Adver News: Trialists' identities emerge

[sonicyouth]

Who remembers Darren Dykes and Ben Martin?

[Reg Smeeton]

Who remembers Darren Dykes and Ben Martin?

There's not a lot wrong with taking one of these punts a season...history shows they more often than not fail, but if you do unearth an Austin every so often it more than pays for the dross.

You don't really want more than one though...

[sonicyouth]

I always liked that policy of gambling on non league players,  wasn't Martin related to Kingy somehow?

[Reg Smeeton]

I always liked that policy of gambling on non league players,  wasn't Martin related to Kingy somehow?

He was the son of a mate...we've sort of had it recently in the Samsung thing...

All clubs do it of course..it's a bit like panning for gold.

[ronnie21]

I have no problem trying to pick up decent players from the non-league, in fact I think it's an excellent model, assuming you select appropriate players, for a club like ours, but running the rule over players from Banbury has the ring of convenience about it rather than the concerted effort of scouting the non-league far and wide for gems.

Would you have mentioned Banbury if there had not been a connection to Jed?  We have to trust KMac's judgement on these matters!!  Personally the jury is still well into deliberation over KMac in my personal opinion, trying to alter a tried and trusted way of playing over the past 1.5 seasons was a big mistake, let's hope he has learnt from it.

[dagrumpymunki]

Personally the jury is still well into deliberation over KMac in my personal opinion, trying to alter a tried and trusted way of playing over the past 1.5 seasons was a big mistake, let's hope he has learnt from it.

Oh Jesus! Are we back to this? Really? Keeping the same team and playing the same way as Dicanio had the team playing throughout the season wasn't an option, as a chunk of the team that had made a success of playing that way weren't available to him. 

Honestly, why do you think the sainted Italian one left? Because the new board missed some kind of arbitrarily imposed deadline for his new contract or because he could see the way things were shaping up for the future and realised that he was really up against it to complete the season successfully in the circumstances he was going to have to work?

[Batch]

Oh Jesus! Are we back to this? Really? Keeping the same team and playing the same way as Dicanio had the team playing throughout the season wasn't an option, as a chunk of the team that had made a success of playing that way weren't available to him. 

He still had the players to play 4-4-2 had he wished, particularly at home where we were pretty pathetic with 4-5-1. He did what was asked mind, get to the playoffs. The semi against Brentford was pretty much a coin toss.

The jury is quite clearly out. The man hasn't had the opportunity to build his own team as a manager yet. Hope he's not too hamstrung by budget and given a fair crack,  as I doubt many will see past results regardless.

[horlock07]

No there wasn't as much of an uproar because many Swindon fans thought Paolo was a better talent spotter than KMac.

I think its more to do with them having exotic sounding names, some foreign player from that abroard is always going to be better than a player from Macclesfield.

[nigel grays a postie]

Harry Agombar has got an exotic name and he comes from Macclesfield

[dagrumpymunki]

He still had the players to play 4-4-2 had he wished, particularly at home where we were pretty pathetic with 4-5-1. He did what was asked mind, get to the playoffs. The semi against Brentford was pretty much a coin toss.

So how often did that happen?

I'll tell you. We played a whole 65 minutes of 451 at home against Oldham. That's all. Just the once, and not even for the whole game. In addition to that there were just two away games when we played that formation, Doncaster and Franchise.

This formational change thing is a total red herring. We started with two up front against Sheffield United four days after we lost 2-0 to MK and the result was exactly the same. Truth is the squad that we built very expensively just wasn't good enough without Ritchie and the loan talent that we were using earlier in the season.

[Batch]

That's not factually correct.

[dagrumpymunki]

That's not factually correct.

What isn't?

[Ironside]

Also......who is saying we are actually signing these players? maybe Jed is saying to some of the better players there to come along and experience pre season training at a league club to get them fitter for Banbury next season as a thank you to them for playing well for Banbury last year, just a thought.

Exactly. We needed to get a few bodies in for the start of pre-season, bearing in mind KMac said we only had 14 players on Monday. A bit of 6-aside.

Relax, we won't be signing anyone from Banbury... I fucking hope...

[RWB Robin]

I think we should relax a bit on the trialists front....one of the stated intentions of Jed's was to (re)start and U21 team.  It is at least possible that some of these trialists are being looked at with a view to getting that up and running; and that more viable first team additions will be known once we get to next Monday.... just a guess!!

[BruceChatwin]

What isn't?

I'm pretty sure (despite there ostensibly being two strikers on the pitch) we played 4-5-1 every game under Macdonald up until Franchise away, when the atmosphere started getting nasty and Kmac capitulated to the demands of the terrace.

I think it's easy to forget it was a reasonably successful and well implemented formation for a number of those games: Coventry away, Brentford first half, Yeovil away, Notts County at home (battered them for 90 minutes without scoring). The standard of football was certainly higher. Even the first half at MK wasn't all that bad, though lacking in goal threat.

I think the game that really did for the 4-5-1 was Doncaster away, an utter catastrophe of a performance on every front, even if we were, by all accounts, just as bad playing a 4-4-2 away at Sheffield United a couple of weeks later.

Will be interesting to see if we revert to 4-5-1 next year, as its clearly Macdonald's favoured formation.