Lessons from past seasons...

[king canary 7,558]

I''m a little concerned with lots of the talk on here being about how we need to keep players (Whittaker, Bassong, Martin etc) and the attitude of ''this squad got us up two seasons ago so they can do it again.''

I seem to remember this same attitude after we got relegated under Worthington. With Ashton, Hucks and McKenzie good for loads of goals, Safri in midfield and Doherty and Fleming in defence we were sure to bounce straight back up. So we bought a few cloggers and back ups like Thorne and Hughes and totally failed to realise that momentum and confidence play big factors in football.

Just because players did well a couple of seasons ago doesn''t guarantee a repeat performance. Players grow stale, lose desire and momentum and teams stall. If we enter the season with the same squad with a couple of tweaks I''ll be hugely concerned.

[PurpleCanary 5,553]

[quote user="king canary"]I''m a little concerned with lots of the talk on here being about how we need to keep players (Whittaker, Bassong, Martin etc) and the attitude of ''this squad got us up two seasons ago so they can do it again.''

I seem to remember this same attitude after we got relegated under Worthington. With Ashton, Hucks and McKenzie good for loads of goals, Safri in midfield and Doherty and Fleming in defence we were sure to bounce straight back up. So we bought a few cloggers and back ups like Thorne and Hughes and totally failed to realise that momentum and confidence play big factors in football.

Just because players did well a couple of seasons ago doesn''t guarantee a repeat performance. Players grow stale, lose desire and momentum and teams stall. If we enter the season with the same squad with a couple of tweaks I''ll be hugely concerned.[/quote]But so even more importantly do managers. I thought Worthington deserved to chance to try to take us straight back up, but in retrospect (sorry, nutty!!!) he was shot as a Norwich City manager. That is not the case with Neil, who certainly should still be hungry for the fight and up for the challenge.

[King Klose 0]

Burnley last season? Pretty much the same squad, went up as Champions.

End of thread.

[GJP 79]

Burnley had a clear way of playing that they stuck to.

We haven''t got that.

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

But our squad has actually bounced straight back up once before already, our squad under Worthy never did that!

[king canary 7,558]

Not really- £9m on Andre Gray, Joey Barton in midfield, Matt Lowton and Rouwen Hennings in defence, more spent in January. They bought in 5 players who played 20 games +.

[CanaryOne 0]

Burnley didnt have Whittaker and Martin in their squad , we look as if we are going to retain players at the back , the same players people have been pulling their hair out about for 2 or 3 years now . This season was the time to get shot of these error prone players .

[daly 499]

Or Bassong

[Jacko 0]

The squad needs freshening up. There is absolutely no doubt about that. A second relegation in three years will have been very demoralising and some new impetus is needed.

However, people really need to get their heads around the fact that we cannot replace every single player in the squad.

Firstly, it would be dangerous and destabilising to do so. Secondly, we simply don''t have the financial capacity to do it even if we wanted to. Whilst it''s evident we''re not going to out of business, Charlie Wyett is probably nearer the truth when he says we have a high wage bill and not a huge amount of money to spend as a result.

This means that we need to prioritise certain positions which desperately need strengthening and make compromises in other areas. That is sensible management of limited resources.

I personally see the retention of Whittaker as a smart move. Pinto appears to have established himself as first choice full back. So I very much doubt many other clubs at this level will have a promotion winning, Scottish international as cover. It is foolish to undervalue what we already have at the club. Finding that level of cover elsewhere would not be easy.

Whittaker is here on a one year contract. So if we did get promoted and felt that we needed to make an ''upgrade'' in the full back area then there is definitely scope to do so. But we can worry about that problem if it arrives. There''s no guarantee at all it will.

I think it''s beyond question that we fell short in both penalty boxes last season, so it means that our resources can instead be prioritised and channelled into strengthening the central defensive and centre forward positions - which are crying out for new additions.

To use that old cliché. We need evolution not revolution.

[king canary 7,558]

I don''t think anyone is calling for us to replace every player in the squad though are they?

My thoughts are basically

1) We have a relatively bloated squad with quite a bit of deadwood in it- we could stand to lose three or four players without actually needing to sign replacements and I imagine we''re wasting quite a bit of money on wages for players like VOO, Andreu and Lafferty.

2) Our squad is quite old and while we''ve got some young players on the fringes (the Murphys, Toffolo, Thompson, Maddison) they are still unknown quantities.

3) We need to improve in central defence and up front.

The Whittaker contract thing confuses me on a few levels. First of all he is an old player and at best a backup, who ended the season as our 4th choice right back. He for me was a prime candidate to wave on his way as we wouldn''t even need to replace him (Pinto first choice, Martin back up).

Instead by renewing him this suggests that Martin is still going to be used primarily as a center back. This leaves us with four center backs so unless we''re selling someone (most likely Klose) we don''t need more numbers in this position. I''m of the opinion that even if we keep Klose we need to be bringing in at least one new center back so unless we''re selling Bassong, Bennett or Martin I''m not sure that is going to happen.

I know it is early and this is a quite pessimistic stance to take but I can''t shake the feeling we''re going to end up starting the season with a combination of Martin/Bassong/Bennett at center half, rather than taking this opportunity to freshen up what has been a pretty poor defence for the last three seasons.

[Hairy Canary 667]

Agreed with you that we simply can''t start the season with Bassong, Bennett and Martin as three of our centre backs KC. For me our biggest weakness last year was at the back which was why a top defender like Kloser stood out compared with those around him.

Also agree that we have to freshen things up as confidence and momentum will have taken one big knock - especially for players that have now come down with us twice. I would certainly hope that signing Whitaker as back up for Pinto is an indication that one or both of Martin/Bassong are on their way. If instead it means that Kloser is off and Martin is needed in the centre then that would be very worrying indeed.

Clearing the deadwood and bringing in fresh talent is vital and is not going to be easy (who wants to buy deadwood after all?) and AN''s transfer record worries me.