One setback will not deter us from the longer-term goals that we have put in place to take this club to levels it has never reached before.
Step 9. Which is why they signed Kone.
WAKE UP, SHEEPLE
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It is wild that I and many others can feel so despondent about what on the surface has been a tremendously successful season. I know there was an odd feeling after the Sunderland play off final but I can’t imagine the atmosphere going into next season. The uncertainty as to what the future looks like for the club doesn’t help, with the addition of one of the worst footballing products I’ve seen in 25 years of support I go into next season without much excitement.
One of my biggest concerns is the main project for the owners is seemingly the academy, but the scattergun recruitment in January has made the path to the first team for our increasingly fruitful development squad incredibly narrow. Jasper and Declan had brilliant squad roles in the early half of the season, these are the players as a supporter I love to see and if given an opportunity to develop can help fund our future. If January is an indicator of what is to come then what hope to our academy players have of making the grade?
Maybe the success of some of the loan signings this season will help us, but if I was a player or agent I’d be thinking twice about Wycombe as a place to develop and move up the pyramid. 6 months earlier and it would be a no brainer. I suppose Dodds showing prospective players his photos of him and the Bellingham boys might swing it though…
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It is objectively very funny seeing people berate Dodds for exactly the same things they didn’t berate Bloomfield for when things were going badly for him - much worse than they’ve gone for Dodds.
How long has he been at Sunderland? Plenty of opportunity for L1 experience
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Chat GPT output
To the Chairboys Faithful,
We know this season hasn’t ended the way any of us hoped. The dream of promotion was alive in every chant, every away day journey, every moment you stood by this club through thick and thin. And to fall short—again—is a pain we all share.
To every supporter who believed until the very end, we want to say we’re sorry. Sorry we couldn’t deliver the ending this season deserved. Your loyalty, your passion, your unwavering belief in Wycombe Wanderers means everything to us—and we feel the weight of your hopes every time we step on the pitch.
But this is not the end of our story. This club, built on grit, heart, and a fighting spirit, will rise again. The foundations are strong. The belief is still burning. And with your continued support, we know we can come back stronger, hungrier, and more determined than ever.
Next season starts now—not in August, but today. Together, we dust ourselves off, we hold our heads high, and we go again. Because that’s what Wycombe does. That’s what you do.
Thank you for everything. We’ll be back—louder, bolder, and more united.
Up the Chairboys.
— Wycombe Wanderers FC
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You are right that we could have signed a striker, but we also could have played Vokes quite a few times too which he chose not to. We also didn’t have to let Brandon Hanlan go out on loan.
I don’t think that’s strictly true. Plenty wanted MB to go and even his most ardent supporters had their patience severely tested by that dreadful run and some of the tactics being repeatedly employed to little effect. The only way I see Dodds turning it around is by having a complete clear out and a fresh dressing room. But he still will have seemingly little say in who arrives in that dressing room and whether he can mould a winning side (I’m not even talking about entertaining) looks 50/50 based on enough evidence so far.
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The bit that confuses me with the whole “head coach” v “director of football” division is that I thought this was supposed to encourage a set way of playing, which the head coach is supposed to implement but with the understanding that they don’t entirely call the shots.
Brighton is supposed to be an example of this, where they have a fair turnover of “head coaches” (who get poached by bigger clubs when they have shown success) but in the hope that the transition between coaches doesn’t really derail the club, because the coach is somewhat working to a blueprint anyway.
I guess a lot of the success of a data-driven approach rests on how good the data model is.
But how the hell did a data-driven approach get to the point where we are playing some of the worst football we’ve seen for some time?
Yes, much of the Ainsworth approach wasn’t pretty either, but it was at least high energy, and we had the players for hoofball.
Also, in the Gazball days, once we’d lumped it forward, we would at least play some football in the final third between the forward players.
Because Kone is not a proper target man (not his fault - very good player but not a target man) so many of our attacking plays just come to nothing, given how isolated he is.
The point being, if what we’re seeing at the moment is really “what the data suggests” - then we need a new data model, and sharpish.
Negative football can be tolerated to a point if it works - hell, even Peter Taylor grindball got us promoted - but when it doesn’t even get results then the natives get pretty restless pretty quickly.
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I must have missed the ‘downward spiral’ and ‘dropping off for a couple of months’ before MD came in because I thought we were comfortably second with an excellent goal difference. I hope Mike can ensure we’re never found out like that again.
I want to watch the games through the experienced eyes of @glasshalffull1 next season…surely the technology is available…as the elation whatever the score will make Saturday nights more positive and I won’t have to read negative posts from fairweather fans and then true fans bringing up Bloomfield and then telling everyone to move on from Bloomfield. Probably.
(I know I will get slaughtered for this.)
For the record I hope Mike comes good next term…though what that might actually look like I’m not sure.
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Plenty were calling for Bloomfield’s head. I was one, but I’ve tried to learn from that. I still think he got more leeway with some fans than Dodds did - which I understand, but that doesn’t mean Dodds shouldn’t get the same.
Have they sacked the comms team now?
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Are you referring to yourself there?
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One of the many, many tragedies that has befallen the club is the discarding of players like Declan Skura and Jasper Pattenden. The latter featured in our best performance and result of the season, the 5-0 win at Stockport County on Bonfire Night, and had established himself as the first choice right-back for a top-of-the-table League One side. The former meanwhile has shown immense promise and potential, because Matt Bloomfield was committed to giving young players an opportunity and wasn’t weighed down a ridiculously bloated squad.
Both are now likely to be released as part of an exodus of players this summer.
I am bemused by just how many cannot see what is happening in front of their faces. I guess they must have their eyes closed.
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This is genuinely utter bollocks. You’re a Rice acolyte aren’t you.
We experienced a phenomenal run or results that morphed into perfectly good results. If that’s ’dropping off’ what the fuck do you call our last 10 games?
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Absolutely generational head-loss on here. Incredible stuff.
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With the exception of Stevenage away, we were distinctly average in December and the portion of January when MB was still here. Nothing alarming, but people need to stop acting like we were flying until MB left and then went off a cliff.
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But that is what happened. It’s a bizarre hill to die on.
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No it’s not. We outperformed our xG significantly during that long winning run - that was never going to last.
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Bye Dan
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To keep this on thread, rather than today’s vanilla statement, it would’ve been more refreshing to see Rice/AN other on camera with Phil issuing the same sentiment with some expanded bits of useful information.
“We recognise the end of the season was tough to take but overall it’s exceeded expectations. There’s plenty of developments to look forward to over the summer, including an investment in Marlow Road. We’ve had a rethink on Harlington and are now taking steps to upgrade our previous facilities. We’ll also be sitting down with Mike and the coaching team to assess next season and start planning asap. While the Academy forms part of our long-term vision, the first team is naturally the main focus for the fans, and we want to ensure we can be as competitive as possible.”
Even that would be pretty dry but Christ, it took me 2 minutes.
If you want to show you truly get the club and its identity then sit down on that sofa and at least give the optics of a group in tune with the club rather than AI-assisted slop. There’s a media team that can help you there. Use them.
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