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Reply | TVOS Preview - Rochdale v York City
at 12:15 27 Mar 2025
I think the 3 and 5 year plans were accepted by the fans because there was no alternative and we trusted the Ogdens to develop a plan that was practical and affordable. Without EFL money, the next 2 seasons will need higher levels of cash than this season and the off pitch plans also need extensive investment. The first indications of the 5 year sustainability plan are starting to be seen, with investment in people and the solar panels and rumours of work to redevelop the main stand facilities.
They have a plan that they are reasonably comfortable with and know that they will need contingency funds, as I have said previously, I think the 3 and 5 year plans may in reality, both be 5 year plans. But, I believe we might be better served with a longer run at the top end of this league with a free scoring team, exciting football a growing crowd and an expanding financial base than a quick return to the EFL without these things securely in place. Much better to arrive back in the EFL in the best shape the club has ever been in than lacking the infrastucture, team and crowds required to make progress there.
I dont know if JM can produce a team that makes going to matches something to look forward to with an expectation of seeing fast, free flowing, attacking football, but I know that despite the reasonable progress made this season, his biggest challenge will be to produce a team capable of scoring 2 goals a game every game and not conceding any more than his current system has. The people are in place within the club, the infrastructure is to be enhanced, the product on the pitch has to deliver the spark, I think JM will get his chance but the scrutiny will increase and the standards will have to improve |
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Reply | Refwatch - Maidenhead United v Rochdale
at 15:08 24 Mar 2025
We have needed another forward all season but the need for another Bird has never been more evident. Finances allowing, bringing in a bustling centre forward for the rest of the season is a gamble most people would be prepared to take assuming there is one available.. we have already gone through the better part of 40 players, 1 more hardly seems significant on the cost side but highly significant to the benefit column. The need is proven, the prize is huge. Its time to roll the dice... |
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Reply | Refwatch - Maidenhead United v Rochdale
at 11:24 23 Mar 2025
Thère is really nowhere to hide, JM has had a good budget, has an excellent training facility, and has been bringing in different players to cover injuries and to improve the squad, and yet....the likelihood is we will finish on about 72 points if we can maintain 1.5 points per game, it should have been many more....Essentially we now have a 10 game league season and if he can win 18+ points from 10 games we are in with a good shout in the playoffs. Throw in 2 wins in 2 cup games and he will be invincible in his position, fail on both fronts and it will be inexcusable...
Promotion is the target, the Trophy is a vanity that will paper over the cracks of so many dropped points for lack of a single goal. But supporters need to see a team that is dominant and free-scoring. Tippy tappy will not sell tickets, a free scoring team will... Nobody talks about how wonderfully a team has defended, we pay to see goals and the more the better....goals are the adrenaline rush we queue up for, tippy tappy is the sedative for expectations. |
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Reply | Refwatch - Maidenhead United v Rochdale
at 21:11 22 Mar 2025
The data suggests there has been no real improvement across 36 games at all.
First 18 games - 30 points, 1.66 PPG
2nd set of 18 games -27 points, 1.5 PPG
This despite an endless procession of players, 3 goal keepers, 3 central defenders 2 right backs, but only 2 consistent midfielders, countless wingbacks / wingers, only 4 strikers before the arrival of Bird, one of whom couldn't get more than an occasional appearance off the bench and one who looks like he has forgotten how to play the game for long stretches of his appearances and Dennis who was far from a menace. Mitchell has been shoehorned into a role he simply isn't equipped to play, paired with Bird the combination could be lethal but my bet is we will never find out as it seem to be a case of either-or rather than both, injuries notwithstanding
Seems like JM has only one tune and one tempo and the orchestra cant understand the conductor or at times even read the dots.
We must be knocking on for 40 players on the books this season and still only a few flashes of a coherent game plan suitable for this division... I used to think the plan was to play the tippy-tappy throughout the club because we were bringing through young players we could sell, because they were the players the market wanted to buy, but those rules don't apply anymore since the academy got canned.
This League is about size, power, pace, athleticism and a modicum of skill, the team that scores the most goals wins... its not complicated and complicated equals confusion, and certainly isn't scoring us enough goals.
We don't look like a team that intends to plant itself firmly in the playoff places, we are consistently inconsistent, If JM wins a trophy, then fair do's, a memorable season. But there is no EFL money at all next season and we will be rebuilding again and probably still pretending that tippy-tappy will be the secret sauce. I just hope the Ogden's are ready to find out the real cost of football, and let's not kid ourselves that this season wasn't our best shot at getting back to the EFL...
This is where the rubber meets the road for JM and to a degree, the fan-base. project 5000 will look a long way away if we do not reach the Cup final AND take a playoff place. the fans need it, the cash balances need it and it will encourage the owners...failure is now not an option. All Hands on deck! |
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Reply | Negative and personal
at 10:57 19 Mar 2025
EEL was excelent when he came here on loan from Wolves, the years have not been kind to him and his latest injury has clearly taken a lot out of him, he may be physically fit but he has lost some of the speed of thought and sense of urgency required, maybe he is compensating for the infjury or maybe he has simply missed too many games, but to throw him in at the deep end at such a critical point in the season when the team was playing with consistency and getting good results seems irrational.
We conceded 10% of the seasons goals against last night, and the reason was obvious to every home fan in the ground. That the team pulled 2 goals back once the substitutions had happened and they started moving the ball around quickly again speaks volumes.
It makes you wonder how the 1962/ 3 team managed to play 46 games and reach the 2 legged final of the League Cup without any substitutes allowed doesn't it... [Post edited 19 Mar 11:30]
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Reply | Negative and personal
at 22:55 18 Mar 2025
So frustrating... shuffle the team, drop two points at Oldham, shuffle sgain and concede 3 to Boston at home.. Bring Eel in and make 2 defensive changes to accommodate him, hey presto 2 down in half an hour at home...I started counting how long he spent looking for a pass, 4 seconds, 6 seconds, 7 seconds.. so slow, it just wastes all the movement up front because the early ball never arrives.
So 5 points dropped in 2 games just to shoehorn Landell into the side.. so frustrating and probably ultimately very costly. Stop over thinking it Jim, play your best side every game. If Henderson and Kingdon had started we would have 3 more points tonight and a winning team would have kept on winning.... management 101 keep your winners winning...... |
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Reply | Altrincham FA Trophy Match Thread
at 18:24 1 Mar 2025
Those of us who have criticised the Mitchell and Rodney partnership were totally vindicated this afternoon, Bird hustled defenders showed as a target and scored an excellent goal, Rodney took the hint and played off him looking like he actually might get a decent lay-off.
After the first substitutions it was back to the same old same old , we regressed 15 yards closer to our own box, and gave their defenders an easy time to the extent that one of them played more like a midfielder.
If the substutuions were designed to save legs for Tuesday, they also succeded in showing exactly why we need to be able to hold the ball up at the top... |
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Reply | Turnstiles
at 18:22 27 Feb 2025
Should be OK then. (Crosses fingers and toes)....thank you... i hate it when they change things without explaining.... |
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Thread | Turnstiles
at 15:41 27 Feb 2025
Just bought a ticket on line and printed it out as per usual for cup games, my ST has a barcode and the download printout now has one of those squiggly QR code jobbies, ... Do the turnstiles scan both or do I need to download an app and bring my ancient phone ( which is far from reliable ) or will the printed QR thingy be OK? |
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Reply | New signing but not a manager
at 18:35 25 Feb 2025
WiKi....
Jay Gregory Maison Bird (born 6 May 2001)[1] is an English professional footballer who plays as a striker for EFL League One club Exeter City.
Club career
Milton Keynes Dons
Born in Milton Keynes, Bird joined the academy of Milton Keynes Dons at the age of eight,[3] and progressed through several age groups before signing professional terms with the club on 25 June 2019.[3] In August 2019 he joined Southern Premier Central club Hitchin Town on loan for the 2019–20 campaign,[4] but after only two matches a serious injury resulted in Bird being ruled out for the rest of the season.[5]
On 6 October 2020, Bird made his first team professional debut for the club, scoring twice in a 3–2 EFL Trophy group stage away victory over Stevenage.[6] The following 2021–22 season saw limited first team opportunities for Bird, with the player spending the first half of the season out on loan to National League club Wealdstone.[7] At the end of the season Bird was one of six players released by MK Dons.[8]
Dagenham & Redbridge
On 19 November 2022, Bird signed for National League club Dagenham & Redbridge on a non-contract basis.[9] Bird made his debut that same day off the bench, scoring a late winner as his new side defeated Scunthorpe United.[10]
Arbroath
Bird signed a one-year contract with Arbroath in July 2023.[11] He departed the club at the end of his contract.
Exeter City
On 2 July 2024, Bird signed a one-year contract with EFL League One club Exeter City, with the option of a further year.[12]
Career statistics |
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Reply | Time to go Jim. The turning point
at 16:27 24 Feb 2025
I have no doubt the BOD can put together a recruitment plan of some sort, Edward Ogden, Camerons brother owns a chunk of Spencer Ogden a recruitment company for crying out loud. It may well specialise in the oil industry but I am sure he knows enough to help to find what we need and give some ideas where to look and how to run the interviews..
The stark fact is we are not growing crowds. The product has no new buyers, people are not enjoying the show, most of us that do go, turn up as a result of sheer habit, to meet up with friends and get out of the house for a couple of hours, the football is miserable most of the time. Winning 1 in 3 losing and drawing a similar number of games at home is just poor. How long will people keep parting with their hard earned to watch 3 games in the hope of seeing a win? But for season tickets we would be struggling to get 1500 maybe even less...... |
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Reply | Time to go Jim. The turning point
at 11:36 24 Feb 2025
Whenever I read threads like the recent ones on here, I am reminded of a story from a pal who used to sell pet food for a well known manufacturer... He attended a sales conference , with well over 100 other salesmen and women, at a prestigious venue, there were a number of highly paid executives on stage and a long discussion about a new range of dog food. The animal dietician spoke about the carefully selected ingredients, the gravy and why it was excellent for animals, the marketing team talked about the TV coverage, the new commercials, the magazine articles , vouchers, special offers etc. And at the end the MD stood up and looked at the salesforce and asked a question,,...
" Given everything we have heard this morning, why are you not selling more of this terrific product"?
There was much shuffling of feet, eyes were diverted away from the stage and an amount of coughing and harrumphing and then a voice eventually piped up from the back of the hall..." THE F**KING DOGS DONT LIKE IT....
So here we are the football is crap, the results are mid-table we have only won 33% of home games over the last 4 seasons, 83 games and scored slightly more than 1 goal per game... " The F**king dogs dont like it". Something has to change. This situation is why gates are falling, season tickets will be a hard sell, sponsors will quit. What happens on the pitch affects everything and right now we are being fed thin gruel leading to starvation. For Gods sake give us something to cheer and shout about...and if McNulty won't, find somebody who will, we need a leader, not a lecturer. |
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Reply | 30 minutes of tripe
at 23:11 22 Feb 2025
Its now apparent why we played tippy tappy, we don't have anyone capable of winning a header from a long ball... |
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Reply | Match Thread, Dale v In form top of the table Barnet
at 21:07 22 Feb 2025
Unfortunately, we have no forwards that would worry Sudden Social Club. I think my thoughts on Mitchell have been widely,resd and largely agreed with, Rodney isnt at the races and then the tactical genius brought Ayinde on as a wing back ..
At least Hendo got a decent run out, and showed more nous than Mitchell and Rodney have shown all season, sadly too little too late.
Clearly we do not have the players to change the system radically, no tricky winger, no scorching pace, nobody leading the line, noone working off the centre forward, its one dimensional powder-puff, easy to defend against and uninspiring to watch.
The team that Jim built is going nowhere at a gentle pace , no aggression, no Hero for the kids, nothing to get the fans jumping up and down. Its predictable, anodyne and hapless. Its not the fact of losing to a team at the top of the table , its more that they really are not that great, but they were organised, strong and were prepared to get stuck in... we were not...
This Division is about horses for courses, the ability to win ugly, to chase lost causes and to be physically strong and mentally capable of finding an extra yard. Above all that its about scoring lots of goals. McNulty has backed the wrong horses in the wrong race , the big question is this.. is he big enough to admit he has got it wrong and change.. or not? He has to bring in a centre forward and a goal poacher of the game is up and the season over.....even if we were to win the trophy its a booby prize compared to entertaining the crowds, getting to the play offs and once there, who knows what might happen......But I fear we are living up to my prediction of mid- table obscurity. |
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Reply | The race for seventh, midweek 18th/19th Feb
at 13:24 19 Feb 2025
A budget to enable a play- off pĺace is at best hopeful, the reality is that whilst the cash may well have been equivalent to the budgets of similar- sized clubs in the division, cash alone does not guarantee success. Recruitment, the man- management, the way in which the squad gells into a team are as important as the amount of money that gets spent .. Football is littered with expensively assembled squads that have massively underachieved. You need decent players, some luck and an ability to actually win games.......not getting beaten is losing if others are winning....
Does the Head Coach have the killer instinct or is he a father-figure who excuses failures, is he a demanding , hard-nosed, no-excuses, manager of men or a teacher of boys?
As any soldier will tell you, all the planning and preparation goes out of the window as soon as the first shot is fired, at that point, the result depends on the qualities of the men in the field.... or on the pitch. Losing without consequences is easy to get used to winning against the odds is what sorts the men from the boys .
Herein is the essential problem, winning teams have a winning mentality, both individually and collectively, they find a way to win. We do not, yet, have that essential characteristic as evidenced by the number of points we drop for the lack of a single goal. Is it better to recruit on the basis of technical ability, as outlined by statistics or on mental strength, an almost undefinable characteristic? Ideally both.
Equally you do need a couple of highly effective old professionals that have the ability to see how a game is going and do the dirty work that isnt taught in academies or the FIFA coaching manuals and to dominate the dressing room. In our case a midfielder and a goal scorer with " reputations" would be ideal.... |
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Reply | The race for 7th (Saturday 15th Feb)
at 23:38 15 Feb 2025
Yet another game where a second goal would have won it for us...you can't defend your way out of this division you just have to take more chances than the opposition but without a potent strike force. every game is a toss up. No consistency, too many points dropped for want of a goal, draws that should be wins, losses that should, at worst, be draws.. It all adds up, 5 x 1-0 defeats 2 x 1-1 and 2x 0-0 draws.. 9 more goals in those 9 games could equal 13 extra points....which would put us above Oldham with games in hand. |
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Reply | Why Do Managers See Different?
at 15:57 11 Feb 2025
The problem is that you can't manage the game. I sometimes think that good players are coached to do things that do not come naturally to them instead of selecting good players who do what they do and to try and mold those attributes into a team.
The idea that you can put 11 individuals on a pitch to kick a ball against 11 other players and control the outcome with some sort of " system" is a nonsense. Especially when players cannot really carry out what you want them to do in any given situation because there is another player trying his best to stop them.
Managers of old simply put their best 11 footballers onto the pitch in their best positions and let them get in with it...
I get the impression that modern managers do exactly the opposite, they pick players to fit a system that they have seen on TV they employ players to fit that system, they coach them to play in that system at which point plan "B" becomes impossible. Brian Clough had a system and told his players what their jobs were, striker.. score goals... goalkeepers stop the opposition from scoring...defenders tackle and head the ball away from the goal...wingers stay with your heels on the line... midfielders, feed the wingers...simple... no recycling play nonsense, no mumbo jumbo, just simple instructions repeated often......
Its a simple game, the winner scores more goals than the loser...so make sure you can score goals, lots of them. Goals are what fans want to see, not endless passing. Shots not recycling for a better opportunity, not tippy tappy around their own penalty area, not fullback / wingers who are only average at both, not strikers who dont strike and can't head a ball or trap a bag of cement.. Goals and more goals thats all that counts.. if we won every home game 5-4 there would be 1000s more at every game...not scoring twice in a week at home is just pitiful, not scoring against Ebbsfleet should be illegal.
Low block, high block, false number 9s and all the rest is just trying to make something simple seem like an intellectual challenge for those who are not party to the inane nonsense of UEFA coaching manuals. Encouraged by the BBC and a whole raft of wannabee managers who want their 5 minutes of fame and half a million quid a year at a Premiership club with a 3 year contract. It even infected Keith Hill eventually and BBM relegated us with quasi intellectual BS that got him a dream
job and never mind the consequences..
I am afraid that McNulty is BBM Mk2, swap the Brogue for a hint of Scouse and the result is the same, word salad and not enough goals..No one watches football because they enjoy watching toothless 0-0 draws or 0-1 losses, Its about goals, it always was and always will be. |
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Reply | Pitch covers
at 15:26 10 Feb 2025
Probably one for the new stadium / facilities manager to sort out ... to be fair that desk is probably brimming over with stuff to do... |
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