Rovers v Wrexham

[drwhoman]

I agree with your comments BBTC. I know one always looks back with nostalgia but home games around then were great. It was often a case of how many are we going to score tonight (mostly Friday or Monday nights)? A classic was the 4-2 win over Brighton with 20,000 in the ground. The seagulls were top of the league and had Bobby Smith and Mel Hopkins in their team, both former internationals. A wonderful atmosphere under the lights with the old wooden stand rocking! A long time ago!

 

[Ian]

What the club need to bear in mind is that after two relegations, we have now had another season where the home form has effectively been relegation form. Two of the bottom four have lost fewer home games than us. The vast majority of supporters only see home matches, so the satisfaction of supporters and the relationship between the fans and the manager can't improve until the home form improves.

This is basically it. They'll soon take your money, but we are getting sick and tired off the dross being served up at PP. This has gone on for years and supporters are basically fed up. Like you say, they need to leave supporters out of it and concentrate on their failings first and foremost.

We are now at a point where part time clubs are finishing higher than us. What has this club become?
I don't enjoy going to the game anymore. Never thought I'd ever say that but it's basically crap. Teams come to PP and outplay us at times. So much for fortress PP.

Having another season like this will be hard to take. I wonder if MP will push the prices up again?
The club is a joke and something needs to give.

 

[Boz]

The Palios article was set against a backcloth of articles in the Echo including one from Steve Jennings, where the fans appeared a target.

I agree with RLC that there was no balance in the article. In MPs position, with a play-off place still an option at the time of writing, it would have been wiser to swerve the issue totally. Generally, I don't think the support at PP has been that bad, given in Ian's words the dross being served up.

 

[drwhoman]

Maybe targeting the fans is an easier alternative than recognising the flaws in your own performance. Nine home losses in a league largely populated by part time teams. Pathetic is all one can say.

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

There was a more balanced article by Hilton in the echo today, acknowledging that the home performances have been dire. He admitted the support was good on Saturday, but did have another swipe stating that ' individuals may have been singling out players from the touchline.'

 

[Sparky]

Overall I felt the support was good on Saturday and as has been stated, we're no different with our fair share of moaners like every club.

When he says individuals may have been singling out players from the touchline - who does he mean exactly? I can only recall the Higdon situation when most of the kop gave the ironic cheers. I'm sure the odd person in the JK or Paddock stand has a moan at say Ridehalgh for a poor cross but this is nothing new surely.

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

Our home form, compared to that of our competitors:

Cheltenham - 16 home wins, 1 defeat. 73% win ratio.
FGR - 14 home wins, 4 defeats. 68% win ratio.
Dover - 13 home wins, 4 defeats. 59% win ratio.
Grimsby - 13 home wins, 3 defeats. 59% win ratio.
Braintree - 12 home wins, 4 defeats. 55% win ratio.
Eastleigh - 13 home wins, 4 defeats. 59% win ratio.
US - 11 home wins, 9 defeats. 50% win ratio.
Wrexham - 13 home wins, 5 defeats. 59% win ratio.

I nicked this from a rival website, but thought I would post it just to lay out in black and white how dreadful we have been at Prenton Park.

Unacceptable isn't it ?

 

[Gray]

So what formation did we play on Saturday. I looked at the startsheet, saw Mekki, Ridehalgh, Higdon and Norwood in there and assumed it was a nailed on 4-4-2?

With regards to everything else that's been said, I'm undecided on Brabin, that's all I'm going to say. What I will say is that with each season that goes by I'm making fewer and fewer trips from The Midlands up to Birkenhead. I just can't bring myself to spend hours on the M6 to watch us lose at home to part-timers. Home form is clearly the issue, but this is down to the team not the fans. Fans are generally simple folk and we'll just react to what we see on the pitch. For the last three years we've not liked what we've seen

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

It was a 4-4-2 to begin with, Mekki on one wing, Hughes on the other. However, the formation did not work as it was not balanced. Hughes was played out of position and was poor, Mekki was marked out of the game. Added to which, one of the two strikers - Higdon - did not contribute anything, although we did not help him by failing to use the flanks (which surely must be the intention in a 4-4-2) and just punting aimless long balls in his direction.

We changed things around a couple of times in the second half, but the performance was never convincing.

 

[Ian]

The club is clutching at straws bringing the supporters into it. These are meant to be professionals. I'm glad if people had a dig because they deserve it.

We are paying good money to watch this. In general the support has been excellent this season especially what we've had to witness at times. It's pathetic if all they can come back with is a dig at supporters making the odd comment and jeers when someone who can't be arsed gets subbed.

That's life, get on with it.
And GB keeps harping on about how they are not feeling sorry for themselves. Could have fooled me.

 

[Sparky]

I just can't see GB leaving this season. Yes MP can point to the home defeats in comparison with other teams, and the effect this may have on season ticket sales, but GB could say 1) irrespective of budgets, teams find it very hard to bounce back straightaway when they come down from L2, whether they have a good budget or not and 2) I assume we have one of the best away records in the league, and whilst GB can take criticism for home defeats, he should therefore take praise for our away record by making us hard to beat.

If you could swap our away form round with our home form, would most people be satisfied? I think they would be given its our first season at this level and to still be in a shout of the top 5 with 2 games to go, isn't a total disaster. Especially with all the upheaval in the summer and 2 relegations in succession.

We could point to signings like Margetts, Mangan, Sutton, Maynard etc. which haven't worked out - whereas GB could say what about McNulty, Norwood & Davies. Not all managers get each signing right.

I'm probably sitting on the fence a bit but suspect MP will take a balanced view and all this into consideration and hope that by letting some people go in the summer and bringing in a few of the quality such as Davies, McNulty & Norwood, we'll do better next year. If not, bye bye Mr Brabin.

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

I assume we have one of the best away records in the league, and whilst GB can take criticism for home defeats, he should therefore take praise for our away record by making us hard to beat.

Our away form is the third best in the League, behind Cheltenham and FGR, but only marginally better than Gateshead, Dover, Grimsby and Braintree. Our home form is the twelfth best.

I understand what Sparky says about arresting the slide after two relegations, but on many of the other targets that were set (by the board) at the start of the season Brabin simply has not performed.

Palios stated that we should be reaching the play-offs as a minimum this season, but we will almost certainly fall short. He suggested that we should play a more enterprising brand of football and significantly improve the home form. Again, I think we have fallen short. He also talked about the need to develop a squad with a blend of youth and experience and a number of players in their prime. However, a number of our most high-profile signings - McNulty (still a good player clearly), GTF, Higdon - don't meet these criteria at all, and offer little if anything to the club in the longer term, and none of them will have come cheap.

I don't think you can just brush the wage budget to one side and say 'irrespective of budgets' either. If, as has been reported, Cheltenham's and Wrexham's budgets are circa £600-700,000, we must have wasted an incredible amount of money this season. In addition to some of the signings I mentioned above, think of the number of mediocrities that have come and gone (Jackson, Blissett, Tomlinson) and senior players on big money that have been shoved out on loan or permanent deals (Sutton, Mangan). There are other players on good money who are barely featuring at the moment (Maynard, Riley, Hogan). And yet we don't have a genuine goalscorer at the club, nobody to assist Norwood. Is that really an efficient use of resources ?

The manager constantly talks about the strength of the squad, yet we seem to have stockpiled players in certain areas while having clear deficiencies in others (the lack of goals, the lack of creativity in midfield).

I still believe the failure to address the home form is a massive issue and it will be impossible for us to succeed until this problem is dealt with. If our home and away form was swapped, we would still miss out on the play-offs. The home form has to be better. Unless our play is more positive, creative, adventurous at Prenton Park, it won't change.

But despite all that, I agree with Sparky that he will still be here next season.

 

[Ian]

Compare us to Cheltenham. We are miles apart.

 

[drwhoman]

One issue that has only been touched on is GB's lack of interest in young players which is ironic given his last job. Is our youth team really that bad that none of them can get a look in? The over reliance on so called mature and even senior players cannot be very healthy for the club longer term. Our youth system has regularly produced one or two decent players. Is it the scouting, coaching or just GB? It cannot be much fun being a junior player these days. Yes, maybe the core of the team has to be players with experience at his level but all of them plus one or two old lags?

 

[Boz]

One issue that has only been touched on is GB's lack of interest in young players which is ironic given his last job. Is our youth team really that bad that none of them can get a look in? The over reliance on so called mature and even senior players cannot be very healthy for the club longer term. Our youth system has regularly produced one or two decent players. Is it the scouting, coaching or just GB? It cannot be much fun being a junior player these days. Yes, maybe the core of the team has to be players with experience at his level but all of them plus one or two old lags?

We have some decent prospects at youth level and Brabin hasn't given them a look-in. He had Daren Askew a young winger on the bench at home to Barrow, where we were crying out for different options. It couldn't have done any harm to give him 10 minutes. Most of our other promising kids have been farmed out on loan all season. Given how ponderous we are in the build up, the injection of a few younger players, might have made a difference.

 

[Ian]

Quite ironic really when you think about the job he had before he joined.

 

[drwhoman]

Reflecting on the youth issue further, one of the downsides of slipping down the football pyramid is that your ability to attract decent young players is diminished. They will be more interested in approaches from league clubs. By the same token, in a football mad area like Merseyside, you would think that you could attract a few decent young players. That said, I think Gary's no 1 riding instruction is to get us back into Div Two and he clearly thinks that the best way to do this is to put a youth policy on the back burner for now. I am not sure that is right as you have to keep the 'production line' going. It is harder to close it and then to try and start it again! As I say does nothing for the youth players quite apart from their coaches and scouts! Still Gary will do what Gary will do!

 

[bring back the cowshed!]

One issue that has only been touched on is GB's lack of interest in young players which is ironic given his last job. Is our youth team really that bad that none of them can get a look in? The over reliance on so called mature and even senior players cannot be very healthy for the club longer term. Our youth system has regularly produced one or two decent players. Is it the scouting, coaching or just GB? It cannot be much fun being a junior player these days. Yes, maybe the core of the team has to be players with experience at his level but all of them plus one or two old lags?

I can see both sides of the argument here. Since Aaron Cresswell and Dale Jennings we've produced only one regular first-teamer (Max Power). I can't remember such a long drought. However, reports seem to indicate we have quite a few good youngsters on the books and surely some of them are capable of graduating to the first team, especially as we are now two divisions lower. The trouble is that GB probably feels he can't afford to experiment and take risks, so he plumps for experience. In the FL you can name seven subs, whereas in the NL it's only five. You might argue that once you put a keeper, a defender, a midfielder, a striker and an impact player on the bench, there's no space to put a youngster. It's ironic that GB's large budget means that when he has an injury, he just signs a loanee. If his budget was more modest, he'd have to think about fielding a youngster. I would argue that the likes of Askew, Duggan and Omotola might have been more effective than Jackson, Tomlinson and Blissett.

 

[drwhoman]

Cannot disagree BBTC. We might add Fenwick to that list.