Fan's View Fan's View 20/21 - No.41 - Northampton away

[Thomas/Brock/Jones]

Not sure about the stadium to be as embarrassing as some make out but I agree with three sides only it ain't great.
I too would not want to see the Wycombe style at the Kassam. But the point is small clubs with grounds that I consider to be worse than ours and will have had smaller budgets have made the step up. In Wycombe's case for one season only by the look of it. Burton, a tiny club by comparison to us, stayed up for a couple of years.
No surprise Bournemouth pay big wages they were in the Premier League last season. It would be interesting to see what wages they were paying when they got out of L1 back in 2012/13 compared to rivals. Still have a little ground though.

Based on your post T/B/J surprising the likes of Roofe, Maguire and Browne ever came anywhere near our club.

There are exceptions and I am not surprised we can afford some very good players as we are a bloody decent club but at this level until we get to another Stadium / not paying extortionate rents it will be hard to step up.
The fence end for 20 years as a professional club is something I cannot wait to get away from and we will become the Championship level / odd sorty into the premiership that we should be attaining.
McGuane , Henry, Lee ,Barker should be our stand out players but sadly haven't for a variety of reasons.

 

[werthersoriginal]

There are exceptions and I am not surprised we can afford some very good players as we are a bloody decent club but at this level until we get to another Stadium / not paying extortionate rents it will be hard to step up.
The fence end for 20 years as a professional club is something I cannot wait to get away from and we will become the Championship level / odd sorty into the premiership that we should be attaining.
McGuane , Henry, Lee ,Barker should be our stand out players but sadly haven't for a variety of reasons.

McGuane , Henry, Lee ,Barker should be our standout attacking players - yes, they would boss the league if all fit and well and functioning. I suspect we will sign Lee if he can get fit and there might be a chance of another year of McGuane.

 

[RyanioBirdio]

On wages:

I've been thinking about the supposition that we are about 8th in terms of squad budget and trying to put it into context. Here's my guess at how things might be. (and it is absolutely an uninformed guess!)

You've got those who you know will be bigger:

Sunderland
Hull
Ipswich
Portsmouth
Charlton

Then the chasing pack: (which would include us)

Peterborough
Doncaster
Blackpool
MK Dons
Plymouth
Plymouth?
Bristol Rovers?
Fleetwood?

Then those who you'd assume would be comfortably smaller:

Accrington
Burton
Wimbledon
Rochdale
Shrewsbury
Northampton

The outright basket cases:

Swindon
Wigan

And those who I really don't have a clue about:

Gillingham
Lincoln


(Teams within groups not intended to be in any kind of order)

Thoughts? @RyanioBirdio , your thoughts would be particularly welcome!

Last season we were top six. After January especially we were right up there. We spent.

This season it’s the five you put in the top bracket plus Peterborough. Below them we’re in a tight trio with Blackpool and MK. Fleetwood and Doncaster are jostling to round off the top ten.

Gillingham bottom half, Lincoln smack bang in the middle around 12th or 13th. Both are punching (as are Doncaster), the latter especially. Appleton has done a fantastic job to have them in the top four all season, no matter how upset that might make a few people. Pretty funny seeing a few comments along the lines of, “Why would people expect us to be in the playoff places when we don’t have a top six budget?” while only three of the top six budgets are currently in the top six. Someone should tell Lincoln, Doncaster and Blackpool that they need to get out. They’re being naughty and it isn’t allowed.

Only thing that is a bit skewed this season and adds an awkward dimension is the salary cap. Due to the cut off date in terms of whether players could be counted as the division average or whether the full amount of their salary needed to be applied, different budgets will have ultimately gone further than others. As a result some people will argue that Team A actually spent more than Team B because they did their business earlier and got ahead of the deadline, so they could work the cap restrictions better. So admittedly it’s got an extra complication this time around. Next season will be a lot cleaner with the cap being abolished.

We still spent enough money to have so many professional players on the books that we couldn’t even register them all at the start of the season, plus we have an U21 squad. We spent the first quarter of the season in and around the bottom four (as usual) and nobody seemed to want to talk about budgets then. The people who say we shouldn’t expect to be higher than we are never seem to say that we shouldn’t expect to be as low as we are when we’re struggling. It’s like the idea of ‘the budget’ only gets trotted out to provide a ceiling, but it’s never used as a floor. Can’t have it both ways.

That’s broadly where things sit. People can believe what they like, but it comes from the same source that told me the new season dates which I posted weeks before they were announced or even hinted at in the press, as well as the source that gave me the heads up on the salary cap that I booted off about while everyone told me I was wrong. They were also right about the circuit break conversations that were taking place in January and then became the subject of a massive public denial from the authorities, because people got wind of them and started shouting. All I can do is pass on what I know - people can take it or leave it.

Wycombe had a bottom four budget last season, by the way. Someone should’ve told them they were breaking the rules.

 

[Thomas/Brock/Jones]

Last season we were top six. After January especially we were right up there. We spent.

This season it’s the five you put in the top bracket plus Peterborough. Below them we’re in a tight trio with Blackpool and MK. Fleetwood and Doncaster are jostling to round off the top ten.

Gillingham bottom half, Lincoln smack bang in the middle around 12th or 13th. Both are punching (as are Doncaster), the latter especially. Appleton has done a fantastic job to have them in the top four all season, no matter how upset that might make a few people. Pretty funny seeing a few comments along the lines of, “Why would people expect us to be in the playoff places when we don’t have a top six budget?” while only three of the top six budgets are currently in the top six. Someone should tell Lincoln, Doncaster and Blackpool that they need to get out. They’re being naughty and it isn’t allowed.

Only thing that is a bit skewed this season and adds an awkward dimension is the salary cap. Due to the cut off date in terms of whether players could be counted as the division average or whether the full amount of their salary needed to be applied, different budgets will have ultimately gone further than others. As a result some people will argue that Team A actually spent more than Team B because they did their business earlier and got ahead of the deadline, so they could work the cap restrictions better. So admittedly it’s got an extra complication this time around. Next season will be a lot cleaner with the cap being abolished.

We still spent enough money to have so many professional players on the books that we couldn’t even register them all at the start of the season, plus we have an U21 squad. We spent the first quarter of the season in and around the bottom four (as usual) and nobody seemed to want to talk about budgets then. The people who say we shouldn’t expect to be higher than we are never seem to say that we shouldn’t expect to be as low as we are when we’re struggling. It’s like the idea of ‘the budget’ only gets trotted out to provide a ceiling, but it’s never used as a floor. Can’t have it both ways.

That’s broadly where things sit. People can believe what they like, but it comes from the same source that told me the new season dates which I posted weeks before they were announced or even hinted at in the press, as well as the source that gave me the heads up on the salary cap that I booted off about while everyone told me I was wrong. They were also right about the circuit break conversations that were taking place in January and then became the subject of a massive public denial from the authorities, because people got wind of them and started shouting. All I can do is pass on what I know - people can take it or leave it.

Wycombe had a bottom four budget last season, by the way. Someone should’ve told them they were breaking the rules.

Yes wycombe fluked a promotion, had nothing apart from a first team squad ( no reserves or youth ) hardly any injuries and no salable players and an ugly style of football.
Every other point I agree with

 

[horseman]

McGuane , Henry, Lee ,Barker should be our standout attacking players - yes, they would boss the league if all fit and well and functioning. I suspect we will sign Lee if he can get fit and there might be a chance of another year of McGuane.

There are often the odd 1/2/3 players not on their game it happens, the problem re the 4 you mention is if the main striker is out of form.

I'm not sure Matty knows when or where Barker is going to cross the ball, whereas with Henry he certainly appeared to and as i've banged on about for Months Matty and Dan appeared to read each others game in just a few brief minutes they were allowed to be on the pitch at the same time.

In the case of Barker of course it doesn't help if we only look for him when 1/2 opponents are close by rather than when with space to run into.

 

[Berliner]

McGuane , Henry, Lee ,Barker should be our standout attacking players - yes, they would boss the league if all fit and well and functioning. I suspect we will sign Lee if he can get fit and there might be a chance of another year of McGuane.

Am I the only one who doesn't get the adulation over Lee? I know he's been promoted out of this league before but I need to see a lot more from him before contemplating a deal.
McGuane is undoubtedly a very good player, but for me it depends on his recovery from a long term injury. If he has lost that initial burst in the first metre we could have another Robbie Hall on our hands. Wouldn't be surprised if we're already looking elsewhere.

 

[horseman]

Yes wycombe fluked a promotion, had nothing apart from a first team squad ( no reserves or youth ) hardly any injuries and no salable players and an ugly style of football.
Every other point I agree with

is that not the main point though, they identified that they couldn't beat sides playing free flowing football, when it came to the play off final they went with their style of play which got them the promotion. As is mentioned above, you can't tell them their not going up because some don't like the way they play.

 

[Thomas/Brock/Jones]

Am I the only one who doesn't get the adulation over Lee? I know he's been promoted out of this league before but I need to see a lot more from him before contemplating a deal.
McGuane is undoubtedly a very good player, but for me it depends on his recovery from a long term injury. If he has lost that initial burst in the first metre we could have another Robbie Hall on our hands. Wouldn't be surprised if we're already looking elsewhere.

I just hope we need to get rid of Hanson, Grayson,Hall , Sykes, Winnall , Cooper f possible and get some bloody good players and get some youth players into the squad .
Lee , if fit , looked a replacement for Henry tbh but there are good players out there to go for , early and bloody go for it from the off next season !!

 

[horseman]

Am I the only one who doesn't get the adulation over Lee? I know he's been promoted out of this league before but I need to see a lot more from him before contemplating a deal.
McGuane is undoubtedly a very good player, but for me it depends on his recovery from a long term injury. If he has lost that initial burst in the first metre we could have another Robbie Hall on our hands. Wouldn't be surprised if we're already looking elsewhere.

I'm actually very alone in thinking similar about Mcguane who i felt often flattered to deceive similar to Browne

 

[Thomas/Brock/Jones]

is that not the main point though, they identified that they couldn't beat sides playing free flowing football, when it came to the play off final they went with their style of play which got them the promotion. As is mentioned above, you can't tell them their not going up because some don't like the way they play.

They wouldnt have gone up though unless co vid occurred and basically changed the season.

 

[horseman]

They wouldnt have gone up though unless co vid occurred and basically changed the season.

of course but the main point was that having got there, they found a way to gain promotion and all that entailed.