And we need to pick up players on the edge of our box and stop giving them a free shot at goal .
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Totally mate…every bloody season !!!
Makes a mockery of our forward planning then mate 
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It’s such a pity the way things have turned out.
Wheatley gets in England U21 ahead of Lowe so on paper he’s better than Lowe.
Ellis is a good signing - but he’s injured and not as good as Lowe.
Chang and Lipsuic haven’t featured - nobody knows why.
I like Levi - but the lad is a squad player for me and needs to develop.
As Brian Clough once said…unfortunately the game is played on grass (not paper). I think we’ve had worse January’s (though that’s not saying much!) and we can’t just blame our business in Jan for what’s happened.
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Perhaps Blues are hoping we will play Chang if we can’t play Hall
Have you been spending time with King Crod
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Who knows. It is all very strange to me.
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3 in 17.
Culmination of a really bad transfer window and poor rotation of the squad by Mat and his coaching team. Feels like we used relatively inexperienced cheap loans to top up a squad 12 points clear at the top. The key is strengthen with real proven quality when you are on top. We unfortunately didn’t. It could be extremely costly imo
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That’s just what we need, someone to run around (without scoring) for no advantage whatsoever.
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No matter how bad the January window was, there is just no excuse for this kind of collapse.
When we beat MK on the 18th of January, we had 58 points with 21 to play. The benchmark for promotion is 80 points based on recent history, but to be fair let’s say 83, which does it easily. 25 points required from 21 matches.
I agree with what Completely Saddled said, probably in another thread. We probably weren’t as good as the points we had on the board. What we did have was a golden opportunity for promotion, only needing just more than a point a game to do it. That isn’t a bad run it is a shitshow. Opportunities like this won’t come around that often. 18 years and counting.
By the way, I know the tone of my post may be angry, but it certainly isn’t with you!
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We do have a strange fascination with signing loan players, utilising loan slots, and either never playing then or once or twice before casting aside.
Yann Songo’o, Danny Cashman, Flynn Clarke, Harvey Griffiths, Reyes Cleary, Alfie Change, Darius Lipsuic. There were two lads from Birmingham we signed and never played under Clarke. Even Adegboyega last season took a while to get in to the team, did well then was weirdly left out for a while.
We’re either signing players we know nothing about or our background scouting is way off. It’s clear we have ‘targets’ for loans which have worked relatively well - Simkin, Lowe, Draper, Rushhworth. We then just seem to panic and sign anyone on loan.
What a waste of loan slots in Jan when we could have utilised with players who would actually contribute rather than be treated as glorified work experience.
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I get the anger mate i really do, i feel as angry as you. This will be the mother of all shitshows if we don’t go up now and we have to say that blame would lay at Sadler’s door with a definite side order of dreadful recruitment in January. If the worst happens there would and should be no way back for Mat. I’m trying to remain positive that we’ll somehow scramble over the promotion line, but I’m being severely tested mate!!
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Someone has posted on WFHYS whether anyone else has heard the rumour Josh Gordon is off to Swansea 
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Totally agree we’ve had some real shockers with loan signings. What must happen and we say this every bloody year is to get your core of the team permanently ours ie GK,CB,CM and CF. The CF position is really costly but it seems every season it’s our undoing. Trivela should have learnt this by now. If not they will have in May if we don’t go up!!
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Barry Town I’ve heard…it’s down that way 
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Exactly that. Chang, Lipsuic and Wheatley were just weird signings. Asiimwe too (as he wouldn’t have played had Barrett not got suspended). Levi was ok for a sub and Harrison was a last minute panic.
All will have been relatively cheap. Surely Sadler wasn’t so arrogant that he thought job was done?
I remember him saying agents were queuing up to send players to us!!!
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We just brought numbers in - we didn’t bring in the quality we needed. Looking at the standard of Vale’s players on Saturday compared to their opposite numbers, really brought this home to me. We don’t have players of the quality of Stockley, Tollaj or Garrity. I’m beginning to think that we massively over-achieved when Lowe was here. I think the last 3 months have shown a more realistic picture of where we really are, which is top 10, but not perhaps top 3! We just need to show top-10 form over the next 5 games and we will be promoted!
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Just to be pedantic, but it reinforces your point: Wheatley replaced Lowe as a starter in the U19 England squad, whereas Darius Lipsiuc was in the Ireland U21 starting team with David Okagbue and Rohan Maher.
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I think it has shown something far worse than that.
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