This is what I have been saying for weeks we will strugle in non league the way we get players in we could be even worse next year and go down further
[quote=“JoaquinErnesto, post:145, topic:7051, full:true”]
A further 4 months later…
Sorry couldn’t resist. 
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Yes!!!
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No!!!
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Flynn’s arrival has brought some calm and whisper it quietly but we might actually have a season where we finish higher than the season before!! We had to slip a long way to ensure a sufficiently low benchmark but we might just do it. A 13th to 15th finish in the fourth division - get that open top bus started!!
Flynn has a rare privilege of having a good old look at his options in live theatre. For once - results at the end of the season are just important rather than vital. Would be lovely to hit 12th (add a civic reception to the bus!!). The bridge from there to 7th for 22/23 looks more surmountable albeit I think the league will be tougher next year. From what I’ve seen the likes of Wrexham and Stockport would beat both sides I saw yesterday - with a bit to spare.
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I realise what I am about to post may make me look a little stupid, or to be a little kinder with words unrealistic. It saddens me how low our expectations have become now.
Sure I’d take top 7 next season, after what we have suffered over recent years it would feel pretty nice. However if we are serious about getting out of this division, I mean really serious then we should be targeting top 3. From the first season back in this horrible division the talk from the club has been about getting in the playoffs.
League 2 isn’t the same beast as League 1. League 1 only two teams get automatic promotion and there are some really big clubs drop into that division. 3 teams go up from our division and with the right additions in all the right places with a manager that knows how to organise a team, we should be able to compete with any of them.
The playoffs are a lottery. Not a complete lottery, obviously the better team has the best chance of winning them, but things happen in one off games. When Hibbitt got us to the playoffs, we were the form team going into those, and we had beat Crewe twice before that miserable afternoon where it all came undone.
I am a level headed Walsall supporter, I have realistic expectations without a doubt. I fear if we aren’t careful that not being in a relegation battle in the basement division will soon be considered a success.
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I agree with all of that.
Just thinking about this season, with a different manager but the same players, would we have been challenging for promotion?
Had we played with 2 up front and a more attacking style from the off, I think we could have been. Since Taylor went, it is a different team.
However, it is clear that Flynn is not happy with some of the players. Yesterday, for example, the natural full backs, with White out, were Shade and Ward. Or with three at the back, Menayese comes in.
Do you.mean Leak rather than Shade? He has played a few games at RB as well as CH.
It’s not very often I feel sorry for a player but I certainly feel sorry for Leak.Whenever he’s been called upon he’s been really assured and comfortably handles the physicality of this league.To play Labadie instead of Leak must have really hurt the lad deep down surely it’s a natural reaction for him to be thinking I’m a centre half and he’s played a midfielder there instead that hurts.
In the end Labadie didn’t play at CH, he was in his usual position just in front of Kins and Earing but behind/alnogsideTomlin. Not sure if you’d call it 4312, 4222, or 42112.
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It looked like a 4 4 2 to me but the middle four were painfully narrow. I felt it hindered Earing in particular and exposed the part time full backs.
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Ah ok mate I wasn’t aware of that as I didn’t watch on ifollow and haven’t watched the highlights yet either.I will have a watch this evening when I get chance to sit my backside down.
Flynn just needs to be backed really.
He’s testing out the system now so Pomlett and Fullerton can’t claim ignorance of what style he needs to be back with during the summer.
As ever it comes down to strikers. Please no scrambling around on August 31st like with Miller.
One of Flynn’s last signings as Newport manager was to sign Dom Telford who’s now one of the top scorers in this division. He also signed the likes of Padraig Armond and Jamill Matt for them so with decent budget he will sign a good CF for this level and that’s half the battle in any league.
A good start is really important. Feels like last three years it’s playing constant catch up and all it takes is one long winter winless run and season is pretty much over.
Would be nice going into October 2022 and nicely established in top 3. Flynn certainly gives confidence he’s more capable of that than others in recent times.
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I read it as a loose diamond, with Earing at the back, Tomkin at the front and Labadie and Kinsella running around in the middle.
No I did mean Shade - I thought it would have been unfair to drop him - but Leak could have done it too. I think Flynn possibly imagined Osadebe and Shade might have got forward with the ball more but that was asking a lot, particularly on that pitch.
If he wanted them to get forward more he should have played them as wing backs with Menayese or Leak replacing White as the 3rd CB
But I actually think he was more using the game to experiment and see what the players can do rather than putting out a team explicitly to win the game. If you like, he’s doing the stuff now that would normally be done in pre-season as it’s pretty obvious we won’t be going up or down. Then he can go into the close season with a good idea of which of his inherited players to keep, which to cut (even if they still have contracts past the end of this season), and where he has to bring new players in to bolster the areas where he doesn’t think we are strong enough/have enough cover from squad flexibility. Then in real pre-season it should only be a matter of bedding and a bit of formation testing rather than repeating the full experimentation he’s already done.
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Well, except that he has tended to keep to the same players but move them around. If it were really like pre-season, I would have expected Leak, Kiernan, Ward and Perry all to have a go. As you will have noticed, I am one of the few that thinks Osadebe can do well for us but not from full-back surely - his tackling is not reliable enough.
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Loving Flynn’s work right now, but I think it’s too early to say we’ve ‘bottomed out’.
My sense is the ‘budget’ will be less again next season and in reality we’ll need to replace 4/5 key players in the summer (Rushworth, Daniels, Miller, Holden, Tomlin) and even if with retained them we’d still need 2/3 more imho.
Get some of that wrong and with a lower budget, next season could be tough & how long does Flynn stay if he isn’t backed?
I hope we bottomed out after the Scunthorpe game, the protest, the urine, the minutes, the emails…. But who knows with this board.
I think we will retain Miller, for all his effort i can’t see anyone else take a punt on him? i think this is his last chance saloon, i can see him benefiting from some coaching from Tomlin because he is a bit of a rough diamond
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Not sure how much truth is in this but I’ve heard that Rushworth would like to extend his stay here, apparently he turned down the opportunity to move to a League 1 club in January. I doubt he’ll have a role to play at Brighton next season so as long as they see us aiding his development this is possible.
I guess there’s a chance of Daniels and Tomlin extending, hopefully they’re loyal and Flynn can persuade them to stay on. Holden, can we class him as a loss of a key player when he hasn’t played this season? I’d say if he did stay on and get fit he’d be more of a bonus.
Miller would be someone I’d like to keep if he was free and wages wasn’t too much but I’d hope Flynn would have a better striker in mind to bring in.
Agree his finishing and first touch still need a lot of work for me.
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