Is the playing squad any better than under Fenty.

To answer the thread question at the moment with 21/2 weeks to go to kick off the squad is worse than under Fenty. Unless we get immediate additions to the squad we will be in the shite again. It's allright saying Town forever and have faith as we do but the squad at the moment is woeful.

Cannot be going into the season with Green and Khouri as your midfield options ( which with the way Thompson was moving on Saturday) is looking like its going to be

Quoted from aussiej

According to on-line data (fifa24 etc.scores) this is our best 11 plus reserves:

Best 11:

Eastwood:  60.  Potentially:  63.

Warren:  62.  Pot:  65.
Tharme:  62.  Pot:  69.  (Injured)
McJanet:  63.  Pot:  65.
Hume:  62.  Pot:  65.

Thompson:  63.  Pot:  63.   (Injured)
Green:  61.  Pot:  62.
McEachran:  62.  Pot:  66.

Pyke:  59.  Pot:  61.     (Injured)
Rose:  63.  Pot:  63.     (Injured)
Vernam: 61.  Pot:  61.     (Injured)

Reserves:

Wright:  59.  Pot:  64.
Cass:  61.  Pot:  66.
Rodger:  62.  Pot:  63.        
Carson:  58.  Pot:  69.
Ainley:  60.  Pot:  62.
Kauri:  55.  Pot:  67.
Wilson:  58.  Pot.  59.
Gardner  53.  Pot:  71.
Dadi:  55.  Pot:  65.

Some of the younger players with low scores have room for improvement: Gardner, Dadi, wright etc.

The first 11 does not look too bad but up front and in mid-field there is not much back up for those injured and young ineperienced players. We desperately need more experienced back up players.

As a pessimist, the first thing I would like to know is how that compares to other likely bottom feeders, like bromley, newport and morecambe!

If the owners want Gtfc to play the "Grimsby way" as they remember from the Alan Buckley years. That came out of a team playing in the now championship and costing a lot of money.
We are now in the fourth division and doing things on the cheap. It you want the "Grimsby way" investment in the team is needed. It  will only come from investment in better quality players!

Quoted from aussiej

If the owners want Gtfc to play the "Grimsby way" as they remember from the Alan Buckley years. That came out of a team playing in the now championship and costing a lot of money.
We are now in the fourth division and doing things on the cheap. It you want the "Grimsby way" investment in the team is needed. It  will only come from investment in better quality players!

It’s my biggest fear. Trying to play a style of football is one thing, recruiting players that can do it and within the budget, is another.

Dont like this playing out from the back lark. 4th div players just cant do it.

Quoted from denni266

Dont like this playing out from the back lark. 4th div players just cant do it.

4th division players can do it but they need the other basics of being competitive as well such as being mobile, having some pace and some height for times when you may need to mix it up a bit more. Whether we can afford the players that can do it in the 4th division is another matter though.

Quoted from MuddyWaters

It’s my biggest fear. Trying to play a style of football is one thing, recruiting players that can do it and within the budget, is another.

I think DA will be more pragmatic, he burnt goodwill last  season and I think will be smarter this time or he could be out very rapidly. I expect more possession but not that stupidity again utm

Quoted from marinerjase

And lose a bloody good one for the sake of a few quid a week.

And then there was the Jevons saga..and numerous others who were treat disgustingly bad.

But hey.. don’t let the facts spoil your truth eh..

Wasn't Furneaux in charge at the time of Jevons?

Michael Jolley famously tried a similar approach at the start of the 2017/18 season, but had to abandon that plan pretty quickly as it became apparent that we either didn’t have the budget, or he’d failed to sign the players, to execute it.

It gets lost in the haze of what became a very weird period for the club and for the world more broadly, but he actually had a lot more success doing the exact opposite. Playing archetypal basement division football - get it in the channels, pick up corners and free-kicks, then get it in the mixer and onto the head of big James Hanson. It was a kind of poor man’s Sladeball, without the raw pace of Michael Reddy or the guile of Gary Jones.

Pretty it wasn’t, but it was at least relatively effective for the most part and had us in the play-offs come October, fresh off the back of a 3-1 win away at top of the league Exeter. Owing to a combination of a string of unfortunate postponements and Jolley pushing his own self-destruct button he only got another four games in charge, so we never really got to see how it would pan out, but I always thought it was a mildly interesting exercise in low-budget footballing pragmatism.

Still, Crawley proved last season, against the odds, that you can be successful playing attractive football with the right manager and approach to recruitment. In fact, they proved themselves to be miles better at it, when it mattered most, than the league’s flagship tiki taka outfit in BFS.

There’s clear evidence that it can be done. What I’m not seeing yet is evidence that we have the players to do it ourselves. Not worth getting too het up about that just yet, there are surely midfield and attacking signings to come, in some shape or form. Am I ever so slightly more nervous than I was a week ago, however? Yes.