THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

Fuck sake. It was all Tucker’s fault.

Any fule no that.

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I don't need your ill-informed, half-baked, idiotic opinions. I have plenty of those myself.

I blame Tom Flanagan

That's my view. Manning wanted to change from a proven style which was always going to be hard. Why not build on last season rather than starting anew

Which is largely a reason I wanted him to go...second guessing yourself as a coach is a huge problem.

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We recruited players who were not good enough for league 1, that fact was confirmed at Burton.
So Sweeting has to shoulder the blame along with Manning, the latter being unable to improve players with his coaching, or his tactics, so rightly LM was relieved of his duties.

I do hope LS has learned from this season, because we can’t get recruitment that wrong again, he’s proven previously he can get it right, for that reason he should be given another chance

This.

Radically overhauling the squad with an influx of youngsters unfamiliar with English L1 football. Replacing Manning mid-season with Jackson, untested at men’s football.
The aforementioned WABLO.

The last point is the most valid. We are now seen as purely a stepping stone for players. Come here, prove yourself and move on. Because as we all know, we wouldn’t want to stand in anyone’s way. Indeed when Neilson rocked up one of the first things he said was that he only came to us in order to get his name well known in England.

That however is a double edged sword. Who would want to come here if there was no chance of developing your career! So basically we’re forever destined to be the archetypal yoyo team. A few years in L1, flirting with the playoffs. Then a season or two in L2.

It is what it is.

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When you make your music, do you think about the man in the street? No, I've met the man in the street. He's a Ladybit.

So the ultimate blame is down to Pee and his laissez-faire attitude allowing the club to be a revolving door. I'm not suggesting that he gets in the way of players' careers. However, as Fith said there needs to be more baance and if we do replace players, the replaements needn't be untested youngsters or players in the twilight of their career.

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Disclaimer: All my comments are my opinions unless stated otherwise. I'm just a fan following my club.

We also radically overhauled our squad with an influx of youngsters unfamiliar with English L1 football in January and Summer 2022 - Darling 0 games, O'Riley 0 games, Parrott 20 games, Watson 27 games, Watters 5 games, Kioso 20 games whilst Harvie and O'Hora signed with 0 experience at this level too. The only Russ signing with real experience at this level was Eisa was 57 games.
This may be a stretch, but I think Tucker had more L1 starts when he signed for us than L1 appearance in our entire regular starting XI in 21/22 combined (excluding Lewington).

This summer we added Grigg (378), Holland (45), Lawrence Robson (46), Lawrence (24), Johnson (132), Kayode (20). Cumming had a year at this level before resigning.

We failed because we were not good enough, the balance was wrong and they were coached poorly, not that they were unfamiliar with this level. Our squad that came 3rd had significantly less experience at this level.

Whilst the men's football comment may play a part. Manning was inexperienced at this level. Russ had never even been a coach. The two teams promoted from L1 this season are two former coaches/assistants with zero experience as the main man. Paul Warne kept getting Rotherham promoted but his only previous experience was coaching some kids in a field in Norfolk.

We can probably go round and round all day. The real answer is no one person is to blame and collectively Pete, Manning and Sweeting massively cocked it up last summer, during the season and then again when settling on Jackson as the man to get us out of the mess.

What I would say is that a large part of our problem specifically was that our attempt to utilise loan players was a complete and utter disaster. Loans are normally something we do reasonably well with but this year we cocked it up to no end. I am a firm believer that loan spots at league 1 level should be reserved for players who are essentially too good for the club to own. They should be 1st time regulars or at the very least pushing very very hard for a starting space. In the past we've done this very well. Parrott, Afobe, Bamford, Coventry, Smith (going way back), Healey etc etc. But this year, with the exception of Cumming all our loans have been so poor they hardly merited a place in the squad let alone the starting 11.

In Pete's interview he mentions this. He talks briefly about how we had a lot of injuries at the start of the season meaning we signed loan players earlier in the window (less quality available) rather than wait until nearer the end when some of the prem and championship clubs will free up players to go out on loan. In hindsight this was a terrible strategic decision. If we had held out longer who knows who we might have been able to pick up. We know we were very much in the race for Rak Sakyi who is we had signed would probably have singlehandedly helped us pick up enough additional points to finish mid table.

Lawrence, Kayode, Barry and Oyegoke must be our worst ever batch of loans.

Oh 100%. I've always maintained it was a collective mess and I can't disagree with a lot of your points. I'd argue there was little difference at the time about some of the loans compared to last season though - Parrot to Barry and KKH to Oyegoke. Yes they turned out shit, but in terms of reputation and international recognition there was similarities.

I just don't always agree when fans make sweeping remarks about the club, but that could also be said about fans of other clubs, when trying to criticise/find the problems. We entered this season with arguably a more experienced squad at this level than last season. We spent more money on this squad than we did last season. We hired a rookie manager, but we also did with our previous two appointments and when we appointed arguably our three most successful managers. The way we spent it and how badly the individuals performed, both on the pitch and in the dug out, has been terrible. And as you say it is 100% a collective blame, and some of the more experienced folk on the pitch should be embarrassed with their contributions this season.