The scary facts

[Shoemaker]

What do you think as regards winning only five games in twelve months cricketside??
For me it isn't good enough.
What do you think of the form of the last twelve months??

[sbedscobb]

7 points from Barnet, Torquay and  Dagenham will keep the natives happy, any less than 4 points will cause an ill wind to blow onto Sixfields.

[Shoemaker]

Nail on head sbeds.

[cricketside]

What do you think as regards winning only five games in twelve months cricketside??

Sack the board. You'd have nowhere to post then.

[Shoemaker]

That's as maybe but I was hoping for your take as regards spending to stay up or hoping we have enough in the squad to do so cricketside.

[Winslow Lee]

Do not forget when I moan about DC that lessons will be learnt as regards having a team made up of loan signings which haven't worked.
That's what he said over eighteen months ago.
Well exactly what lessons HAVE been learned???

Seems a very skewed logic, there was clearly no plan at the start of the season to have so many loan signings. We probably have more of our own players than most other teams, the trouble is they are rubbish. Our two managers have tried to solve our problems by bringing players in on loan, probably because there isn't much quality available mid season and being bottom of the league doesn't make us an attractive proposition to sign full time for. Our team is full of loan players because ther are marginally better than the contracted ones, we are bottom of the league because the whole squad is awful whether on loan or contracted.

[Shoemaker]

That is a fair point lee

[cricketside]

...your take as regards spending to stay up...

What guarantee is there that spending will work? Hiring a manager with a pedigree certainly didn't. Has he got the cash to splash anymore? There is a recession on, after all. (He doesn't figure on the rich list like Barwell.) It's a piece of piss to sit there and say speculate to accumulate, but it isn't your money. When does enough become enough? Many are moaning about the early season tickets; they're not necessarily the ones demanding extra, extra spending, but it shows the sort of problem DC has.

Talk is cheap, running NTFC certainly isn't.

[cobblersbob]

Dead right!
23 million quid put into the club by the board and that was only up to the end of the 2010 financial year!
No, it bloody well isn't easy running a business, and it's not that straightforward managing a footy team.

[derbycobbler]

We have lost at home to the current top 5 clubs in the league this season.

[DrillingCobbler]

During this truly dreadful past 12 months, the playing side and investment in management have both been well funded. That is the strange thing.

A top 6 budget has equaled a bottom of the table side. It makes no sense. Which is why I'm not blaming the chairman because for me, during this time period he has done his part to make us successful. Sometimes
Things don't work out how they should do and I cannot help but think that we are doomed!

[towcestercobbler]

We've won more than 5 games in 12 months: Crewe, Stevenage, Morcambe, Aldershot, Ipswich, Wimbledon, Barnet, D&R and Morcambe again. And they're the ones off the top of my head.

[Shoemaker]

Yes I'm sorry you are right I think the stat that I got wrong was five home matches in twelve months.
Apologies.

[guest49]

We are in a better situation than we were under the last idiot, regardless of current league position. I'm not saying we won't go down but it is tight down there and still plenty of time to avoid the drop. We've shown signs that we can turn it around, a draw and a win for starters!
You could go through a dozen managers but the current situation (i.e. relegation fodder) was mainly created by one man, or two if you want to blame DC for hiring him in the first place, which would be unfair. Unless you want to expand it a little to the past 5 years when we have been in steady decline, or virtually our entire history when we have on the whole under achieved.
It is just going to take someone a while to sort the current shambles out. 

[Mark-JB]

We are in a better situation than we were under the last idiot, regardless of current league position. I'm not saying we won't go down but it is tight down there and still plenty of time to avoid the drop. We've shown signs that we can turn it around, a draw and a win for starters!
You could go through a dozen managers but the current situation (i.e. relegation fodder) was mainly created by one man, or two if you want to blame DC for hiring him in the first place, which would be unfair. Unless you want to expand it a little to the past 5 years when we have been in steady decline, or virtually our entire history when we have on the whole under achieved.
It is just going to take someone a while to sort the current shambles out. 

A rare sane post.

[barnabas]

.... there and still plenty of time to avoid the drop. We've shown signs that we can turn it around, a draw and a win for starters!

There are signs, there is still time and I still believe we have a chance and there is hope.

But we can't afford any more bad luck or throwing away winning positions.
To get to 50 points we need to pick up 7 or 8 points every 5 games, or to put it another way we need a 20 game record that reads something like
W8 D5 L7 (roughly equating to play off form) that's a big transformation - and we still have to go to Crawley, Swindon and Torquay, and Cheltenham.

However the current average league position of the teams we've played in our last 5 games is 6th - the average league position of the teams we play in our next 5 is 16th - we really need to win 3 of those 5!

And if you don't believe that's do-able, then feel even worse by knowing that of the 16 teams relegated to the conference between 2003 & 2010 - 5 are now back in the league, and on average it took them 3 years to get back.... and out of the other eleven, 4 of those have all but disappeared.

But whatever the outcome I'll be there. 

[Dr Feelgood]

We'll be fine relax. I reckon Plymouth and us will pull clear over the next few weeks..

[JollyCobbler]

Dead right!
23 million quid put into the club by the board and that was only up to the end of the 2010 financial year!
No, it bloody well isn't easy running a business, and it's not that straightforward managing a footy team.

Really? Which board was that then?

I think DC made a huge mistake during the final months of Stuart Gray's tenure. Without a doubt the squad was stripped to the bare bones. Probably well upwards of a million was brought into the club via player sales, and yet virtually nothing was reinvested into the playing budget. Furthermore, contrary to the mantra spouted by the club, we only payed out a relatively low portion of those loan players wages. Gray was pretty much forced to take the loan route as his hands had been tied (as regards the budget). Without a doubt, this course of action led to a major decline and relegation.

Having said all of that, DC certainly cannot be accused of failing to back his managers over at least the last eighteen months. Quite the opposite infact. It is a bizzarre situation, but we seem to be operating under one of the better budgets in league two, and yet we continue to struggle massively. Whilst it would be fair to say that we have been floundering around like a rudderless ship for a number of years now, make no mistake about it Gary Johnson is solely to blame for this years fiasco. Few loans and a quality squad of eighteen players, actually equated to blowing the entire budget on a massive number of Dog**** signings. The squad is top heavy, and yet still lacks quality in a number of crucial areas.
I have seen enough to recognise that AB is a decent manager, the improvements have been substancial, but we need to start putting some sort of run together (and quickly), and most importantly we need to lift the Sixfields hoodoo.
There is still time to turn this around, but we need to act quickly because if a gap begins to open up I fear we could be doomed.

[TbananaG]

In hindsight, the appointment of Gary Johnson may well prove to be the single worst decision in the history of NTFC. Who'd have thought...?!

[Montgomery Eypoke III]

Really? Which board was that then?

I think DC made a huge mistake during the final months of Stuart Gray's tenure. Without a doubt the squad was stripped to the bare bones. Probably well upwards of a million was brought into the club via player sales, and yet virtually nothing was reinvested into the playing budget. Furthermore, contrary to the mantra spouted by the club, we only payed out a relatively low portion of those loan players wages. Gray was pretty much forced to take the loan route as his hands had been tied (as regards the budget). Without a doubt, this course of action led to a major decline and relegation.

Having said all of that, DC certainly cannot be accused of failing to back his managers over at least the last eighteen months. Quite the opposite infact. It is a bizzarre situation, but we seem to be operating under one of the better budgets in league two, and yet we continue to struggle massively. Whilst it would be fair to say that we have been floundering around like a rudderless ship for a number of years now, make no mistake about it Gary Johnson is solely to blame for this years fiasco. Few loans and a quality squad of eighteen players, actually equated to blowing the entire budget on a massive number of Dog**** signings. The squad is top heavy, and yet still lacks quality in a number of crucial areas.
I have seen enough to recognise that AB is a decent manager, the improvements have been substancial, but we need to start putting some sort of run together (and quickly), and most importantly we need to lift the Sixfields hoodoo.
There is still time to turn this around, but we need to act quickly because if a gap begins to open up I fear we could be doomed.

Spot on fella, especially about the decline under Gray. That was the beginning of the current mess we find ourselves in.

If Aidy can keep us up, I'm pretty sure we're now moving in the right direction though.