lot to do to get the sqaud Wilson wants.

There has been the formation issue but again it relates to the above. When Wilson manages to find 1 or 2 more players maybe we can go back to 4-4-2 like we did last season? Maybe then we will see an improvement? Or maybe we'll stick with the current formation yet with a few additions which will again improve us.

And the final point is that the league is not as good as last season. I reckon that if we still had the same squad that finished last season this time out we'd be in the top 3 now and serious contenders for automatic. But every team has had the same problem. Huddersfield and Saints have had to change and adapt as well as us and aren't exactly fairing much better. Then there's Charlton. Again a team that lost a few key players like we did and they are having an indifferent season like us as well. I do feel that a few of the teams currently up there will drop away and I think we'll start to see a few of the teams i've mentioned really come to the fore. I'm hoping we're going to be one of them again.

I don't really think we can point the finger at anyone. We all knew of Wilson's policy on players last season about waiting for the right players to come along. We saw the patience last season and it paid off. It could yet do so again but it could also not work in our favour this time around. I don't think you can look at the board either. They've spent a bit of cash this summer bringing in Caddis and Ferry and they were helpless with the Paynter situation. He was always going to go. I'm not entirly sure who's choice it was to sell Greer whether it was the boards or Wilsons we will never know. The players have to take some of the blame for being below par but let's not forget that the likes of JP (as an example) have had to change positions a fair bit and we've been playing different formations a lot and it's hard for any of them to get settled. I think we need to wait until Christmas before we jump the gun and decide if it's mid-table or top 6 contention for us.

Greer wanted an extra year, which the board wouldn't discuss untill October - he has said himself that Wilson wanted him to stay.

How costly that will be won't be known till May.

I dunno, my dad paid just £269 for his season ticket, and so did the vast majority of people around him. I paid £199 for mine in the TE. Is that big money? Cracking value from the board if you ask me.

Weve got a good set of players here and a good manager, the fans should appreciate it. The fans can make a difference, they can make the players really want to play for the club.

I think in 4 weeks time we will be looking good again. Massive game next saturday.

I thought mid season last year with a play of ush this year....might be reversed.

Lets all go to the JPT Fianl and get pissed up!

Please note, there were times last season when i couldnt believe the position we were in!!  enough time yet...

Weren't we conceding very late goals this time last year? See, some things do change. Oh wait...

We've added conceding early one to our repertoire. Nothing stays the same forever.

I read half of this thread and got a bit fed up. Not because people are disgruntled with our inconsistency, I am myself. However, we need some perspective. If Lewis hadn't pulled off a couple of great saves then we could have been the ones who won that game 5-4. That would have put us one point outside the play-off spots and none of these threads would ever have been started.

Complaints about inconsistency are valid, as are those about not having a settled team. But a few small events have cost us points lately, rather than massively inept performances (Daggers aside). The same was true last season when we seemed to concede a late equaliser every week, but we managed to sort it out.

Some perspective please people.

What? Don't put positive spin on it you happy clapper.

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