Negative slant from the Adver..

[OOH! SHAUN TAYLOR]

Just read this in The Adver...

"Potentially, we could now see the break-up of this over-achieving Town side.

Loanees Stephen Darby, Alan Sheehan, Simon Ferry, Danny Ward and Frank Nouble will all return to their parent clubs this week, while 29-goal top scorer Billy Paynter is yet to sign a new deal and others like Craig Easton and Michael Timlin are also out of contract this summer.

That is not even considering the host of clubs who will be monitoring the progress of Austin. "



Stephen Darby -will go back to Liverpool...he's done ok for us but pffft
Alan Sheehan - may or may not be here next season. If he is, fine. If not, pfft
Danny Ward - gone. Shame but that's life. Who knows who might be lurking at Man City though who is as good or even...better
Frank Nouble.....HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!
Billy Paynter...he's been a great servant for the club and I wish him well but as others have said, he's replaceable...pffft
Craig Easton and Michael Timlin...come on..Eastie has done very well when called upon this season. Great squad player but...pffft
Charlie Austin...of course there will be utterly tedious transfer speculation all summer long but our Talisman aint going nowhere

I just think the Adver are putting an overly negative slant on things when that is not the general feeling amongst the fans and I think it's a bit shit of them.

Whoops! I missed out Simon Ferry - I'm sure we'll sign him

[Ardiles]

"Potentially, we could now see the break-up of this over-achieving Town side.

Interesting quote.  What do you think they meant by 'over-achieving'?  To me, it reads as if the journo thought we were lucky to finish where we did.  Strange.

[Rustle]

No pride in this town anymore from the council to the adver it's a fucking joke really,It's like they are ready to put the boot in once the town fail and i know it's the journo's work to write things but fuck sake this our own local rag,the bit about town centre was busy while we were at wembley annoyed me aswell.



 

[The_Plagiarist]

I don't see that as a negative slant, our team is made up of a fair few loanees this year plus a top scorer out of contract which is clearly going to mean players leaving.

Ward,
Sheehan,
Paynter,
Ferry?

assuming they go thats 3or4 of our first choice XI including our top scorer its a decent chunk we need to replace. The adver could have done without adding the austin sentence on the end but I guess clubs will be sniffing around him in the summer, but I don't see him leaving us just yet.

Ward and Ferry have been two of our best players this season and they aint ours. I'd say its a fair write up.

Imagine Bolton will want Ward in the championship next year and who can blame them he looks class in this league. Ferry maybe we get from celtic (about level standard as our league) and I can't see Paynter staying but not overly bothered. Leeds will pay him 10k a week and he won't score as many in the championship

Easton can go if we keep ferry, would like to keep Timlin have always rated him, he can play in a number of positions.

I'm sure Wilson is already on the case and should be an interesting summer, cannot wait for the start of next season! but yeah we do need to keep charlie don't we. If he was to leave then I'd start to get a bit negative.

[RobertT]

I'd like it to have read along the lines of a great opportunity with our new relationships to pull together an even better squad in early this year, which gives us a much better chance over 46 games than this season.  Keep the basis of the squad, including Charlie, add some real quality in the mould of Ward from City, Liverpool and Celtic, sign a few youngsters with good promise and 1 or 2 experienced performers and we should be in the hunt all season long.

[OOH! SHAUN TAYLOR]

I don't see that as a negative slant

It's a negative slant because it's painting a picture where the whole squad is going to disintegrate nd we're just going to fade away to being a mid-table team again. That is clearly not accurate. They've tried to bollster the story by including players who are frankly, not going to make a jot of difference by leaving. A couple of players will go, we know that. But that's all. Who knows how many other Danny Wards and Simon Ferry's are out there?

[The_Plagiarist]

It's not a negative slant, it's just stating facts that many of the first team are loanees, and our top scorer is out of contract. This is clearly accurate.

The only bit they didn't need in there was the austin sentence, but its inevitable that with the first season he has had, bigger clubs are going to bid for him over the summer, whether we like it or not.

[Simon Pieman]

Realistically, we should try and keep Paynter even if it's going to cost an extra £500-1000 a week in my opinion.

In Austin and Paynter we have the best strike partnership in the division. To replace Paynter we'd realistically need to spend £100-200k. May as well give him that over a two year period in my opinion.

[The_Plagiarist]

Agree we should keep paynter if we can, but if leeds are in for him as the rumour goes, I don't see how we compete with their offer, and nor should we break the bank and our wage structure for him. Billy has had a fantastic season and changed my and many people I know, opinions of him. But if we're talking about silly money for a new contract, I don't think its worth it.

[Batch]

I'd like to keep Paynter. But you can't break the wage structure for one player. Assuming that is what would happen.

I think the lure of Championship football would probably be enough to see him go, not straight cash alone. It might be different if he wasn't a free agent, but its out our hands.

[Spencer_White]

The summer transfer windows havnt been kind to us the last few years, but I think this reporter does have a bit of a Wembley hangover.

Our captain is staying, our player of the year is staying, our best defender is staying, the best goalie weve had since Digby is staying. Our talisman striker IS STAYING.

Out of all of those players, the only 2 I would be depressed about losing is Paynter and Ferry. Weve all come to terms that Ward is destined for big things and good luck to him.

But losing Austin is unthinkable.

[Simon Pieman]

I think we made the mistake not giving him the contract he wanted back when we had the chance and then closing things off until the end of the season.

[Batch]

I think we'll keep Austin. Cuthbert is my #1 worry (for no good reason mind),

[Don Rogers Shop]

I wanna see us go into the summer with a little bit of intent.It was a bit of a slow slummer last year.Hindsight will say at the time that we got some good players last summer but it didn't feel like that at the time.

I just get this feeling that maybe getting so close will see fitton and co really go for it.

[betty_swollox]

I think we made the mistake not giving him the contract he wanted back when we had the chance and then closing things off until the end of the season.

I think BP has played so well this season because he knew he had to, to get a good contract somewhere else. Personally I believe he has already signed a contract with someone else (probably Leeds) as there has been no talk of will he wont he in the Adver for the past few months.
  I don't think breaking the wage structure to re-sign him is the answer now. It'll upset the good balance of the club and we'll start to get other players agents wanting improved contracts.
  Personally if we do lose the players mentioned I do think it will be a missive blow, especially Danny Ward. For every DW you sign on loan there are Ben Hutchinsons and Frak Noubles and even Stephen Darby. No matter what their rep is you just don't know what you're getting until you see them play Division 3 football.


But despite this minor moan, I'm still looking forward to next season and think we'll do well again.