Help me

I am normally a glass half full person, but at the moment I just cannot get myself into a positive frame of mind about the coming season. I am not seeing "guaranteed" top end of the league players on the books. A lot with potential and 2 or 3 seasoned pros.Some contracted players who did not do it for us last season. I am struggling to see a style of play or formation forming despite having plenty of "bodies in the building". I see a lot of experimenting again, no stability which is likely to lead to inconsistency.I am as keen as anyone for Slade to succeed but I don't see it at present and am a bit underwhelmed with the players we now have, Don't worry I am not suicidal but could do with a dose of optimism. All help will be appreciated.

I think it's been a bit of a boring transfer window, with few rumours.

At least you don't support 'ull?

I think that Slade will prioritise getting the team solid and hard to beat. We may have kept quite a lot of clean sheets last season but when we conceded that was it, we fell 2 or 3 behind. If we could get in at 1-0 in these games then there'd be half a chance we could sneak a result. Barnet, Cheltenham, Hartlepool, Crewe, Colchester, Exeter are all examples of this. This is purely a mentality thing, we could clearly defend but we didn't have the confidence to come from behind or keep a score down.

The defence won't be weaker, I never thought Andrew was a great defender, he was a fantastic attacker and great athlete but did get caught out of position and play the odd terrible ball too often. He did improve throughout the season though, probably because he was playing for the first time in years. Slade needs a defensive minded left back and a good, athletic partner for Collins then we can allow Osborne, Jones, Dembele etc to express themselves going forward and not worry too much about defending.

I am optimistic, there is clearly an awful lot of talent in the squad but the majority needed to get to grips with League 2 football and everyone needed to have a manager who could clearly present a cohesive and understandable plan. With all that added together we'll have a really good side IMO.

I'm still staggered we allowed Shaun Pearson to leave while we have re-signed two 36 year olds.

Dembele hasn't ever played a league game so us unknown really. Rose? I work in Mansfield and have heard very average reports about him, but we'll give him a go. The winger from relegated Port Vale? Again, we'll give him a go.

I'm ready for a break from football, Town in particular. Last season was largely a yawnfest, no real chance of promotion under that clown Bignot, never in danger either. We do have some good players, Osborne, Jones in particular (fair one, credit to Bignot there) so there is some sort of base.

I think Slade will get us sorted, but I wonder how much ambition there really is to win promotion, it's only div 4, are we waiting on the new ground?

Oldun...you should know by now ,if your alter ego is a reflection of your status that is, we could have the most exciting of transfer windows on paper and look like absolute dog shite once the friendlies start....or the polar opposite....i am confident that RS will however try and have a side that is hard working & organised ala Hurst but also one that will give us some off your seats counter attacking style play.
A good sign to me is , despite us already having a myriad of other central midfielders on the books, RS has bought in the one type that Hurst/Bignot failed to include in the form of Rose, who hopefully will live upto his box to box tag. He has also brought in some actual wide players which again were largely lacking under Hurst and almost extinct after Bignot's axe wielding.

Some early shoots of hope for me, i also think that RS may also have a bit of wheeler dealing to do late pre season/ mid August as that is when those that he has inherited will really discover that they do not fall under his favour and will maybe want to ship themselves out to try elsewhere rather than languish. I would expect RS to have targets in mind that he will maybe have to wait until the first deadline day to officially approach.

It's early June...

Feeling a bit underwhelmed myself but it is early yet,players are on holidays so maybe things will start to move in a week or two. We do seem lumbered with one or two sub standard players though.

The bookies have us 18th favourites to win the league so they aren't particularly optimistic either.

We all feel a bit underwhelmed at the minute I think.

Perhaps this is because 2017 follows on from the euphoria of being back in the league last year and being in the middle of OP the previous pre-season.

One thing I am sure about is that RS & PW will not be letting the grass grow under their size 11s while we are sitting around twiddling our collective keyboards waiting for news.