Pre-season 2023-24

[BWFC_Insane]

Judging by a few comments on social media including those from Marc Iles it sounds like once again we have a rather large ‘striker problem’ as in apart from Charles and maybe JDB general consensus is the rest are ‘a bit shit’.

[BWFC_Insane]

I’m not also seeing this Evatt working magic in windows or even doing well either. First window disastrous. Second one better and had to be. Third window - not good. Fourth better and had to be but was in the main down to Fossey. Fifth window not good, didn’t get enough and turned down ‘top players’. Sixth window I’d describe as incredibly dodgy at best and that’s with some benefit of the doubt. This window thus far as some say on social media is teetering on disastrous.

He’s mainly improved our standing on the back of loans and some improvement in players who started poorly like Dempsey.

I know we are ‘waiting’ for all these fantastic players who will magically arrive here not expecting top dollar and other clubs will not also be sniffing round them. But I can’t help but feel that Evatt’s transfer business history doesn’t give me huge confidence. Especially when it’s not involved loans. The permanent deals especially fees I’m far from convinced by.

We've gone from almost no players in League Two to the play-offs in League One and a cup victory with the following windows:

Disastrous.
Better and had to be.
Not good.
Better due to one player who played 15 games for us, not the 5 players still in the squad.
Not good.
Incredibly dodgy.

Sometimes you have to test your assessment against lived reality, mate.

Promotion - stabilisation - play offs and cup. On the back of spending pretty much sod-all. I imagine quite a few clubs would love to be as terrible in the market as we are.

We operated with the largest budget in league two and it wasn’t tied up in historic signings. We also haven’t been paupers in this league.

I think he’s done a good job but plenty of the signings we’ve spent money on are questionable thus far. And we’ve had two windows just gone where we didn’t come out of them with what was needed.

I think he’s shown a good ability to take frees and add in loans to pull teams together. I’m far less convinced now he’s got money or supposedly has on his record in picking and adding in the key quality ingredients needed. I don’t think we got it right last season.

[Harry Genshaw]

Come on Insane, I never had you down as a screecher. It's mid July ffs!

We've made terrific progress under FV and Evatt. I fully expect that to continue. If we don't go up at the end of this season, I'm confident we'll do it the year after. Ipswich, Sunderland and Sheffield Wednesday all had budgets that blew us out of the water and took 2, 3, 4 years to get out of L1.

We have the right team for the job, we've missed out on a couple of our transfer targets - it happens. We'll be reet.

[Worthy4England]

I do think this is probably Evatt's first binary "pass/fail" year....

I thought he did nothing but pass, and that's what annoys some folk...

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Don’t think I’ll be calling for Evatt’s head if we miss out on promotion this season. He’s progressed this club in each of the three season’s he’s been here and you can’t ask for much more than that. He’s got some credit in the bank and deserves a bit more time to get us into the Championship.

I hear you, Brommers. I'm not convinced all our fans are quite wired to the same narrative. I think there's probably a proportion think we should be in at least the Champo, just because we are the one and only.

I think there's a sizeable chunk not whacking off to stats, saying we often play dull, predictable, patterns and actually, if it doesn't produce, it can be pretty boring.

I reckon there's some on the fence (I think I'm here) - Of it's winning sorta don't mind.

And then we have the "this is the way" crew.

I do genuinely think, if we don't deliver, this season. He might, for the first time, find himself in bother. That 18,000 crowd can cut both ways, he's generally only seen one of 'em.

[BWFC_Insane]

Come on Insane, I never had you down as a screecher. It's mid July ffs!

We've made terrific progress under FV and Evatt. I fully expect that to continue. If we don't go up at the end of this season, I'm confident we'll do it the year after. Ipswich, Sunderland and Sheffield Wednesday all had budgets that blew us out of the water and took 2, 3, 4 years to get out of L1.

We have the right team for the job, we've missed out on a couple of our transfer targets - it happens. We'll be reet.

I agree that Evatt and FV have been great for the club. And arguably because it’s the internet and because it becomes binary the argument is lost somewhat - that’s my fault.

It’s not ‘I want Evatt out’. At all. Or that he’s been rubbish. The thing is he’s had some really good points in windows and some signings that in my view haven’t worked out. The more he’s spent to date the more I skew towards the latter.

As for ‘well we can just wait till next season’ you can keep on saying that. I think you can end up where we were under Phil Neal. Completely stuck. And I don’t think FV can afford to keep sustaining a club stuck in league one.

It’s frustrating that no matter what that some will try and suggest Evatt got it right. I fear we may see that with striker signings this season. No matter how poor those players may look the suggestion from some will be that their ‘trigger movements’ are spot on. Or some such nonsense. For me any manager lives and dies by their results and to date Evatt has more than lived. But this season I think it’s fully reasonable and fair to expect us to go up. If we miss out on penalties at Wembley it happens and it’s not like that becomes the obvious decider. But we should be better than last season and really need to be pushing and in that top two. I can already sense a fan base that is expecting and arguably a bit impatient now.

Last season was good but to say that we sort of have to ignore the Barnsley game. The key now is to take a step further or at the very least throw every single thing at doing so. Results are ultimately all that matters.

[Prufrock]

Come on Insane, I never had you down as a screecher. It's mid July ffs!

We've made terrific progress under FV and Evatt. I fully expect that to continue. If we don't go up at the end of this season, I'm confident we'll do it the year after. Ipswich, Sunderland and Sheffield Wednesday all had budgets that blew us out of the water and took 2, 3, 4 years to get out of L1.

We have the right team for the job, we've missed out on a couple of our transfer targets - it happens. We'll be reet.

It’s frustrating that no matter what that some will try and suggest Evatt got it right.

In fairness that's absolutely magnificent from the poster who described having 1 (one) senior player when he walked through the door as the budget not being "tied up in historic signings"

[BWFC_Insane]

Come on Insane, I never had you down as a screecher. It's mid July ffs!

We've made terrific progress under FV and Evatt. I fully expect that to continue. If we don't go up at the end of this season, I'm confident we'll do it the year after. Ipswich, Sunderland and Sheffield Wednesday all had budgets that blew us out of the water and took 2, 3, 4 years to get out of L1.

We have the right team for the job, we've missed out on a couple of our transfer targets - it happens. We'll be reet.

It’s frustrating that no matter what that some will try and suggest Evatt got it right.

In fairness that's absolutely magnificent from the poster who described having 1 (one) senior player when he walked through the door as the budget not being "tied up in historic signings"

What I’ve seen of Evatt I doubt he’d do that well walking into an established group of players to be honest. There are different types of managers. He definitely suited the situation far more than he would inheriting a team.

[Prufrock]

"Definitely" and "far more" is it? Forsooth.

[GhostoftheBok]

The simple fact is that we've used the market to progress every season. So the idea we've just had this rollcall of bad windows is clearly wrong. I've left windows frustrated at times, but that's very different. You can't have the situation we've had in the real world whilst being that bad at transfers.

We can narrow it to "players we've spent fees on haven't been good", but then we need to look at the reality again.

I think we paid a minimal fee for Sadlier, who Insane described as being a batter player than Evatt is a manager. So presumably in this narrative he goes down as a good player who we got unlucky with due to switching systems.

Another minimal fee (mostly for admin costs) on Bodvarsson, who has been hailed by most on here as a quality signing.

A decent fee on Charles, our record scorer in the past 20 years or so.

A low fee on Aaron Morley, who is clearly very good.

We bought Dempsey for relative buttons, who started slowly due to fitness issues and is now regarded by most people as an excellent addition.

A small fee for Toal, who is again just a really good player at this level and could perhaps play higher up.

So that's 6 good players signed, one of whom hasn't worked out and 5 who would likely be key players when everyone's fit.

Then we get one to the three that are presumably the source of this "We waste fees" thing in reality, regardless of the actual record.

Vic, Dan and Randy. Our biggest fee under Evatt, a decent fee this summer and then another nominal one.

Dan and Randy weren't fit in the 6 months that saw them written off by some fans, but Randell started to show a lot more of himself by the end and has continued that into preseason. Dan looked pretty good yesterday, but he needs some proper minutes before we can make any kind of call on him in terms of the fee we just spent. That leaves us with Vic, who has actually kicked a ball in anger after we paid money for him.

I don't agree that Vic is crap, but even if I did this whole "Evatt can't be trusted with a fee" narrative seems to come down to not liking that one player - maybe with a bit of Nlundulu hate thrown in for good measure.

There's no liking a player and then there's disliking him so much that you write off any ability the manager has to spot a player based purely on signing him. It has to be that, really, because the wider spending is clearly very good. We've generally used fees to pre-empt summer bidding wars and come out on top. Most players we've spent fees on are now regarded as excellent players at this level.

Have I missed some signings out, or is it really just "I don't like Vic and therefore I've built this narrative"?

[BWFC_Insane]

That’s my point. I’ve read the view of a number who went yesterday and not one other person has said anything other than Nlundulu was rubbish. Indeed Marc Iles has basically written a piece worrying about the strikers who aren’t called Charles based on performances this pre season.

Both were very poor last season. Let’s hope they are vastly improved players this season but they need to be given the money we’ve paid for them. At their ages they need to both be scoring goals and looking really good at this level. Evatt compares Nlundulu to Ivan Toney who was a 20 goal a season man at this level at comparable age.

I really hope both come good but it annoys me that we can’t say they’ve both been absolute pants so far. They have. Why do we need to pretend otherwise?

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

I really hope both come good but it annoys me that we can’t say they’ve both been absolute pants so far. They have. Why do we need to pretend otherwise?

Nobody needs to pretend anything.

What's most annoying, apparently either way, is when examples are extrapolated into generalities and posted with such certitude that they seem to deserve orchestral backing and alleged truisms being chipped into marble.

[sonicthewhite]

So in a nutshell so far this pre-season, we've lost some players, we've signed some players and we've played a small handful of games primarily for fitness and tactics. And pre-season hasn't finished yet.

So why the feckin blue blazes are people panicfannying? This isn't FM 2023, and HMS PtL is an old scow tied up in a dodgy fleet museum in Bootle.

By the God's you'd think it was the end of the world and someone's nicked your premium seats for the impending show of doom.

Have a Solero and feckin chill out

[Worthy4England]

Just wondering whether you have a "transfer kettle" too, Sonic.

Evatt says in his post match that we're 4 or 5 short and we're hoping for news next week.

I'm a little bit surprised we're only talking about Vic and Dan as pants - and I agree that they've been poor from what I've seen so far.

There was a much larger list of pub players, which most of our squad have visited, in our ranks prior to January...and they're probably only one game away from re-making that list...

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

So in a nutshell so far this pre-season, we've lost some players, we've signed some players and we've played a small handful of games primarily for fitness and tactics. And pre-season hasn't finished yet.

So why the feckin blue blazes are people panicfannying? This isn't FM 2023, and HMS PtL is an old scow tied up in a dodgy fleet museum in Bootle.

By the God's you'd think it was the end of the world and someone's nicked your premium seats for the impending show of doom.

Have a Solero and feckin chill out

[GhostoftheBok]

we've played a small handful of games primarily for fitness and tactics.

This is largely the issue.

People are treating these as games where the aim is to beat Bamber Bridge, Curzon Ashton and Chester City.

In reality, beating them is secondary. The aim is to get tactics working that will allow us to beat Lincoln on the opening day and others after that, whilst getting minutes into legs and trying to avoid injuries.

We could have beaten Chester yesterday, but the focus was on getting the patterns right. Some of the players a lot of fans (and Iles) think did well yesterday actually didn't, with Sadlier head of that list.

If the tactics come off we should be winning these games, but if they're not working we're not going to change things to try and get a result; we're going to keep working on them.

Nobody played particularly badly yesterday, if we are talking about touch, passing, dribbling and general running about. The issues came tactically and that's going to be the case when you're changing things around in a way that requires players to think a lot early doors. As with all learning, it starts to become natural after a while. Learning to write is a struggle, so is adding up...hopefully we can all not just do it as easily as walking, which was also hard at one stage.

I was hoping things would be a bit more fluid yesterday, but we've got a closed door game on Tuesday to help speed things up.

It does need to start to look good for longer at Salford. That total dominance we had early on against Chester will be harder against a better side, but then that's the point.

With the strikers, the issue for Evatt won't be how they are playing. The issue is that the ball isn't coming to them in quite the right positions yet. They need to be quicker off the mark when the ball goes into the near post - we could have had 4-5 in preseason from that ball, but defenders got there first. Generally it's been the run not being found, not the run itself, that's been at issue.

For what it's worth, I don't think we'll be keeping Sads on for his impact value. He played okay yesterday with the ball at feet, but he was absolutely clueless as regards the system. The young lads were having to coach him through it and broadly speaking he ignored them anyway. He looks fit and sharp, but I'd be shocked if he and Evatt want to continue working together once we have enough bodies in to let him go.

[Worthy4England]

I think some of this is a tough sell, Ghosty. The notion that we have patterns and anyone playing outside of them is surplus, probably doesn't sit well with general observers (counting myself in this group). I lost count, towards the end of last season as to how many times we made subs, I for one was thinking "these three ain't changing fck all," whereas two people you think maybe they could (Dapo and Sads), three if you count Baka and his 10 goals the previous season, we let go.

That's not a "these folks should be starters" post, and whilst you make subs to freshen things up, many times you're also looking to change the course of what's going on in front. I'm unclear of the wisdom in changing two predominantly alike players continuing to play the same patterns...

Evatt lobs on Dapo and Sads on 60 minutes of a tough 0-0 low block, I think people say "these might make a difference" putting on two from Vic/Dan and Jerome, folks are loitering at the early car park bar.

[GhostoftheBok]

I think some of this is a tough sell, Ghosty. The notion that we have patterns and anyone playing outside of them is surplus, probably doesn't sit well with general observers (counting myself in this group). I lost count, towards the end of last season as to how many times we made subs, I for one was thinking "these three ain't changing fck all," whereas two people you think maybe they could (Dapo and Sads), three if you count Baka and his 10 goals the previous season, we let go.

That's not a "these folks should be starters" post, and whilst you make subs to freshen things up, many times you're also looking to change the course of what's going on in front. I'm unclear of the wisdom in changing two predominantly alike players continuing to play the same patterns...

Evatt lobs on Dapo and Sads on 60 minutes of a tough 0-0 low block, I think people say "these might make a difference" putting on two from Vic/Dan and Jerome, folks are loitering at the early car park bar.

I take all that, but the counter would be that surely what we actually want are lads who can play the system AND make a difference if thrown on.

Using a lad we didn't get as an example, if Cogley started a game and we needed to change it I'd be happier seeing Kane Wilson come on that Sadlier. I'd also be much happier seeing Kane Wilson start and I think Cogley is a player who could make a difference off the bench.

I don't think it's an issue of just plugging away at the same patterns in competitive games, but in preseason it is a case of doing that because the point is learning the patterns and the reason it's not working yet isn't that these sides understand the patterns and are stopping them, it's problems of our own making.

If you've got it nailed down the other side is nullifying you, that's when you have to say, "Right then, time for Plan B."

At the minute the issue isn't the patterns, it's the fact we suck at them.

[Worthy4England]

For sure, the first bit. If they come on and make a difference, people less worried about whether they're playing Evatt's pattern or not.

For much of the second half of last season, I reckon a good few were thinking "more of the same, but a bit shitter"

[Bertie Wooster]

We don't appear to have a plan B though.

[BWFC_Insane]

Yeah worthy’s point and I think what Bertie is saying is valid. We lack variety in our options and subbing Nlundulu for Victor or whatever towards the end was taking one poor impact off and brining another on.

We didn’t have anyone who could do something different. Produce some magic.

It’s why I’m slightly disappointed we didn’t add someone like Alfie May or even Stockton both players who can do something spectacular and out of the ordinary. May would have filled that false number 9 role we played at times really nicely and although we’d have lacked height I could see he and Charles being a handful.

Indeed it’s not even like you need a player like that to start every game. It’s the game changing potential they offer that I think we miss too. The unpredictability.

To my eyes the ball goes into vic and he takes 5 touches to get it under control then another 3 to decide what to do with it. Whereas I’d like to see him take it first or second touch and then pass it quicker or drive at the back line. Everything he’s done here so far has been far to slow and far too predictable. I think he thrives off early delivery into the box but I can’t see us doing that enough or with enough quality.

Nlundulu is sort of similar but I mean he’s quicker but hasn’t really got much clue what to do when he has the ball.

I really crave forward options who are comfortable running at the back lines taking people on both outside and inside and can make things happen without needing the perfect service.