Breaking the bank for a player would have been better than this.

[Uncle Buck]

Actually, what was key to keeping Plymouth up was a very good unbeaten run in the second half of the season (including as you say an important victory over us) after they had been dragged right back into it. It kept Bobby Williamson his job (for another five months anyway).

But if they had not had that flying start (where they picked up lots of points in their early season games), then their half decent run in would have been irrelevant.

 

[Les Biehn]

Surely the point is that it doesn't matter what time of the season it is with our current situation (stadium, lack of funds etc) we needs to pick up points where and when we can.

 

[Tony Meolas Loan Spell]

f*** me. Surely a result AT ANY TIME OF THE SEASON is important.

End of.

 

[Uncle Buck]

Surely the point is that it doesn't matter what time of the season it is with our current situation (stadium, lack of funds etc) we needs to pick up points where and when we can.

Exactly.

Last year we were nearly safe by the end of January and it all went a bit wrong, luckily we did enough at the end, but that would not have mattered had we not picked up some of those fantastic results along the way during the season as a whole.

 

[London Irish]

Not if your already 1-0 up. Which in you analogy would be the equivalent of picking up those early season points.

It would be lovely to go 1-0 - it would have been superb. But it never happened for us. So what then? Hold up our hands and say we are virtually doomed? No. The point I was making at the time was to say, this is disappointing, but there are numerous examples of how teams are kept up on their form after October. Sheffield Wednesday, who were our main relegation rivals, were the irrefutable example of that this season.

 

[dougdeep]

A point = A point. What's difficult about this. The first 50 or the last 50 would have been equally as good.

 

[Easy 10]

Losing games early on in never desirable but it is never terminal in a relegation struggle like the one we were in. After all, why then did Sheffield Wednesday not go down when they were bottom in October? If you struggle early on, teams always have an opportunity to turn things round. The Wendsy took that opportunity, we didn't. It's like going a goal down after 10 minutes - it's never a good thing, but better than going a goal down in the 90th minute.

You NEED those early season points on the board to make a decent fist of it - that way, a collapse in form or an injury crisis means you slipping back from 18th or 19th, rather than falling further behind in 22nd or 23rd.

Its obvious really. Last season Rotherham were shit all season, they didn't even get their first win till December (amusingly against Leeds). Even if they'd hit Reading-type form in January it still wouldn't have been enough. The damage was done.
A point is a point, whether it comes in August or May. The only difference is that you can have more context for each point at ther "business end" as you put it - it doesn't make them any more or less valuable.

 

[Uncle Buck]

You NEED those early season points on the board to make a decent fist of it - that way, a collapse in form or an injury crisis means you slipping back from 18th or 19th, rather than falling further behind in 22nd or 23rd.

Its obvious really. Last season Rotherham were shit all season, they didn't even get their first win till December (amusingly against Leeds). Even if they'd hit Reading-type form in January it still wouldn't have been enough. The damage was done.
A point is a point, whether it comes in August or May. The only difference is that you can have more context for each point at ther "business end" as you put it - it doesn't make them any more or less valuable.

Exactly, points at any time are good, it is all about getting enough.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

Sorry, where are those people said said relegation wouldnt cost much?
For the sake of a couple of players wages for half a season this could have been avoided.

200k or a million?

Some points I think are valid.

How many new players extra would have guaranteed survival, one, two, five?

Where was the money coming from, given that although we had a bit of cash to spend it wasn't enough to go for the players that would really make a difference?

What happens the next season, do we break the budget again to ensure survival, and where does this money come from

Who exactly believes the unsubstantiated figure of £1 million?

What will we save in lower wages for playing in league 1?

 

[Les Biehn]

It would be lovely to go 1-0 - it would have been superb. But it never happened for us. So what then? Hold up our hands and say we are virtually doomed? No. The point I was making at the time was to say, this is disappointing, but there are numerous examples of how teams are kept up on their form after October. Sheffield Wednesday, who were our main relegation rivals, were the irrefutable example of that this season.

But they also had the money to go out and get Tudgay and Burton early enough to make a difference. As I have already said we have a young, small squad, add to that some older players (who are prone to injury, prolonged recovery) and it means Wednesday always have more oppotunity to last the distance so can afford that blip at the beginning of the season. A club in our position can't.

 

[KPTF]

why then did Sheffield Wednesday not go down when they were bottom in October?

They invested in Burton & Tudgay who gave them the momentum to pull themselves out of it. We didn't.

 

[London Irish]

But if they had not had that flying start (where they picked up lots of points in their early season games), then their half decent run in would have been irrelevant.

You - and others - are missing the point I'm making, perhaps wilfully, I don't know. Of course it's always good to pick up points at any part of the season, but I'm talking about the real scenario we were in when we didn't do that. What I'm saying is with three-quarters of the season left, you have plenty of opportnity to change things and improve results. Sturrock did that with his signings, and we saw how effective that was on Monday. The Wendys team was a much better teams than the one we played back last autumn at Hillsborough. And that, in the end, was the last deciding factor that sealed our fate, their fine run over the last couple of months.

 

[London Irish]

They invested in Burton & Tudgay who gave them the momentum to pull themselves out of it. We didn't.

Exactly.

 

[London Irish]

But they also had the money to go out and get Tudgay and Burton early enough to make a difference. As I have already said we have a young, small squad, add to that some older players (who are prone to injury, prolonged recovery) and it means Wednesday always have more oppotunity to last the distance so can afford that blip at the beginning of the season. A club in our position can't.

Well, we had a pretty major blip at the beginning of our previous season, going weeks without winning and getting humiliatingly knocked out of the League Cup by Bristol Rovers at home. Bad starts are more likely for under-resourced teams, it wasn't terminal for us then and needed have been this season if we had succeeded with our team-building as we had last season with the Virgo inspirational move.

 

[Uncle Buck]

You - and others - are missing the point I'm making, perhaps wilfully, I don't know. Of course it's always good to pick up points at any part of the season, but I'm talking about the real scenario we were in when we didn't do that. What I'm saying is with three-quarters of the season left, you have plenty of opportnity to change things and improve results. Sturrock did that with his signings, and we saw how effective that was on Monday. The Wendys team was a much better teams than the one we played back last autumn at Hillsborough. And that, in the end, was the last deciding factor that sealed our fate, their fine run over the last couple of months.

The problem is you implied that when we were only drawing at the beginning of the season that this was not really a problem as these games were less important as the manager was still finding the best team etc.

Surely this is what pre-season is for?

Before you accuse me of making it up, these are the sort of things I mean;

1. With great respect to a recent Premiership team like Leicester, we should be beating teams like them

It is frustrating that we're not getting the 3-pointers, but it's too easy to say that every team we get a draw against are relegation candidates, which seems the stock response of glass half-full merchants like you Dwayniepops.

Didn't we say the same thing about Crewe, Burnley, Coventry, etc etc

My more optimistic take is that a year on we are now far more comfortable in ths league and fewer and fewer teams can impose themselves on us.

This higher level of performance will bring its due reward sooner or later. If you cast your mind back to March-April and recall how we were getting outclassed by nearly every team we were playing, I think the progress since then has been excellent.

2. No, for the entirely logical reason that most teams are finding their feet and best formations/selections. Teams like us particularly so who have some new players to integrate.

3. That's not a new argument TLB - that's repeating an original unargued assertion and then putting "bollocks" on the end of it As such, I stand by my original comment that bad results at this stage are far less important than at the end of the season because you have plenty of time to do something about them. Commonsense, surely?

But to carry on your parallel, if we got it down to 12 an over off the last two or three from a big deficit, you're going to be disappointed if you don't finish the job. No disrespect to Coppell and what he achieved, which deserves plaudits, but sport is above all else about finishing the job, crossing the winning line, doing it at the business end of the season, that's what makes real reputations.

4. Does anyone still think Crewe was a must-win game? Or that not winning one of our first six fixtures was such a terrible thing?

Things certainly seemed to have cheered up around here since then, anyway

I think it was the case that McGhee still had to try out new formations. And, who knows, that experimentation may not still be finished.

Certainly August and September is a good time for managers to do that kind of stuff

 

[Easy 10]

I thought the thrust of your argument, LI, was that points gained at the business end of the season are more important than points picked up in the early months.

I must have missed the point you were pointing out about the points. Its been a long day.

 

[Les Biehn]

Exactly.

I'm not sure what you mean by this? Every situation needs to be taken on its merits, if you apply your theory to Wednesday it holds more weight as they were likely to have the money and stadium to get people in when it went a bit winky woo, we however were never gonna be in that position so couldn't afford to think like that.

 

[Les Biehn]

Well, we had a pretty major blip at the beginning of our previous season, going weeks without winning and getting humiliatingly knocked out of the League Cup by Bristol Rovers at home. Bad starts are more likely for under-resourced teams, it wasn't terminal for us then and needed have been this season if we had succeeded with our team-building as we had last season with the Virgo inspirational move.

Yeah if? But what if a russian millionaire came in and bought us a load of prem players. This is another if. The trouble is we can't rely on ifs. I'm not going to assign blame because I think the whole club has done really well to just be in the position we are but the point is we cannot dismiss getting points at anytime of the season in our position.

 

[London Irish]

You NEED those early season points on the board to make a decent fist of it - that way, a collapse in form or an injury crisis means you slipping back from 18th or 19th, rather than falling further behind in 22nd or 23rd.

Its obvious really. Last season Rotherham were shit all season, they didn't even get their first win till December (amusingly against Leeds). Even if they'd hit Reading-type form in January it still wouldn't have been enough. The damage was done.
A point is a point, whether it comes in August or May. The only difference is that you can have more context for each point at ther "business end" as you put it - it doesn't make them any more or less valuable.

Sure, a run of defeats as long as Rotherham will screw you. But that never happened to either us or the Wendys this season, so is not relevant to the specific discussion we were having about our situation back in September and October - when it was still all to play for and when the Wendys looked in even worse shape than us.

Sadly for us, they were able to find the money to get the key players which they somehow failed to do earlier on in the season. Perhaps not surprising given their 30,000 crowds compared with our 6-7K, but I think we'll all be watching the story develop over the next year about their financial goings-on with an interested eye.

 

[Uncle Buck]

Sure, a run of defeats as long as Rotherham will screw you. But that never happened to either us or the Wendys this season, so is not relevant to the specific discussion we were having about our situation back in September and October - when it was still all to play for and when the Wendys looked in even worse shape than us.

Sadly for us, they were able to find the money to get the key players which they somehow failed to do earlier on in the season. Perhaps not surprising given their 30,000 crowds compared with our 6-7K, but I think we'll all be watching the story develop over the next year about their financial goings-on with an interested eye.

But one of the things that has cost us this year was our inability to convert all those early season draws into wins. If say of 4 of those draws had been wins we would still be in with a shout.