slater

Oooh crikey, I think anything other than 4-4-2 would more harm than good at the moment. if you take a look at our statistics for possesion the biggest problem seems to be that we hardly ever have any. Play whoever you need to to win and pass the ball in midfield and then surround them with our best players. So.... Marshall Semi Taylor Dublin (c) Loan LB Chadwick Russell Pattison Huck Cureton Loan Target man I get the feeling that Roeder is going to get loans in these positions

70-80% will renew their season tickets. Or to put it the other way round 20-30% won''t. Now I wonder if the board have allowed for that in their financial projections. May have to alert Neil Doncaster myself. As for me, I''ll renew - because that''s what I do.

Ok, we''ve now had three managers giving the hairdryer treatment to our footballers. In particular, the current squad have failed to respond to ''motivation'' from two managers. I know that Roeder is trying to get some new faces in but he''ll only be able to bring in two at the most before Coventry - we''ve already got two of the allowed four. So the squad remains basically the same until January. But there''s one thing we haven''t tried - direct, loud, obvious questioning of the players'' determination by the crowd. I remember Reading doing it with their Players Aren''t Trying Sufficiently (PANTS) protest a few seasons back which involved waving items of underwear about. It''s worth a go?

The problem is that we''ve (badly) we been forced to radhly replace all of our more expensive, better players with cheaper, worse ones as the parachute money runs out. A bit like the other two teams (Palace and Soton) who came down with us from the Premiership. Now look at the league table and tell me how much better they''re getting on?

In an odd way you have just made me feel a bit better. Despite the horror of our current situation that''s exactly how I feel. And i''d very surprised if we didn''t have 15,000 + season ticket holders in the First (proper Third) Division.

If by some kind of miracle we did manage to attract some quality footballers here at the moment, the chances of them staying if we got relegated would be very slim. Why would they and we have history with this sort of scenario of course... So to some extent it''d be nigh on possible to get a ''promotion'' squad together in the season we go down - you''d have to start again whatever. So I can''t see any other alternative than to persist with our current squad. And that goes for our current board if we''re miles off the pace (15+ points from safety come January). Not much fun is it?

So what''s it to be? Splash out a lot of cash to avoid relegation? With the consequence that we go down even further indebted and have to lose any players we''ve managed to attract. Or accept that we''re going down whatever we do and make preparations for a decent season in League One? As you might have gathered I reckon we''ve had it whatever happens.

Not sure whether that''s a dig at Huckerby or at fans who think he can save us. Whatever, surely you have to concede that Hucks'' analysis has been absolutely spot on: with the current squad we don''t have a hope of staying up.