Something to bear in mind

I know there is some unrest with Paul Hurst and to some extent see the frustration, however there are some other things to consider.
We are undoubtedly lucky to have escaped the National League and to have new owners with the best intentions .
That said the owners despite being forward thinking in their planning will make mistakes this is the only club they have owned and l am sure they are learning all the time .
There is no reason to demand promotion we are a small club that have had some horrendous seasons. There will be a squad which will click but we are a league 2 club with players at league 2 level for a reason.
Interestingly the majority of fans demand ex players back and when they don't produce in the first five games ( Charles Vernam) suddenly all are devastated that we re-signed him. Not a good look is it . Either let it go when players leave or reduce expectations.
There's a lot to be said for enjoying being competitive in a league and taking it for what it is. We are right to have opinions and views which is part of supporting a team as well. But some of the vitriolic stuff you see, and it's only a small minority is borne out of an inability to control emotions.
Supporting a football club must be really difficult if anger overtakes disappointment.
And if we talk about getting it wrong when Holloway came in he was the most lauded appointment I've seen in all my years of supporting Town , so we aren't all infallible ourselves, are we?
I'm not sure Paul Hurst will get it right, given a promotion, a stabilizing season with an FA cup quarter final, he deserves the time to do so. The question is what do we want from a manager. What's are individual/group expectations for the club and what would we settle for, for now.
For me , apart from Wrexham we haven't been turned over, with players to return can we stay in touch and hopefully click. Are there players that Hurst has bought in that perhaps haven't done what he wants. Time will tell but enjoy the ride. We aren't as poor as some would have us believe. and were not as settled  as the signings suggest we should be.Thats football folks

I get your points , but we are not small club in comparison to 2/3rds of league 2 .

We need to strive for better - much 'smaller' clubs have walked right though league 2 with smaller budgets than ours , and 1 or 2 might even this season .

I don't want to see us settling for mid table mediocrity in league 2 , but strive to be an over achiever without the need for 'luck ' but a FULL decent season ,rather than fleeting moments .

We need to do better , to make sure the momentum that has been gained isn't lost like previous false dawns .

When did the reaction to wins and losses become so extreme between utter elation and sheer despondency?

We’ve clearly not set the world alight so far, and of course we shouldn’t settle for mediocrity, but we’re only nine games into the season. Is that enough time to fire a manager? My instinct, as is usually the case when Hurst comes under scrutiny, is that there are a load of people for whom his style has always been perceived as boring, and so whenever there is a chance to jump on him, they take that chance.

When a Hurst team is playing at its best, it is enjoyable to watch – it’s solid to the point you never feel the opposition will score, and the more creative players have licence to do their thing (usually wingers cutting in, playing through-balls, or else the individual brilliance of a McAtee-type or, this season, Eisa). When a Hurst team is not quite clicking then, yes, it can be a bit turgid.

What I would say is that it feels like this year we’ve seen a bit of departure from the default – we’re more possession-based and generally play quite high up the pitch. I assume this has been a conscious decision by the management on our style of play (maybe even in response to last season). You can’t expect to implement a new style and have us playing a flawless passing game combined with thousands of goals from the get-go.

The owners have backed Hurst, the general census is that we’ve upgraded in most areas and I’d back the coaching staff to learn from the first part of the season and improve as we go on.

Quoted from kafunanapar140909

When did the reaction to wins and losses become so extreme between utter elation and sheer despondency?

We’ve clearly not set the world alight so far, and of course we shouldn’t settle for mediocrity, but we’re only nine games into the season. Is that enough time to fire a manager? My instinct, as is usually the case when Hurst comes under scrutiny, is that there are a load of people for whom his style has always been perceived as boring, and so whenever there is a chance to jump on him, they take that chance.

When a Hurst team is playing at its best, it is enjoyable to watch – it’s solid to the point you never feel the opposition will score, and the more creative players have licence to do their thing (usually wingers cutting in, playing through-balls, or else the individual brilliance of a McAtee-type or, this season, Eisa). When a Hurst team is not quite clicking then, yes, it can be a bit turgid.

What I would say is that it feels like this year we’ve seen a bit of departure from the default – we’re more possession-based and generally play quite high up the pitch. I assume this has been a conscious decision by the management on our style of play (maybe even in response to last season). You can’t expect to implement a new style and have us playing a flawless passing game combined with thousands of goals from the get-go.

The owners have backed Hurst, the general census is that we’ve upgraded in most areas and I’d back the coaching staff to learn from the first part of the season and improve as we go on.

Great post.

Yeah that was a good post.

I was idly wondering the other day …..how will our league position and relative budget correlate when we look at both league tables after 10 games? I know the idea of a table of L2 club budgets is an exercise in pure guesswork, probably regardless of how you rate your own acumen, but we are 17th. Let’s say after 10 games we are somewhere between 12th and 20th, what do people make of that? Reckon we’ve got a top 6 budget? Top half budget? Dunno. Does something like 17th seem about right for what we’ve spent on staff?

If I was going to make a guess I’d say we maybe have a middling budget. We’ve got a healthy turnover though - must be top 12. Whether that should make any difference - I’m not clever enough to know, but I’d love to be able to compare progress and performance in that way.

Quoted from kafunanapar140909

When did the reaction to wins and losses become so extreme between utter elation and sheer despondency?

We’ve clearly not set the world alight so far, and of course we shouldn’t settle for mediocrity, but we’re only nine games into the season. Is that enough time to fire a manager? My instinct, as is usually the case when Hurst comes under scrutiny, is that there are a load of people for whom his style has always been perceived as boring, and so whenever there is a chance to jump on him, they take that chance.

When a Hurst team is playing at its best, it is enjoyable to watch – it’s solid to the point you never feel the opposition will score, and the more creative players have licence to do their thing (usually wingers cutting in, playing through-balls, or else the individual brilliance of a McAtee-type or, this season, Eisa). When a Hurst team is not quite clicking then, yes, it can be a bit turgid.

What I would say is that it feels like this year we’ve seen a bit of departure from the default – we’re more possession-based and generally play quite high up the pitch. I assume this has been a conscious decision by the management on our style of play (maybe even in response to last season). You can’t expect to implement a new style and have us playing a flawless passing game combined with thousands of goals from the get-go.

The owners have backed Hurst, the general census is that we’ve upgraded in most areas and I’d back the coaching staff to learn from the first part of the season and improve as we go on.

I have always liked Hurst  and think he's a safe pair of hands who provides great 'moments' but never a consistent title or top 3 challenge , but a team that will in the main finish around where their budget sits in the  league (which he has barring the great season at Shrewsbury and a disaster at Ipswich ) .

My mind hasn't been made up by one game, but from both tenures that in reality Hurst won't get us out of league 2 , unless we scrape 6 or 7th one year and he provides some of those great one off games he seems to be able to .

We will probably go to Swindon and win , because that's the common theme win or draw the games we shouldn't and then draw or lose the one's we should win .

He deserves time as he's earnt it and in all probability we will never be in a relegation fight , but how long that will be fine for the fanbase and more importantly Stockwood and Pettit is the key question I think . If say in 3 years we are a mid table league 2 club in a relatively similiar position will that cut it ?

I will add , I would love it if Hurst and the lads prove me wrong .Because he seems a genuinely decent bloke and the knee jerk reactions after one off results by some , who seemingly want him to fail is out of order at times ; like I have said before at least give him credit when we do pull out these cracking results ,rather than just seemingly appear when we lose and  some almost want him to fail to say 'i told you so ' .

I would much rather we go on a hell of a run and people can say 'I told you so ' to me after we finish top 3 .

It feels like teams are always in great form when we play them. We've only played 9 games and we've managed to play 5 of the top 7, with number 6 coming next week!

Something else to bear in mind look at the 4 sides directly above us then think respective budgets. Had Town on Saturday had Bogle rather than Pyke up top we'd have probably been 4-0 up when they fluked their 1st. Strikers cost money and Saturday highlighted why you have to pay tge fee zbx get them in.PH also seems to have wasted money on midfielders we don't need?

Quoted from Mappers

I have always liked Hurst  and think he's a safe pair of hands who provides great 'moments' but never a consistent title or top 3 challenge , but a team that will in the main finish around where their budget sits in the  league (which he has barring the great season at Shrewsbury and a disaster at Ipswich ) .

My mind hasn't been made up by one game, but from both tenures that in reality Hurst won't get us out of league 2 , unless we scrape 6 or 7th one year and he provides some of those great one off games he seems to be able to .

We will probably go to Swindon and win , because that's the common theme win or draw the games we shouldn't and then draw or lose the one's we should win .

He deserves time as he's earnt it and in all probability we will never be in a relegation fight , but how long that will be fine for the fanbase and more importantly Stockwood and Pettit is the key question I think . If say in 3 years we are a mid table league 2 club in a relatively similiar position will that cut it ?

I will add , I would love it if Hurst and the lads prove me wrong .Because he seems a genuinely decent bloke and the knee jerk reactions after one off results by some , who seemingly want him to fail is out of order at times ; like I have said before at least give him credit when we do pull out these cracking results ,rather than just seemingly appear when we lose and  some almost want him to fail to say 'i told you so ' .

I would much rather we go on a hell of a run and people can say 'I told you so ' to me after we finish top 3 .

I'm - at present - one of the very ardent supporters of PH. Not out of blind loyalty or senseless faith, but based on a learning of his approach and although it can be frustrating, patience often wins where he is concerned and I'm willing to be patient.

In 3 years, if we're still in the same position then I think it would be wholly acceptable to look at a change of stewardship. I think three years of mid-table wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen to us, the constant whinging from sections of the fan base would be more painful. But three years would also be a suitable time-frame to say that the incremental improvements aren't adding up year on year to take us the step further we'd all like to go and that a fresh set of ideas might be required. A more nuanced question would be what would happen if we finished 11th last season, 9th this one, 8th next one and 6th the year after and failed in the PO final. That's steady development into the play-offs, do you stick with the idea that the trajectory suggests you'd make the grade the following season or do you say it hasn't worked and we don't trust you'll see us over the line. Is that level of patience too much to ask of the wider fan base?

All I know is that when I saw us a Wallsall we looked really good for 35 minutes in the second half, and we looked great for the first half at Bradford.

Ok, we didn't win either game, because we didn't sustain the quality for 90 minutes. But the point is that when this team clicks, and when it has key players available, it really does look a formidable outfit for this division.

So the potential is certainly there for us to be a class act. It hasn't happened nearly enough, but I do think that the potential is real. I think it's more likely that we are a decent team playing badly at the moment, than a totally irredeemably  bad team.