Season 23/24 Predictions

[Bertie Wooster]

I'm just finding it a bit hard to see where Charles and co missing basic sitters is Evatt's fault. Must be me..

Of course its Evatt's fault, he's the manager, he signs the players & he picks the team - if our strikers continually miss easy chances / sitters then he's not brought in the right strikers.

For me one of the things that needs addressing in the summer regardless of whether we are still in league 1 or in the championship, is to bring in a quality striker, a natural striker, a finisher who has that composure in front of goal. If FV give Evatt or whoever it may be if he leaves money in the summer the majority of it needs to be on a proper finisher, alongside Collins.

Charles works his socks off, closing defenders down and scores plenty of goals but he misses quite a few easy chances not just the odd 1 or 2, however I don't think that he's what I would call a natural goal scorer i.e. an Alfie May type, a McGinlay....Collins for me is more composed & more of what I would call a natural goal scorer than any of our other strikers and I don't think that he's even a proper No9.

You can't blame Evatt for strikers missing the odd 1 or 2, but when you miss the amount of sitters that we do given the amount of chances we create, and its several of the strikers missing them - then as I said its either signing the wrong players or poor coaching, both of which are the managers responsibility.

[Prufrock]

I'm just finding it a bit hard to see where Charles and co missing basic sitters is Evatt's fault. Must be me..

I find this a really reductive. Nothing that happens on a field can be directly labelled as ‘managers fault’. But they are accountable for the results and outcomes at the end of the day. Mousinho for me has less talent in his group but found a way to get a level of consistency out of them. We have more talent but find a way to lack the consistency to grind results out week in week out.

Portsmouth miss sitters too but they are still able to get results we don’t.

Phil Neal took us to a league two promotion and two play offs plus the Wembley win. And that was at a time when the club had no investment and no real leadership. But he went because he couldn’t get us out of this league. What happened after was magical. The point for me is that we’ve had the talent and financial backing this season to finish top two.

Do you find it more or less reductive than second is success, third is failure?

[BWFC_Insane]

I'm just finding it a bit hard to see where Charles and co missing basic sitters is Evatt's fault. Must be me..

I find this a really reductive. Nothing that happens on a field can be directly labelled as ‘managers fault’. But they are accountable for the results and outcomes at the end of the day. Mousinho for me has less talent in his group but found a way to get a level of consistency out of them. We have more talent but find a way to lack the consistency to grind results out week in week out.

Portsmouth miss sitters too but they are still able to get results we don’t.

Phil Neal took us to a league two promotion and two play offs plus the Wembley win. And that was at a time when the club had no investment and no real leadership. But he went because he couldn’t get us out of this league. What happened after was magical. The point for me is that we’ve had the talent and financial backing this season to finish top two.

Do you find it more or less reductive than second is success, third is failure?

Success is promotion. The club have said that multiple times. In football there isn’t a prize for ‘nearly’. Thats not reductive in any sense.

We should be getting out of this division - Evatt, the club the players are all saying the same thing.

[Mar]

I'm just finding it a bit hard to see where Charles and co missing basic sitters is Evatt's fault. Must be me..

You can't blame Evatt for strikers missing the odd 1 or 2, but when you miss the amount of sitters that we do given the amount of chances we create, and its several of the strikers missing them - then as I said its either signing the wrong players or poor coaching, both of which are the managers responsibility.

It's all in the framing. You see it as us missing a load of chances. I see it as us creating a lot of chances.

Prior to Evatt coming on board we had 18 seasons where we failed to get a striker hitting 15 goals in a calendar year. We're seeing that fairly regularly now. I'd see that as Evatt signing the right players and creating more chances. It's a far cry from waxing lyrical about Madine doing well with a low number of chances.

The squad is doing well with a high number of chances, but not as well as we'd've liked given the number of dropped points left in some crucial games.

Do you find it more or less reductive than second is success, third is failure?

Success is promotion. The club have said that multiple times. In football there isn’t a prize for ‘nearly’. Thats not reductive in any sense.

We should be getting out of this division - Evatt, the club the players are all saying the same thing.

That's clearly reductive. The club haven't come out and said the only sign of success is promotion, they've also stated community outreach, more financial investors, more season tickets sold, etc, etc.

And whilst we should be getting promoted out of this division, and it's easy to acknowledge that given how good we can be, it doesn't mean that its a binary case of success/failure.

[TANGODANCER]

Do you find it more or less reductive than second is success, third is failure?

Success is promotion. The club have said that multiple times. In football there isn’t a prize for ‘nearly’. Thats not reductive in any sense.

We should be getting out of this division - Evatt, the club the players are all saying the same thing.
[/quote]

SO, staying with Evatt; in effect, win and be promoted ( subject to mitigations) . = heroic, lose = a failure and get the sack? Difference is a goal. Very Russian roulette, very Positively Fourth Street. COME ON YOU WHITES ...

[BWFC_Insane]

I'm just finding it a bit hard to see where Charles and co missing basic sitters is Evatt's fault. Must be me..

You can't blame Evatt for strikers missing the odd 1 or 2, but when you miss the amount of sitters that we do given the amount of chances we create, and its several of the strikers missing them - then as I said its either signing the wrong players or poor coaching, both of which are the managers responsibility.

It's all in the framing. You see it as us missing a load of chances. I see it as us creating a lot of chances.

Prior to Evatt coming on board we had 18 seasons where we failed to get a striker hitting 15 goals in a calendar year. We're seeing that fairly regularly now. I'd see that as Evatt signing the right players and creating more chances. It's a far cry from waxing lyrical about Madine doing well with a low number of chances.

The squad is doing well with a high number of chances, but not as well as we'd've liked given the number of dropped points left in some crucial games.

Do you find it more or less reductive than second is success, third is failure?

Success is promotion. The club have said that multiple times. In football there isn’t a prize for ‘nearly’. Thats not reductive in any sense.

We should be getting out of this division - Evatt, the club the players are all saying the same thing.

That's clearly reductive. The club haven't come out and said the only sign of success is promotion, they've also stated community outreach, more financial investors, more season tickets sold, etc, etc.

And whilst we should be getting promoted out of this division, and it's easy to acknowledge that given how good we can be, it doesn't mean that its a binary case of success/failure.

There is a big difference between the wider business and success for the first team. Ultimately though in football all those things you mention are driven by success of the first team and the revenue that generates.

See the latest comments from Cogley from yesterday. To paraphrase ‘we should already be promoted we’ve left too many points out there. We were too complacent’.

Not ‘well we’ve had a cracking season and third is great’. And rightly so. They are looking at their own failures as to why we aren’t in that top two. He also says ‘all players in the squad believe the same that we should be in that top two’.

[BWFC_Insane]

Do you find it more or less reductive than second is success, third is failure?

Success is promotion. The club have said that multiple times. In football there isn’t a prize for ‘nearly’. Thats not reductive in any sense.

We should be getting out of this division - Evatt, the club the players are all saying the same thing.

SO, staying with Evatt; in effect, win and be promoted ( subject to mitigations) . = heroic, lose = a failure and get the sack? Difference is a goal. Very Russian roulette, very Positively Fourth Street. COME ON YOU WHITES ...


[/quote]

No I’d not say it’s ’fail to get promoted’ and he gets sacked. But if we don’t go up then he needs to look at the reasons why and ensure that failure isn’t repeated. And that will mean finding the level of consistency of results that other teams have. It won’t mean just doing the same things again and hoping for the best.

We can’t ignore what has happened - we have to address it. Every manager we’ve ever had who has been good after a season where we fell short understood why and fixed it.

[boltonboris]

I'm just finding it a bit hard to see where Charles and co missing basic sitters is Evatt's fault. Must be me..

Of course its Evatt's fault, he's the manager, he signs the players & he picks the team - if our strikers continually miss easy chances / sitters then he's not brought in the right strikers.

For me one of the things that needs addressing in the summer regardless of whether we are still in league 1 or in the championship, is to bring in a quality striker, a natural striker, a finisher who has that composure in front of goal. If FV give Evatt or whoever it may be if he leaves money in the summer the majority of it needs to be on a proper finisher, alongside Collins.

Charles works his socks off, closing defenders down and scores plenty of goals but he misses quite a few easy chances not just the odd 1 or 2, however I don't think that he's what I would call a natural goal scorer i.e. an Alfie May type, a McGinlay....Collins for me is more composed & more of what I would call a natural goal scorer than any of our other strikers and I don't think that he's even a proper No9.

You can't blame Evatt for strikers missing the odd 1 or 2, but when you miss the amount of sitters that we do given the amount of chances we create, and its several of the strikers missing them - then as I said its either signing the wrong players or poor coaching, both of which are the managers responsibility.

Is it worth pointing out that we have the highest conversion rate in League 1? Is that good or bad management?

[BWFC_Insane]

I think if we had a genuinely natural finisher we’d have gone up but I think that argument is probably true of a good chunk of teams in most leagues. There aren’t many around. I dare say if you gave Arsenal Haaland they’d have won the league already.

Where I think our issues lie is one we were arguably short if Charles was out till Collins came in, in terms of real quality and threat up front. Which is more than half a season relying primarily on Dion. Victor did well but he’s not going to score the goals and half chances Collins does. Nor the volume Charles can when he’s flying.

But I think our biggest issue is the amount of possession we have in a lot of games vs how many clear cut chances we can carve out and the nature of them. When strikers aren’t maybe firing and scoring every half chance we probably lack goals from set pieces. Goals from long range etc….

If a team can adopt a low block or a high press (mainly a low block ) and restrict your chances they know that when one does fall and we miss it mentally it gives them an advantage. That’s been the case especially second half of the season. They know that it weighs on us. It does on teams that dominate the ball. Not just at our level but every level. Teams know they can generally defend strings of corners and free kicks against us. So periods of pressure don’t result always in the goal output they really should.

I think a lot of it comes down to us being all a bit one note. Our attacks are often too similar. Quick switch, down the side, pull it back. As I’ve noted before we very rarely hit front or back post areas….so teams are more comfortable…they know how to block us out in the box. They know we aren’t likely to nick a goal from a corner or an early cross so they set to stop us and frustrate us as much as possible.

Port Vale did so and it took a wonder goal from Collins to open it up. But were they a top half side it’s feasible they nicked something before that on the break or from one of their own set plays and consequently took a point at least. We’ve seen this before. We’ve done it to teams exactly like us for years. Arsenal would come to the Middlebrook technically play us off the park but Faye would thunder a header in, Stelios would find a clever finish, we’d win because we could restrict their chances and be efficient with our own. Wenger would then moan about how much of the ball they had and how negative we were.

But it’s hardly a surprise that a team setup to play in only one way like that Wenger side was, without maybe the variety of player types to effect something different also at times struggles in exactly the same way when teams are able to restrict chances or good enough to score their own.

[TANGODANCER]

SO, staying with Evatt; in effect, win and be promoted ( subject to mitigations) . = heroic, lose = a failure and get the sack? Difference is a goal. Very Russian roulette, very Positively Fourth Street. COME ON YOU WHITES ...


[/quote]

No I’d not say it’s ’fail to get promoted’ and he gets sacked. But if we don’t go up then he needs to look at the reasons why and ensure that failure isn’t repeated. And that will mean finding the level of consistency of results that other teams have. It won’t mean just doing the same things again and hoping for the best.
[/quote]

You mean the two teams above us in the League? And the Whites players admitting they let things slip and holding their hands up is also down to the manager? There are 21 managers and two hundred plus players below us who would probably happily swap places. Let's keep it in proportion a bit hey?