Hopes and fears for 24-25

A very rare post from me but as I have a little time on my hands, I thought I would add my two penneths worth for debate.

I have no idea who we are about to sign, who has turned us down or much else tbh, but like most of you I still have hopes and aspirations for the season.

Most of my thoughts revolve around entertainment, or the lack of it at Blundell Park. I am an advocate of possession based football, but not in favour of seeing 4th division footballers trying to pass it around our own penalty area when the opposition are playing a high pressing game.

It must be around 20 years since we looked like scoring anywhere near enough goals in the EFL. For that reason alone I want us to at least try and play positive, front foot football. Move the ball quickly, get players into the opposition box and deliver passes and crosses into that area. Create chances, opportunities.
Simple? Maybe, maybe not, but playing cautious, risk adverse football has got us relegated twice and too close for comfort on far to many other occasions. Why not try a more adventurous approach, it can’t be any worse

It is my view that players today are over coached, especially those at our level. What on earth happened to going out to express yourself, play without fear? A huge bugbear of mine is the death of ‘running off the ball’, I suspect for fear of teams counter attacking if you are out of position. It is far too regimented, and fearful.

We don’t have managers these days we have coaches. Even as fans we often hear people complaining about being tactically naieve, usually after a defeat. I’d rather we have a real man manager ( do they exist?). Someone who sets up the team to be positive, drills into players passing and movement but especially a positive mentality in the final third. Tells the players they can win games if they are clever and work harder than their opponents. Supports them, encourages them.

Set mini targets. Must score 4 goals in at least 2 games before Christmas, ( when did that last happen?) need to score in every game. The data, which I believe can play a huge part, needs to be used to prove that the number of passes and crosses into the opposing box has a direct correlation to chances, and hopefully goals scored. Simplified ensure we do these things more times than opponents do to us. I am not advocating route one football, more an attacking creative mindset from the entire playing staff.

Much is made of budget and the direct correlation between that and success but we have seen exceptions, why can’t we be the exception this forthcoming season?

I would accept us flirting with the play offs and falling short provided we are brave from the first minute to the last. We try to entertain and the fans are aware what we are trying to do.

Personally I am not too concern who we sign in the coming weeks provided they are identified as players with the right desire and attitude. Wouldn’t be adverse to a maverick of two, if they have ability beyond us but have a flaw or two.

Summer well fishies

Very simply, my hopes are that this “game model” in which we are now apparently invested in, works. That we sign a group of players whose total is greater than the sum of their parts, and that we have a good tilt at the play-offs, winning a majority of our home games, playing attractive and entertaining football along the way.

My fears are that it simply doesn’t work. That attempting to go from the safety-first, pragmatic game insisted on by Hurst and latterly by Artell last season to sexy football in a single transfer window is too much, too soon.

Honestly, I think it could end up at or anywhere in between any of those two extremes. If we want to take positives, our recruitment in January was generally solid and Artell displayed some reasonable tactical agility to help turn our fortunes around. I just hope he’s been able to learn from the mistakes made in his initial attempt at implementing his preferred playing style, which was haphazard at best and at worst suicidal.

We’ve got an intriguing season in front of us, that’s for certain.

Agree with quite a lot of that..particularly the overload of information, over coaching, regimental approach to tactics.

I said last season when we were in that awful run (which one 😂) few weeks after DA arrived - imho football in League 2 needn’t be complicated. Organised at back, some pace in wide areas, a goal scorer , whip balls in .. law of averages you’ll score a few (I know that’s simplified but you know what I mean) - felt at times last season  players were been fed info and visibly you could see them trying to compute it in certain positions. Instead of playing ‘naturally’ .. playing like I ‘should’ be doing that/stood there etc.

If we were to have a season of improving - shouldn’t be hard - mixed with a bit more goal threat/entertainment, mixed with some heart/strength - most will be happy. I’d love us to sign a pretty ‘unknown’ guy from lower level whom has nothing to lose and everything to gain, with pace, skill and only intent is taking on people. And not drill it out of him.

That said every team in the league would want the above in some way I’d have thought, but tbh this is the best time to come to Grimsby.. clubs coming off an awful season and a blank sheet so to speak in starting anew. A complete fresh start. There’s lots to gain.

Quoted from Poojah

Very simply, my hopes are that this “game model” in which we are now apparently invested in, works. That we sign a group of players whose total is greater than the sum of their parts, and that we have a good tilt at the play-offs, winning a majority of our home games, playing attractive and entertaining football along the way.

My fears are that it simply doesn’t work. That attempting to go from the safety-first, pragmatic game insisted on by Hurst and latterly by Artell last season to sexy football in a single transfer window is too much, too soon.

Honestly, I think it could end up at or anywhere in between any of those two extremes. If we want to take positives, our recruitment in January was generally solid and Artell displayed some reasonable tactical agility to help turn our fortunes around. I just hope he’s been able to learn from the mistakes made in his initial attempt at implementing his preferred playing style, which was haphazard at best and at worst suicidal.

We’ve got an intriguing season in front of us, that’s for certain.

I think after DA's admittance that he tried things too soon that we'll see a totally different side to the one that finished the season but also a totally different style to the one he tried to implement.

Hopes: I think we will sign some cracking new players who gel quickly with existing members of the squad who up their game to their full potential. We'll make a strong start and power on to automatic promotion playing attractive football and scoring loads of goals.
Fears: I think we will miss out on all our best signings targets, sign a crock of sh!te and some young lads on loan who look like they've won a competition. The existing members of the squad will play at their worst, lose confidence and after a bad start we will plummet out of this league with a record number of goals conceded.
Which I feel today and tomorrow will depend on some 15 year old tweeting "itk" info and random posts on here saying we've signed someone or missed out on someone. It's the Grimsby way! 😂

Hopes: players are signed individually. Nobody really knows if they work together. It's largely luck I suspect. Oh, for a positive goal difference!

Fears: another wasted season going through the usual phases with a sacking somewhere in the middle.

To be honest after last season I think we are just doomed to be rubbish forever. Nearly 20 years since we last finished in the league two play offs or higher.

I'm relatively confident for the coming season based on what Artell did throughout his time in charge last season.  Don't get me wrong, it wasn't perfect!  

That initial expansive football was incredibly welcome and enjoyable, especially on the back of some quite dull stuff for a few months under Hurst and then the gradual evolution into something a bit better under Pearson and Davies.  But it absolutely was too much-too soon.  The majority of the players weren't ready for it, not after the initial adrenaline of it all wore off and Artell was open enough to admit this.  At first he thought he had better players than he anticipated but then once he got chance to look a bit further it was evident (to all) that we didn't and our squad was a mess.

That mess and his, shall we call it naïve approach, resulted in a quite horrible run.  It might have taken a bit longer to realise than most of us would have liked, but Artell got there and reverted back to a very robust style of play with a back 3/5 and less expansive style of play.  For me this was all part of the development and the learning that was always going to come in the back end of last season.  We got too close to the relegation places for my liking but I always felt it would be full of ups and downs rather than anything else, very much just an extended pre-season as he found out what works/doesn't work and who of that squad will be with us as we look to progress moving forward.

We can't go gung-ho like we did in his first six weeks, just like we can't go with that grinding out approach over the course of a season (purely from an entertainment aspect we, as fans, deserve better than that).  I don't think Artell would ever entertain going down that path unless it's absolutely necessary either.

There's a happy medium in there and I think we saw little bits of it towards the end of the season.  Crewe away and second half of Swindon at home for example, perhaps glimpses in the MK Dons win at home too.  His transfer dealings were positive and I can't stress how important it is that we don't get hung up on the fact that we haven't signed 10 players yet, the speed of your business is never an indication of the quality.  

I want to be entertained more often than not next season, but I also want us to improve too.  That means improving defensively, tactically, with and without the ball and also in the sheer number of goals we score and points we pick up.   That's what we all want really - by all I mean all football fans.  Every single fan in this league will want that.  Some will demand that success comes with it too, I hope the majority of our fans are patient enough to hope for success rather than demand it.  I'm always ridiculously optimistic for every forthcoming season, but I do have a sneaky feeling this one might be better than a lot anticipate.

Hope - to finish above 11th with another decent cup run

Fear - our regular struggle with Artell imploding , another manager to pay off and the roulette of another appointment .

Hopes,

- Finish above halfway
- More home wins
- Score more & concede less than last season.
- Pass the ball better.
- 1878's plan progresses to schedule and the new CEO gels.
- Cup run.

Fears

- We get sucked into another struggle, still think L2 will be really competitive next season.
- Injuries to key players as I doubt we'll have loads to pick from.
- "The Grimsby Way" gets in the way.
- The new shirt looking stupid on my fat frame.
- Kick off times being too stupid for supporters.

I'm happy with a steady season to be honest as long as we win more games than last year and play better football.