[madsteve]

SG made a decision, hindsight may show it wasn't the right one hypothetically, but I would prefer he makes the  tough decisions rather than bottling them.  Whether SG is still head coach next season or not, we are fortunately now in a position to not have to sell one of our players to bring in one!!!  Timing is everything, this decision was 12 months too early unfortunately!!

I also am not concvinced that the loss of Antonio is the only reason we struggled at home.  SG was too cautious or defensive for starters, and plenty of other players struggled as well.  I accept we could have played more expansive football with MA, but maybe SG would have stifled him as well!!

As regards your season ticket, give yourself a slap!!!!  You have had one for 47 years, and you will buy number 48 as well because you are a Wednesday fan, not an Antonio fan!!!!  We support the team no matter who is wearing the shirt and we go into every season with optimism because thats the way most of us are built.  With or without SG, there will be a lot more optimism for next season and there is no way you are going to miss that!!!  Besides, how would you do the match reports on here??

The sale of Antonio & SG's defensive attitude are linked.

It is because of SG's defensive attitude that he sold Antonio. If I look back over the previous two seasons, every good match we played involved either Antonio or Wickham significantly. So apart from the Wickham loan periods, Antonio was our only exciting player.

It is all to do with threat. Other teams see us now as no threat (and no pace) so happily hold a high line & we struggle to get near the opposition box enough. With Antonio in the side, teams are scared of his pace so have to drop deep which means we are regularly playing around the opposition box.

On one hand I want to keep going & feel sure that SG will be sacked before Christmas but that will mean another season wasted. This season has been mind numbingly boring and I don't think I could face another season of SG's football.

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BLAH BLAH BLAH ANTONIO **** SHITE !!!! FECK OFF !!!

So you are supporting SG over this then, I presume?

I blame the sale of Antonio for why I have had to watch the worst mind numbing garbage since Len Ashurst was manager. I bought my ST last year on the assumption Antonio was in our squad then SG sells him two days before the season starts.

Very hard to justify buying another ST (after 47 years) with no Antonio and SG still in charge.

no but i dont think anotonio is bannister chapman varadi or marwood ? ive seen some good ones like these thrown away and felt the same as you now maybe ? hes not worth crying about is my reason ? hes not worth a varadi or banno ? these things happen and maybe we would have ? and maybe we wouldnt ? ........................but hes still not in the same cry about league as the players ive mentioned !!! get over it ms your a big owl ( big hug )

The overall standard of players in England now is at its highest ever so leading Championship players today are ahead of many of our former top flight players. Antonio is the best attacking pacy player in this division so is better IMO that Banno or Varadi at their peak. More importantly though, he was way ahead of every other player in our squad so losing him has had a massive effect. Banno & Varadi played in a squad full of good players so losing one would have had less of an impact.

Our league position this table is very much based on three things:

1) a good start to the season

2) a good defence for the first half of the season

3) an ability to win against the weakest sides in the division

Next season when we lose three terrible sides, we will be facing a relegation struggle if we continue the way we have played this season.

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Here is a League Table with results taken out against the bottom four sides, three of whom will be surely relegated. Our record against the rest isn't that impressive.

1. Derby 59
2. Middlesbrough 58
......................................
3. Wolves 56
4. Bournemouth 53
5. Norwich 53
6. Brentford 52
.......................................
7. Watford 51
8. Ipswich 51
9. Nottm F 48
10. Blackburn 42
11. Leeds 42
12. Cardiff 41
13. Charlton 41
14. Brighton 39
15. Fulham 39
16. Birmingham 35
17. Reading 33
18. Sheff Wed 33
19. Bolton 31
20. Huddersfield 30
21. Millwall 29
...................................
22. Rotherham 29
23. Wigan 25
24. Blackpool 18

The bottom four this season are the weakest bottom four in this division for several years and the bottom three particularly. It is fair to assume that we won't be getting 16 out of 18 points off the three promoted clubs next season.

While we will perform much better next season due to the financial muscle that we now have, this table give a good indication of how poor we have really been against the teams of SBC standard this season. So while SG is basking in the glory of our second best league position in a decade, he really should be pretty ashamed of our results.

[madsteve]

Also our good start of 15 points from our opening 8 matches propelled us into the top half of the table. Since then our form has been disappointing with only two wins against sides outside the bottom four (Forest away & Boro at home) in 31 matches.

Take out every team's first eight results results and the table looks like this:

1. Bournemouth 64
2. Middlesbrough 57
...................................
3. Watford 56
4. Brentford 55
5. Derby 54
6. Ipswich 53
................................
7. Norwich 53
8. Wolves 48
9. Birmingham 44
10. Blackburn 43
11. Fulham 42
12. Cardiff 42
13. Bolton 40
14. Charlton 40
15. Nottm F 39
16. Huddersfield 39
17. Leeds 39
18. Sheff Wed 38
19. Brighton 37
20. Reading 34
21. Rotherham 32
................................
22. Wigan 27
23. Millwall 22
24. Blackpool 21

This isn't to minimise our overall position this season but shows that but for the excellent start, we would have been looking over our shoulders, worrying about relegation. Two wins against the top twenty teams in this division since 20th September (our last two before that date were against teams in the bottom four at the time) is pretty disgraceful in my opinion.

[Thurnscoe_OWL]

We still have to see this as a full season under Milan because the takeover was announced a month too late for any real improvement.
Our budget for this season was bottom 6, yet we're on course for top half finish. Our budget next season will probably be top 6 so we should see some real improvement

[madsteve]

We still have to see this as a full season under Milan because the takeover was announced a month too late for any real improvement.
Our budget for this season was bottom 6, yet we're on course for top half finish. Our budget next season will probably be top 6 so we should see some real improvement

MM said that we had a Top Ten budget for this season. Bottom six was two seasons ago. Last season we had the 15th biggest budget.

Our top wage increased by just over 15% so it is reasonable that our overall wage budget increased by something close to 15%. If this is correct and all other teams kept the same budget as last season then we will have the 9th biggest budget in the division. If everyone else increased their budgets by 5% then we would have the 10th biggest budget in the division. If everyone increased their budgets by 10% then we drop to 12th biggest budget in the division.

However, this isn't my point.

My point is that we are very good at beating teams that will be in L1 next season but terrible at beating teams that will be in our division next season.

I was startled that we had only won two matches against team out of the bottom four since mid September - that is over six months and 31 matches.

This clearly shows that for six months we have failed in terms of tactics, formations & substitutions against all of the teams we are likely to face next season.

Sure we will see some improvement with a top six budget but I would like to see us punching above our weight like Bournemouth & Brentford. We have an inept manager who has conjured up just TWO WINS against any of the top twenty teams in our division from our last 31 matches. That is terrible & we deserve better.

My eyes tell me that we will never go up if SG stays as manager & the statistics say it as well.

[Thurnscoe_OWL]

Youre doing sg a disservice there, it's the Top 19 teams because you don't count us

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And there's no way we have a top 9 budget, we spent fuuuck all until Antonio went

Also our home form is diabolical but with this new pitch hopefully that will be rectified. Last season we didn't play defensive, this season we've been forced into it

[madsteve]

Youre doing sg a disservice there, it's the Top 19 teams because you don't count us

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And there's no way we have a top 9 budget, we spent fuuuck all until Antonio went

Also our home form is diabolical but with this new pitch hopefully that will be rectified. Last season we didn't play defensive, this season we've been forced into it

We had the 15th biggest budget last season. MM said he was increasing it to a top ten budget for this season. It depends whether you believe MM or not. He certainly increased it but whether that takes it into the top ten, we won't know until next December. We do know that Westwood, Kirkland, Lees, Dielna, Loovens & May are all on the new top wage of £14k per week. Four of those deals were signed before Antonio left. Incidentally, Antonio was on £9k per week, which shows how our wages have shot up over the last two years.

The pitch is a total red herring thrown out there by SG as an excuse. The pitch was fine up until the Blackpool match so there was no excuse for our terrible home record for the first eleven matches, of which we won just two and scored just five goals. Ironically, we have got slightly better results since the pitch became bad, winning two out of eight and scoring seven goals.

[Was Wereham Owl]

MS ,
That is statto at his best, and has opened my eyes to how bad we really have been this season, I knew we were poor, but not that poor!!, I was never Antonios biggest fan as I thought he was wasteful TBH, but he did excite the crowd, and now we have ..err , nevermind... but to be fair to SG , was it really HIS decision to offload him or did MM make him to buy May ?? , I suspect that depended on the Thai interest at the time too, if MM KNEW it was going to happen then I guess he would have kept Antonio and bankrolled May himself, but as a businessman if he was unsure he would have given SG the option of one or the other , this opinion is based on the premise that Antonio WOULD have stayed at S6, my feeling is he would have gone no matter what given the information in other posts .

[St Charles Owl]

Undoubtedly SG was told if you want May, someone needs to go to cover the cost and as Antonio was not happy by all accounts with SG anyway, he was the most saleable asset we had that was worth enough. Wasn't this deal done at the time when the Mammadov deal was in the throws of collapsing?? I doubt DC was even in talks at that stage anyway, so MM was probably in the state of mind that there was likely to be no immediate takeover so the May deal had to be financed through a sale.

For me though, the big question now is whether DC is going to stick with SG, give him a decent transfer and wage budget and let him and PA go about rebuilding the team reading for a push at the top 6?? SG has done a good job with the defence this season, so he is capable in that area, but can he find the right players in midfield or up front, and if he does will we be able to sign them?? Money certainly talks and by all accounts we now have it, so we should be far more optimistic about next season anyway. Raking over the problems this season are to a certain degree pointless as our circumstances as a club have drastically changed in the last couple of months.

[Thurnscoe_OWL]

I think he can do better but he needs more attacking coaches around him to help him out

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In fact he needs more coaches/ back room staff in general

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And I meant to put that he WILL do better : up:

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Fuuuucking hate this mobile shite

[St Charles Owl]

Agree with that. SG in fairness has done a decent job given the relative lack of resources we have compared to others in the division. But as you say Thurny, for me we either need to appoint an attack minded DOF or senior coach to help him. If you look at the loanees we have had success with, he definitely has a decent enough eye for the players he wants but he struggles it would seem with the tactics, that is where he needs someone other than Lee Bullen to help him.

Irrespective of how we have performed against whoever in the league, we will be finishing mid-table, that is what we nearly all predicted at the start of the season. To see us flirt a couple of times with the playoffs was a bonus to me, and typically caused us to maybe be too optimistic or critical of what team we really do have currently. Our biggest success this season has come off the pitch in the form of the takeover, that one deal gives us a chance next season and in the seasons to follow.