Unnecessary gamble...

[Budapest Canary 152]

[quote user="Mickdundee"]The problem with not hitting the ground running and not being in the play offs minimum, will just mean that next year anybody with any value or quality will be off. The likes of Pritchard won''t be wanting to play mid table championship football.

Which in turn means we''ll be back shopping in the league 2 or the German equivalent, which will more likely than not lead to an ever longer stay in the championship[/quote]That.

[ZLF 271]

yearning for Irvine and last seasons over paid under-performing show ponies is pointless.

We were picking up NO more points per game under irvine than neil and when the crunch came (eg fulham at home) we crumbled away with the same shall i turn up today or not attitude that was a feature of the two previous seasons.

It IS a worry that so far every league game had seen a worse performance than the one before.

It is a worry that we have yet to fire either defensively or as an attacking team.

The capitulation at villa yesterday had some crumbs of comfort - last seasons visit couldnt even muster that.

I am concerned that we are struggling; I do not like that we we still can not win without having pinto in the starting XI. I am concerned that when the coach picks a team to be defensively solid in midfield (yesterday) the 5 chosen players in a 451 offer no attacking output in 45 mins and even less defensively shielding. I dont like that the back 4 struggled to be solid even with a choc teapot midfield in front of them.

I do think that the coach asked for a performance of so many individual errors from too many individuals.

I dont see it being any worse than last season.

I do see scope for improvement from this squad that was never going to happen from last seasons options.

We are down to hoping that sporting director acts to solidify the def mid and centre backs in the next 11 days, that the coach is firm in his convictions & ruthless in his treatment with the players, and that the players learn much faster than they are at the moment to deliver what the coaches want and step up to the challenge and opportunity they have. There is no one in the squad exempt from that so far this season.

[king canary 7,580]

What ZLF said.

There are some positives to be taken from what we''ve seen so far. I''ve been impressed by Reed and Maddison, Nelson seems to still be clinical and the coach seems capable of using more than one formation.

However the fact that an almost entirely new back 5 seems to have the same struggles defensively as last season is a concern, especially around set pieces. Husband, Gunn, Zimmerman and Franke didn''t play under Neil so there isn''t any hangover from that time to explain it. I''d hoped Franke would be a solid, commanding centre half, the kind we''ve lacked over the last two or three years but so far he''s been a big let down.

Obviously there is a lot of time for this to be changed but I''ve seen more worrying signs than positive in these first few games.

[holt, who goes there? 9]

[quote user="Darth Canary1"]Well im willing to give it a couple of seasons to be honest. I think the route we''ve taken is the right one.[/quote]

I''m presuming that''s as long as we stay in the championship and are competing for the playoffs. Would you still have the same confidence in taking this route if we''re mid table in league one in 14 months time?

I honestly don''t think we''ll go down but all this talk about buying players for the future and the big project is absolute twoddle. The only thing that matters in football is "the now" as it all revolves around results. Does anyone actually think that farke will still be here if we do go down and are struggling to get back up? He''ll be sacked the same as every other football manager regardless of what the project is. Come to think of it, I''m sure that Alex Neil was some sort of project initially and look how that turned out.