Never in this mess again

Quoted from Hagrid

I’d say its been a disaster, out of the Trophy 1st round, Carabao Cup 1st Round, FA Cup 2nd round after a replay.

2 of the heaviest defeats in club history, and only a 2nd away win of the season coming with 3 games to go

Its been a horror show of a season, and we must, must learn big lessons from this

I think it's been more of a crisis than a disaster. Relegation would have been disastrous, but we must use this season as a lesson (providing we do get over the line as we should) and ensure that we get back on track next season.

Quoted from Theimperialcoroner

The current squad have a core that could be built into something very decent. You add another 4 or 5 quality players to what we have and you are top end. Gotta find these players though and that’s going to be tough.

I do think the main core players we have are DA’s and not Paul Hursts so if we let David recruit like he did in January who knows. UTM

Quoted from Theimperialcoroner

The current squad have a core that could be built into something very decent. You add another 4 or 5 quality players to what we have and you are top end. Gotta find these players though and that’s going to be tough.

Tharme, Thompson, Rose and Vernam is a strong core and a bit of quality that gives a very strong base to work from. A top keeper, another quality centre back and at least one quality centre mid next to Thompson and we won't be in this mess again next season.

I'm hopeful that Artell can pull some rabbits out of a hat but his January signings were promising. It's pretty rare that we sign players midseason that make such an impact, they're usually various shades of crap but Tharme and particularly Thompson have been instrumental in our survival. I also wouldn't be overly surprised if the owners privately are considering putting a bit more in to the budget to maintain interest. It's a noble aim to get the club to be self sufficient and have the infrastructure that we should do as a 21st century FL club but if they let on the pitch matters flounder like Fenty was happy to do then interest will wane and forward momentum will stall. But we will see, it will be an interesting summer for sure and I don't think Artell's recruitment will be anywhere near as bad as Hurst's was.

Quoted from mariner91

Tharme, Thompson, Rose and Vernam is a strong core and a bit of quality that gives a very strong base to work from. A top keeper, another quality centre back and at least one quality centre mid next to Thompson and we won't be in this mess again next season.

I'm hopeful that Artell can pull some rabbits out of a hat but his January signings were promising. It's pretty rare that we sign players midseason that make such an impact, they're usually various shades of crap but Tharme and particularly Thompson have been instrumental in our survival. I also wouldn't be overly surprised if the owners privately are considering putting a bit more in to the budget to maintain interest. It's a noble aim to get the club to be self sufficient and have the infrastructure that we should do as a 21st century FL club but if the let on the pitch matters flounder like Fenty was happy to do then interest will wane and forward momentum will stall. But we will see, it will be an interesting summer for sure and I don't think Artell's recruitment will be anywhere near as bad as Hurst's was.

I think you’re right. I think we also need decent full backs on both sides.

This might sound bomkers but I wouldn’t be surprised if Artell doesn’t try & get Obikwu back on another season king, he seems to really rate him.

I'd love to see us end a League season with a positive goal difference. Is that too much to hope for?

Quoted from HertsGTFC

I think you’re right. I think we also need decent full backs on both sides.

This might sound bomkers but I wouldn’t be surprised if Artell doesn’t try & get Obikwu back on another season king, he seems to really rate him.

We need improvements at full back definitely. But the priority for quality has to be our spine which until Tharme and Thompson shored things up was incredibly weak. If you control the middle of the pitch, it's very difficult for the other team to beat you.

It’s been absolute toilet this season and I’m glad it’s all but done. Not sure DA is the man to take us forward after being subjected to his favoured model early this yeat but happy to be proven wrong. I think the owners have been on to a loser since day one with the state the club and ground were left in. Just be more comfortable next season is my aim.  

Going to swerve football after the Swindon game until I’m at SJP for England vs Bosnia pre-Euros and I can see my interest in that tournament being fairly truncated too.

Just looking at the top goalscorers in the National League, and i see Manny D has scored 21 for Hartlepool, who are only going to finish mid-table. He is joint 4th highest scorer this season so far.

Not bad really

What plays on my mind is how we learnt no lessons going from the 08/09 season — in which we scraped survival in a similarly shocking season — and actually got worse in 09/10.

We thought that, once we got through to the summer, Newell would sign his players, get the squad settled, then we'd kick on. Pretty sure we gave some teams a hammering in pre-season!

And then what followed was an unmitigated disaster.

Just when we thought it couldn't get much worse, it got worse. Relegated out of the league, and six years in non-league with some chastening defeats at places like Chasetown and Braintree.

What we did back then was give a guy who should never have been in charge of us a decent budget to spaff on players that fitted his idea of a 'culture', and it backfired spectacularly.

Obviously, yhe culture 1878 are trying to foster now is the complete opposite to Newell's, but even so, the lesson we didn't heed from back then was that Newell had a good chunk of the season to move us away from danger and he didn't. We struggled right to the end.

It's been a similar story with Artell. He's had two thirds of the season to help kick us on and despite practically securing safety today we're no better than where we were when Hurst got the boot.

Admittedly, there are some signs of improvement. January recruitment is starting to look shrewd. But then we thought the same about Baz Conlon and Peter Sweeney, who both came in and looked great.

Then they signed permanently and tossed it off.

I'm right behind Artell and I want this to work out. A great win at Crewe doesn't immediately banish all the issues we've been having this season, but there have been some worrying defeats under his tenure — record breaking ones, at BP too — and we looked in some serious bother not very long ago.

Of course, he'll get the chance to build a squad in the summer. I just think it'll need careful management from those above him to make sure we're being pragmatic in how we invest.

Because we've been here many times before: manager buys players to play a certain style or system; season starts slowly, then manager has to change system (and therefore personnel) to force a change of luck, it gets messy, we struggle for the entire campaign, manager gets the sack, new one comes in, cycle continues.

Really hope Artell is the man that breaks this annoyingly recurring chain.

last 12 games , since he was persuaded' to change formation - won 4, drawn 5, lost 3 = 17 points ; That's on the cusp of the play offs form

I haven't been convinced by him, but from those stats he definitely deserves to be in charge next season