Ben Gladwin .....

[champs95]

Has left the club. Devastating news!! And some other kid who was never going to get a game. I feel we need to work alot harder getting lots of the deadwood out. We are paying stupid money wage wise and it all needs to come down.

[AucklandRover]

I agree to some extent, Champs, and I did argue on here, 18 months ago, that the squad was getting unwieldy.
On the other hand, recent events have shown that injuries can throw a particular area of the team into disarray.
For me, if we accepted that we are best suited as a Championship club, a lot of the issues would disappear.
Unfortunately:
1) our history means that we always have a background feeling that we should be in the PL;
2) the owners clearly bought a club they thought had PL potential;
3) it's hard to see how we will ever clear the debts without promotion.

This combination puts any manager in a bind. For one thing, it means he can't gamble on youth because fans and owners will be on his back if that strategy fails. That means he has to spend - but within constraints that most PL clubs don't have. What this leads to is gambling, and (as even Ferguson - one of the best - acknowledged) a lot of transfer-gambles fail.
For every Dack, there tends to be a Brereton!
The more I have followed football, the more I have become convinced that LUCK plays a far bigger part than the media, most fans, and even those professionally involved with the game are willing to admit.

[seventwo]

Agreed.
Let's do away with football and roll a dice to determine the score

[AucklandRover]

I take it you don't agree, Seventwo. Fair enough, but if it was possible to determine or control the outcome of a football match from the dugout, it wouldn't be anywhere near as much fun.
And, of course, it would defy logic, anyway, because both managers would be trying to "control" the game in the same way, and they would - presumably - cancel each other out!

[robinrover]

Good luck at mk Dons
Injuries prevented him from even starting a career at us.
Hopefully he will have a better time there.

[AucklandRover]

Agreed, Robin.