Right, I have been mulling things over, thinking about the situation that the club is in and I just thought I would post some thoughts that I am having, thought it might provoke some discussion on here about things.
The Team/Management:
Defence is a shambles but why? We have some top quality players in defence, including one that has played at International level, who are well respected players. Apart from Bully, I don't think any of them have performed up to standard and the fact that we have conceeded 47 goals in only 25 league games would seem to indicate that.
I know that there needs to be some understanding between the players in the defence and the fact that it has been hard to keep a settled side does not help this, but come on, this doesn't account for this many goals to be conceeded.
So what is going wrong there? Are the management team not motivating them enough? Are they not training properly? Are they just here to pick up a pay packet and they don't care what happens on the pitch?
The midfield is concerning, because we should have a strong midfield in there, but yet again they are not doing enough. Apart from the Canvey Island game, we have not been producing enough chances, and at the end of the day you can't score goals without creating chances. But we have Crittenden, Holloway and Williams, who should all be capable of creating the amount of chances neccersary.
Plus our defence is getting exposed time and time again, where the midfield are failing to cut things out, and this should be what Watson should be doing, but he hasn't been very effective of late (and neither has Ryan Scott while replacing Watson). Yesterday we had a 5 man midfield as opposed to Altricham's 4 man midfield and we were being over-run in there. This is 5 men (supposedly more fit professional footballers) vs 4 men (supposedly less fit semi professional footballers). Whats going on?
In attack it is hard to judge because of the fact that they are not getting the service that they need. But it is disappointing that we have been struggling with Tim Sills playing on his own for so long, we finally get someone in to support him, and we then sell him, leaving us with only one striker yet again. So we are back to the same old struggle yet again.
I don't begrudge Tim for leaving, because he deserves to progress, and I wish him all the best.
Another problem, which showed up particularly yesterday, was our tactics. Why were we trying to play the long ball when we had Leroy up front. Its not like having Sills up front who can get up and win headers and get the flick on. Leroy is not the biggest guy, and can't do that, he is not that sort of forward. I also can't see him doing the lone striker role as well as Tim either, because he is not as good at holding the ball up and bringing others around him into the game.
I am not going to start saying oh we have to get rid of Terry Brown, but you do have to wonder what is going on. I remember travelling to Forest Green and I said to the person I was with that I never thought I would be going somewhere like that saying I would be delighted with a draw. Then I never thought I would be coming back from a place like Altrincham having seen us stuffed out of sight. It was totally embarrassing.
Off the Pitch:
Now, I am not going to get into all of this crap that lots of other people say of "Oh I don't like Karl because he seems arrogant", "Oh I wish he would tell us more", or my personal favourite "I think he should leave, not because I have anything to back up that statement but because I am jumping on the bandwagon of what other people say"! Ok, so I made that last one up, but thats what I think some people are like sometimes. They say sack the board, but don't bring up any reasons for why they think this.
Well, my feelings on Karl, or any of the other board are completely irrelevant, I am only saying what I think based on what I think of things for the football club.
I know that they work hard, but there are simple things that could be done that could bring big rewards, in my opinion.
Not being local to Aldershot it never ceases to amaze me, how many times I get into Aldershot and I walk into town and I have local people coming up to me saying "Oh excuse me, is there actually a game on today?"
Now they obviously like football, and would probably like to go, if they had any advance notice that a game would be on. How difficult would it be to advertise fixtures a bit better? Karl owns his own printing firm for goodness sake, it wouldn't be much to print off a few leaflets/posters advertising fixtures.
We need to do as much as we can too to attract the younger generation of fans to the Rec. They are the supporters of the future, and long term needs to be given thought to, not just the quick fix.
Our attendances are our most important source of income. We need to make more of an effort to make sure that this figure is kept high. I liked the idea mentioned on Shotsweb once of "Bring a Mate to a Game Day".
How about an incentive like if you collect 10 ticket stubs from Aldershot games you are entitled to get into a Chelsea reserve team game for £2 instead of £5? That would encourage people to attend Chelsea reserve fixtures as well as Aldershot fixtures.
I am sure that there are plenty of ideas that people could come up with, with respect to this.
I also think we need to explore more ways of generating income without relying on attendances. Obviously attendances will always be our most important factor, but we need other ways too.
I say this now, and I have said it for a long time, the club shop needs to be expanded. It is too small as it is, and although David and Janet have done a fantastic job, by re-arranging it to create more space, it still is difficult in there. So many times I have seen people having to wait outside to get in because there is no room, and they have just walked away before going in because they can't be bothered to wait. Bang, there the club loses out on income. I know it would cost money to do this, but I am sure this could be raised. I believe that Brian Bloomfield is planning for him and myself to do a sponsored cycle to Southport, now that should raise quite a substantial amount.
I am sure yet again, there are plenty of other ideas that people could come up with for ways of generating more money.
Unfortunately, I don't really subscribe to this idea of giving the club money to fund a transfer, like what is being talked about at the moment. I really don't see this as a sustainable way of the club making money, and really just see it as a desperate attempt to get some money somehow, because they don't know what else to do.
So theres some things for people to think about (if you haven't fallen asleep reading it!). Don't give me all that crap about me moaning about everything, because I am not moaning, I am trying to be constructive to try and find ways of getting through this apparent mess that we are finding ourselves in.
So try and give your views on the team and management and the off the field activities if you wish.
In terms of motivation, everyone speaks about it being terry's job to motivate the players which is true of course but i've not seen anyone speak of where terry's motivation comes from. Now i accept that as manager, terry should be able to drive the team forward and keep the spirits up but i find myself asking how many dyer performances a manager can cope with.
What im getting at really is that as much as i admire terry im a little concerned that perhaps he's loosing the will to keep picking the players back up week after week(which in fairness he seems to be doing at least every other game).
Now im not saying that it's time for him to move on but i am overly concerned that if this was the case and he was slowly running out of ideas, then things could go from bad to worse.
Anyhow, this is not a rant or a complaint or anything of the sort im just genuinley concerned because the only consistency weve had this season is being consistently poor, as jason mentioned above and i have already mentioned on shotsweb, i've started to wonder if a number of our players are simply here to earn a wage because we have a distinct lack of passion compared to last seasons team.
Obviously i would hope this isn't the case because you can't motivate people who don't want motivating, but i for one feel that we can't keep making excuses week after week, for me i feel were stuck in a hole and this has been caused by a number of reasons, but somebody at the club needs to act fast and find the solution before we continue to dig deeper.
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I am 10% luck, 20% skill, 15% concentrated power of will, 5% pleasure, 50% pain, which makes 100% reason to remember my name!
Right i believe that we need to start looking ahead to next season as this season was bound to be a disaster from the off! Terry & Martin need to start talking to the players they want for next year know and start getting them to sign contracts. As at this moment in time we stand to lose Crittes, Somner, Leroy, Holloway, Watson, Barnard. So he needs to talk to these to start getting a base of a team together for next year instead of having the same pre season where we see Trailist A, B, C playing in one game and another set of Trailist playing in the next so we dont see a team playing we see Trailist with a first team player and thats it. Because at the moment we have Bully, Williams, Scott and Lee i believe on a two year deals which is a start of a team but nothing major.
Plus if we get the team togther now they can start to play and get to know each other week in and week out and play together in the future as well and play in pre-season togther as well. This would then give us a chance of getting of too a good start again instead of playing catch up with the rest of the league like we have done this year.
As for the mangement skills. - Terry and Martin must be finding it hard to motivate players week in week out after a heavy defeat like we recieved at Alty, but why did the player perform so bad on the Saturday? Had they been practising a formation with Sills in and then come Friday evening find out that Sills isnt playing so they have to work on a new formation just like that they havnt been practising?
As for the board. - No-one know the situation the Club are in really, and all we can do is guess what is going on with the club and what the money situation is. But why do they keep saying the fee for a player in UNDISCLOSED everytime we Sell a player? Where is all this money going for the players?
So overall we need to move on from this Season and start getting the players in for next year and keep the core of the Squad togther and be prepared to make a push for the Championship. But i wasnt there yesterday and cant say what was going on or who was giving there all. But in the past when we have had a bad performance there have been 3 maybe 4 players at most giving everything for the club and team and everytime it was Bully and Sills, with either Crittes and/or Barnard and in some games Scott and Watson and Holloway and Somner would perform but they dont all perform at the same time and they players that are palying well seem to be carrying dead wood with them.
One thing is for sure we do not need to get rid of Terry or Martin as this will just cause more problems then it will solve as the new manger would come in and get a whole new team togther so we would start from scarth again and this will not help us at all. And as for the board i dont have any reason to say KP should go because i dont really read into everything that goes on behind the scense i just look at the performance on the pitch and what is happening with the players.
This season was not bound to be a disaster. After we lost that play-off semi-final at Carlisle, everyone was saying how bright next season was looking if we could keep the basis of the team we had, maybe adding one or two, replacing one or two that we couldn't keep and getting another striker or two in.
Granted there were certain players that we just couldn't hold onto for various reasons, but we allowed some players to leave too easily.
This season could have been so different to what it had been. I know its hard because you don't want to give players contract that are too long, because if they don't perform then you are stuck with the difficult task of getting rid of them. But there were certain players that it was blatantly obvious that they were good performers, and the neccersary efforts were obviously not made to keep them on board.
As for the comment about signing on the players that we already have...well again I have to disagree. If somebody wants a contract they need to earn that contract, not just go on their name and reputation. How many of our current group of players can you honestly say actually deserve a new contract.....I wouldn't expect the list to be very long....
Sills leaving so late probably did affect the preparation for the game, but then does Sills leaving suddenly stop our "defenders" being able to defend? Come on we let in 5 goals for goodness sake!
As for the board....ok well yes nobody knows the full story. But looking at last season's accounts it doesn't take a genius to work things out. Last season we budgeted for attendances of 3000, and despite exceeding that we still made a loss of 13k. Now this season we have budgeted for attendances of 3000, and we are drastically under that figure. It doesn't take a genius to realise that things are not going to look rosey in the accounts again.
"Had they been practising a formation with Sills in and then come Friday evening find out that Sills isnt playing so they have to work on a new formation just like that they havnt been practising?"
Me.......
Any proffessional team should be prepared for such events, they may well have been working on the game plan that would have involved sills all week, but terry would have known that sills may well be leaving and should, and i hope would have used the initiative to work on two different sets of tactics.
Even if sills wasn't leaving they should still have at least two sets of tactics they are extremely comfortable playing with incase of any sudden injuries and the need to mix things up a little, perhaps some people will disagree with me but i happen to feel that to run with only one set of tactics all the time would be a schoolboy error.
-- Edited by Dylan at 07:30, 2006-01-30
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I am 10% luck, 20% skill, 15% concentrated power of will, 5% pleasure, 50% pain, which makes 100% reason to remember my name!
