I think we are expecting a player clear out rather than demanding one and if we dont have an ‘Inquisition’ about how the two halves of the season panned out the way they did before we start recruiting again I would be worried.
Then again perhaps Lommy should be the most worried if they will be spending more of his millions for ‘next season’.
Completely with you here @Norsquarters. This season against the top 6 (not including us) we won only twice (during that 2 game purple patch end Oct start Nov) and drew one other losing 9. With 4 loan players as regular starters we are notready for the championship. We go again next season COYB
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Spectacular revisionism to say a team that rocketed to the top of League 1, scoring in every game, scoring more goals than any other team in the division had a “two game purple patch”.
I don’t understand what the denialists get out of trying to slag off the best football this club has played in decades. Is it a coping mechanism?
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None of us liked it at the time @CornDog can’t you remember everyone saying ‘steady now this isn’t what we want to watch every week…’
W2-0 ROTHERHAM UNITED (H) | Aug 24
D2-2 Blackpool (A) | Aug 31
W2-1 NORTHAMPTON TOWN (H) | Sept 14
W2-1 CAMBRIDGE UNITED (H) | Sept 21
W2-1 Bristol Rovers (A) | Sept 28
D2-2 Barnsley (A) | Oct 1
W1-0 CRAWLEY TOWN (H) | Oct 5
W3-1 PETERBOROUGH UNITED (H) | Oct 19
W3-2 Burton Albion (A) | Oct 22
W3-0 LEYTON ORIENT (H) | Oct 26
W5-0 Stockport County (A) | Nov 5
W1-0 Wigan Athletic (A) | Nov 9
W3-2 Lincoln City (A) | Nov 23
W1-0 MANSFIELD TOWN (H) | Nov 26
D2-2 Exeter City (A) | Dec 3
D1-1 READING (H) | Dec 7
W4-1 Shrewsbury Town (A) | Dec 14
D0-0 BOLTON WANDERERS (H) | Dec 20
W3-0 Stevenage (A) | Dec 26
L1-2 Charlton Athletic (A) | Dec 29
W2-1 EXETER CITY (H) | Jan 1
D1-1 BLACKPOOL (H) | Jan 4
L0-1 HUDDERSFIELD TOWN (A) | Jan 7
Well that sure is some purple patch. That really is some drop off in form.
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Presumably 2024 was our best ever calendar year since joining the Football League (in terms of results)?
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Yes it was
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Not sure there was anyone better in any of the leagues across 2024.
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Only Liverpool.
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We played some great stuff in 2024. The spell of 11 wins in 12 was the peak of a superb calendar year.
Nonetheless, I think we’d have had similar results after Xmas, even with MB in charge.
We’d struck a brilliant balance in midfield with Scowen, Humphreys and Morley. Losing one to injury and/or returning loan was a big risk because we didn’t have anything close to like for like replacements.
Likewise, the loss of Harvie was huge as we had no left back capable of getting forward as effectively and producing balls into the box.
We also relied heavily on rotating the front 3 early in the season, producing great attacking players with an always fresh forward line. Injury to Lubala and the loss of Hanlan has made that much harder.
So I don’t think it’s a case of anyone ‘slagging off’ Bloomfield’s team. It’s simply that he’d have experienced the same difficulties as Dodds with the loss of key players and reduced capacity to rotate upfront.
Plus of course we saw teams begin to adapt to our style of play and make life more difficult. I think it was evident in the games against Bolton, Charlton and Huddersfield before MB’s departure that we weren’t likely to be able to continue to carve teams open as we had.
My view is that we’d have finished on a very similar points total had MB remained in charge. I always felt we would be likely to struggle against more physical sides as the season went on, which I think proves to be the case.
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Good lord.
Sorry, I was momentarily lost for words. You think the team that had a 12 month period better than any other club in the country bar one, would suddenly have dropped off a cliff and played the worst football imaginable, even if Blooms had stayed?
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Just imagine we hadn’t spunked £2m on players that have played an hour between them and signed Morley instead.
George another daft data signing instead, played about ten minutes of genuine first team football, he gave up a good career in Scotland for it. In fact, I feel for all our new signings who have been uprooted just to spend time in the stands, not their fault.
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And that’s before you add wages, I doubt they upped sticks for peanuts. Two were supposed to be marquee signings. Don’t want to completely write them off but it’s not looking great.
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Imagine if we’d backed our own manager in the transfer window instead of signing players someone else’s manager said we should buy.
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change the record …think you need to talk to a councillor!
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I agree with this. Perhaps the issue that contributed towards Bloomfield deciding to leave was a disagreement about signing players to compliment the system you mentioned against players who had no fit to that system but matched a different recruitment perspective.
And you sign up some Danes
But you don’t ask their names
That’s Dan Rice alright
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Maybe the councillor could help with that pesky additional access road.
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Sigh.