Shez Taking Severe Stick On The Farm.

Tringreen wrote:

Cornish Chris wrote:

FY 310 wrote:

sufferedsince 68 wrote:

The usual Knobbers claiming that this squad full of losers is really very very talented and that its all Shez's fault that we did not get promoted? i think we did not get automatic promotion for lots of reasons, 1. The players are not  brave enough to win away matches they just retreat into their shells. 2 Total over reliance on cheap loans with no real experience. 3 Total lack of real backing in the transfer market from the owner Oyston Brent. Still looking on the brightside, stripes were back!

At least Blackpool got to the Prem under Oyston, something that wouldn't happen under the parasite non-developer as long as I've got a hole in my ass.

Absolutely.

That's the difference between us and Portsmouth. We're both in League 2 because of financial ineptitude on an industrial scale. The difference is that Portsmouth had half a decade in the Premier League, two Cup Finals and a UEFA Cup run. We had two top-half finishes in Division 2 and a squad that looked pretty good until we sold them all.

I wonder how long it'll take us to get back to the quality of the team that won 2-1 at Charlton on 24th October 2007:

McCormick
Connolly
Timar
Seip
Hodges (Buzsaky)
Martin
Nalis
Norris
Halmosi
Hayles
Ebanks-Blake.

Nice post match comments from Holloway, too, in case anyone wants him back (this was almost a month to the day before he resigned):

Quote :

"I loved the work ethic, we were never say die and I am very proud of this football club.
"People don't take me seriously but I care about people with a passion and this club is going places.
"Sometimes us managers fall on our sword but if we continue to play like that, it won't happen to me."

 The tale I was told privately by a current director at HP, was that Holloway had asked the board to back him financially to keep his squad together and add to it, for a tilt at promotion.He was told that funding would be sought imminently. When he found out prior to the home game with Norwich in the autumn of 2007, that nothing had been done and it was clear that property and position, not promotion was the agenda, he and his players were ripe for the plucking.
It was at this time that my repeated warnings not to Trust in Stapes and enjoy the ride, resulted in me being banned from the farm............ 'I'll never hear a bad word about that man and his lovely family'. It's still going on today but now, the trotters are well and truly under the table, which was always the plan.

The club is a nauseatingly parochial playground for the dim and grasping.  It hasn't deserved my support since Holloway.

That'll be PJ, then, I assume.

The same PJ who as a club outsider worked long and hard to turn the fanbase against the incumbent board in the hope that they'd be driven out and his mates could buy in on the cheap?

The same PJ who knew for a fact that he would never be welcomed back at the club by the then incumbents and that those in control at the time would rather sell to absolutely anybody rather than him?

The same PJ who has long since realised how important Pasoti is in Argyle World and who has slaved manfully to ensure that it is firmly, if unofficially, under the club's wing and as such will never again be used to ferment the discontent that he himself once so successfully orchestrated?

The same PJ who undermined the club to the extent that his happy crew of seditious mutineers even approached the club's manager and turned his head with empty promises to the extent that he was driven away from the club when the club was unable to match the pie in the sky promises PJ's boys had made?

The same PJ who promised millions of pounds for team building that was never, ever actually going to get spent on the team unless the existing board walked away for nothing (something which he himself notably did not do when he trousered £500k on the sale of his stake when he left)?

The same PJ who posted anonymous criticisms of the club's captain and told supporters to feck off and support Man Utd?

That PJ?

Of all of that his part in breaking the relationship between Holloway and the club is the most outrageous of many outrages (and, believe me, there's plenty of scurrilous others that I am not going to repeat) and yet it always seems that it is the club's fault for not honouring promises not made by them but made by those outside the club who mounted a phony bidding war as they tried to muscle in on the cheap.

Maybe, just maybe, had a friendly, persuasive rather than antagonistic, aggressive approach been adopted by people acting like professional businessmen and not sneering playground bullies then their bid might have been more successful, Holloway might not have been turned against the club and the entire disastrous episode that followed might have been avoided? Maybe.

SFD. Do you believe any of the "Argyle supporting" members of the Kev Ball / PJ consortium were prepared to invest the sums required to compete in CCC?

They were all pretty conspicuous by their absence when the begging bowl reached Wrathall.

The Consortium were prepared to invest in the team - but as SFD says they expected Rob(Rest his soul), Phil and I to hand over our shares - shares that I had paid Jones for - and walk. About as naieve a business proposal as ever existed.

pepsipete wrote:

With potentially Bristol Rovers, Yeovil, Portsmouth and Exeter this division could be more appealing than than league one.

For those with local mentalities its a wet dream come true however i rather we played in a higher league.

green_genie wrote:

SFD. Do you believe any of the "Argyle supporting" members of the Kev Ball / PJ consortium were prepared to invest the sums required to compete in CCC?

They were all pretty conspicuous by their absence when the begging bowl reached Wrathall.

The offer on the table was £5m. For that they wanted to take control of the club and underwrite a share issue with whatever remained going towards players. That was the offer on the table.

Hence the nasty PR squeeze, and it was very nasty on lots of levels, to try to get the sitting board out as cheaply as possible.

Judge for yourself whether that represents "the sum required to compete in CCC" or whether they are the tactics we'd like to see employed by those seeking to own the club. I'd prefer to think that there was some decency and integrity, as once so perfectly personified by Michael Foot, in the board room.

There was lots of talk of investment. Lots of it. Almost endless. Whether the investment was endless or not is an unknown. As were the terms under which the investment was being made which were never specified; rich people don't get rich or stay rich by giving their money away whilst expecting nothing in return after all. My position was that it was impossible to assess whether the investment offered was beneficial or not if you don't know the terms under which it is made. For example borrowing a £100 off a mate is one thing, straying into overdraft another, putting it on a credit card another and getting it off Wonga yet another. Somewhere along that continuum a good idea becomes a bad one.

As far as I know Kevin Ball was very, very ill not so long ago. So ill that he may no longer be with us (I am speculating here and don't know more one way or another) which makes his absence from recent procedings understandable. I've no idea why the others didn't step forward when they could have picked the club up for a pittance though but it certainly doesn't suggest that there was that much cash floating about ready to be splashed but, again, that is speculation. Maybe they had it then but don't now. Things change all the time after all. I don't know.

It's all hypothetical now. Even if they were reckless, incompetent and negligent skint bulshitters on the make they could hardly have been any worse than what we ended up with.

Josh Pope wrote:

Maybe if Shez had a bit more faith in some of our own players?

If they were good enough I'm sure he would

Graiser wrote:

Josh Pope wrote:

Maybe if Shez had a bit more faith in some of our own players?

If they were good enough I'm sure he would

Agreed. We dont play a style and formation Purrington can play well in atm so he will have to adapt to a wing back/left midfield role better and im sure he will get more airtime.

As for Harvey it might just be me but i dont see anything about him to warrant the hype. I think he will have to do a Young in order to develop as a player.

Angry wrote:

Graiser wrote:

Josh Pope wrote:

Maybe if Shez had a bit more faith in some of our own players?

If they were good enough I'm sure he would

Agreed. We dont play a style and formation Purrington can play well in atm so he will have to adapt to a wing back/left midfield role better and im sure he will get more airtime.

As for Harvey it might just be me but i dont see anything about him to warrant the hype. I think he will have to do a Young in order to develop as a player.

Its a tough one. I get where both of these arguments come from. When Ben P has played he's look alright, there's been mixed performances, but on the whole he's not looked any worse than THD and with THD failing to perform at the moment, why isn't our own up-and-comer being given an opportunity to prove himself over a stretch of games - the same courtesy that loanees have felt. Same with Tyler, he's shown some quality performances and some dismal ones, but he's not the only one to suffer this fate of form, yet he remains one of the few destined to bench warm.

For me Tyler's the enigma, if he's a striker, who would he replace, Reid or Allesandra ? Maybe Allesandra based on recent performances but then again Allesandra does defend from the front and Tyler doesn't defend.
Tyler the midfielder ? I think he can see a pass but his tackling is a lot to be desired and he has no legs, so maybe his future lies elsewhere

I definitely agree with Sheridan that he's suited to the midfield. In the role that Banton played against Cheltenham, the most advanced of a midfield three not overly piled with defensive responsibilities but an energetic forward, linking the play with vision. He's definitely got a keen eye for a pass, look at the amount of times he played Reid in against Exeter - I thought we truly had found a player there. But he disappointed as he found himself bullied by Stevenage on the Tuesday. Its a shame that he's not really been given an opportunity since then in my opinion, but Sheridan has alluded to an attitude issue in training, so fair enough, perhaps he's his own worst enemy. While other players fail to put good shifts in on a semi-constant basis, I do find his exclusion harsh however and the dropping of him for a poor performance, while other players are provided with another opportunity time and time again.

Angry wrote:

Graiser wrote:

Josh Pope wrote:

Maybe if Shez had a bit more faith in some of our own players?

If they were good enough I'm sure he would

Agreed. We dont play a style and formation Purrington can play well in atm so he will have to adapt to a wing back/left midfield role better and im sure he will get more airtime.

As for Harvey it might just be me but i dont see anything about him to warrant the hype. I think he will have to do a Young in order to develop as a player.

This will be the formation that has seen us pick up 3 wins in 12 then? The formation that has made THD look consistently abysmal? I seriously don't see what THD has done that is even remotely half decent lately, and certainly no better than Purrington. He's an ok player with a very poor footballing head, but he'll get the "it isn't his natural position" argument which I doubt Purrington would ever be given (by many people that is). However, he's a Sheridan player and ergo will never face much scrutiny from the manager. Not always stand out bad, but consistently very poor at best. He's been an exceptionally underwhelming signing and for his and the team's sake I hope he doesn't play for the club again this season.

However you are right about Purrington I think, though I am one who believes we should look after our youngsters a bit more. THD is better suited to left back (when he's been there he hasn't been THAT bad) so why do we insist on a formation in which we don't have a single player who can fulfill the role?

Harvey is an interesting one but having watched him a lot as a youngster I've been extremely disappointed with how Sheridan has man managed him. I mean, we already have seen what he's like. He said he 'has no favourites' which is evident bollocks. The fact Alessandra can be crap for so long and consistently play 90 minutes is a shambles, Bobby went through a very poor spell, Reuben is the same (though injured it seems) so he clearly has favourites. There are then those who are not so favourited. Purrington, Harvey, Norburn etc and I would argue that someone like Blizzard is not so popular because unlike many of the players in our first team, one poor performance and he's instantly out of the team for a few weeks.

Youngsters are inconsistent, but what you should always remember is the good performances to go alongside the bad ones. Newport away last season where Harvey was brilliant and then Oxford a few days later where he was poor. Exeter at home this season he was fantastic and then not brilliant vs Stevenage a few days later, though he somehow ended up playing central midfield in that game even though it seems only one man from about 6000 in the ground could see he wasn't at his best being played there.

Which is the final point, does Sheridan have any clue whatsoever about a players best position? It took him many games at the start of the last two seasons to realise Alessandra is not a winger. Harvey is not a central midfielder. An advanced attacking midfielder perhaps but I can see him really only as there or a striker, maybe a wide the winger. I don't buy the poor 'attitude' thing from Sheridan either because he's never had problems with such in the past (that I know of). It must be annoying knowing you could play like Lionel Messi in training but someone as bad as Olly Lee is going to be picked above you regardless.

Youngsters get better as you play them, and I'm sorry but there is no way some of them could be doing any worse than the lot we've currently got. Alessandra was awful yet again on Saturday, so was THD.. Will they be dropped? Pfftt, do pigs fly?

Of course they wont. Sheridan out.

JOSH If Sheridan isnt keen on youth tell me the average age of the squad? Purrington and Harvey dont warrant a place in the eam because they are local they should be made to ear it and grab the crumbs given to them so they eventually be made into bread and get into the tea.

Reserve team football coming back next year will be a great platform for players out of the first team 11 unlike now where there hasnt been a regular platform to do it.

Quick calculations tell me it's about 24/25.

Josh Pope wrote:

Quick calculations tell me it's about 24/25.

answer is most of that squad with exception of one or two are under 25 so we have a squad made up with mostly young players. Hardly worth attempting to discredit sheridan as someone who doesnt give youth a chance

Angry wrote:

Josh Pope wrote:

Quick calculations tell me it's about 24/25.

answer is most of that squad with exception of one or two are under 25 so we have a squad made up with mostly young players. Hardly worth attempting to discredit sheridan as someone who doesnt give youth a chance

Most of the squad? McCormick, Hartley, Blizzard, Reuben and Alessandra are over 25.

Fair point in a way, ignoring the fact that the two 19 year olds have been bollocks recently (THD in particular).

Josh Pope wrote:

Angry wrote:

Graiser wrote:

Josh Pope wrote:

Maybe if Shez had a bit more faith in some of our own players?

If they were good enough I'm sure he would

Agreed. We dont play a style and formation Purrington can play well in atm so he will have to adapt to a wing back/left midfield role better and im sure he will get more airtime.

As for Harvey it might just be me but i dont see anything about him to warrant the hype. I think he will have to do a Young in order to develop as a player.

This will be the formation that has seen us pick up 3 wins in 12 then? The formation that has made THD look consistently abysmal? I seriously don't see what THD has done that is even remotely half decent lately, and certainly no better than Purrington. He's an ok player with a very poor footballing head, but he'll get the "it isn't his natural position" argument which I doubt Purrington would ever be given (by many people that is). However, he's a Sheridan player and ergo will never face much scrutiny from the manager. Not always stand out bad, but consistently very poor at best. He's been an exceptionally underwhelming signing and for his and the team's sake I hope he doesn't play for the club again this season.

However you are right about Purrington I think, though I am one who believes we should look after our youngsters a bit more. THD is better suited to left back (when he's been there he hasn't been THAT bad) so why do we insist on a formation in which we don't have a single player who can fulfill the role?

Harvey is an interesting one but having watched him a lot as a youngster I've been extremely disappointed with how Sheridan has man managed him. I mean, we already have seen what he's like. He said he 'has no favourites' which is evident bollocks. The fact Alessandra can be crap for so long and consistently play 90 minutes is a shambles, Bobby went through a very poor spell, Reuben is the same (though injured it seems) so he clearly has favourites. There are then those who are not so favourited. Purrington, Harvey, Norburn etc and I would argue that someone like Blizzard is not so popular because unlike many of the players in our first team, one poor performance and he's instantly out of the team for a few weeks.

Youngsters are inconsistent, but what you should always remember is the good performances to go alongside the bad ones. Newport away last season where Harvey was brilliant and then Oxford a few days later where he was poor. Exeter at home this season he was fantastic and then not brilliant vs Stevenage a few days later, though he somehow ended up playing central midfield in that game even though it seems only one man from about 6000 in the ground could see he wasn't at his best being played there.

Which is the final point, does Sheridan have any clue whatsoever about a players best position? It took him many games at the start of the last two seasons to realise Alessandra is not a winger. Harvey is not a central midfielder. An advanced attacking midfielder perhaps but I can see him really only as there or a striker, maybe a wide the winger. I don't buy the poor 'attitude' thing from Sheridan either because he's never had problems with such in the past (that I know of). It must be annoying knowing you could play like Lionel Messi in training but someone as bad as Olly Lee is going to be picked above you regardless.

Youngsters get better as you play them, and I'm sorry but there is no way some of them could be doing any worse than the lot we've currently got. Alessandra was awful yet again on Saturday, so was THD.. Will they be dropped? Pfftt, do pigs fly?

Of course they wont. Sheridan out.

There's a subtle difference between having favourites and rating some players as better than others, you could be confusing the two.