Just back (merged)

Quoted from Northbank Mariner

When MJ made changes he put square pegs in round holes... Holloway swaps like for like... Holloway has the remaining games to try and play every member of his squad to see who is fit and capable enough to be here next season...I think we can expect him to chop and change in all the remaining games now...

What's the player's fitness now got to do with next season?

As others have said, looking at the positives, we created a lot of chances against a team that have been there or there abouts this season.

Looking at the last handful of games played, it seems pretty clear to me that we’re winning against the lesser teams, and losing against the better teams in the division (Swindon, Northampton), whilst still picking up the odd 3 points against teams that are up there (Colchester). Ie, there’s work to be done, but it’s a good base to work from.

Under MJ we would’ve expected to lose yesterday, under IH we’re all annoyed we lost yesterday. In a way that in itself shows how far we’ve come.

Quoted from sam gy

Under MJ we would’ve expected to lose yesterday, under IH were all annoyed we won yesterday. In a way that in itself shows how far we’ve come.

Hang on, have I missed something here?

Haha, amended

Nothing like as poor a performance as some are suggesting, yes they were better than us but we still created enough clear cut chances to win the game, despite them scoring 3! Under jolley we had got to the stage of being lucky to create 1 clear cut chance in a match.

Quoted from Abdul19

I don't remember the 98 playoff final like that at all - the year before we'd been in the 2nd tier and they'd been in the 4th, whilst after the game that sharp object Atkins moaned about us spending "£2.5m".

As for 2006, we could've won 18-0 that day and we'd still have come 4th.

Hi Abdul

Yes, I agree we were superior to Northampton in 1998 but that is why I said they suffered from hubris. Despite the fact we had a better team, those fans still thought they would have no problem beating Town. They looked down their noses at us!

The last match of 2005-2006 saw us at home v Northampton and we were vying for an automatic promotion place with Leyton Orient. We were leading 1-0 and in pole position to go up automatically. Then at the death it all dramatically changed. Northampton scored an equaliser and seconds later Orient scored which saw them clinch automatic promotion. We were condemned to the play-offs. Beat Lincoln in the po semi-final and lost to Cheltenham in the final. It was a very controversial end to the season for us with stories about Slade negotiating a deal (allegedly) with Yeovil (I think) in the lead in to the final. Had we gone up that season we might have been saved a lot of suffering as we continued to slide downwards towards the Conference.

I would assume if we were involved in a relegation fight then the team would be relatively settled, eg, what Ollie thinks is his first 11, to achieve results and be safe, but as we are safe he is in the luxury position of being able to try various formations and personnel.

Quoted from hampshiremariner

Had we gone up that season we might have been saved a lot of suffering as we continued to slide downwards towards the Conference.

It would have taken us a season longer to get down there you mean?

We had numerous shots at goal from distance (Clifton was prominent here) without any shots being on target. That is from memory anyway.  Shouldn’t we have made better use of possession?

Strange old game yesterday. Lost 3 nil and not at our best but we missed some golden chances. Poor decisions from Grandin in the first half on the break and then a couple of sitters missed by Clarke in the second.
We could easily have scored 3+ ourselves.

Thought their striker was the difference.