That is the point really, in this league we have a real decent squad, they are a good bunch and we still have leaders like Jack Grimmer and Josh Scowen etc. Like you, I can’t see anyone thrashing us but we are certainly under performing for some reason.
So what? You have chosen to isolate 15 games out of a 46 game season and that proves absolutely nothing. As I said in an earlier post, if we replicate the results from the first 26 games over the next 20 we will finish with more than 50 points.
i don’t think it needed this research to confirm that if Wycombe carry on with such a record, relegation would indeed follow! I’d like to think we would win at least four or five of the remaining games though.
So expectations seem to be adjusting to ‘we should get enough points to avoid relegation’. Fingers crossed. But you know it’s Matt and he’s still learning. And he definitely will be a great coach as, well it’s Matt. Ok.
It’s just I had a silly feeling that this squad was better than 1ppg. Ho hum.
Considering our realistic status in League One, we have been spoilt with success in recent years. There is a direct correlation between the best supported clubs and those at the top of the table, i.e. Derby, Portsmouth, Bolton etc. Similarly, those clubs with smaller crowds like Fleetwood, Burton and Cheltenham find themselves near the bottom. In the league table of average attendances in our division Wycombe are 20th out of 24 with Stevenage being the only exception to the rule. Using this criteria, why do some people think that anything less than a place in the top six is failure?
I think the complication has always been the "eras" of the season:
Early season: Five at the back and a couple of 0-3s as we struggle to gel.
Second phase: Potts comes in to his own and we have a decent nine game spell. Still 5 ATB.
Third phase: Potts is injured and the wheels come off 5 ATB and we look generally poor while going on a long winless streak.
Fourth phase: 4 ATB, much more solid defensively, but achilles heel is failure to extend leads or sit on them late in games. Four unbeaten in the league.
If we combine second and fourth phases, we stay up pretty comfortably, while still having that "soft underbelly" someone referenced.
One thing no-one is mentioning is that the last time we conceded more than one goal (in the league) with eleven men on the pitch was Reading - TEN games ago. We are actually pretty good defensively until we retreat into our shell late in games. If we only did two things, and that was finish our chances plus manage the end of games, we would be on an upward trajectory.
Extrapolate that out and only Cheltenham and Cambridge would finish above us.
If we can turn some of these draws into wins then we will finish comfortably mid table.
No one knows what’s going to happen.
we need a centre mid OR left back to allow Leahy to provide cover for Potts or Scowen.
We definitely need another striker. I’m not sure we can rely on Kone if Vokes gets injured. If we add those two players I’m confident we will finish 10th or better.
Where did I say I was content with being what you call average? Our crowds weren’t much higher in the Ainsworth era when we were successful, so I would argue that mid-table is probably where a club with attendances as low as ours deserves to be.
Sorry @glasshalffull I could not disagree with you more. So sport is essentially pointless unless you are a big player. Let’s just give up as we have not enough supporters.
Sunderland, Portsmouth, Derby, Ipswich, etc have all come to AP and lost. They lost because we were organised, committed and prepared.
It seems we are all too ready to accept that we are now little old Wycombe and waiting for our certificates of participation. I don’t think many fans want that.
But that’s not what I said. My point is that we have overachieved in recent years for a club of our size, but the first sign of a below average season has some posters predicting relegation and calling for heads to roll. I absolutely believe in the democracy of football when smaller clubs can topple bigger rivals, but we should not expect that to be the norm. There’s also a lot of hypocrisy at play as I recall the complaints about Ainsworth’s style of play, gamesmanship, game management etc but many of those fans are now criticising a different style of play and a failure to manage games. They can’t have it both ways.
How many posts on this thread? I think most of them addressing it in one way or another...it's just possibly they are not all agreeing with you which seems to mean for Bloomfield outers that the issue is not being addressed by stupid people who don't understand.
I’ve given it a good 24 hours before reading-through this thread.
I still remain unsure whether MB has the capabilities to become a successful manager (here or elsewhere) but on the evidence since Potts has returned I am still of the opinion that we should stick with him for now. Not because of his history with us but because in my view managers do need time and the longer a manager is at a club the more likely they are to succeed in the longer term.
The football we were playing* pre-Christmas was however very dispiriting and a really hard watch, but the last few games we have at least looked like do have an idea about how to play the game.
The inability to hold on to a lead is worrying but is probably a reflection of a lack of confidence - both amongst the players and the management team - which comes when you are on a losing run. We just seem scared as a team late into games at the moment. GA was often guilty of getting the team to defend a single goal lead (often from the 15th minute!) But you always felt the players had the faith in their abilities to do so. At the moment I don’t feel they do.
But. At least that means we are actually getting a lead in games. A few weeks ago that seemed a distant dream.
(As an aside, at 93 minutes yesterday you could get ‘in-play’ odds of 40-1 on a draw. I didn’t but I was sorely tempted as it did seem inevitable…).
As an argument to the “1 win in 15..:” viewpoint I would say that for most of those games we were absolutely useless. I honestly think we have improved a lot (coinciding with the move to 4 at the back). If we can keep Potts and Scowen fit and on the pitch (and at the club) I actually think we will be fine.
I fully get why some people think MB should go (there are good arguments to do so) but equally there are valid, non-emotional reasons to hold the alternative view.
*Admittedly on the evidence at the time it is hard to be sure that we were actually actively playing ‘football’
Last season, our playing budget was that of a top 8 side. We then spent money to sign Shrewsbury’s player of the season. We also brought in their young player of the season on loan. This season we will have the budget of a top half side at the very least. Not only that, but this crop of players are very talented. I don’t know what proportion of Potts wages we are covering, but I’d guess it’s incomparable to Scowen’s wage. Potts will be a top half Championship midfielder next season - and that’s if he’s not already making substitute appearances for West Ham’s first team.
We should be finishing 10th this season as a minimum expectation.
I will recalibrate my expectations when our playing budget and our squad quality shifts.
If there is any possibility we can bring in Mike Williamson in as long term manager, I’d be all over it like a rash.
The football we played during the first half on Saturday was excellent. Performances for at least the first hour of recent matches have been much improved and we are creating far more chances. Better results will follow.
If they don’t, I’ll probably have to join the gloom and doomsters.
I, like most, get triggered at the suggestion that a big club hierarchy is something that should even be considered as a metric of deserved success. What I would say is our over-performing on pitch has allowed us to build an on-field squad that is under-performing and we are losing the club momentum that took a decade to build. We may not have the bodies on the terrace to claim to be big club but we had the resources to at least annoy them. And who knows the terrace might have swelled accordingly. Now as a club we are going backwards down that ladder of attendances as people look at our record and don't want to go and see another loss. Kids want to see wins, that's why a lad from High Wycombe will wear a Barcelona shirt to Adams Park. We are dismantling something that we worked so hard for, and when I hear that it's probably par then I get irritated.
All teams have ebbs and flows, that's the beauty of sport. Wycombe have had one maybe two seasons in the last 15 where we haven't either been in a relegation dog fight or challenging for promotion. We've been spoilt to still be playing for something pretty much every year until the 44th game if not the 46th.
You've hit the nail on the head - marketing and being told what to do drives what parents buy their kids - that kid probably also has a Real Madrid top, a PSG top and a City top. Why do we have so many children wearing multiple teams shirts nowadays. In days gone by that wasn't accepted. You wore your clubs top and that was it.
Attendances are not as low as they could be, driven by two things - cash and quality of football. The quality hasn't been great recently but we have been getting a steady 4300 home fans every Saturday for most of the season. Reading being the anomaly when we got 5300. On Tuesday nights, this has been more up and down, 3400 to 4000. I don't think that's too different to the average over the last 10 years. Albeit with an increase during our promotion and play off seasons. Fans are fickle.
Contemplating sacking MB because we are currently joint 13th when we should be 6th seems....well, a bit harsh. But that's the nature of fandom, always wanting more. Look at Man United. Moaning about Ten Hag because they are 7th in the Premiership. I would happily have Zombie Hitler as manager if he got us to that spot in the league.
This is a real fair point. I was pretty confident that we would come out second half and push home our advantage and beat Lincoln by two or three goals. The movement up front was really good in that first half and probably for about 20 mins after half time.
It is great that we can debate these things on the Gasroom as opposed to the nastiness shown on Facebook and Twitter. We are all Wycombe fans and want the best for our club and remember this is our team and our sport and not life and death.
I’m not in the sack him regardless camp. I’m in the wake the fuck up everyone camp. I want Matt to look at the mistakes he’s making and stop making them. 3000 odd people could see what was happening Saturday and yet the one guy who’s paid to resolve it didn’t. I’ve said before I would be staggered if it is arrogance that makes him stick with his mistakes so wtf? Weak coaches? Players not respecting instructions? I can look back at previous sacked managers and pin pointed what got them to where they got to but Matt is a mystery. We look so fixable and yet here we are.
Comments
That is the point really, in this league we have a real decent squad, they are a good bunch and we still have leaders like Jack Grimmer and Josh Scowen etc. Like you, I can’t see anyone thrashing us but we are certainly under performing for some reason.
So what? You have chosen to isolate 15 games out of a 46 game season and that proves absolutely nothing. As I said in an earlier post, if we replicate the results from the first 26 games over the next 20 we will finish with more than 50 points.
i don’t think it needed this research to confirm that if Wycombe carry on with such a record, relegation would indeed follow! I’d like to think we would win at least four or five of the remaining games though.
Where are Exeter?
Assuming we avoid relegation by around 2 or 3 points, would everyone give him the chance to start next season?
It may well be the decision of a new owner if RC decides to sell up by then.
Absolutely not
Trust me to miss someone out! I'm getting the sack before Matt that's for sure. Here's the amended table...
13 - Cheltenham Town (22 points from a possible 45) - 54
14 = Burton Albion (18 points from a possible 45) - 52
14 = Cambridge United (16 points from a possible 45) - 52
14 = Lincoln City (15 points from a possible 45) - 52
17 = Charlton Athletic (16 points from a possible 45) - 51
17 = Port Vale (15 points from a possible 45) - 51
19 - Shrewsbury Town (16 points from a possible 45) - 50
20 - Reading (18 points from a possible 45) - 48
21 - Wycombe Wanderers (11 points from a possible 45) - 45
22 - Exeter City (10 points from a possible 45) - 39
23 - Carlisle United (9 points from a possible 45) - 31
24 - Fleetwood Town (8 points from a possible 45) - 29
So expectations seem to be adjusting to ‘we should get enough points to avoid relegation’. Fingers crossed. But you know it’s Matt and he’s still learning. And he definitely will be a great coach as, well it’s Matt. Ok.
It’s just I had a silly feeling that this squad was better than 1ppg. Ho hum.
It's purely illustrative, largely to satisfy my own curiosity. I just thought I'd share with the group, because I am generous like that.
Some still seem to believe we're not in a relegation battle. This exercise may help bring the current situation into sharper focus. Maybe.
Considering our realistic status in League One, we have been spoilt with success in recent years. There is a direct correlation between the best supported clubs and those at the top of the table, i.e. Derby, Portsmouth, Bolton etc. Similarly, those clubs with smaller crowds like Fleetwood, Burton and Cheltenham find themselves near the bottom. In the league table of average attendances in our division Wycombe are 20th out of 24 with Stevenage being the only exception to the rule. Using this criteria, why do some people think that anything less than a place in the top six is failure?
I think the complication has always been the "eras" of the season:
Early season: Five at the back and a couple of 0-3s as we struggle to gel.
Second phase: Potts comes in to his own and we have a decent nine game spell. Still 5 ATB.
Third phase: Potts is injured and the wheels come off 5 ATB and we look generally poor while going on a long winless streak.
Fourth phase: 4 ATB, much more solid defensively, but achilles heel is failure to extend leads or sit on them late in games. Four unbeaten in the league.
If we combine second and fourth phases, we stay up pretty comfortably, while still having that "soft underbelly" someone referenced.
One thing no-one is mentioning is that the last time we conceded more than one goal (in the league) with eleven men on the pitch was Reading - TEN games ago. We are actually pretty good defensively until we retreat into our shell late in games. If we only did two things, and that was finish our chances plus manage the end of games, we would be on an upward trajectory.
what high hopes you have , content with being average, that is hardly going to get more spectators through the gates is it ?
Interesting but you can do anything with stats.
Ive looked at the last 7 games.
Cheltenham 11
Reading 10
Cambridge 10
Wycombe 8
Burton 8
Exeter 8
Shrewsbury 6
Wigan 6
Carlisle 5
Charlton 3
Fleetwood 2
Extrapolate that out and only Cheltenham and Cambridge would finish above us.
If we can turn some of these draws into wins then we will finish comfortably mid table.
No one knows what’s going to happen.
we need a centre mid OR left back to allow Leahy to provide cover for Potts or Scowen.
We definitely need another striker. I’m not sure we can rely on Kone if Vokes gets injured. If we add those two players I’m confident we will finish 10th or better.
POTD
I
Where did I say I was content with being what you call average? Our crowds weren’t much higher in the Ainsworth era when we were successful, so I would argue that mid-table is probably where a club with attendances as low as ours deserves to be.
Sorry @glasshalffull I could not disagree with you more. So sport is essentially pointless unless you are a big player. Let’s just give up as we have not enough supporters.
Sunderland, Portsmouth, Derby, Ipswich, etc have all come to AP and lost. They lost because we were organised, committed and prepared.
It seems we are all too ready to accept that we are now little old Wycombe and waiting for our certificates of participation. I don’t think many fans want that.
I would probably use ‘should’ in place of ‘deserves’.
But that’s not what I said. My point is that we have overachieved in recent years for a club of our size, but the first sign of a below average season has some posters predicting relegation and calling for heads to roll. I absolutely believe in the democracy of football when smaller clubs can topple bigger rivals, but we should not expect that to be the norm. There’s also a lot of hypocrisy at play as I recall the complaints about Ainsworth’s style of play, gamesmanship, game management etc but many of those fans are now criticising a different style of play and a failure to manage games. They can’t have it both ways.
Good point.
How many posts on this thread? I think most of them addressing it in one way or another...it's just possibly they are not all agreeing with you which seems to mean for Bloomfield outers that the issue is not being addressed by stupid people who don't understand.
I’ve given it a good 24 hours before reading-through this thread.
I still remain unsure whether MB has the capabilities to become a successful manager (here or elsewhere) but on the evidence since Potts has returned I am still of the opinion that we should stick with him for now. Not because of his history with us but because in my view managers do need time and the longer a manager is at a club the more likely they are to succeed in the longer term.
The football we were playing* pre-Christmas was however very dispiriting and a really hard watch, but the last few games we have at least looked like do have an idea about how to play the game.
The inability to hold on to a lead is worrying but is probably a reflection of a lack of confidence - both amongst the players and the management team - which comes when you are on a losing run. We just seem scared as a team late into games at the moment. GA was often guilty of getting the team to defend a single goal lead (often from the 15th minute!) But you always felt the players had the faith in their abilities to do so. At the moment I don’t feel they do.
But. At least that means we are actually getting a lead in games. A few weeks ago that seemed a distant dream.
(As an aside, at 93 minutes yesterday you could get ‘in-play’ odds of 40-1 on a draw. I didn’t but I was sorely tempted as it did seem inevitable…).
As an argument to the “1 win in 15..:” viewpoint I would say that for most of those games we were absolutely useless. I honestly think we have improved a lot (coinciding with the move to 4 at the back). If we can keep Potts and Scowen fit and on the pitch (and at the club) I actually think we will be fine.
I fully get why some people think MB should go (there are good arguments to do so) but equally there are valid, non-emotional reasons to hold the alternative view.
*Admittedly on the evidence at the time it is hard to be sure that we were actually actively playing ‘football’
Last season, our playing budget was that of a top 8 side. We then spent money to sign Shrewsbury’s player of the season. We also brought in their young player of the season on loan. This season we will have the budget of a top half side at the very least. Not only that, but this crop of players are very talented. I don’t know what proportion of Potts wages we are covering, but I’d guess it’s incomparable to Scowen’s wage. Potts will be a top half Championship midfielder next season - and that’s if he’s not already making substitute appearances for West Ham’s first team.
We should be finishing 10th this season as a minimum expectation.
I will recalibrate my expectations when our playing budget and our squad quality shifts.
If there is any possibility we can bring in Mike Williamson in as long term manager, I’d be all over it like a rash.
The football we played during the first half on Saturday was excellent. Performances for at least the first hour of recent matches have been much improved and we are creating far more chances. Better results will follow.
If they don’t, I’ll probably have to join the gloom and doomsters.
I, like most, get triggered at the suggestion that a big club hierarchy is something that should even be considered as a metric of deserved success. What I would say is our over-performing on pitch has allowed us to build an on-field squad that is under-performing and we are losing the club momentum that took a decade to build. We may not have the bodies on the terrace to claim to be big club but we had the resources to at least annoy them. And who knows the terrace might have swelled accordingly. Now as a club we are going backwards down that ladder of attendances as people look at our record and don't want to go and see another loss. Kids want to see wins, that's why a lad from High Wycombe will wear a Barcelona shirt to Adams Park. We are dismantling something that we worked so hard for, and when I hear that it's probably par then I get irritated.
All teams have ebbs and flows, that's the beauty of sport. Wycombe have had one maybe two seasons in the last 15 where we haven't either been in a relegation dog fight or challenging for promotion. We've been spoilt to still be playing for something pretty much every year until the 44th game if not the 46th.
You've hit the nail on the head - marketing and being told what to do drives what parents buy their kids - that kid probably also has a Real Madrid top, a PSG top and a City top. Why do we have so many children wearing multiple teams shirts nowadays. In days gone by that wasn't accepted. You wore your clubs top and that was it.
Attendances are not as low as they could be, driven by two things - cash and quality of football. The quality hasn't been great recently but we have been getting a steady 4300 home fans every Saturday for most of the season. Reading being the anomaly when we got 5300. On Tuesday nights, this has been more up and down, 3400 to 4000. I don't think that's too different to the average over the last 10 years. Albeit with an increase during our promotion and play off seasons. Fans are fickle.
Contemplating sacking MB because we are currently joint 13th when we should be 6th seems....well, a bit harsh. But that's the nature of fandom, always wanting more. Look at Man United. Moaning about Ten Hag because they are 7th in the Premiership. I would happily have Zombie Hitler as manager if he got us to that spot in the league.
This is a real fair point. I was pretty confident that we would come out second half and push home our advantage and beat Lincoln by two or three goals. The movement up front was really good in that first half and probably for about 20 mins after half time.
It is great that we can debate these things on the Gasroom as opposed to the nastiness shown on Facebook and Twitter. We are all Wycombe fans and want the best for our club and remember this is our team and our sport and not life and death.
I’m not in the sack him regardless camp. I’m in the wake the fuck up everyone camp. I want Matt to look at the mistakes he’s making and stop making them. 3000 odd people could see what was happening Saturday and yet the one guy who’s paid to resolve it didn’t. I’ve said before I would be staggered if it is arrogance that makes him stick with his mistakes so wtf? Weak coaches? Players not respecting instructions? I can look back at previous sacked managers and pin pointed what got them to where they got to but Matt is a mystery. We look so fixable and yet here we are.