You caught me out you little rascal. Indeed, he was was injured although he’d have played if fit, and you can’t indulge meaningfully in this debate if you leave out a player of Anis Mehmeti’s ability. We might even have won that final if he was fit.
Was Gape and Obita instead of Mehmeti and Wing…but allow him, as it beefs the 2022 side up - and the point of the post is mostly to show how much better a much cheaper team was.
I agree with Duff, spirit and togetherness is the biggest difference - look how many of that 2022 team were cast-offs with a point to prove. I miss Gaz and Dobbo, they really knew what to look for in a signing.
edit: Just remembered how often the phrase “greater than the sum of our parts” was used on the Gasroom in those days, you definitely couldn’t say that now.
This kinda goes back to the point I was making in the other thread about people wanting 3 new first team players and upto another 6 or more squad players coming in this window.
Add that onto the number of players we had in the last 3 windows - both coming and going - and you have to ask yourself:
How on earth can we expect there to be the deep seated togetherness the wycombe teams of “old” were known for when theres been a revolving door installed at the club?
Now, i don’t want to start a whole “sack the board” discussion as thats the obvious argument but more of a steer towards this next window. Is duff signalling that there isn’t goign to be a big clear out but there needs to be a more targetted and smaller number of signings over the summer and for us to start backing some of the squad players a little bit more.
Like the Interview, what will be clear this Saturday is that any players that are not involved in the squad (not injured) will not be with us next season,really hope that MVS, Lowry ans Fink are involved.
The lads who went to Singapore last week have begun to form a bond that will burst through in 2031 when they all join the first team and lead us out of league one.
It is instructive to look at the two teams @PhlebasthePhoenician put up to start this thread, even if he’s playing a bit fast and loose with the actual players’ identities. The culture we had in that squad was generally excellent and, as @NewStyleOfPlay says, there was a real more-than-the-sum of our parts quality to the team over several years. But it took time to build from the time when Gaz and Dobbo took over, and it went through waves of development over their 11 years. And it wasn’t just a case of bringing in forceful or demanding personalities. The players themselves built the culture with the support of the management. And my guess is that it will take seasons to build again, incrementally, as you suggest.
Additionally, the manifestation of that culture is something that can be improved upon by players individually. Take Lewis Wing, who is part of that 2022 team. When he arrived, he was very capable on the ball, but not great at the nitty-gritty, ball-winning, heading and tackling that makes a midfield difficult to play against. By the time he left, those aspects of his game had come on leaps and bounds and he still shows them up the road now. That mentality can be developed in players in our squad, even if they’re not showing enough of it now.
I’ll give it a listen but my preamble is how does one cultivate such spirit? Buy and import it, build it from within, or somewhere in the middle? Hopefully it’ll be a collective effort with recruiters, financiers, and head coach all signing from the same hymn sheet this summer.
Ainsworth and Dobbo had a strong belief in their character test. You could be a superior technical player, but you weren’t getting in the door without the right mentality.
We’ve just gone a bit too far the other way - signed a lot of very technical players who don’t always produce at the required moments.