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I have sympathy for some of the young players out there who clearly aren’t ready and must be getting scarred by the experience.
I have less sympathy for the likes of Nuttal though who is half hearted at best and for a big strong looking player seems unusually reluctant to even physically engage to any meaningful extent.
The experienced players that came off the bench in the end did nothing to stem the tide.
If anything, when they came on we somehow managed to deteriorate further!
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There was no significant difference between the side that played yesterday and the make up of our sides over the last 2 months.
Rovers scored 7, but even had they needed more I’m fairly certain they’d have got them.
The only difference between yesterday and other games was that Rovers had to go for broke, where in previous games where we have shipped 3 or 4, sides have taken their foot off the throttle when the result was beyond doubt.
So, I don’t really see how Northampton can complain about somehow being robbed of promotion by the worst side in the league. What did they think was going to happen yesterday at Rovers?
Yesterday was the final humiliation though of an awful season. I was embarrassed to be there.
The club has been totally ruined by Swann but a few of the players out on the field need to hold their hands up as well.
I don’t know where they wanted to be yesterday but it certainly wasn’t out there playing for us.
As professional ‘athletes’ some of them should feel totally ashamed.
Given the rather prickly nature of the current regime you have to be careful what you say……
But, the loan issue is just one of a catalogue of issues that revolve around what has been said, as opposed to what has actually been subsequently done.
So I won’t call Swann a liar, because that would be grossly unfair, impugn his magnificent reputation as a shrewd businessman of high repute and also his general standing as a fabulous all round guy.
What I would say however is that what’s historically been said as opposed to what’s actually been done seems to have nothing more than a passing (and very casual) acquaintance with the truth.
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Without new owners we will have a bottom 8 budget – that’s where we would have been this season with our current budget if we’d been in that league.
I don’t expect crowds to totally tank at the outset, there will be a novelty factor I suppose, so I’m hoping they manage to hover around 2,000.
Without new ownership and impetus though I think we’ll struggle to avoid relegation.
It will be bottom 4 go down in that league next season so you might end up needing 50 points – which will mean we have to win a hell of a lot more games than we have managed over the last 4 seasons.
We essentially need a new squad as well because this side would be relegated in that division let alone League 2.
Sadly, I predict 22nd, and another relegation.
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He’s played a load of kids and can hide behind that to an extent but it’s not an excuse – because it’s not fair on some of them who clearly aren’t ready.
It’s just trying to paper over the obvious cracks by saying you are giving youth a chance.
I felt genuinely sorry for Ethan Young yesterday.
He’s an 18 year old centre half making his full league debut at left back for some unknown reason when we had O’Malley on the bench – and he was up against Paul Smythe, who had him on toast. It was almost child cruelty and as far as I can see served no purpose whatsoever.
Even if they were actually ready they’ve been presented with an impossible task coming into that side.
Gallinore and Moore-Billam (when he came on) weren’t bad – at least they were prepared to physically engage which was more then you can say for some of the others.
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It was an insipid performance, which we’re used to, but the last 20 minutes of the first half was beyond embarrassing,
LT was present along with the club Secretary who both had to sit there (and try and grin and bear it).
No sign of our ex Chairman though. As captain of the ship I thought he might have had the guts to turn up to go down when his vessel so to speak.
Clearly not. Spineless.
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In all seriousness he does a lot of horror movies I believe so it sounds like a good fit.
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It’s probably been smelted already.
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Everyone will need to synchronise watches.
Timed protests are difficult now because of the absence of a working scoreboard!
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I haven’t seen any libellous comments on this post so it’s a non point as far as I can see no matter how much UTI would like otherwise.
There’s lots of anger and frustration but everything I’ve seen falls within the realms of fair comment and defence of the truth in my opinion.
I honestly think things have been remarkably restrained given the ongoing shambles.
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“Whatever you may hear or see I haven’t taken one penny out of the club”
Doesn’t the ground count?
And the interest I believe that was charged on the loan prior to that point, and I assume he’ll be letting us stay there rent free from now on……….
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Some of it is genuinely funny – was he able to write it with a straight face I wonder? Maybe he’s got a scriptwriter?
‘…..I have given everything….’
Phew, thank god for that. If he’d only done a half baked job we might be in real trouble now.
‘Given everything’ doesn’t extend to actually going to any matches of course, perhaps using the opportunity to engage with corporate sponsors before and after games, try and drive the turnover up a bit, etc etc.
3 users thanked author for this post.
Yeah, load of old cobblers and nothing changes.
Hasn’t even confirmed whether the Swann’s are staying on the board (i think we all know the answer to that).
Reckons the terms of the loan put then at a massive disadvantage.
That’s odd, because he said previously the restrictions made no difference because we’d have run a budget that complied with the terms anyway
Also reckons he daren’t risk the club borrowing money they can’t pay back.
That’s odd as well, because he wasn’t shy about letting the us run up £11m of debt to enable us to lose the ground.
He’s so full of it it’s actually funny.
At least he get he can get on that stage in Blackpool and save himself the cost of booking a comedian.
9 users thanked author for this post.
It’s quite amusing really because unless sone really toxic/outlandish criticism is made I think we’ve actually gone beyond the libel point at Scunthorpe.
As we all know libel actions are incredibly expensive to bring – they have to be heard in the High Court and just to get through the door costs tens of thousands of pounds as a matter of course.
There’s no guarantee on a return on your cash even if you’re successful because quite often you’ll be pursuing a man of straw and awards on costs and damages for libel are also wildly unpredictable.
The usual trick is to send out a bullish cease and desist letter promising hell and damnation if there isn’t a retraction etc etc and then leave it at that.
In the current climate it seems our Chairman can’t afford to get an electrician in to fix the score board let alone fund an all expenses paid trip to the High Court for a few frustrated supporters who get carried away on the keyboard on a Saturday night after another woeful beating.
Hence, I’d be surprised if UTI99’s fairy godmother is able to grant his wish of mass litigation and a bloodbath down at the Royal Courts of Justice.
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The problem PS has, is that whilst he has historically threatened litigation in the past against sone of those who have dared to express critical opinions of the great man (and in some cases perhaps gone too far) – given his abject performance over the last 4 years and the perilous state the club is in, most of the criticism now falls under the ‘fair comment’ and ‘defence of the truth’ category!
His position has been weakened considerably having been criticised by a number of high profile individuals in the media (Stelling, Neville, former players etc), and also having made a number of statements/promises that have simply not been borne out in fact.
Anyone sticking remotely to the facts and not making wholly toxic and unfair accusations is unlikely to get into hot water with our glorious leader these days.
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It’s difficult though isn’t it – a young player comes in, he’ll show promise and then after a handful of games he’ll start to struggle mentally and physically because he isn’t ready to play week in week out at that level, even though long term he’s probably going to be good enough.
Cribb has had a lot of intense football now in the last couple of months, and they’ve been hard games in a bad side who are about to be relegated.
He wouldn’t be human if he wasn’t starting to struggle a bit short term.
Gallimore has had significantly less first team football recently and so will at least have the advantage of a bit of freshness and won’t be quite as badly battle scarred.
Get half a dozen quick games into his legs playing with that shower and he’ll inevitably start to look like he’s in the same boat as well.
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You’ll all not be surprised to hear the academy is apparently a bit of a shambles.
It’s actually a miracle anyone emerges through the current system.
Essentially they stopped recruiting back in March 2020 for a significant period of time – and the coaching set up became a revolving door.
There is a constant shortage of personnel and they are chronically short of players particularly in the younger age groups.
At various points this season for example, because of a shortage of players, year groups have had to be combined – so you have a ridiculous situation where say year 8 and 9 players are being made to play together in competitive academy matches making it close to impossible to judge players properly against their peers – both team mates and opponents.
Players are now also approached at grass root clubs en masse.
I know of one club in the Hull Boys League where they tried to take 4 of their players in one go whilst the season was ongoing – not because there was any real expectation of them being of potential professional standard you understand, but just to get bodies in the building.
Because their reputation precedes them, to my knowledge not one of those 4 have yet elected to go.
I’m also aware of a couple of players this season (bearing in mind these lads are 12 and 13 and still chasing the dream) who were so disillusioned at the set up they decided to go back to grass root clubs – as in, they left a professional clubs academy without being released!
The stories go on and on.
Safe to say, the current set up seems to accurately mirror other areas of the clubs performance.
I suspect they’ll stagger on for another season or so but then the funding will totally dry up and they’ll end up folding it up.
1 user thanked author for this post.
That’s true to a very large extent.
The quality of front players at the club is dismal but the service is so poor it’s irrelevant who is up front really because they’re feeding off scraps.
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Sums up the season really.
Huffed and puffed, plenty of effort, defended well and had a few moments going forward but they’re just so pitifully short of goals and any real creativity.
If you’re looking for a few crumbs of comfort it was a very young side with lots of lads right at their beginning of their careers – and who will hopefully be with us next season – so there’s just a little bit of hope going forward.
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This is all smoke and mirrors as far as I can see – with Swann cynically trying to distance himself from the carnage just BEFORE we go down and also just before people start looking too closely at the annual accounts which have just been published (only £5.8k of the loan written down in return for GP and still a ‘real’ loss of £1m??!!)
If Swann, the beautiful Karin and their ‘moron’ son Chris (your words Chris, not mine) were all to resign from the board as well (and take the chief scout with them) and state that whilst they are of course the majority shareholders for the time being they would remain at arms length to the club then that would be a different matter – but they haven’t stated that.
This all looks like a bit of deck chair shuffling to quell the peasants revolt – and they’ve had to bring LT in to do it because SE couldn’t take any more of their absolute and total crap.
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Ashman did a great job in 70’s on meagre resources – difference being he was given time.
Laws ultimately produced the goods for us us as well, on limited funds – again the difference being he was given time.
There’s a theme……
