Minimum Standard of Performance

[Winslow Lee]

Not criticising Brady or cutting him any less slack, just saying that generally, a lot of Cobblers fans seem happy to accept mediocrity.

Other similar size teams have shown what is possible but football is a sport and what works in one place may lead to abject failure in another. I think all fans want their team to be as successful as possible but there is no magical formula for that. As I said before there are repercussions for sacking a manager, paying them and their staff will cut into budgets and a new man will have a squad selected by the old manager. Maybe we are reading the question differently but for me a ‘minimum performance standard’ means if we are not hitting it big changes are happening like the manager going. I don’t think by having a lower minimum finish I’m accepting mediocrity I just have a different opinion on the best way forward to achieve success, one that involves giving the manager more time to achieve our goals.

[Shoemender]

Other similar size teams have shown what is possible but football is a sport and what works in one place may lead to abject failure in another. I think all fans want their team to be as successful as possible but there is no magical formula for that. As I said before there are repercussions for sacking a manager, paying them and their staff will cut into budgets and a new man will have a squad selected by the old manager. Maybe we are reading the question differently but for me a ‘minimum performance standard’ means if we are not hitting it big changes are happening like the manager going. I don’t think by having a lower minimum finish I’m accepting mediocrity I just have a different opinion on the best way forward to achieve success, one that involves giving the manager more time to achieve our goals.

I think you’re right we’re reading the survey question differently. It gave a list of scenarios as to where we might finish or play and then what we deemed could be considered failure. Nothing about sacking the manager or changing the players..... The majority so far have voted for mediocrity.
In any competition where you’re on a level playing field the objective is to be the best and if you’re not you’ve failed. We don’t even have to be the best, we could end up being third best and still achieve our objective.

[Charlatan]

Not criticising Brady or cutting him any less slack, just saying that generally, a lot of Cobblers fans seem happy to accept mediocrity.

I think its a lot of Cobblers fans being realistic.

[Winslow Lee]

I think you’re right we’re reading the survey question differently. It gave a list of scenarios as to where we might finish or play and then what we deemed could be considered failure. Nothing about sacking the manager or changing the players..... The majority so far have voted for mediocrity.
In any competition where you’re on a level playing field the objective is to be the best and if you’re not you’ve failed. We don’t even have to be the best, we could end up being third best and still achieve our objective.

I guess it is a matter of semantics, failure for me goes beyond a slight underachievement and would definitely mean serious questions asked about manager and players.
You mention a level playing field but that’s never the case in the football league with each club having different levels of resources. The way I look at it you get a par finishing area in the table based on your comparative budget and those with similar budgets, with big deviations from this constituting success and failure. Obviously we can only speculate about budget but if we have the 10th highest (random example) and finish 9th is it fair to call that failure?

[Shoemender]

I guess it is a matter of semantics, failure for me goes beyond a slight underachievement and would definitely mean serious questions asked about manager and players.
You mention a level playing field but that’s never the case in the football league with each club having different levels of resources. The way I look at it you get a par finishing area in the table based on your comparative budget and those with similar budgets, with big deviations from this constituting success and failure. Obviously we can only speculate about budget but if we have the 10th highest (random example) and finish 9th is it fair to call that failure?

I’d say the 4th division is a much more level playing field than say the premier league or even championship or league 1. We all have different opinions and aspirations, but hey ho it would be a boring world if we were all the same. Let’s just leave it at that.

[bungle]

promotion is great but we need to be going up in a way that means we will be sustainable in League One.

100% this.

If we learned anything from last year it should be that there's little point in going up
if you don't have the squad, recruitment infrastructure and tactical blueprint to support sustained
L1 football.

Hoofball merchants and short-term subjective recruiters like Curle are quickly found out at League One level where 90% of teams play possession-based passing football. To his credit, KT seems to have at least partially acknowledged this in his relegation post-mortem interviews. 

I've got to the stage where I would far rather see a 10th placed finish this year with attacking progressive passing football and the sustained development of youngsters like McWilliams, Pollock and Horsfall over a fluky s***housed play-off promotion playing Curle/Boothroyd style hoofball. Of course, my medium to long-term expectation is that this football club should be established securely in League One or the Championship, but this will only happen following a spell of judicious and incremental improvement in areas such as recruitment, possession-based tactics and youth development. If it takes a couple more seasons in L2 to get these elements right then so be it. If we get these elements right then we can punch above our weight in League One; if we get those things right and improve the off-field situation in terms of stadium development and investment then we can really start to fly.

Is that accepting mediocrity? No: quite the opposite - it's about raising our expectations surrounding the long-term progress and tactical identity of this football club.

[Dan]

While your points about the bedding of the youngsters in is a good one Bungle, they're unfortunately futile. We are a selling club, and if we bed them in and they do well, they'll just be sold off anyway, most likely next summer. We need to go for promotion this season and can't just take mid table finishes.

[Larry]

Reading through the comments, does anyone really care about the entertainment value as long as we are winning?
I can't think of a manager where the team had been performing above expectations but has got sacked but because the football wasn't pleasant on the eye. I also can't think of a manager that got a better deal after his team got relegated whilst playing attractive football.
The complaints usually arise when a team is doing ok but the fans are bored. They can't whinge too much about the results so they have to think of something else.
I've never seen people grinning after losing a game no matter how well their team has played.

[Dan]

Yes Larry. The Keith Curle years nearly destroyed my love of the game.

[Larry]

Yes Larry. The Keith Curle years nearly destroyed my love of the game.

All I can say is your love of football must be hanging on a thread. Or perhaps you just don't like Keith Curle.

[guest3086]

Let me get this straight so avoiding relegation and not playing unattractive boring football can be seen as a main failure standard for this coming season? Who writes this stuff?

[Larry]

Let me get this straight so avoiding relegation and not playing unattractive boring football can be seen as a main failure standard for this coming season? Who writes this stuff?

So avoiding the lack of failing to not play unattractive football is good?

[Dan]

All I can say is your love of football must be hanging on a thread. Or perhaps you just don't like Keith Curle.

   

Certainly excited to give him a few words when Oldham come to Sixfields.

[everbrite]

Reading through the comments, does anyone really care about the entertainment value as long as we are winning?
I can't think of a manager where the team had been performing above expectations but has got sacked but because the football wasn't pleasant on the eye. I also can't think of a manager that got a better deal after his team got relegated whilst playing attractive football.
The complaints usually arise when a team is doing ok but the fans are bored. They can't whinge too much about the results so they have to think of something else.
I've never seen people grinning after losing a game no matter how well their team has played.

Curle would be still here if he had kept us up.

[EB Claret]

100% this.

If we learned anything from last year it should be that there's little point in going up
if you don't have the squad, recruitment infrastructure and tactical blueprint to support sustained
L1 football.

Hoofball merchants and short-term subjective recruiters like Curle are quickly found out at League One level where 90% of teams play possession-based passing football. To his credit, KT seems to have at least partially acknowledged this in his relegation post-mortem interviews. 

I've got to the stage where I would far rather see a 10th placed finish this year with attacking progressive passing football and the sustained development of youngsters like McWilliams, Pollock and Horsfall over a fluky s***housed play-off promotion playing Curle/Boothroyd style hoofball. Of course, my medium to long-term expectation is that this football club should be established securely in League One or the Championship, but this will only happen following a spell of judicious and incremental improvement in areas such as recruitment, possession-based tactics and youth development. If it takes a couple more seasons in L2 to get these elements right then so be it. If we get these elements right then we can punch above our weight in League One; if we get those things right and improve the off-field situation in terms of stadium development and investment then we can really start to fly.

Is that accepting mediocrity? No: quite the opposite - it's about raising our expectations surrounding the long-term progress and tactical identity of this football club.

You're right of course but, if the Brady bunch produce a team that is improving as the season goes on and there is even a sniff of a chance of promotion we'll all want just that! We're football fans, we can't help ourselves.

[Melbourne Cobbler]

Let me get this straight so avoiding relegation and not playing unattractive boring football can be seen as a main failure standard for this coming season? Who writes this stuff?

🖐

[Clarity]

100% this.

If we learned anything from last year it should be that there's little point in going up
if you don't have the squad, recruitment infrastructure and tactical blueprint to support sustained
L1 football.

Hoofball merchants and short-term subjective recruiters like Curle are quickly found out at League One level where 90% of teams play possession-based passing football. To his credit, KT seems to have at least partially acknowledged this in his relegation post-mortem interviews. 

I've got to the stage where I would far rather see a 10th placed finish this year with attacking progressive passing football and the sustained development of youngsters like McWilliams, Pollock and Horsfall over a fluky s***housed play-off promotion playing Curle/Boothroyd style hoofball. Of course, my medium to long-term expectation is that this football club should be established securely in League One or the Championship, but this will only happen following a spell of judicious and incremental improvement in areas such as recruitment, possession-based tactics and youth development. If it takes a couple more seasons in L2 to get these elements right then so be it. If we get these elements right then we can punch above our weight in League One; if we get those things right and improve the off-field situation in terms of stadium development and investment then we can really start to fly.

Is that accepting mediocrity? No: quite the opposite - it's about raising our expectations surrounding the long-term progress and tactical identity of this football club.

I think this obsession with our youth on this forum is massively misplaced. How many have actually come through to make it as a first team regular without getting sold in a hurry. I'll give you McWilliams but he's spent a lot of time injured and prior to that there was a lot of speculation he was off to the championship, same with Pollock. The others of any note were soon off once bigger clubs showed interest. Toney and Jacobs and now Chuck.

The key is recruiting a core of the side now that could operate in League One then improve where needed when we're promoted. League Two is a very tough physical league and a difficult place for too many kids at on time to be blooded.

[bungle]

I think this obsession with our youth on this forum is massively misplaced.

2. Larry: 'does anyone really care about the entertainment value as long as we are winning?'

A couple of points here:

1. I would put youth development quite significantly behind improved recruitment processes and tactical coaching methodologies in terms of priorities. I'm certainly not 'obsessed' with it. However, I would argue that clubs that punch significantly above their weight tend to be effective at either developing young players for their own first team or selling them on for a profit. I would also argue that given that we are lucky enough to currently have a decent crop of youngsters in the squad (McWilliams, Pollock, Chuks, Horsfall) that one of Brady's targets should be to capitalise on this potential and develop them into either League One standard starters or lucrative saleable assets.

By 'youth development' I also mean the practice of bringing in and developing young players with potential who have been 'raised' elsewhere, hence the fact that I've included Horsfall in my list of players who we need to develop.

2. You'll notice that I used the terms 'progressive possession-based passing' football rather than 'entertaining'. 'Entertainment' is not my primary concern; producing a team capable of sustaining long-term L1 football is.

My argument is that long-ball football simply doesn't work in League One anymore, regardless of how 'entertaining' or 'dull' it might be. My argument is that primitive long ball football might get you promoted out of L2 but that it is highly unlikely to be successful at L1 level against teams who have the technical passing ability to achieve 70+% possession.

The aesthetics question is a different kettle of fish entirely. Personally I found Curle's style of play depressingly dull and primitive with a few honourable exceptions (the play-off games). Does that matter? Not if the side continues to win, but if you're playing s***e football and losing then fans start to question why they're bothering.

 





 

[west stand oap]

I would expect any player coming through our youth system to be sold if the show ability to play at a higher level. This happens at most clubs, look how many youngsters Exeter have sold for good money.
We are supposed to be following the Posh model of recruiting younger players with a view to developing them and selling for a profit so expect any gifted player to be sold.

[Manwork04]

I would expect any player coming through our youth system to be sold if the show ability to play at a higher level. This happens at most clubs, look how many youngsters Exeter have sold for good money.
We are supposed to be following the Posh model of recruiting younger players with a view to developing them and selling for a profit so expect any gifted player to be sold.

Indeed BUT it’s when you sell the player that matters, we, with our horrible short term view, sell almost immediately therefore not maximising the potential.
This boils down to a chairman that wants out and will sell, although this has improved under Thomas it rarely helps the club, e.g. Charlie Goode.