I grasped it too but the next 2 months will be key in satisfying some of the negative ones. Some good backroom staff and some decent signings and the mood will change. Failure to do so will mean the season will start with a lot of negativity about which will not be good for those in the team.
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Absolutely - and Iāll put my hands up and admit that too.
I justā¦ I dunno, just all feels a little weird.
Itās probably just a sort of death by a thousands cuts with me to be honest - Iām just sick of being optimistic at the start of every season, and then being either bored to death, or having to watch this dreadful long ball shite each year.
Itās mind numbing and Iām just so sick of it now. I donāt believe a word anyone says from the football club anymore - until there is material change on the pitch.
I just hope itās this season; but Iām just so ambivalent to it.
Mentioned in relation to low expectations (relegation/non league) based on the previous 16 years, not a comment on Sadler. We should always be aiming for promotion, thereās no point turning up otherwise.
Sorry I still misunderstand (genuinely). But Iāll answer your original question directly and hopefully it puts my point across accurately:
Would it be a sacking offence? No
Would it be underwhelming? For me, yes.
Thereās a bit of a fallacy that it takes years to build up to promotion, thatās been peddled by the board and seems to have been passed onto Boycott, which now seems to have become some fans default excuse.
Carlisle finished 20th last season. Stevenage finished 21st and were an absolute bin fire. Northampton may have been relegated (remember when that was the reason we couldnāt bounce straight back?) but theyāve been promoted again on attendances similar to ours until they were in promotion running towards the end.
I donāt think it can be claimed any of those clubs have been ābank rolledā either.
Thereās no excuse, if the club arenāt realistically challenging for promotion from this league itās a very poor effort.
It was mentioned further up the thread that it was a reasonable expectation for us to finish poorly because we have done so in recent seasons. My point was that by that measure itās also reasonable to expect weāll be some way off the play-offs.
No sub-context and not saying that would be acceptable, just that performance since relegation doesnāt suggest promotion is on the cards if weāre using previous seasons as a yardstick.
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Agree.
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I must admit I am struggling to see why anyone is feeling either massively positive or negative following Boycottās missive. The sentiments expressed in the letter are difficult to argue with, but until we know what, if any actions will follow it is impossible to form a rational view on whether we are doomed (as some seem to be suggesting) or destined for the bright sunlit uplands. I can understand the cynicism, based on what has happened under previous regimes, but I prefer to reserve judgement until, at least, later in the summer, based on the support structure in place after the next couple of months. and the recruitment of players and staff in that period. I understand why many people are impatient, but if this genuinely a new regime, it needs to be given a bit of time to get its act in order.
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Didnāt really tell us anything that we hadnāt been told beforeā¦ wellā¦ except that about the SLO office.
Thinking about putting a tenner on us to get relegated. Does anyone happen to have the odds handy? 
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Some fans wonāt be happy till they get a turkey at Christmas.
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Yes youāve got to be a supernatural genius to work out that losing your top scorer (again in January) in a team that was doing ok, suddenly means it does less than ok, and in football momentum, be it positive or negative has a habit of generating itself in the second half of a season as weāve seen so many times after so many poor Januarys. Maybe just start paying attention to plain facts and reality, its remarkable how your āknowledge of the worldā improves when you do it.
When did that happen? We have a league structure where a club with a crumbling 10k capacity ground one side of which is in various folksā back gardens, that just a few years ago was the subject of our owners ridicule has just gone from non-league to Premier League in 9 years, and the scraps from their table now represent the biggest transfer windfall in our history. As you point out with your examples there are successes and failures, and in doing so you destroy the basis of your argument that money rules - it literally doesnāt. It helps, if its invested wisely as has always been the case. You are literally inventing stuff to mitigate the crass, self-imposed limitations embodied by the incumbants of the WS1 bunker. And thatās supposed to be optimism?? Iāll take realism all day long thanks 
Thats what 16 years of consistent decline, empty promises and 4 consecutive bottom half finishes in L2 gets you. Fans are only reacting this way due to prior experience. It wears thin eventually.
Nobody on here began to support Walsall because they thought we would compete at the very highest level, but it would now seem competing at L2 level is all too much for us. Optimism disappears and gets replaced by despondency after years of failure and treatement of contempt by the powers that be.
The only way to change that? By showing us where it matters. Not by words. Pomlett tried this and everyone brought into it. BB is now doing the same. Iām not saying what he is saying isnāt true, but I like many look at it with cynicism as that is how weāre now conditioned to. Hopefully he can come good on his letters, only time will tell.
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Then theyāll argue it isnāt Christmas 
Or a season that extends past February.
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Fairly underwhelming second letter.
Probably not entirely BBās fault,i think scheduling it some weeks apart from the first one made me think it may contain more structural changes and substance.
Some well intentioned goals but not much meat on the bones.
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I think this is different. Bonser didnāt need to worry too much as long as he got the rent but these folk want our club to be the start of a number of clubs so it wouldnāt look good if they made a complete hash of it. Also if they want to show us off to clients, the performances of last season would bore them rigid.
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The closed season is always a time of uncertainty and Flynnās late dismissal and the turnover of staff make this year worse than most but to have so much talk of disaster and relegation at this stage really is over the top. Uncertainty always leads to fear but letās give them a chance. For me, there is much to look forward to, not least an attempt to play attacking football.
For the last few seasons, we have been painful to watch in most games but I saw enough in those last three games to see how Sadler would like to play. And I have confidence that he can make it work. Contrast those games with when Dutton took over as caretaker - he too tried a different way of playing but made a real mess of it.
Yes, it can all go wrong but the way some are posting here, we might as well go straight to the National League.
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Wasnāt that all the focus of letter one, though?
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People always do. Not finding much confidence in what Iāve heard though, despite the arguments you yourself created then debunked.
Copy, paste. See you next year for the same post.
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I agree with that @Laundryman. In addition to that, as Ben states we actually have the spine of a good side already signed up for next year.
But without wishing to hop over the other side of this binary wall of āpositive and negative posterā people seem keen to build, we do need another dozen or so players. The first one or two need to be real statements of intent to help attract other talent.
I agree that the football under Sadler looked far better. But Iām sure if in your example of Dutton, Brian had had the benefit of one of the countryās best number twoās over the last two decades alongside him, it would have helped him enormously. Again, time will tell and the proof will be in the pudding.
So letās see. Benās vision is pretty clear. Which is really good. I think we can all see what heād like to build here and I canāt see what anybody would object to. But a lot of us have been worn down by false dawn after false dawn which means that as a fan base weāve probably gone to just the negative side of the optimism/pessimism spectrum. But blimey, who could possibly blame us?
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