Time to change?

I totally agree with Nat, we look lightweight and spineless in more ways than one.

All teams look spineless from time to time. 
Just like Fleetwood looked a few days before they beat us (when n they got a hammering). Back in the 90s we pummelled FA Cup Champions and they looked spineless when small time Bolton raised their game.
Teams raising their game happens. And it happened against us this week. Its how it goes. 
We also have had a really poor run of injuries, and player fatigue must be taking a toll with so many of them never getting a rotation or from returning from sickness and injury before they are fit.
Get a grip. Win some. Lose some. Finish mid table this year, happy. Relegated, then ask question. If we finish above the drop zone and continue to be entertained, then I can't complain...

Biggie wrote:All teams look spineless from time to time. 
Just like Fleetwood looked a few days before they beat us (when n they got a hammering). Back in the 90s we pummelled FA Cup Champions and they looked spineless when small time Bolton raised their game.
Teams raising their game happens. And it happened against us this week. Its how it goes. 
We also have had a really poor run of injuries, and player fatigue must be taking a toll with so many of them never getting a rotation or from returning from sickness and injury before they are fit.
Get a grip. Win some. Lose some. Finish mid table this year, happy. Relegated, then ask question. If we finish above the drop zone and continue to be entertained, then I can't complain...

That’s rather an over optimistic spin if I might say so Biggie. The players had spare Saturday before this match, two days off and you claim they were tired? Come on, that’s just silly. We’ve been poor for a while and the results against Crewe and Donny actually flattered us, we could and probably should, have been behind in both before we scored. Donny in particular could have been 3 up before we got our first.

There just doesn’t seem any fight in the players, even when they go behind it doesn’t ignite them. We lose almost every 50/50 ball, don’t win headers and are pushed and outmuscled all over the pitch, other than MJ. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a weak Wanderers squad. It’s ok Evatt signing players he thinks can attack and defend in his system but maybe we should be recruiting players who can do one thing well instead. Rejecting Politic because he’s not good in defensive mode is just plain stupid to me. Yes, we need some all rounders but sometimes I think Evatt just lives in a fantasy world on how players at this level and on his budget can perform.

Anyone revised their opinion on this since the January window?

I'm still in the "happy to stay up" camp, which looks increasingly likely these days and with a bit more strength in depth to choose from, Evatt has shown a bit of tactical nous, notably against Charlton where he negated their strengths and still gave us attacking options. Maybe he shouldn't have picked Lee to play in the windswept Morecambe game - but at least he had the balls to hook him when it became obvious that it wouldn't suit him.
One thing is for sure and that is we're a good watch.
Suspect it's a little too late for a promotion push - we don't seem to do as well on shit pitches and in bad weather - but overall I'm pretty happy with things at the moment.
And I haven't spotted any Angry Birds waving "Evans Out" bedsheets recently - seems to have gone very quiet on that front.

One thing does puzzle me, why does Evatt tend to do better in the January window than the pre-season one?

Keep players from the lower standard (league two) then realising some weren’t good enough. As well as injuries

BoltonTillIDie wrote:Keep players from the lower standard (league two) then realising some weren’t good enough. As well as injuries

There's more to it than that.

For last season Phoenix was in charge of transfers in the pre-season, so the January window was Evatt's first window with us.

In this pre-season he had no transfer budget to buy players but still managed to persuade Afolayan and John who he had signed previously on loans - who both are clearly good enough at our current level.

Also on free he brought in Johnston who I would say is in Evatt's mind one of his starting eleven and Bakayoko, who seems to be ok when not injured and certainly good enough for our bench right now.

He also signed Sheehan who was a regular until he got an injury to end his season - would he have been a regular now without that injury - I don't know?

Similarly he signed Amaechi on loan but he's been out nearly all season injured too.

Aimson, Kachunga and Dixon were his other signings - Dixon I guess is seen as a fail, and the other two not seen as regular starters.

So in a sense his preseason dealings seemed fair to good to me - no money for transfers with I would say three of them regulars now in our team, a couple who would probably be starting on the bench with just a couple or three who probably wouldn't be in the squad if everyone was fit.

Remember also two other major factors, the first being whether the players were good enough for this season or not, they were still under contract with us (eg Doyle, Sarcevic, Fonz. etc) from last season and we still had to pay them - so Evatt simply couldn't make wholesale changes of players even if he wanted to - he had to prioritise and strengthen (from free transfers remember) where he thought was most needed.

The second factor is that from the government loan/s that FV received due to Covid Evatt got an unexpected half million transfer budget for January and whether it was planned or not was able to move out Doyle and Sarce and replace them with Charles, Morley and Dempster with that money plus bring in Fossey and Trafford on loan, - I strongly doubt that would have been possible without either the unexpected transfer kitty and the unplanned leaving of Doyle and Sarce (who were probably our top two wages we had starting this season).

I certainly couldn't see FV being able to back Evatt bringing in anyone for money or move out Doyle and Sarce if they had decided to sit out their contracts with us.

But yes we upgraded but only because we got the lucky opportunity to do so otherwise I would imagine we'd still be playing with Doyle and Sarce and not have Charles, Morley or Dempster with us.

I agree with that but would also add that it's been mentioned that "they've had their eye on" the new signings for a long time now, so maybe if the money had been there Evatt would have signed them - or even better targets in the summer. But it's true - the opportunity arose and Evatt did pretty well.
Which kinda makes me think about the conversations that went on with Sarce and Doyler behind the scenes. Obviously they freed up a fair bit of salary there and I can't help but wonder if there was just a tiny bit of push somewhere in those conversations.

wanderlust wrote:I agree with that but would also add that it's been mentioned that "they've had their eye on" the new signings for a long time now, so maybe if the money had been there Evatt would have signed them - or even better targets in the summer. But it's true - the opportunity arose and Evatt did pretty well.
Which kinda makes me think about the conversations that went on with Sarce and Doyler behind the scenes. Obviously they freed up a fair bit of salary there and I can't help but wonder if there was just a tiny bit of push somewhere in those conversations.

I’d say more than a bit of push Lusty. I think Evatt like the rest of us had worked out that although central to our promotion from League two, neither Sarce or Doyle were good enough to take us further. My complaint earlier was our sluggish and lightweight team. Doyle had lost his sharpness and we had no physicality. With Charles and Bod, alongside Baka and Dapo, we now have a forward threat that can match any in this division. Sheehan for me was always too lightweight and for all Lee is class, he too isn’t really a battler. 

Evatt’s has solved that now with his change in formation as much as his recruitment record. We now have players that we can sell on and I’m sure that’s what FV intend to do, so the likes of Dapo, Rico and possibly even Charles and Marlon if we sign him could make the club some money to reinvest. We always knew that rebuilding was a long term job but not wishing to get too optimistic, I still think we can make the play offs. We still have four of the teams above us to play, two at home and I don’t see any reason we can’t win all of them with this team, including Wigan away. With both Rotherham and Wigan also having to play and hopefully beat these teams, as well as the playing each other too, there’s no reason why if we keep winning, we can’t make it. Three more points tomorrow and we’re right there amongst it.

Whitesince63 wrote:
I’d say more than a bit of push Lusty. I think Evatt like the rest of us had worked out that although central to our promotion from League two, neither Sarce or Doyle were good enough to take us further. My complaint earlier was our sluggish and lightweight team. Doyle had lost his sharpness and we had no physicality. With Charles and Bod, alongside Baka and Dapo, we now have a forward threat that can match any in this division. Sheehan for me was always too lightweight and for all Lee is class, he too isn’t really a battler. 

Evatt’s has solved that now with his change in formation as much as his recruitment record. We now have players that we can sell on and I’m sure that’s what FV intend to do, so the likes of Dapo, Rico and possibly even Charles and Marlon if we sign him could make the club some money to reinvest. We always knew that rebuilding was a long term job but not wishing to get too optimistic, I still think we can make the play offs. We still have four of the teams above us to play, two at home and I don’t see any reason we can’t win all of them with this team, including Wigan away. With both Rotherham and Wigan also having to play and hopefully beat these teams, as well as the playing each other too, there’s no reason why if we keep winning, we can’t make it. Three more points tomorrow and we’re right there amongst it.

Love the optimism White but the reality is that if we get 3 more points tomorrow we'll still be 10th and that in itself is a precarious position given that Pompey are one point behind us with a game in hand - it's a fair old gap to breach to the playoffs and despite winning we've hardly had any impact on it.
On paper we have a "mixed" run in with 4 very testing matches against higher positioned teams to go - Wigan away, Sheff Wed home, Plymouth home & MKD away plus we have to beat Pompey so it's far from easy even if we beat all the teams below us.
Of the teams above us that we might target, Plymouth have a horrendous run in and Sunderland are in freefall but Sheff Wednesday are on fire and have an easy run in and will make it IMO. Ipswich also have an easy run in until they play both Wigan and Rotherham in April - but by then those teams may already be promoted and perhaps won't present the same challenge.

Two very winnable games this week for us but we won't really know whether or not we're in with a chance until after the MKD away fixture at the end of the month. If we win all of the remaining games this month including MKD away  I'll start to believe it's do-able but we are very much in the archetypal one game at a time scenario right now.