Season Preview

https://offtheline599656488.wordpress.com/2024/08/07/league-two-1-24-2024-25-season-preview/

Sadly has us as 23rd but seems to be an biased preview

forest amber wrote:https://offtheline599656488.wordpress.com/2024/08/07/league-two-1-24-2024-25-season-preview/

Sadly has us as 23rd but seems to be an biased preview

Believe they tipped Crawley to be relegation last season?

About as accurate as my predictions then

In what way is it biased? I agree with the points it is making. Hopefully though we will be above 23rd.

Just re-read my original post. It was supposed to read "unbiased preview". Apologies for the mistake.

Long-time lurker, first-time poster here.

For the first time, I feel compelled to break my silence. I can’t help but agree with the assessment given in the link above.
I’m concerned about the direction of the club for a number of reasons.

While it’s in the past now, I’d first like to share my thoughts on the Trust sale and HJ's takeover. If anything, just to get it off my chest, as it’s been weighing on me for a while.

A few years back, the Trust consulted its members on the model they would like to see moving forward. Members voted for the hybrid model.

When we suddenly found ourselves in trouble and the Trust stated that we’d require outside investment, I assumed this meant we’d finally be moving towards the hybrid model.
While I would ideally prefer to maintain fan ownership, I agreed with the Trust’s preference to sell shares to an investor who was also a fan of the club.

What I didn’t expect was that we’d effectively be gifting the club to a businessman who had no personal connection or affinity with the club, giving him total control. This is exactly what happened, and now the fans find themselves with a minority stake. Is this the hybrid model that we wanted?
Anyway, fast forward a bit. I dislike the way HJ has conducted himself since the takeover. He has a reputation for being ruthless, which is fine. I like that the day-to-day operations are becoming more professional. But he’s quickly gaining a reputation for saying one thing and doing another.

There was, of course, the situation where he kept GC from the end of last season, only to seemingly fall out with him midway through pre-season, leading to their parting ways.
That triggered the search for a new ‘head coach’. Now, he may well go on to do very well for us, but let’s be real here—Jardim wasn’t his first choice. To concoct some story making it seem like it was always the plan insults our intelligence. Reading between the lines, I’m unsure what self-respecting manager would agree to join a club with little budget and an autocrat when it comes to signings.

This leads me to the recruitment policy. I think it’s great that we’re focusing on young players with the aim of developing them, turning them into assets we can sell. But unless you have a scouting network with a crystal ball that can consistently unearth Finn Azazs and Ben Whites, it’s an incredibly risky strategy—too risky, I feel, for a club in our position. Doing this without a backbone of experience in the team could prove fatal. I accept that players like Wildig and Clarke bring a wealth of experience, but they’re also on the wrong side of 30 and injury-prone.

How many of these youngsters can we sell for a profit if we’re relegated?
I feel like we learned this lesson with Rowberry, and now we’re effectively trying it again, but with what seems like a weaker squad on paper and a ‘head coach’ who probably wasn’t the first choice.

Now, I dislike negativity, so this is the last I will say on the matter. I never knock a team that hasn’t kicked a ball competitively together. I’ll never be one of those who berates them from the terraces when we lose. I also won’t persistently criticise the club on Facebook. These are just my concerns going forward, as I’m really very unsure about HJ and hope he can prove me wrong. Because given the relatively small size of his initial investment, this is probably a lower-risk business strategy for him than it is for us, whose whole lives are built around this club.

Thanks Owain Glyndwr. You make some good points and like you I’m adopting a wait and see policy but with the same misgivings.
I hope this isn’t your only contribution to the board.

I also agree with e vast majority of what Owain says in his post. I can't remember approaching a new season with this level of trepidation previously.

The season preview does appear to be very well researched and does correlate with the views of non-County supporters that I know.

Time to take a deep breath and dive in.

Not long to wait now for solid evidence of how the club will fare next season to start coming in. One game is not season defining but I am sure that Saturday's match at Cheltenham will be extensively analysed for clues. Quickly followed by L Orient and a home game at long last against Doncaster on the 17th.

Agree wholeheartedly as it correlates with what I've posted elsewhere.

Just to add to what I’ve written above, I can’t help but wonder whether we sold up too soon? With the cup windfall and the sale of Evans, that perhaps it would’ve been enough to see us through. But that’s hindsight for you.

Owain Glyndwr wrote:Just to add to what I’ve written above, I can’t help but wonder whether we sold up too soon? With the cup windfall and the sale of Evans, that perhaps it would’ve been enough to see us through. But that’s hindsight for you.

I suspect without HJ taking over County may well not as performed as well as they did last season. Perhaps no cup run and Evans may have left in the January window. But we'll never know...