Ardley is a good bloke

[Disturbed]

One of the most innacurate comments I've seen on here in ages

Slocombe > Fitzsimons
Brindley > Tootle/Hewitt
Lacey > Duffy/Turley
Rawlinson > Brisley/Ward
Turner > Barclay/Davies
DKE/McCrory > Jones/Kellett/Evina/Milsom

Rose/Doyle/O'Brien > Husin/Vaughan/Patching/Crawford/Milsom (Christ we really struggled here last season)

Shields ~ Hawkridge (I think they're both equally sh*t)
Roberts > Alessandra

Hemmings > Thomas But Hemmings' wages at this level surely weren't sustainable and letting him go probably paved the way for multiple signings
Wootton > Stead
Dennis ~
Tyson > Remaye Campbell? Kinda irrelevant as he's not even here still

I don't even like Ardley particularly but recruitment is one problem he hasn't given us.

Complain about Shields all you like but at the time we had two wingers at the club, Enzio and Osborne, so a third, regardless of whether he was going to instantly set the league on fire was needed and now in Callum Roberts he's gone one further and actually improved the position.

Bird... Meh, he's always been alright, looks slow and clumsy, likes to attempt long passes that sometimes work and sometimes end up in the stands but you can tell Ardley just doesn't rate him that highly and as the manager and person that coaches him on a daily basis I think we can begrudge the guy at least one player that he's welcome to not pick if he doesn't think he can rely on him or he doesn't follow instructions clearly. He doesn't come across as the sharpest knife in the draw so it's not too difficult to imagine Ardley getting frustrated with him and I'd imagine someone like Long is a short term stop gap until Lacey and/or Turner are back fit, unless he turns out to be really good, then we've not lost anything and can extend his loan if we wanted to.

Good points, but most posters on here last season were saying that was a promotion/title winning squad.
So if we are comparing these squads, and this squad is so much better, then surely we should be miles ahead in the title race and not where we are. If this is the case, then that makes the ones calling Ardley correct as he should have this team out of sight by now

[TheBlackHorse]

... which just goes to prove that most of the opinions on this site are a load of hoss -and I should know about that, say others - shy te - as are most opinions on social media which believes its own messages (eg, the General Election). Thank goodness most NC supporters have the patience and determination to stick with the steady rebuilding of this club. COYP.

[DelroyFacey22]

Isn’t it a bit hard to make those sort of comparisons when we’re now in a lower league?

Not really, they're still playing the same game, I think there's a fair few teams in both divisions that you could easily swap and they'd be mid table in either league. There's teams in League 2 like Morecambe who could have been relegated in any of the last few years and teams in this division that could have gone up and settled into League 2 had it not been so difficult to get out.

I agree that bringing in good players is one of Ardley's good points, however he's been backed significantly by one desperate chairman on a spending spree, and one sensible but generous set of owners building for the future.

-----

I prefer Wootton to Stead, but Stead has made 25 appearances for the team currently in second place in our league.

The point I was making was that his recruitment has been good on the whole and the players are better than what we had before, so how he's managed to acquire these players doesn't really matter, he's done it, Nolan has plenty of money to bring in Dennis, Enzio and Hemmings too but he spaffed the rest on players like Patching, Crawford, Vaughan, Husin, Kellett, Oxlade-Chamberlain etc.

Stead is playing for a team higher in the league but is he contributing as much to that team as Wootton has to ours? He's got half the amount of goals Wootton does and I can't imagine at the age of 36 Stead has suddenly become great at holding the ball up and winning headers as we certainly rarely saw him do that at Notts. Wes Brown won the league with Man United 5 times but only made the team of the year once in those 5 years and you wouldn't say he's a better player than someone like Sol Campbell or John Terry that didn't win it in those years

which begs the question, with all this talent, why are we not higher in the table producing consistent L1/L2 quality performances?

Good points, but most posters on here last season were saying that was a promotion/title winning squad.
So if we are comparing these squads, and this squad is so much better, then surely we should be miles ahead in the title race and not where we are. If this is the case, then that makes the ones calling Ardley correct as he should have this team out of sight by now

As I said, I'm not a big fan of Ardley, he should be getting more out of the players he's assembled, but there's no doubt in my mind that the defence (and Slocombe) we have this season would have kept us up last year and had it not been for the managerial and style changes we went through 3 times last season and a couple of other transfers from Nolan maybe that squad could have been title contenders. The defence was a lot stronger with a solid goalkeeper behind them (Adam Collin) and we had a big hole in the middle of midfield, other than that, on paper that "promotion contending squad" could have been a lot different but as we all know, you don't play on paper and those are some big IF's.

[drillerpie]

Not really, they're still playing the same game, I think there's a fair few teams in both divisions that you could easily swap and they'd be mid table in either league. There's teams in League 2 like Morecambe who could have been relegated in any of the last few years and teams in this division that could have gone up and settled into League 2 had it not been so difficult to get out.



The point I was making was that his recruitment has been good on the whole and the players are better than what we had before, so how he's managed to acquire these players doesn't really matter, he's done it, Nolan has plenty of money to bring in Dennis, Enzio and Hemmings too but he spaffed the rest on players like Patching, Crawford, Vaughan, Husin, Kellett, Oxlade-Chamberlain etc.

Stead is playing for a team higher in the league but is he contributing as much to that team as Wootton has to ours? He's got half the amount of goals Wootton does and I can't imagine at the age of 36 Stead has suddenly become great at holding the ball up and winning headers as we certainly rarely saw him do that at Notts. Wes Brown won the league with Man United 5 times but only made the team of the year once in those 5 years and you wouldn't say he's a better player than someone like Sol Campbell or John Terry that didn't win it in those years




As I said, I'm not a big fan of Ardley, he should be getting more out of the players he's assembled, but there's no doubt in my mind that the defence (and Slocombe) we have this season would have kept us up last year and had it not been for the managerial and style changes we went through 3 times last season and a couple of other transfers from Nolan maybe that squad could have been title contenders. The defence was a lot stronger with a solid goalkeeper behind them (Adam Collin) and we had a big hole in the middle of midfield, other than that, on paper that "promotion contending squad" could have been a lot different but as we all know, you don't play on paper and those are some big IF's.

I agree that the players that have been brought in by NA have generally been good, and I agree that NA is not getting the most out of them!

I would agree with you about Stead and Wootton as well, I'm just a bit worried that a lot of the so-called inferior players we let go are plying their trade either in L2 or above us in the NL, while we are in danger of dropping out the playoffs with a team full of seemingly talented players from higher divisions.

[DelroyFacey22]

I think if the right manager came in they could have a Steve Cotterill like impact with this group of players but the chances of finding that right manager like Trew did in 09/10 again is fairly slim. Not that I'm saying this squad is that far ahead of this division like the Munto squad was but a team with Roberts and Enzio on either wing should be ripping teams apart and putting chances on a plate for the likes of Wootton and Dennis but Ardley seems to worried about the opposition most of the time to just let them attack, get Moniz back and we'll just outscore everyone haha

[drillerpie]

I think if the right manager came in they could have a Steve Cotterill like impact with this group of players but the chances of finding that right manager like Trew did in 09/10 again is fairly slim. Not that I'm saying this squad is that far ahead of this division like the Munto squad was but a team with Roberts and Enzio on either wing should be ripping teams apart and putting chances on a plate for the likes of Wootton and Dennis but Ardley seems to worried about the opposition most of the time to just let them attack, get Moniz back and we'll just outscore everyone haha

Totally agree about the parallels with the Munto season. I also agree about the lack of a compelling alternative to bring in as manager and I think that's actually the best argument in favour of keeping NA at the moment.

[laddo]

What a relief. Finally some sense is being spoken on this thread. Recruitment and having an eye for a player are not the issues, it has been in the past many times with former managers but not with the current one.

The problems, and there are quite a few clearly, lay elsewhere.

When we lose a game, fans on here seem happy to throw around lots of s&#t to see what sticks the wall. See what they can get away with however wrong they are.

[LaxtonLad]

Good points, but most posters on here last season were saying that was a promotion/title winning squad.
So if we are comparing these squads, and this squad is so much better, then surely we should be miles ahead in the title race and not where we are. If this is the case, then that makes the ones calling Ardley correct as he should have this team out of sight by now

There's not one team frightened of us now that the other managers have our weaknesses weighed up. Just show your players a video of the Notts v Barrow game. Push a high-pressing game from the start, don't give us chance to think, and we fall apart.

[DelroyFacey22]

There's not one team frightened of us now that the other managers have our weaknesses weighed up. Just show your players a video of the Notts v Barrow game. Push a high-pressing game from the start, don't give us chance to think, and we fall apart.

Let Enzio and Roberts play high up the pitch and get out wide, cutting in or taking on their defenders to put crosses in, instead of telling Enzio to sit inside because he might get double marked and then Brindley (who always seems reluctant to get forward) can put in a cross and hope Wootton gets on the end of it...

I think a fit Regan Booty will be a big bonus too, him and O'Brien seemed to be the only players capable of picking out Kristian Dennis when he tries to make a run in behind but most of the time when he tries it it just gets ignored.

I don't really care whether we play out from the back, I understand the reasoning behind it and accept it, but this team needs to be taking games to our opponents and flying forward. As Ardley said after the Woking game "Every time Roberts got the ball he *beat* their full back"... Get the ball out wide to Roberts and Enzio as often as possible and get them running at defenders, there aren't many in this league that will be able to handle them and that's when we're at our best, when we play nice passing football we have nobody to make the final pass for it to actually pay off and we end up just passing it around till someone makes a mistake usually.

[legs77]

One of the most innacurate comments I've seen on here in ages

Slocombe > Fitzsimons
Brindley > Tootle/Hewitt
Lacey > Duffy/Turley
Rawlinson > Brisley/Ward
Turner > Barclay/Davies
DKE/McCrory > Jones/Kellett/Evina/Milsom

Rose/Doyle/O'Brien > Husin/Vaughan/Patching/Crawford/Milsom (Christ we really struggled here last season)

Shields ~ Hawkridge (I think they're both equally sh*t)
Roberts > Alessandra

Hemmings > Thomas But Hemmings' wages at this level surely weren't sustainable and letting him go probably paved the way for multiple signings
Wootton > Stead
Dennis ~
Tyson > Remaye Campbell? Kinda irrelevant as he's not even here still

I don't even like Ardley particularly but recruitment is one problem he hasn't given us.

Complain about Shields all you like but at the time we had two wingers at the club, Enzio and Osborne, so a third, regardless of whether he was going to instantly set the league on fire was needed and now in Callum Roberts he's gone one further and actually improved the position.

Bird... Meh, he's always been alright, looks slow and clumsy, likes to attempt long passes that sometimes work and sometimes end up in the stands but you can tell Ardley just doesn't rate him that highly and as the manager and person that coaches him on a daily basis I think we can begrudge the guy at least one player that he's welcome to not pick if he doesn't think he can rely on him or he doesn't follow instructions clearly. He doesn't come across as the sharpest knife in the draw so it's not too difficult to imagine Ardley getting frustrated with him and I'd imagine someone like Long is a short term stop gap until Lacey and/or Turner are back fit, unless he turns out to be really good, then we've not lost anything and can extend his loan if we wanted to.

Read my comments again I was talking about our youth players and said players bought in for them are no better.

I am well aware the others are but my comment was based on us offering youth players conyracts to not play them.

I know the excuse is Ardley watches em train etc yes he does but I cant say I trust his judgement on team selection when the likes of Doyle gets sent off and Rose plays poor but are both selected every week.