Quote Originally Posted by Geoff Parkstone View Post
On which basis Warne's squad is to date better... If you want to credit Rosenior's squad for 7th based on a full season where he only ran the team for a handful of games, then the new Warne squad (including players that predated him,) must be considered better as we are now 4th.

You can't have it both ways!

Was success down to recruitment or day to day management? Why was Rosenior binned so quickly? All good questions but introspective and ultimately pointless.

We must judge success holistically - at the moment, having played over 90% of the division once, we are among the top 6. It's due to a number of factors, recruitment being just one (important) factor. As is luck, injuries, tactics, player performance etc.
You can’t help but ‘credit Rosenior’s squad for 7th’, GP. Everyone accepts that Springett and White added little so it was Rosenior’s squad that finished the season, where he had left them, in seventh.

I’m honestly not trying to ‘have it both ways’ and you can’t say now that, because we’re currently 4th, we must be better. Last season under Warne we went, if I remember correctly, from 7th to...7th via the brief vertigo inducing heights of third and the depths of twelfth. It’s where we are in May that matters along with what PW can pull out of the ‘hat’ in the January sales to strengthen our squad.

Is Rosenior ‘better’ than Warne? In my opinion, ‘yes’, but, as you’ve suggested, it just doesn’t matter because what’s done is done.

Is the current squad stronger? It certainly should be because we brought in a great deal more than we shipped out during the summer and I think, certainly in terms of us having more cover, it probably is...yes...but I still feel that, with today’s squad the players I feel we’d miss most are Wildsmith, Cashin, NML and Bird along with, to a slightly less consistent extent, Collins, Hourihane and Smith. Only Nelson, Nyambe (if he’s still here) and Wilson (when available) of Warne’s dozen summer signings generate the same feelings in me.

Finally...it’s repeatedly suggested that you can’t get a twenty goal a season striker on a free. Well Rosenior managed it, in the most appalling circumstances 17 months ago and actually Collins isn’t far off target for managing the same feat this season. So...absolutely no point moaning about Rosenior though I remain grateful for what he did for us. What matters now is where Warne can guide us and that begins, as did this whole argument, with, imo, his improved showing in the January window.