If you're not progressing you're going backwards in football.
We've got a team who for all their technical skill don't put in the hard yards. You've now got former Premier League academy players and players who have played leagues above this being set up by a man who is at the highest level he's ever been at.
You'll hear it all the time on podcasts from former players - impressions are made almost instantaneously and it's nigh on impossible to claw it back if you don't make a good one.
He sold Warner down the river yesterday and we've been out-fought and out-thought on numerous occasions but yesterday was appalling.
That's twice we've rolled over to play-off contenders at home since SM took charge and if I'm honest his interviews are dull, he's a cliché merchant and I cannot see him being a success based on anything he's brought to the table so far.
He's made us more solid to a degree but at the complete expense of attacking fluidity and he's actually got options in positions which LW didn't have the luxury of during his blip.
3/10 so far - if it continues in this manner I can't see attendances being anywhere near that next season that they've been this year.
Consolidate means don't run around in circles and accept that some parts need rebuilding. Or we can go back to bust or boom which inevitably ended up in bust.
What do you now want our owners to do? You think they don't see the issues? They have a "low cost" model looking for underrated value and up until this season they've succeeded. Even mid-table in League 2 is (or I thought it was supposed to be) better than being non-league.
If we finish 13th then finishing 8th next season will be progress. No way are we anywhere near ready for League 1.
One of most obvious indicators for where you should be in the division is the difference between home average and away average.
Notts home average is currently 11,283
Away average is currently 6,579
That's almost double the difference. We should be up there challenging, no excuses. The fans are doing more than their bit, the shortcomings are elsewhere.
A bottom half finish would be a fail, not progress, especially given where we were with LW earlier this season.
Current home averages
1 Bradford City 17,526
2 Notts County 11,284
3 Wrexham 10,814
4 Stockport County 9,230
5 Swindon Town 8,810
6 AFC Wimbledon 7,877
7 Mansfield Town 7,371
8 Doncaster Rovers 6,775
9 Tranmere Rovers 6,710
10 Milton Keynes Dons 6,469
11 Gillingham 6,348
12 Grimsby Town 6,284
13 Walsall 5,513
14 Crewe Alexandra 4,896
15 Newport County 4,386
16 Morecambe 3,962
17 Colchester United 3,789
18 Barrow 3,750
19 Crawley Town 3,373
20 Sutton United 3,156
21 Salford City 2,947
22 Harrogate Town 2,677
23 Accrington Stanley 2,566
24 Forest Green Rovers 2,210
Obviously not, most of us have seen the glaring deficiencies in the goal keeper and defensive frailties but they’ve either not been seen or acknowledged / addressed over the past year or so. I would at the cost of McGoldrick coming to us brought in a decent centre half for this league. Someone posted a few months back that the recruitment team side had been disbanded because of redundancies within the brother’s main business. The recruitment has been appalling defensively wise while the brothers have been in charge, a complete re-think is needed, and I’ll say this again I feel for SM as he’s been left with this mess, and the deficiencies are now showing week in week out because of the lack of proper recruitment for this league, combined with him trying to find his feet coming into a full time roll / club he isn’t being helped by players who are experienced enough to know and do better.
That’s only one part of the picture though our budget is 10-12th we know this as it’s been said several times and the club pretty much confirmed it.
Having a big fan base isn’t the be all end all as Man Utd would win the league every season.
MK Dons/Mansfield who are way down on our crowds 100% have a much bigger budget than us for a start.
LW had us punching above our weight it’s now all falling apart as the replacement just isn’t on his level that IS the issue.