Brindley gone...

[SmiffyPie]

Brinds suffered through lack of game time and I am sure he could produce the goods if he was at a club where he was a constant pick.

[the_anticlough]

Bostock can certainly play our style because he's very good with the ball, but the question I would ask is, where?

It's been evident this season that he's not defensively strong enough to play a reliable deep midfield (i.e. defensive midfield) role at League Two level. Similar to the wing-backs, our overall dominance at National League level meant the weaknesses in his defensive game weren't often exposed, but in this higher league he looks like a passenger if he hasn't got the ball and when we're not controlling the game.

I agree Bostock's got tremendous ability as a ball-player, but the only way I can see him contributing is if he moves further up the field. As a screen for the back line he's a liability a lot of the time, getting bypassed or lunging in with clumsy tackles. He's very much been part of "the problem" defensively.

To be quick, I can't see him being paired up much with Palmer again - they'd share a position. He'd be next to Robertson, his old Doncaster partner, who we'd hope will be better.
And there's got to be at least 1 new CM coming in because JOB's at the end, right?

"Screen for the back line' is a large step towards going from an entertaining, attacking team to a run-of-mill cagey and boring L2 team (You want that and to pull the plug on Jones and Nemane as well!? )
We need defenders who can defend and not need a whole extra defensive line to protect them.

[jackal2]

"Screen for the back line' is a large step towards going from an entertaining, attacking team to a run-of-mill cagey and boring L2 team (You want that and to pull the plug on Jones and Nemane as well!? )
We need defenders who can defend and not need a whole extra defensive line to protect them.

A successful team needs a balance between attacking flair an defensive nous, and in crude terms it should be about five outfield players of each type.

I think if you play with a back three shielded by two effective and combative defensive midfielders who will track runners, then you can get away with playing attacking wing-backs like Nemane and Jones.

Or, on the other hand, if you play with a back four with full-backs who can defend properly and stop crosses, then your wingers can be proper wingers and two of your three midfielders can also get forward and be creative, knowing there's enough of a foundation behind them.

Unfortunately, the approach you seem to be describing only has three central defenders and (maybe) one midfielder doing any real kind of job defensively, which is just kamikaze if you're playing decent opposition. It's even worse if some of the players who are supposed to be defending aren't actually very good at it to boot.

Most teams this season have been lucky to have a third of ball possession against us, but the damage they've been able to do with that possession has been catastrophic.

We've simply got to be defensively more resilient, and that's going to require solutions involving new personnel, less silly risks at the back and potentially a different formation (if we don't find enough defensive midfield combativeness).

[the_anticlough]

Brinds suffered through lack of game time and I am sure he could produce the goods if he was at a club where he was a constant pick.

He'll leave with a lot of well wishes but it isn't easy to picture where he'll move onto or what position he'll play.

The best hope is that more and more L2 and NL clubs will want to get in sync with the higher leagues and play a more technical, passing game.
In that case they could do a lot worse than play RB at RCB in a three with a kind of more orthodox (than Nemane) 'wing-back' next to him.

[matt_magpie]

Good luck to Brinds, had some very good moments and a good pro. I personally think moving him to RCB ruined him. The l player I’ve seen in the last 12 months had absolutely no confidence, didn’t really want the ball or to risk carrying it forward, it’s 2 totally different positions as you’re far more exposed at RCB and I don’t think he liked it one bit.

[the_anticlough]

A successful team needs a balance between attacking flair an defensive nous, and in crude terms it should be about five players of each type.

I think if you play with a back three shielded by two effective defensive midfielders, you can get away with playing attacking wing-backs like Nemane and Jones.

Or, on the other hand, if you play with a back four with full-backs who can defend properly, then again your wingers can get forward and two of your three midfielders can also get forward and be creative.

Unfortunately, the approach you seem to be describing only has three central defenders and one midfielder doing any real kind of job defensively, which is just kamikaze if you're playing decent opposition.

Most teams this season have been lucky to have a third of ball possession against us, but the damage they've been able to do with possession has been catastrophic. We've simply got to be defensively more resilient, and that's going to require solutions involving new personnel, less silly risks at the back and potentially a different formation (if we don't have enough defensive midfield combativeness).

That's all fine, but it doesn't take too many adjustments to go from potent to impotent, from threatening to toothless.
A midfield of a Robertson-type and a Bostock-type in front of a 3 should provide enough of a screen, but if we want want to be a winning team, we have to be a front-foot attacking team and that midfield's main purpose should be to dominate play in the middle of the pitch and set up attacks.

The club's reaction to this season shouldn't be to scared of L2 and set up as a mid-table team trying to nullify the opposition. Or a bottom-third team trying to stave off relegation by shoring up it's defence. I fear now though that we have a manager who wants to string out his tenure, and will be much more conservative with everything he does. As opposed to the last guy who finally showed us what you can achieve if you really go for it.
Expect a massive drop in the entertainment level next year, which will please the old school posters on here, but look around and they'll find they have the ground to themselves again next season.

[jackal2]

That's all fine, but it doesn't take too many adjustments to go from potent to impotent, from threatening to toothless.
A midfield of a Robertson-type and a Bostock-type in front of a 3 should provide enough of a screen, but if we want want to be a winning team, we have to be a front-foot attacking team and that midfield's main purpose should be to dominate play in the middle of the pitch and set up attacks.

The club's reaction to this season shouldn't be to scared of L2 and set up as a mid-table team trying to nullify the opposition. Or a bottom-third team trying to stave off relegation by shoring up it's defence. I fear now though that we have a manager who wants to string out his tenure, and will be much more conservative with everything he does. As opposed to the last guy who finally showed us what you can achieve if you really go for it.
Expect a massive drop in the entertainment level next year, which will please the old school posters on here, but look around and they'll find they have the ground to themselves again next season.

I think you're presenting a somewhat false dichotomy between "really going for it" and "boring as hell", which certainly isn't what I'm advocating.

What I am saying is that you have to respect the higher level of competition in which we now play, where in terms of resources we're not as big a fish in a small pond as we were in the National League. Player for player we were considerably better in a lot of positions than most of our opponents in the NL and we used that to dominate games, but at this level there are opponents who can give as good as they get and do more damage to us when we don't have the ball. We were starting to see this even before Luke Williams left.

Consequently, you've got to have the right balance.

You need players who can be aggressive, stopping balls into the box and competing successfully to get the ball back, otherwise you've got a house built on sand. If we can't pretty much halve the number of goals we've conceded this season next time around, it's putting a huge/intolerable amount of pressure on our creative players and strikers.

[the_anticlough]

Good luck to Brinds, had some very good moments and a good pro. I personally think moving him to RCB ruined him. The l player I’ve seen in the last 12 months had absolutely no confidence, didn’t really want the ball or to risk carrying it forward, it’s 2 totally different positions as you’re far more exposed at RCB and I don’t think he liked it one bit.

Disagree, I think his best prolonged spell was when he played RCB for Burchnall and it was mainly DKE he had next to him (IB wouldn't play Nemane remember). That was better IMO than when he played RB for Ardley.

It's thinking about RB that makes it tricky to think what he'll move on to. He's just not one for bombing up and down the line and covering the distances at speed. If a manager wants him at RB it'll be one that's happy for his full-backs to stay back, hold their position and be tidy with the ball. Most want more than that though probably.

[the_anticlough]

What I am saying is that you have to respect the higher level of competition in which we now play, where in terms of resources we're not as big as fish in a small pond as we were in the National League. Player for player we were considerably better in a lot of positions than most of our opponents in the NL and we used that to dominate games, but at this level there are opponents who can give as good as they get and do more damage to us when we don't have the ball. We were starting to see this even before Luke Williams left.

I say there is one more promotion to be had for a club like ours by thinking like a big club and attacking the league.
There are signs we'll be back-tracking on this though and revert to more orthodox and conservative approach and do just about well enough for the management team to work their contracts.
The biggest step we can take to kill off the upward momentum we had as a club is to ditch the attacking philosophy that got us back up.

[Lullapie]

I'm hoping it's 3 or 4 of the 7 who will be moving on.
Bajrami is the difficult one for me. You tend to want to give injured players a chance but if pushed I really don't think he's going to be a contributing EFL player for us.

I want Baldwin and Bostock to be offered contracts. AB might well turn it down, JB I suspect wouldn't. It'll be interesting.

Bajrami needs to go. He didn't look up to it against the better teams in the NL before his injury.