Just Back

A mid table finish would be a good result for us this season, I’ve always said that. I know people won’t like it, but it’s where we’re at. I’d say it’s quite rare for a team to do as bad as we did last season and then go and storm the league the next. Mid table would not be the end of the world and would give us something to build on.

As people have said - Accy Stanley are proof you don’t need the biggest budget to do well, but they were building for a good few seasons before they eventually went and won it. Patience is required to do this.

It’s a shame Fox and Cardwell have been injured so far...I think they both finished the season brightly and could bring something to this team that others currently aren’t.

Quoted from Northbank Mariner

Sorry cloudy but the budget statement is flawed, take a look at Accringtons playing budget last season...They got promoted by putting the right type of players in the right places in a small squad who all worked hard for each other...it wasn't an overnight success story for them, in they went through an evolution not a revolution over nearly 4 years, stuck with the manager and eventually had the success they deserved....so maybe we need to know where we are in terms of budget and be real about our chances of any success in the future..

Using a once in every ten years Accrington scenario as the only ray of hope is not a healthy place to be for our fans. Accrington were living on gates of well below 2k FFS. Should we have been despatched so easily out of the cup while playing at home against a side that narrowly escaped relegation to our league last season? And by a club that even with an extra £200k in EFL payments exists on a lower annual turnover than us? The squad churn over the summer at pretty much every League Two club was huge, yet other clubs seem to cope with it better than us. We know the reasons why we can't compete, but no one wants to speak about it or demand change. Yeah lets all ignore it and hunt around for any slivers of vain hope that we can find while fans continue to drift away season by season. 850 away at Macclesfield was a good effort after that 4-1 drubbing, but in years gone by we'd have sold out any allocation for the first away game of the season. Major underlying problems continue and at this stage I'm not sure even MJ can do no more than to make us a solid lower mid table League Two side with the ammunition he's been given. It's not fair to him in his first League job and it's not fair on us the fans.

It's beyond the gumption of our club to offer something like a "two in for a tenner" offer for the game last night. We may have attracted more than 4k and produced a more hostile atmosphere for Rochdale which would increase the chances of extending a cup run or securing a money spinning tie in the next round. Yes, we may have taken less through the gates than a full price 1.7k home gate, but the club haven't a clue about how to speculate to accumulate. And pretty much every tie was discounted last night, so I'd hardly expect Rochdale to be the sole club to object to discounting. This board are very good at balancing the books and living within their means. But it's getting us nowhere and pretty fooking boring and demoralising to be honest. We obviously need investment and new ideas but these added essential ingredients for our club to progress are being roadblocked.

To challenge at the right end of this division, which we should given our home gates, we'll need a quick pacy centre half, wide players left and right, another more mobile midfielder and a striker. We won't get anywhere near that in the loan market I guess. How the hell have we become a "make do, fingers crossed and hope for the best" club in the lower reaches of League Two? It was Rochdale we were playing last night, not a Portsmouth, Sunderland or Charlton. The more I hear these so-called wise sages saying we've got to be realistic, the more I think that I'm one of our few remaining fans holding onto some sort of sanity. League One is full of clubs with turnovers similar to or less than ours, never mind League Two and the sane ones of us left are being told to be realistic. Something's missing at our club and we shouldn't just put up with it like lemmings..

People seem to be mentioning how Rochdale only narrowly avoided relegation last season, without acknowledging that we also only narrowly avoided relegation last season.

Quoted from sam gy

People seem to be mentioning how Rochdale only narrowly avoided relegation last season, without acknowledging that we also only narrowly avoided relegation last season.

I don't need reminding. Three of our last four league 2 seasons have been relegation scraps. One we lost, one we got a reprieve because of points deductions, and one we took perilously close to the edge. We are now at a point where mid table seems acceptable to most, which is sad given our support, and more crucially, our potential support, should someone make us competitive again. I really hope MJ can turn it around, but the early evidence is that it's not going to happen until at least the next transfer window, if at all.

Quoted from sam gy

People seem to be mentioning how Rochdale only narrowly avoided relegation last season, without acknowledging that we also only narrowly avoided relegation last season.

Yes, you're right. But, Rochdale performed pretty much to expectation last season and we massively under performed as a club. The squad turnover at clubs each summer is huge nowadays, so every season clubs have the opportunity to re-invent themselves. I don't think MJ went far enough and maybe his hands were tied too much to be even more radical. We've got huge gaps in pace and quality within our greatly reduced squad this season. How's that happened? What we seem to get year on year is just more of the same. I'm nowhere near writing the season off, see my prediction for the Lincoln game, but we really need three or four quality additions in the loan market not one or two. That's to have an exciting season not just an acceptable one..

But Sam is too young to remember the days when every cup game against a lower team was a potential banner skin. Players used to grab the occasion and play out of their skins to get a result. Except here where we get knocked out without so much of a whimper...again and again and again.  No passion at all. The floodlit cup games used to have a tremendous atmosphere but there is no hope anymore.

The wage bill will be lower though, so that will greatly please some i imagine.

Quoted from Cloudy

Would a 25or 50% reduction in price made much difference to the attendance?

I doubt it to be honest.

The win on Saturday was welcome, at present we may be better suited to playing away, but I think we lack real quality ( even for 4th Division standards) the primarily reason for that is budget..

No, I don't know what our budget is exactly, but talking to some within the club they know we are well behind so many clubs in spending power and I don't mean being outside the top 7 in budget levels.

Budget isn't everything, MJ has to work with the players he has to get as much out of them as possible but a promotion challenge was always pie in the sky IMO

Way way too early to make that call IMO.

I do understand where you're coming from but, and I've said it before, we only have to look at Accrington to see that budget doesn't alway correlate to finishing positions.

If you can put together a squad of hard-working, honest players who all know the system and their individual roles inside out and they work together as a team, you can achieve anything.

From what I've seen so far, every player has put in 100% and are playing for the shirt and the manager....that will take us far IMO. We've got some quality players too, if we can add a couple more in key positions through the loan system I see no reason why we can't have a very good season!

Quoted from realist

But Sam is too young to remember the days when every cup game against a lower team was a potential banner skin. Players used to grab the occasion and play out of their skins to get a result. Except here where we get knocked out without so much of a whimper...again and again and again.  No passion at all. The floodlit cup games used to have a tremendous atmosphere but there is no hope anymore.

As we have already established a few weeks back, i wasn't there on that fateful day in The Wellington Arms in 1878 like yourself, but in 25 years i've seen enough cup games thanks.

It's a shame we are where we are, and yes, it feels strange that we are even considered underdogs against Rochdale, but it's the reality right now, unfortunately. I'm not going to lose my excrement and throw away all hope for the season, because our new squad, headed up by our new manager have lost to a team that are a league above us.

Quoted from Mighty_Mariner

I do understand where you're coming from but, and I've said it before, we only have to look at Accrington to see that budget doesn't alway correlate to finishing positions.

Budget helps but it certainly adds pressure. Salford, Fleetwood and North Ferriby have proven in recent years that it does correlate but you could say Accrington and Mansfield for example have proven it doesn't. Mansfield spent a fortune last year and still finished mid-table.

Leicester won the Premier League with a budget light years behind the usual challengers. Chesterfield had a budget of £3m last season and finished bottom.

People seem obsessed with the budget and it certainly helps but you still have to spend it effectively. It takes time to build a new squad. Coleman has been at Accrington for years. The key is keeping the best players each season and bringing in better than those you release. Revolutions rarely prove successful.