Those of you who called for Ardley's sacking

[LaxtonLad]

First ever away game I took my two lads to was Grimsby away (we lost) and we had fish and chips there. I hope we sneak into the playoffs and get promotion but if not that is a bit of a consolation.

In 1968 I was working (building a pox clinic) in Grimsby and lodging in Cleethorpes and can remember that shop's fish and chips as the best I've ever eaten.

[laddo]

It's nice during such testing times to reminisce on past positives like 3-3 entertaining draws in a much higher division or world class fish and chips.

Back on topic, I wanted NA sacked at the end of the season if he didn't get us promoted but y'all know that already said it all season long.

Old news... I'm still on the IB Bandwagon with some unlikely comrades.

[SwalePie]

.....Look forward to going back if they do indeed get relegated.

Their relegation was confirmed yesterday evening. Chips all round next season I suspect, unless a miracle happens for us.

[seriouspie]

In 1968 I was working (building a pox clinic) in Grimsby and lodging in Cleethorpes and can remember that shop's fish and chips as the best I've ever eaten.

About the same time as I'd started my first flogging job (Crawford's biscuits) and when covering Lincs used to spend the night at the Dolphin hotel and miss the evening meal in favour of Steel's fish n chips - as said beautiful and glad to hear they're still going.

ps just to infuriate the Wokeys. Great places those pox clinics ...... took my mate once along to Glasshouse Street after he'd picked up a dose. One jab of penicillin in the cheek of his backside and the job a good 'un.

[countygump]

Look forward to going back if they do indeed get relegated.

Could that be described as 'a mission from Cod'?

PS: They already have been relegated.

[TSANHO]

I actually thought it was the right time for Ardley to go, he hadn’t lost the dressing room it seems but he was totally out of ideas. The owners, and many on here, thought the squad was capable to perform much better than what it was and needed someone better to get the best out of them.

Unfortunately that hasn’t panned out, and god only knows what the owners think of the performances since IB came in. My concerns now are

1. The competence of the new manager

2. The size of the war chest for new playing staff for next season ( How rich are the owners really?)

I’m hoping for some signs between now and the end of the season that Burchnall can be trusted with a transfer window, if not then I fear we’ll be having the same conversation this time next year with another new manager getting ready for a further year in the National League.

[ncfcog]

For those of you that don't read my stats reports I posted the visual below in the report for the first Eastleigh defeat. It shows a 10 game rolling average of expected goals (xG) and expected goals against (xGA) for both last season and this season.

I wasn't massively surprised by the decision to make the managerial change, you can clearly see that earlier in the season we were very resilient at the back but this was masking the lack of goal creation up front as even at our best we still weren't expected to score more than 1.4 goals per game.

By the time we got to the 2-2 draw at home to King's Lynn the wheel was quite literally starting to fall off the barrow and we hit a run of half a dozen or so games where we were creating next to nothing and expected goals against had become higher than our expected goals.

This is exactly the type of data I think the owners would be looking at and essentially would have given them the excuse they were waiting for to pull the plug on NA's tenure. You could see the frustration building in NA as well from his post match interviews culminating in the Yeovil one where he openly admitted he had never had to work so hard from the touchline. This would indicate that the players definitely have some blame to take in this scenario and would further emphasise the problems IB is now also facing himself.

[Freeman25]

I was pretty on the fence with Ardley but was losing patience as the performances just weren't there, it had become a chore watching Notts.

Despite results not going our way I feel a lot more positive about our future with Burchnall, he's already got us playing far better and dominating games, if the players can find the last piece of the jigsaw and, as he said post Eastleigh, be better in both boxes we'll be fine.

Unfortunately for Burchnall he's not playing in goal or up front so he can't stop the ball going in the net or finish off the chances. He can only put the players in positions to create and stop goals then the responsibility is on the players to do it. Looking at the chances to score we've had in the past few games and how few shots on target the oppositing are getting shows to me that we're on the right track

[SwalePie]

I was pretty on the fence with Ardley but was losing patience as the performances just weren't there, it had become a chore watching Notts.

Despite results not going our way I feel a lot more positive about our future with Burchnall, he's already got us playing far better and dominating games, if the players can find the last piece of the jigsaw and, as he said post Eastleigh, be better in both boxes we'll be fine.

Unfortunately for Burchnall he's not playing in goal or up front so he can't stop the ball going in the net or finish off the chances. He can only put the players in positions to create and stop goals then the responsibility is on the players to do it. Looking at the chances to score we've had in the past few games and how few shots on target the oppositing are getting shows to me that we're on the right track

Last night felt dismal but now, in the cold light of day, I'd have to agree with all of that. Things are nowhere near as bad as they feel. I think we have enough to make the play offs and then we have to hope we can strike it lucky and hit form at the right time. I don't actually think Burchnall is far off getting the balance right now. I'll put my tin hat on now and wait.

[jacobncfc]

Weirdly, if we did make the play-offs from here, it would need the kind of decent run which would mean we have some momentum going into it, so you never know.

Just as I said we couldn’t keep plucking results from somewhere during late era Ardley because of how badly we were playing, the opposite is now true. If we keep doing what we have in the last few games, we’ll start to win.