Top scorers in title winning seasons

[nw6pie]

For sure. Even if you are one of the best teams in the division, you really need all the stars to align if you want to win it. That means top players avoiding injury, big decisions going in your favour, winning tight games, and having a couple of players who have freak seasons and perform at their very best, at least one being a striker (like Jones in 97/98). You also need momentum, so that means either getting off to a great start or going on an epic run at some point.

While some of those factors are out of your control (like injuries and key decisions), others are mostly down to attitude. Teams that have a win-at-all-costs attitude instilled in them by the manager are the ones that turn draws into wins or get last-minute equalisers. If you have a manager who is happy to play for a draw or set up in a way that is naturally cautious, you'll never be the type of ruthless machine that finishes top.

I just can't see us winning this league unless something fundamental changes in the way we approach games. We're just too easy to beat. If we play badly, we're almost guaranteed to lose. But if we play well, we aren't at all guaranteed to win.

Agreed, championship-winning sides find a way of winning even when they don't play well, but we seem to find a way of losing games we should win (the home games against Maidenhead, Boreham Wood and Hartlepool, for example). Some of that comes down to luck, but also to the type of personalities you have in your squad and their bloody-mindedness.

That said, both of our championship sides of recent vintage evolved as the seasons went on. Big Sam's team was top 5 material until that record-breaking run of successive victories from December to February - when Gary Jones suddenly looked like he'd found a pair of magic boots (a la Billy Dane) and was firing them in from all angles. And it was only under Cotterill that we became a relentless winning machine in the Munto season.

Going back still further, it was the arrival of Dean Thomas in March 1990 that was the last piece in the puzzle that made us a promotion-winning side under Warnock.

I'm hoping the return of a fit Cal Roberts and, to a lesser degree, Wes Thomas - and the arrival of a dynamic, box-to-box midfielder - will prove the catalyst that sends us on a winning streak. But there are too many question marks about the side - including the lack of a trusted formation and the inability to perform well for 90 minutes (managed it once all season, against Wealdstone) - to have any confidence that this will actually happen.

[durhampie]

Tommy Johnson was much younger, but we had a manager who was prepared to play him..And the rest is history..