The worst ever start to a season?

[nw6pie]

Agreed that Hardy has put his heart and soul into the club, but it's clear that he has been naive. A lot of the decisions appear to be the kind of knee-jerk ones you'd make on a football manager game. Buy two strikers without thinking how they'll work together. Buy two wingers without thinking how we'll defend. But fancy midfielders without thinking how we'll win the ball back. Don't buy defenders because we want to play attacking football.

In reality, we'd have been better off signing bishop to replace Yates and making him captain, signing a decent cb, and signing akinde to replace shola, and then sticking to the direct approach that nearly got us promoted. Then keeping collin and keeping forte. Why wasted so much money in a bizarre effort to completely change our ethos, and the result is a team devoid of fight passion and the ability to get the basics right. It's an unmitaged disaster.

We didn't sign the players we needed. Instead we went for luxury players and tried to shoehorn them into a 442. It's worth noting that Exeter paid roughly the same for Stockley that we did for Dennis, but he's twice the player. Dennis will struggle to get double figures this season.

Agree with all of that. We signed a bunch of lightweights, thinking we were going to be the Barcelona of League 2. Well, we are - Barcelona under 11s.

Reading this list of strikers who couldn’t score on VE Day reminds me of another few - Gavin Gordon; Coombes; Chillingworth. How bad are we that even Arquinn has scored against us this season?

[MAD_MAGPIE]

Well it’s official we have the worst defence in the entire football league and by a considerable margin as well. We’ve conceded 21 goals in 7 league matches which is averaging 3 a game.

The nearest is Rochdale in League One who have conceded 16 goals in 7 games.

Back in League Two and Morecambe have conceded 15, yet have only scored 3.

Bizarrely we have scored one more goal than MK Dons who sit 6th.

[Robertomac]

Agreed that Hardy has put his heart and soul into the club, but it's clear that he has been naive. A lot of the decisions appear to be the kind of knee-jerk ones you'd make on a football manager game. Buy two strikers without thinking how they'll work together. Buy two wingers without thinking how we'll defend. But fancy midfielders without thinking how we'll win the ball back. Don't buy defenders because we want to play attacking football.

In reality, we'd have been better off signing bishop to replace Yates and making him captain, signing a decent cb, and signing akinde to replace shola, and then sticking to the direct approach that nearly got us promoted. Then keeping collin and keeping forte. Why wasted so much money in a bizarre effort to completely change our ethos, and the result is a team devoid of fight passion and the ability to get the basics right. It's an unmitaged disaster.

We didn't sign the players we needed. Instead we went for luxury players and tried to shoehorn them into a 442. It's worth noting that Exeter paid roughly the same for Stockley that we did for Dennis, but he's twice the player. Dennis will struggle to get double figures this season.

Good post.

I agree except for criticising Hardy for being knee-jerk over the signings. As I see it, Hardy backed his manager, who should have been the expert and one with superior football knowledge. Unfortunately, Nolan has made a proper mess of it and we're left picking up the pieces.

Both have stated publicly that Nolan told Hardy who he wanted, and Hardy signed them.

The real mystery for me is how Nolan overlooked bringing in a midfielder in his own image.

[nay123]

Izale McLeod and Tony Hackworth also come to mind. Along with Karl Hawley and Ben Burgess.

What about the big man from Tranmere.