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I don't understand why he is getting all the blame from some of our fans. Yes, he may have a say in some transfers but these players are more than capable. We have seen what the team can do when they put the effort in. We have thrown leads away willy nilly.

For me it's a lack of effort and poor concentration. That is the managers role.

I think this summer will be interesting. We will need a new GK, a new Striker. I would get rid of them all including Austin - again he shows no passion. He's the captain, he should be bollocking the players for lack of effort.

I think people are firmly coming round to not putting all their eggs in one basket with regards to the blame game.

The recruitment & transfers have not been good enough and the tactics have been shocking.
People talk about the lack of experience (it’s a fair point) but we aren’t even doing the basics right. Basics I’d expect Sunday League footballers to at least attempt to do - let alone professionals.

Everyone is culpable and no one has done a satisfactory job in their role.
I don’t think anyone would be upset if the club was completely gutted out in the summer.

it's not one person's issue it's a systematic failure from the top

we do however have at best the second  shitest *squad* ever. So it's not unexpected that the person perceived to have assembled it gets the flack.

as I've said before, we are lacking the context of constraints from above

Don’t get me wrong I’m not a massive fan and the January window was a proper shambles but something I only reminded myself about recently with regards to giving him stick for only signing kids was that back in the summer window there did seem to be a bit more of a blend of kids and experience. We brought in Macdonald, tried for Sol Bamba, I remember something being mentioned about us trying for Will Grigg? All to add to a core of Baudry, Gladwin, Williams and Reed (to an extent, although he’s only 25)

Not sure if there’s much of a point that I’m trying to make there. Just more frustration that the January window went as it did when we just needed a competent window of business to stay in touch with the promotion places.

The better player we have either don't fit the model or were brought in after (mceachran)

We somehow have a worse team than last season, where we had an embargo and had a 2 week pre season. That alone should see all in charge of recruitment fucked off.

Failure everywhere. Sandro can take a lot of blame but it goes further than Sandro, the sham recruitment process was allowed to continue in January. Cain and Kadji for Gladwin and Reed. Macdonald not replaced by anyone. Need I say more?  :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

Have fun flogging season tickets. Eek. oh, and just be ready for the club to blame fans next season for lack of support.

A lot of things need addressing at this club.

When the new owners took over at Wrexham, they installed Shaun Harvey as an advisor. A guy who has a wealth of football experience on his CV. After Chorley left, the people with football experience behind the scenes can be counted on no hands.

I'd like to see this addressed. Mark Devlin, Nick Watkins etc,

 just someone, ANYONE that knows what they are doing.

I agree Bob, I think most will tbh.

I am beginning to worry about how stretched we are financially and whether that's limiting us doing that (or rather attracting someone to do it )

humph. everything is shit. at least we aren't going down this year

I see Nicky Hammond is being interviewed on the supporters club thing tomorrow.

Way out of our league, last worked at Newcastle

Surely Chorley has to resurface sometime.

He’s at Southampton isnt he?

There are a lot of people to have a pop at this season who haven't been up to it from players, Sandro, Lindsey and even Morris despite the circumstances he's been given.

The problem is though, January was such a monster colossal shit show, that it basically gave us zero chance. Results have been piss poor, but our better players have been the ones Morris has brought in (n a limited free agency market.)

Sandro (and Lindsey who so say had final say) had all summer and the assembled squad wasn't up to it.

People shouldn't have to preface every Sandro criticism with (but he's not the only one who has failed this season) every time, in my opinion. Its warranted shit. He's recruited poorly and the January transfer window was an absolute debacle.

He can wear every bit of it because he's fucking useless and if Clem lets this fiasco continue then he should too.

Fuck Sandro and his spreadsheet.

Budget isn't the issue this season. If we didn't buy so many duds we wouldn't be up to about 40 players. The money has been there, We (mostly Sandro) have just spent the money poorly.

I'll tell you why Sandro can take a fucking run and jump - he's fucking out of his depth.  Our squad of footballers has 23 players who were not with us last season, a season where we made the Play Offs and recruited entirely in one summer.  We have used 41 players in total!!!!!!

There are two reasons for such an overhaul - you were correcting us being shit (we were not) or you have no fucking clue about what you are doing.

The chap is Head/Director of Football Operations - suck it up, you want the title, take the shit.  That is not a Junior role in a Business, it's a billy big bollocks take the plaudits/take the heat type of role.

BUT

I can do others in the Org as well if you like............................

As other state, the problem is bigger - it's a system wide issue.  Nothing about our football operations looks like it lines up with a Mission Statement of Promotion!  We look like a Blue Peter Bring and Buy Sale.

I agree with a lot of what you said, but this (in my view) is a bit over simplistic.

We had to rebuild completely as a lot of our squad was either on loan, were only with us for a season or again were not very good.

What you can't blame Sandro for is that Jack Payne wanted to play in League 1, and Louis Reed turned to shit over the summer (Sulking because he lost his mates, just wanted out or thought Lindsey was shit, who knows).

Also, we were all crying out for a bit more stability, so they've signed players on multiple year deals, except some of them were not good enough & the lack of experienced players at this level has done us no favours.

The spreadsheet way can be used to identify potential (it must work as most clubs from what I've read use it), but it shouldn't be the only method.

I still believe the issue was we had nobody with enough Football experience to make the decisions

Very much this. Compare and contrast the squad Chorley was able to put together in limited time with what we've put together this season. As with seemingly a lot of things at the club, it's not very cohesive.

I'm not suggesting he's still about, but when Clem came in I'd have liked a total overhaul of Power's cronies, the fact Zav is still about doing whatever he's doing in Asia doesn't sit right, however the club dress it up.

Is it outlandish to suggest that, if he is still in post, Sandro does some fan engagement via the OSC or BBC Wilts? He said he was going to...

His total disappearance, including from social media, doesn't say much for his character if he is staying.

It is easy to forget that Chorley was also very involved with putting the 19/20 L2 champions team together as well!

What role did Jewell have🤔

Director of football, Chorley was chief scout

Jewell DoF and Chorley Chief Scout I think…

And are we saying that, from a purely football perspective, the club was better run under Power? Because the answer is yes.

The fairly major problem with his version of ‘the model’ was that the proceeds were siphoned off into a Swiss bank account!

Clem's been pretty quiet for a while now as well hasn't he?

Depends on the abuse he may have be getting. Were the SM accounts club related? If so the club may have advised him to leave or disabled them.

Let’s break the period Ralph has been here.

He came in from nowhere, nothing on his CV said he should be in such a position at the club. He spouted all the bollocks about data but what was absent from day one was any seeming talk of being successful on the pitch and promotion, it was all player sales that he cared about.

Then we had the Lindsey debacle. Seemingly every approach we made fell through the moment a candidate spoke with him. He then tried to fob us off with the laughable claim that Lindsey was always first choice and the best man for the job.

Preseason was a shambles, no organisation and just amateur. We then put together a squad that had the majority of us questioning the balance and our fears have born out.

We showed utter contempt for cup competitions, some of that must have gone through Ralph due to the potential financial implications.

Then January came along and if we thought the Summer was a mess he managed to take it to a whole different level. The Lindsey debacle ensued where he couldn’t even come out and tell us Lindsey had left. When he did speak he came out again basically saying he’s not interested in results and just cares about player sales. This resulted Clem and Angus going into damage limitation mode and Ralph doing a forced interview where he had to mention promotion.

The manager search was again a shambles and took until the end of January to complete leaving the new manager no time to sort the squad out. All experience including the captain were got rid off and replaced with young players who clearly aren’t ready to play and then there was at least one signing that we somehow missed the deadline on.

The players we have brought in recently who can cut it (Austin and McEachran) were brought in by Clem and Morris respectively. The fact that Clem had to step in at all says it all about his faith in Ralph.

There have been no redeeming features to his time at the club and whoever did appoint him needs their involvement in the football side of the club questioning.

Ralph isn’t responsible for everything of course, the club has an aura of an amateur non-league club being ran by volunteers. On and off the pitch we are an absolute shambles. But Ralph is in charge of footballing operations so the buck stops with him on the pitch and going back to the start of this rant there is nothing in the public domain that remotely suggests he should have even been considered for the job here let alone got it.

sr
Cheers

Sadly it appears from a football perspective you're  right it was run better under power but then he couldn't be trusted with the funds.

Someone I know close to the club recently told me that Clem is too bought into the data driven side and to not expect Sandro to go anywhere soon. I really hope that changes or Clem can see he needs someone with football experience involved to manage him.

Wellens always talked about trying to sign players with 100+ league games under their belt so they are not learning the game in your team.

We have recruited too many without that experience so if we stick with these players we need to hope they push on next season.

Of course, Flitcroft went for experience and signed a load of has beens. None of that experienced cohort really came off apart from Matty Taylor and Paul Mullins post Swindon career.

Sometimes it's can just click like it did for Wellens. Anthony Grant had been bombed out a few clubs, Eoin Doyle wasn't scoring for Bradford and Caddis was without a club but they blended with the youngsters.

That Flitcroft team would absolutely hammer us.

Norris, Richards, Smith, Lancashire, Preston and Linganzi in the air. Hussey and Taylors deliveries throughout the season.

It was a tough watch but at the time of him jumping ship, we were in the playoffs.

It was at least nice to have a sense of anticipation when we got a corner.

Says it all how shit we are now when I'd rather have that squad.

I get fed up reading other teams change their tactics when they play us because we have a lot of the ball....how about we start changing to throw the opposition.

Because the players dont have the intelligence to adapt i should think

Maybe or it dosen't fit the possession football remit.

Obviously without getting this individual into trouble but they work at the club - adamant that while Lindsay was head coach and why he got the job  it was Sandro that selected the side …. When the shit hit the fan and fans were calling for Lindsay to be sacked he found the perfect way out by accepting the Crawley job.
Secondly and more worrying is talk that Morris has lost the dressing room already. Two senior players you can guess who have questioned his tactics and the “couldn’t give a shit attitude” of Hutton, Shade and a couple of others who continue to get selected, used off of the bench.
Finally with the court cases still to be completed why have the club and also the EFL allowed powers cronies to still be involved with the club? Zav Austin has failed the fair means test so why hasn’t Clem binned him off.
If Clem doesn’t have the finances why is he not looking for outside investors instead of Power’s parasites?

I simply can't believe that Jody Morris takes this gig without being able to pick the team. He may have accepted a degree of interference in transfers but in the starting XI? Surely not.

So I assume Austin is one of the senior players, and who is the other one? Williams? I wouldn’t be surprised if he has lost the dressing room. I have seen no improvement under Morris.

Blah blah blah small sample size blah blah I know blah blah red card…but…Gav Gunning managed to completely change the style of play (for the better) in a week…

I have two questions to that
  - did we reduce our wage structure, i.e wouldn't pay the wages needed to bring in more experienced players

  - did something change during the season leading to a very difficult January

I  can't really work out why we'd do the first given our playing budget was allegedly higher than last season.

You are probably right though, we spunked on quantity

41 players used so far Batch - the squad is massive.  We have wasted wages this season - how much has Devine earned per minute, Massey, Aguiar, Parsons, Lavinier, Adeloye, Harries, Roberts, RHM etc.?  I know some of them are injury related, but we've hoarded rough diamonds.  That is 9 players, on our books still, who we've maybe got a players worth out of.  They probably don't cost much each, but to pay 9 players in an attempt to fill one first team slot is overkill and a budget killer.

You consistently gloss over the first half of the Gillingham game which formed a quarter of his reign. That was the biggest shambles of the season.

…it was, he reacted. He changed it. We went forward, we attacked & got a point didn’t we?
Better than throwing it away in the last 10 minutes, no?

Yeah! To be clear I'm not contesting we spunked wages on many many players.

What isn't clear is why we had gone down a total policy of youth as the season progressed*. One answer could be we were trying to reduce the average wage per player - which then is ultimately pointless if, as you point out, we have 41 of them.

* i.e. all perceived high earners were dumped, even rumours of Williams being sold in January stopp ed by intervention, meaning only Austin would be left in that category.

Aside (have I already asked this): With the playing budget "going up" I wonder if that was including fees paid (repayments over long period but brought forward).

If the above is anything but waffle, as is highly likely, then we've really arsed up and the axe needs to come out to the system if not the personnel.

You say 41 players used, thats in all competitions, last season we used 35 but had 3 more loans than we have this season.

As a comparison, it doesnt mean anything really but just to see if player turnover has really been THAT high and what the cause may be, I would suggest that as we all know injuries have forced our squad selection far more this term.

33 players used in the league this season
6 were loans
27 of our own players
12 of those have played less than 10 games in total Kanu, Dworzak, Roberts, Minturn, Harries, Kadji, Devine, Aguiar, Cain, Brewitt, McKirdy and McEacran.
Long term injuries to Harries, Baudry, Iandolo, Devine, Brann, Brennan.
Medium term injuries to Clayton, RHM, FBT, Lavinier.

28 players in the league last season
9 were loans
17 of our own players
3 players in Grant, Glibert and Cooper played less that 10 games.
Long term injuries to Cooper, Tomlinson, Conroy and Gladwin.

I guess the other side of that is the number of "core" players who play most of the minutes - say 60% for ease of me working this out!

So far this season we've played 3420 league minutes (which is easily calculated as it's the number Sol Brynn has played!), and the following outfield players have played more than 2,052:

Hutton 3082 (90%)
FBT 2583 (75%)
Wakeling 2513 (73%)
Williams 2434 (71%)
Clayton 2054 (60%)

Just below 60% are Gladwin who left in January and Darcy who has never really nailed down a starting spot but just made a lot of cameos.

Last season we switched goalkeepers up a bit so not quite as easy to work out the maximum number of minutes, but let's just say 90 x 46 = 4,140, which makes 60% 2,484. Above that you had:

Iandolo 3731
Reed 3674
Conroy 3355
Wollacott 3330
Hunt 3032
Payne 3029
McKirdy 2910
Odimayo 2778

Then Williams on 2400 (Davison/Simpson both did about 2000, so combined they played almost every minute!)

So there's a bit more of a core group there last season, which I think plays into the perception.

I guess also worth pointing out that some of the players used this season (primarily those out of youth system) would have been at the club last season and thus would have been on the wage bill even if they didn’t play in the first team.

Although without looking up I couldn’t tell you whose first/second year pro and/or a scholar still.

Minturn, Cowmeadow, Parsons are pros. Kanu, Dworzak, Copland, Wynn-Davis, Fox, Keyes, Taank and Hart are scholars. Roberts, Massey and Dabre were brought in as (very young) professionals.

Think that's everyone whose been in and around the first team?

Assuming those who were here last season were under the same ‘status’ then despite the fact they are an additional +1 with regards to ‘players used’ this season they’ve effectively added 0 to the wage bill.

Well, Cowmeadow and Minturn were scholars last season, I assume they had a slight pay bump up to pro status. But yes, I can't imagine these guys, even collectively, are making a significant budgetary impact.

41 players used includes those on loan or sold.  Our squad is also around 41 players.

Last season we used more loans - you'd presume the costs for those were smaller provided we played the players (the deals tend to be a fee reduced based on appearances).

This season we have used less loans - more direct costs to us, plus we have still used more players in total (still time for that to grow if Morris fancies trying a few out).

Whichever way you cut it - we've wasted money.

Was chatting to a guy at Banbury the other night and he reckons Roberts had a break clause in his contract halfway through. He thought it was a two year deal. He also thought Banbury tried to get him back on loan before Aldershot but were turned down as STFC wanted him at a higher level. Bloke goes to Aldershot then gets called back, not been in any squad since so bit of a waste for him now as he wont play for anyone for the rest of the season as the non league window is shut.

Shame really, Banbury could have done with him on loan, their form is nearly as bad as ours at the minute!