General How have the team performed?

[Osleroad]

Kind of hard to stay in business when you don't!

And mitigate against the kind of pandemic which only occurs once every 100 years!

 

[Mad Dog]

In addition, Elliott Moore lost his Dad late into preseason and undoubtedly impacted on his preparation. Josh Ruffels had a very unlucky injury with landing on his shoulder after a nothing challenge. Gorrin was also injured had that contributed to our poor defensive record as much as the ever changing back 4. And I would add Taylor to those who lost form at the beginning of the season.

So if you look at the team that finished last season and how they performed in the first dozen games.



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Eastwood - badly out of form and probably got an extra half dozen games out of loyalty.

Long - 50 mins at RB, then LB and CB over the next dozen games.

Dickie - left replaced by Atkinson, who had 2 injuries in the first dozen or more games.

Moore - lost his Dad and played in a makeshift defence. Form clearly affected.

Ruffels - a freak injury and then lost of form.

Sykes - not regularly playing and very inconsistent.

Gorrin - injured first game and too exposed on his return.

Brannagan - freak injury that kept him out for most of the first half of the season.

Henry - huge loss of form and confidence. Really struggled to make any impression and offered little support on the right.

Taylor - chipped away with a few goals but never looked particularly sharp and not helped by the lack of service he got.

Browne - left and replaced by Cooper who sadly couldn't settle. Some glimpses of what he was capable of, but barely had a run.


Some of these issues were of our own making (we were at least one defender short and had a bench of utility players rather than direct replacements). But I don't think anyone would argue against the fact that we were desperately unlucky to lose pretty much everything from a playoff final side within a couple of weeks of the season starting.

Jesus, when you look at that side, it’s even more mind boggling, how the hell we didn’t win that playoff final!

But all things considered, I think we’ve actually overachieved this season, as at the start of December, we were still worrying about relegation, it had been an awful first quarter to the season, and the whole team, except Long, were woefully out of form, or injured.

To have turned things around, to the point where we’re still in the hunt for a playoff place going into the last game of the season, is a fantastic achievement, that the whole squad, manager and coaching staff deserve huge credit for.

Even a 50% better first quarter, and we’d be sitting pretty right now, at least guaranteed a playoff spot, maybe even already promoted.

Hopefully all the unfortunate distractions, injuries and complications won’t occur this time round, and lessons have been learned, regarding recruitment, and next season we can hit the ground running from day one, and not leave ourselves such a mountain to climb.

 

[TailsWeWin]

Hopefully, KR will have learned some lessons from his mistakes.

 

[WRox]

There has to be less turbulence this summer if we’re to hit the ground running next year. I don’t actually think we’ve got any individuals on a par with Dickie for quality, so we won’t be losing someone that important, but do need to balance the loss of key players with the financial benefit of selling them.

KR gets a lot of stick for us being slow starters considering he’s lost a couple of Championship quality players every summer, and often after pre-season has already started.

 

[Northernyellow]

Kind of hard to stay in business when you don't!

Heyho- here we go again. So does Tiger have the funds he says he does, or does his business model depend on us flogging our best players every 9-12 months or so? Discuss. Except I can't be bothered to, because when anyone raises the issue, you seem to get a bit prickly, and life really is too short. It seems to me that when we sell, we don't properly re-invest. We appear to have a good scouting network, and KR (for all his faults) does bring players on well, and is obviously a decent coach. But clubs that consistently sell their best players, and do not re-invest a substantial amount of those funds, do not tend to get promoted. But I am sure this will now be the cue for a snippy reply about investment and infrastructure and so on.

 

[Scotchegg]

Heyho- here we go again. So does Tiger have the funds he says he does, or does his business model depend on us flogging our best players every 9-12 months or so? Discuss. Except I can't be bothered to, because when anyone raises the issue, you seem to get a bit prickly, and life really is too short. It seems to me that when we sell, we don't properly re-invest. We appear to have a good scouting network, and KR (for all his faults) does bring players on well, and is obviously a decent coach. But clubs that consistently sell their best players, and do not re-invest a substantial amount of those funds, do not tend to get promoted. But I am sure this will now be the cue for a snippy reply about investment and infrastructure and so on.

I think there's only one being prickly here!

The reality is that, as a club we lose around £3m a year before player sales. Even without squad restrictions, and a global pandemic, regulations mean that you can only spend a proportion of what you receive in revenue. Without owning the ground we do not have access to the revenue streams that many other clubs have. So regardless of how much Tiger has got in his piggy bank, we have to sell in order to be able to invest in the squad.

That's not me being snippy, it's the reality that many overlook.

But our model is still fairly new and it will take a while before we're able to see how this all works. If you go back a couple of summers we sold Gavin Whyte but brought in Fosu, Gorrin, Moore, Agyei and balanced the books. Fosu has already moved on for another profit, and arguably the other 3 could still attract decent bids.

We then sell Baptiste (and Fosu) which actually gives us breathing space for what was to come. But we also bought in Rob Atkinson who could again go for decent money.

The summer was a bit up and down, we sold Dickie but was able to bring in Cooper, Clare, Winnall, Taylor, Obita and give Brannagan a nice new contract. Many of these haven't worked out, but that's football. Clare could still attract a bid in the closed season, Obita surprisingly turned a profit and Cooper may still come back and have a big impact. The money from Obita also gave us Luke McNally who looks a good prospect.

So we can pick fault with deals in or out, but it's hard to argue against the model that allows us to balance the books AND compete at the top end of the league.


Edit - see Marcus McGuane for further proof!!

 

[Dubai Yellow]

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Forgetting all the ifs, buts and maybes, which every club has, its (Just) About Par for me. The target this season was (never a points target) always to make the Playoffs, so if we dont make it, we have fallen short on our aim. Either way, given our current form and the positive signs around the club, im happy with the current status quo at OUFC.