Season Obituary

Disastrous missed opportunity.

Despite having some good recruitments on the pitch (Nunez, Sara) and holding onto players who were too good for the Championship (Aarons, Omabamidele, Pukki) and players who when played in the right position have developed well ( Gibbs and possibly Gunn), we were hamstrung by poor management.

Dean Smith squandered an excellent chance for promotion by playing the wrong system for our squad, who looked increasingly clueless as the season wore on. The obvious lack of structure, strategy and belief cost us, despite wins against the run of play.

The CB pairing of Hanley and Gibson was a catastrophe throughout and cost us dearly - the lack of faith in them from the other players put doubt in their minds and sapped confidence in going forward. When a ghastly error is always on the cards it is hard to be positive. DCM was also a shocker, and these 3 positions have been our weakness for 4-5 seasons now. The managers have to take some responsibility, but the buck does stop with Webber and recruitment. The importance of Skipp was obvious even before his absence, while the tragicomic defending in both Championship and Prem seemed to get absolutely no response in the transfer market.

Wagner - the jury is out on this. Our defensive weaknesses undermine the whole squad - personally I would swap our CBs for more than half of the CBs in the Champs so some slack to cut him there. He has also worked out the system which suits us best, but some of his selections display little awareness, and I think we all hoped for more energy than we got. It's possible our players are not fit enough which also is not his fault. But he couldn't work out how to make the most of Pukki which is a big negative.

Off the pitch, Webber is deeply unloved and made a horrid, easy decision in Smith. Having trumpeted the progression and style of the future under Farke he then picked a fat-arsed chump with one formation/strategy who made our players look worse not better. Not sacking him earlier was another error. Defensive recruitment failures must be balanced against the offensive successes, but he needs to either go or pull off another miracle like he did with early recruitment of Farke/Pukki.

Board - Delia needs to let go. I'm not privy to how the club is run from the inside, but the impression is one of chummy ambition without the ruthless edge required. The time to hand over and let someone invest was 3-5 years ago when we had better options and momentum, but better late than never.

Will miss Pukki a lot. He has given me so many joyful moments and led us on a merry journey.

Onwards, and hopefully upwards.

Posted By: fal5taff, Apr 30, 10:18:35