League one champions 23/24

Pending…

Ian Evatt has shown progression in his managerial career, season upon season his teams have improved. 

We are almost the dogs bollocks, the finished article is within touching distance and assuming we correctly replace Trafford/Bradley and bring in a midfield enforcer we will blow a lot of teams away next season. 

Evatt doesn’t settle for second best and I really do believe we win the league.

If Evatt doesn’t get us promoted one way or another next season, he will be sitting on top of our bonfire on the 5th November!

I simply can't see Evatt changing his football philosophy and bringing in a 'hard man'.

He seems fixated on the 'beautiful game' to the exclusion of all else.

I happened to catch some of the commentary of the Coventry v Luton play-off final (hard lines Coventry, what an achievement Luton) and Ian Holloway was the football pundit alongside the match commentator.

Now I'm no Holloway admirer but talk about the in vouge football style of passing the ball about at the back, centre backs having hundreds of touches and sooner or later the inevitable will happen where a pass goes astray and the opposition are immediately in on goal - and scores.

We've all seen it happen, too often, with Evatt's style we play.

I'm not advocating longball but what's the point in taking 90 passes and 10 minuets every time to move the ball up from our penalty box to theirs?

We have to have more strings to our bow than just the Evatt way.

We have games were we get bullied - but we never bully other teams - why not when it works for others against us?  

I've said for some months now that we need to be unpredictable from time to time, the weaker teams we play simple park the bus and us taking 90 passes before we get a shot off isn't going to break them down is?

Most teams used to play two different styles of way, more attacking at home and more defensive away - we seem to play the same way home or away.

Great if it works but we all know teams who simply know what to expect from us - Barnsley for instance simply targeted Bradley in the semis - and it more or less stopped us from performing.

I can only assume Evatt tried to give Bradley some protection in the second leg by picking Thomason as the 'enforcer' but he isn't good enough to do that - he isn't the cold hearted assassin type we needed - and still require.

I'm not so sure the 'enforcer' would be a fixture in the team but we would need him for say 20 to 25 games in the season - and we simply don't have the type of player in the squad.

Unfortunately I can't see Evatt signing one either.

We need to go all out win our home games - and have some 'steel' in the team to not lose in our away games - if we really are serious about promotion next season.

Boggersbelief wrote:Pending…

Ian Evatt has shown progression in his managerial career, season upon season his teams have improved. 

We are almost the dogs bollocks, the finished article is within touching distance and assuming we correctly replace Trafford/Bradley and bring in a midfield enforcer we will blow a lot of teams away next season. 

Evatt doesn’t settle for second best and I really do believe we win the league.

Laughable.

I'd say a fight against relegation is more likely than an automatic promotion push.

We've lost our best two players, and are stuck with 4 of the 5 strikers that the manager admitted didn't score enough. He refuses to sign a shithousing midfielder, preferring to fill the midfield with lightweights.

I also think he's been sadly lacking in big game management - you saw what happened against Barnsley, we played exactly the same way for 180 minutes and hardly laid a glove on them.

**Can a mod please put this thread in the right section, Boggers is clueless.

I think playoffs again is what we should be looking at assuming they can work a bit of magic in the loan market again. 

The Jan window does make me think mid table might be on though.

Natasha Whittam wrote:

Laughable.

I'd say a fight against relegation is more likely than an automatic promotion push.

We've lost our best two players, and are stuck with 4 of the 5 strikers that the manager admitted didn't score enough. He refuses to sign a shithousing midfielder, preferring to fill the midfield with lightweights.

I also think he's been sadly lacking in big game management - you saw what happened against Barnsley, we played exactly the same way for 180 minutes and hardly laid a glove on them.

**Can a mod please put this thread in the right section, Boggers is clueless.

Bollocks. We have been moving in the right direction ever since Evatt step foot in the door. Watching this play off final has only confirmed how shite both those teams are. Cannot believe we bottled it.

Apologies for putting this in the wrong section, a rare mistake from me

With the current squad I think we’re looking at a mid table finish. We’ll have to see what business the club does ahead of next season before we can start thinking about the playoffs again but I don’t like our best players leaving at the end of every season. Not a fan of relying on loan players - we need consistency to build on in order to compete at the top.

Good luck to Evatt.
He has the makings of a leader and a man who strives for the highest result. I think that if he manages to set his team up properly, he will be able to qualify for the top three, and maybe even for the championship.