[Archived] Play Offs, Really?

[Blue blood]

Excellent post ratters. The only way forward is to get behind Bowyer and his coaching staff. Promotion was never a reality this season carrying the amount of deadwood we had. We have now made a start in shedding that and we are finally moving in the right direction. It's not going to happen overnight, it's going to take time but the continual negative attitude of some is not going to get the club anywhere.

Quick question Parson (apologies if you've already been asked). But would you be happy with our progress IF you knew for certain it was promotion or bust?

Think this is where a lot of the concern comes from. And the fact it seems Bowyer is immune from criticism from some quarters - criticism not necessarily meaning need to get rid but acknowledging the .weaknesses as well as the strengths. And yes, it's equally frustrating when people say Bowyer can do nothing right either.

[Clitherover]

Sorry wrong thread.

[roversR4ever]

The reality it was always going to be hard to get to the playoffs with the mess we were in at the end of the season. That fact the Bowyer has managed to get us so close to the playoffs at different points this season has been a good achievement and its raised expectations/hope.

With two better ref decisions we could still be right to the edge of the playoffs. The killer blow for me this season was the loss of Evans for such long period - if he was now playing and stayed fit until the end of the season it might just have been the difference. The recent loss of Marshall has hurt us as well.

Now that we have got rid of soo many players - all be it some just on loan it shows how thin our squad actually really is as a good number of those players weren't good enough/motivated enough etc.

Conway would help for the remainder of the season if we get him as hes a good player for this league and will compensate for Marshalls loss.

Id have liked Conway even if we hadn't lost Marshall as he might have given Bowyer the confidence to bring Cairney into the middle. The thing is with him playing Cairney out wide is a lot of people say its because he favours having two defensive players in the middle but perhaps its also because he isn't confident in the options he has to replace Cairney in the wide positios (in my view he as played that position really well) and so Bowyer actually believes that having Cairney wide and Williamson/Lowe in the middle weakens the team less that moving Cairney into the middle and having a different player out wide.

To me the reality is he doesn't want such a defensive cm partnership but the injury to Evans and the lack of genuinely in form options to Cairney out wide forced his hand.

Loaning Dabo perhaps also indicates that's how Bowyer feels. If he genuinely thought the combination of Williamson and Lowe was the answer he would not have gone and got Dabo.

Dabo is an interesting one - he is meant to be more of a mobile box to box player but I have no idea how good he is - but Bowyer of recent times seems to be picking up decent players so Im intrigued.

If we get Conway and he plays as well as he was at Brighton and Dabo turns out to be as good as Bowyers recent signings then it could yet give us a faint hope especially if Evans returns next month and finds form quickly (big ask I know). If we don't beat Blackpool then that faint hope has gone in my view.

[BRFC1995]

There is starting to be a decent looking team sheet we can put out not a team full of journeymen, donkeys and the despised.

Rhodes without service is no good for anything in this league and we now have decent players wide and hopefully cairney can go in the middle with a very decent big man in gestede alongside him.

.............................Robbo........................

Henley..........??????......????????.......Spurr.

Marshall.........Cairney......Evans.........Conway..

..................Rhodes........Gestede.......................

Players of equivalent ability to the rest of the team filling the blanks and if the season started again tomorrow and Bowyer had the mentality to score again rather than sit back I'd fancy us at least to be comfortably in the play offs. I will never understand Lowe playing he must have played a 100 games now and never improved the team in any way the same with Hanley thought he was a donk when coming through with jones who clearly had composure in spades by comparison and I've never been sold on Hanley. If your truly a promotion quality team there should be speculation about your good players especially in a certain age bracket so who has ever heard/read teams interested in Lowe/Hanley.

The above team playing the rest of the season and staying fit maybe with a center half coming in and I think we will go close but come up short too late in the season to finally get a semi decent looking squad.

[Amo]

Probably the most depressing thought is that even if we do accumulate the points to gatecrash the playoffs, we'll miss out due to our lacklustre goal-difference.

[FGS5635]

Probably the most depressing thought is that even if we do accumulate the points to gatecrash the playoffs, we'll miss out due to our lacklustre goal-difference.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo wheres the old avatar