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Post by porkystone on Jan 14, 2019 15:50:41 GMT
It’s simple. Either we strengthen the squad with non cup tied NL players or accept we are unlikely to come away from Salford with anything - based on the Oxford game - unless Salford play a second string team. We needed Ramsbottom or Weymouth! League has to be priority and for NL we must must must get some NL quality players in ASAP. And pray tell us where we are supposed to get these quality NL players from ? Almost by definition anyone spare now is out of favour with their parent club, not good enough, too old or too inexperienced. Face facts, we screwed up last summer and have been playing frantic catch up since. Our budget is, I'm guessing, stretched so we can't exactly splash the cash ( anymore ). Better hope we get by with what we have …...
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Post by Better things to do in life on Jan 14, 2019 16:03:18 GMT
Didn't Jay manage to get players in to keep us up when they were needed? The depth of this screw up wasn't so much last summer (only partly that), the real damage was done at the start of this season with the Dealer! Whilst acknowledging the current issues in getting good NL players in, we are looking for squad players so out of favour, old or inexperienced may be OK as long as they are here for the rest of the season with no recall clause. Got to be better than academy players or ex-Sittingbourne surely? Unless, of course, as you say, the budget is TOTALLY gone, which none of us really know about for sure as our owners keep their cards too close to their chests on that. Sharing is caring.
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Squad?
Jan 14, 2019 16:27:59 GMT
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Post by 61666 on Jan 14, 2019 16:27:59 GMT
Lewis and Prestege kept us up in our first season, despite not being first choice in their then clubs. Another option has to be players in higher leagues, not getting game time and looking for some elsewhere. Finney a good example, though Quigley and Mullings clearly not! We can only hope a couple might be keep to come to Maidstone.
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Post by steveh21 on Jan 14, 2019 16:46:29 GMT
Still cannot forgive Wheeler for shipping out Finney.. imagine how his confidence would have been boosted and how well he would be playing in the new positive culture. Getting rid of Finney arguably the biggest mistake this season in my opinion.
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Post by daveu on Jan 14, 2019 16:48:25 GMT
Still cannot forgive Wheeler for shipping out Finney.. imagine how his confidence would have been boosted and how well he would be playing in the new positive culture. Getting rid of Finney arguably the biggest mistake this season in my opinion. Also, upsetting Worgs and Lewis to the extent that they were ripe for tapping up by Dover was pretty stupid.
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Post by Better things to do in life on Jan 14, 2019 16:57:21 GMT
It was all more than stupid - with Worgs, Lewis, Seth and maybe even Finney and others (Lozar, Efete?) it was downright vindictive and nasty of the Dealer - withouit even any good footballing reasons for doing it - which is why we all used phrases like "Ripping the heart out of the club". Water under the bridge now, HW has gone, Lewis has already blotted his previously warm reputation with MUFC fans and none of them are coming back - not even a club legend like Worgs, so time to move on and make new heroes out of the current squad and new management with a new heart and hopefully, avoid the drop. I still think - if we aren't totally skint - we need to get NL quality squad back up though - even if they are old, or inexperienced, or out of favour. SW and TL can motivate them to get something out of them I'm sure. Also if they are old, inexperienced or out of favour, they may be cheap? Can we have a whip round with some buckets tomorrow night?
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Squad?
Jan 14, 2019 17:40:24 GMT
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Post by porkystone on Jan 14, 2019 17:40:24 GMT
Lewis and Prestege kept us up in our first season, despite not being first choice in their then clubs. Another option has to be players in higher leagues, not getting game time and looking for some elsewhere. Finney a good example, though Quigley and Mullings clearly not! We can only hope a couple might be keep to come to Maidstone. It's really interesting to look back at our previous 2 seasons in NL and think how we managed to survive in those. In 2016/17 as correctly pointed out above it took a major transfusion in Jan '17 bringing in Prestege, Stu Lewis, Sam Yorke & Pigott to give us the quality & fighting spirit to pull through. Jay did a great job to mastermind that transfusion. Who can forget York away in Feb '17, OK we only drew 1 - 1 , but the fight and passion showed by the players was tremendous. In 2017 / 18 we relied so much on Hines & Pigott in the first part of the season and Blair in Spring 2018 to lift us above the line. What does that prove ? Well, we've always had to do some wheeling & dealing to upgrade during the seasons to survive. We aren't sufficiently established in the League ( or wealthy enough ) to start each season with a large enough squad of players to cover every eventuality. Looking further back, our consecutive promotions were tremendous, but the season where we didn't go up ( 2013 / 14 when we were stuck in the Ryman ) was marked by poor loans in the Spring ( Luke Rooney & Kaiyne Woolery anyone ) which didn't give us a boost. So, we've always relied on hooking in inspired loanees. If that goes wrong in any given year it's a big problem, and more so in the NL where the standard is higher and much less forgiving.
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Squad?
Jan 14, 2019 17:44:20 GMT
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Post by Better things to do in life on Jan 14, 2019 17:44:20 GMT
But have got any money to get them? Or did the dealer bankrupt us there as well?
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Post by jdl on Jan 14, 2019 18:39:22 GMT
Lewis and Prestege kept us up in our first season, despite not being first choice in their then clubs. Another option has to be players in higher leagues, not getting game time and looking for some elsewhere. Finney a good example, though Quigley and Mullings clearly not! We can only hope a couple might be keep to come to Maidstone. It's really interesting to look back at our previous 2 seasons in NL and think how we managed to survive in those. In 2016/17 as correctly pointed out above it took a major transfusion in Jan '17 bringing in Prestege, Stu Lewis, Sam Yorke & Pigott to give us the quality & fighting spirit to pull through. Jay did a great job to mastermind that transfusion. Who can forget York away in Feb '17, OK we only drew 1 - 1 , but the fight and passion showed by the players was tremendous. In 2017 / 18 we relied so much on Hines & Pigott in the first part of the season and Blair in Spring 2018 to lift us above the line. What does that prove ? Well, we've always had to do some wheeling & dealing to upgrade during the seasons to survive. We aren't sufficiently established in the League ( or wealthy enough ) to start each season with a large enough squad of players to cover every eventuality. Looking further back, our consecutive promotions were tremendous, but the season where we didn't go up ( 2013 / 14 when we were stuck in the Ryman ) was marked by poor loans in the Spring ( Luke Rooney & Kaiyne Woolery anyone ) which didn't give us a boost. So, we've always relied on hooking in inspired loanees. If that goes wrong in any given year it's a big problem, and more so in the NL where the standard is higher and much less forgiving. Agree with all this, but I wish people wouldn't keep labelling our first two seasons as "managing to survive". As I've said a couple of times at least, we actually did very well in our first season, ending up 14th on GD (better GD or another point and we would have been 11th) - pretty good for an 'unexpected' first season in a league as hard as this. And in our second seasons we got as far as 5th before Pigott and Hines went, and, although we finished 19th, one extra win would have given us an identical finish to our first season. And, at no time in either season, did we drop into the relegation zone (as Ant always used to say, "what Great Escape"?). OK, so both seasons we had to rebuild, but for a club with our resources, that's probably pretty much inevitable - we are always too reliant on loaned-in players, particularly strikers. In fact, if you look at our three season in detail, the one thing that really stands out is our ability (or not) to score goals. In our first season we lost Flish and stopped scoring, and it wasn't until Pigott came in that we picked up again. In our second season, we lost Pigott and Hines and didn't pick up again until we got Turgott. And now this season, we were struggling to score, even with Turgott, and once we lost him, we sank like a Stone (see what I did there?). The moral of all this? Get a decent striker (or strikers) in, and hang on to him (them). We might have problems in defence at times, or in midfield, but its our problems up front that dictate our performance and our survival. You don't survive by not losing games, you survive (and progress) by winning them - and you can only do that if you score goals.
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Post by Nick on Jan 14, 2019 18:56:44 GMT
Not exactly rocket science, makes you wonder why Jay didn't discover the moral of it all !
Of course he did, but goes to show that playing fantasy football is a lot easier than the real thing.
The Wheeler Dealers reign was catastrophic we can all agree, but equally we can be sure that the team that started the season was always going to struggle.
Jay's summer recruitment of new players was disappointing.
Our dynamic duo are doing more than ok but let's not pretend the squad is strong enough to stay up.
The owners must support them in strengthening the team with at least 3 more quality signings
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Squad?
Jan 14, 2019 19:07:08 GMT
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Post by butlerisalegend on Jan 14, 2019 19:07:08 GMT
Everyone keeps telling me we have a much stronger squad than when Jay was sacked. I am not convinced at all!! This squad isn’t good enough to stay up on paper. I agree that 3 good signings could make all the difference. But do we have the funds to do it?
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Post by garstone on Jan 14, 2019 19:24:17 GMT
If you listen to Simon Walton’s interview from last week he says they are looking to bring a couple more in but they won’t just get anybody and they are using all their contacts to find the right players. There are players in the pipeline but nothing is imminent.
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Squad?
Jan 14, 2019 19:51:16 GMT
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Post by rockstar on Jan 14, 2019 19:51:16 GMT
Rather bring Coker back than give Fagg more opportunities. Coker will be more of a threat. Still wouldn’t surprise me if Cassidy comes back soon.
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Post by steveh21 on Jan 14, 2019 20:00:35 GMT
Rumour circulating today that we have put in an offer for Cassidy to join perm. Money saved on loza's wages and £7k prize money from saturday helping with bid. Watch this space.
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Post by sword65 on Jan 14, 2019 22:49:51 GMT
It was all more than stupid - with Worgs, Lewis, Seth and maybe even Finney and others (Lozar, Efete?) it was downright vindictive and nasty of the Dealer - withouit even any good footballing reasons for doing it - which is why we all used phrases like "Ripping the heart out of the club". Water under the bridge now, HW has gone, Lewis has already blotted his previously warm reputation with MUFC fans and none of them are coming back - not even a club legend like Worgs, so time to move on and make new heroes out of the current squad and new management with a new heart and hopefully, avoid the drop. I still think - if we aren't totally skint - we need to get NL quality squad back up though - even if they are old, or inexperienced, or out of favour. SW and TL can motivate them to get something out of them I'm sure. Also if they are old, inexperienced or out of favour, they may be cheap? Can we have a whip round with some buckets tomorrow night? Good idea ,it's a long way to the toilet and a nearby bucket would be heaven.
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