Reality Check

Quoted from Garth

it's a generation thing.
Years ago if you wanted something you had to wait and save, now its on the never never.

Really! I'm 82, bought my first car an Austin 7 when I was 17 on HP for £2:17/6 per month over 2 years,  it was £50 cash

HP has been around for a very long time. My mother bought a bicycle on HP in the 1920's. The difference is that it has become more accessible and the go-to option for a lot more people

The reality check for me is that we are very reliant upon the availability of a handful of players. This will come as news to no one, but we are much less of a force when Hunt, Taylor, McAtee and Clifton aren't on the pitch - here's how our PPG stats stack up with and without each of them on the pitch for at least 60 minutes (I've treated the Kiddy game as a point earning fixture for the sake of illustration, as I think it's relevant):

[img]https://i.ibb.co/5LrjmDg/ppg.png[/img]
When any one of these key players are missing, our points taken from those fixtures tanks. With all four of them playing at least 60 mins, our PPG is 2.56 - title-winning form. With any one of them missing, it drops to 1.5 - upper mid-table form. Given that during the last three games we've failed to get more than 60 minutes out of more than two of them (and zero against Wealdstone), it's perhaps unsurprising that we've lost all three.

Only recently, we were unsurprisingly pleased with the fact that we appeared not to be reliant on individuals, with goals coming from everywhere. We play as a team, a highly effective cohesive unit. Whilst I think that's true, I now think we're possibly even more vulnerable to injury. In effect, if any one of these four players is unavailable, our chances of winning plummet. The chances of having all four fit and available for every game are low, and that's a big problem.

It's not so much that the players replacing them are bad; I honestly don't think that's the case. However, these four are so integral to our A-game that just one absentee upsets the dynamic.

How do you solve it? Perhaps the most straightforward thing to do is to play all of them when available, regardless of tactical approach. There have been times when we've opted not to play Hunt or Taylor from the start, and we've suffered for it.

Beyond that, you either have to find alternative ways of playing without them (something we've failed to do convincingly so far this season), or you find a way to recruit genuine, like-for-like replacements (something we simply don't have in our squad right now).

I honestly think recruitment over the coming weeks will be fundamental to our chances of winning the league, but I don't think it's anywhere near as simple as bringing in a new number 9.

Quoted from Poojah

The reality check for me is that we are very reliant upon the availability of a handful of players. This will come as news to no one, but we are much less of a force when Hunt, Taylor, McAtee and Clifton aren't on the pitch - here's how our PPG stats stack up with and without each of them on the pitch for at least 60 minutes (I've treated the Kiddy game as a point earning fixture for the sake of illustration, as I think it's relevant):

[img]https://i.ibb.co/5LrjmDg/ppg.png[/img]
When any one of these key players are missing, our points taken from those fixtures tanks. With all four of them playing at least 60 mins, our PPG is 2.56 - title-winning form. With any one of them missing, it drops to 1.5 - upper mid-table form. Given that during the last three games we've failed to get more than 60 minutes out of more than two of them (and zero against Wealdstone), it's perhaps unsurprising that we've lost all three.

Only recently, we were unsurprisingly pleased with the fact that we appeared not to be reliant on individuals, with goals coming from everywhere. We play as a team, a highly effective cohesive unit. Whilst I think that's true, I now think we're possibly even more vulnerable to injury. In effect, if any one of these four players is unavailable, our chances of winning plummet. The chances of having all four fit and available for every game are low, and that's a big problem.

It's not so much that the players replacing them are bad; I honestly don't think that's the case. However, these four are so integral to our A-game that just one absentee upsets the dynamic.

How do you solve it? Perhaps the most straightforward thing to do is to play all of them when available, regardless of tactical approach. There have been times when we've opted not to play Hunt or Taylor from the start, and we've suffered for it.

Beyond that, you either have to find alternative ways of playing without them (something we've failed to do convincingly so far this season), or you find a way to recruit genuine, like-for-like replacements (something we simply don't have in our squad right now).

I honestly think recruitment over the coming weeks will be fundamental to our chances of winning the league, but I don't think it's anywhere near as simple as bringing in a new number 9.

Its funny because your famous rant was 12 years old yesterday and it’s amazing how you’ve remained so insightful for so many years. Fantastic view on the current dilemma we find ourselves in.

Quoted from pontoonlew

Its funny because your famous rant was 12 years old yesterday and it’s amazing how you’ve remained so insightful for so many years. Fantastic view on the current dilemma we find ourselves in.

Was it really? Deary me, that makes me feel old. Incidentally, 'consistently insightful' is literally the opposite description of me my wife would give you, I can assure you.

As dilemmas go, this is one of the more pleasant ones we've had to solve, but solve it we must if we want to have a serious crack at the title.

Quoted from Poojah

The reality check for me is that we are very reliant upon the availability of a handful of players. This will come as news to no one, but we are much less of a force when Hunt, Taylor, McAtee and Clifton aren't on the pitch - here's how our PPG stats stack up with and without each of them on the pitch for at least 60 minutes (I've treated the Kiddy game as a point earning fixture for the sake of illustration, as I think it's relevant):

[img]https://i.ibb.co/5LrjmDg/ppg.png[/img]
When any one of these key players are missing, our points taken from those fixtures tanks. With all four of them playing at least 60 mins, our PPG is 2.56 - title-winning form. With any one of them missing, it drops to 1.5 - upper mid-table form. Given that during the last three games we've failed to get more than 60 minutes out of more than two of them (and zero against Wealdstone), it's perhaps unsurprising that we've lost all three.

Only recently, we were unsurprisingly pleased with the fact that we appeared not to be reliant on individuals, with goals coming from everywhere. We play as a team, a highly effective cohesive unit. Whilst I think that's true, I now think we're possibly even more vulnerable to injury. In effect, if any one of these four players is unavailable, our chances of winning plummet. The chances of having all four fit and available for every game are low, and that's a big problem.

It's not so much that the players replacing them are bad; I honestly don't think that's the case. However, these four are so integral to our A-game that just one absentee upsets the dynamic.

How do you solve it? Perhaps the most straightforward thing to do is to play all of them when available, regardless of tactical approach. There have been times when we've opted not to play Hunt or Taylor from the start, and we've suffered for it.

Beyond that, you either have to find alternative ways of playing without them (something we've failed to do convincingly so far this season), or you find a way to recruit genuine, like-for-like replacements (something we simply don't have in our squad right now).

I honestly think recruitment over the coming weeks will be fundamental to our chances of winning the league, but I don't think it's anywhere near as simple as bringing in a new number 9.

And finding the right number 9 is not simple.
The right 9 could change those stats though. Chesterfield have been injury-ravaged, and playing shite according to their fans on Football Forum...