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Match day thread: Swansea

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  • @Twizz - I think it's more the fact it not in our hands even if we win all four. So it's not all about belief in the team now, but belief in relative probabilities.

  • @Twizz we can only get to 46 points now. We could be relegated before we play our next game.

  • I think we are subdued about losing a vital game which we were leading for 77 minutes. It is allowed @Twizz

  • edited April 2021

    Birmingham, Coventry and Derby all winning to relegate us pre our next game would feel a typical way to go down for this season wouldn't it!

  • edited April 2021
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • @railwaysteve said:
    A friend just sent over some mottoes from a Portuguese bar wall, here is a quick example of tone of a couple of them which might fit our current collective mood:

    "Coffee to change the things I can; wine to accept what I can’t."

    "Reality is an illusion caused by a lack of wine."

    There are no football ones and it has been a rollercoaster of a day, so I want to try out a couple of drafts on the gasroom which brims with talent in this field. Improve or suggest as you wish. Wine could be substitiuted for beer according to taste.

    "Football is a cruel game, solace resides in beer. The absence of solace is totally unacceptable."

    "Football is the beautiful game and beer glass is the lens through which its beauty is truly celebrated. The absence of beer to celebrate beauty is totally unacceptable."

    I’ve always gone with “Win or lose, must have booze”

  • I was definitely looking though a glasshalfful there earlier. To quote myself "whatever happens this season we'll finish in our highest ever league position, in better financial shape than had we not been promoted and with a stronger more experienced squad" - or something like that at least.
    TBH I didn't think we would keep the (slim) dream of Championship survival alive until mid April. The fat lady has, I believe, drawn her final breath ready for the opening note.

    But what is she going to sing?

  • I’m shocked to the core that @Doob has found something to be negative about ?

    Probably our best all-round performance this season. And the ‘get a new manager in’ line is probably the worst suggestion of the season too.

  • Just listened to GA interview. Doesn’t sound like a man going anywhere soon. Hopefully we can retain most of the squad , Would be great to get Knight but fear he will go to a Championship side. Some of the generals will go .Age has finally caught up with them. I’m really proud of my club and believe we will be back in the Championship.

  • Yeah but @arnos_grove, much as I don't like to be negative, we've been bottom all season, have never had anything resembling a settlement side and are going down. Not a huge amount to be positive amount and let's face it, had we brought in a new manager at Christmas we really couldn't have done much worse. Why is everyone so content with playing well in the occasional game but being stuck at the bottom of the league?

  • ‘Not a huge amount to be positive about.’

    You can’t be serious.

    As for ‘couldn’t have done much worse,’ replacing GA with an experienced manager (harder to do than type btw) would have destroyed the fabric of the dressing room and we’d have lost so much of what has made the last few years so special.

  • Oh, dear. I’ve tried to be polite @Doob (as have others who have reacted to your post) but I can only say “you really don’t get it.”

  • I decided to be content with promotion from.league one and at least a season in the Championship but I realise I have very low expectations compared to some.

  • As Micra has put it so succinctly, some people just don’t get it. I am glad that those in charge of the club are more understanding.

  • I think its absolutely fantastic that we are half way through April with only 4 games left to play, and still not relegated ! A great effort

  • The mere fact we will able to count ourselves unlucky to be relegated to some degree is staggering. We have moved mountains this season!

    I am not so optimistic at getting back up here again soon, but it has been a free hit which has also put the club in a much better position.

  • “Not a huge amount to be positive about”

    I can see a few.

    We’re going to come out of the pandemic without the debt burden of other similar clubs our size.
    We’re getting a decent playing budget for next season.
    We’re getting some much needed ground improvements.
    We will get a better match day experience.
    We’re ending the season with a good run of form.

  • "Had we brought in a new manager at Christmas we really couldn't have done much worse"

    We've won 6 games since Christmas, compared to 2 beforehand. We could've done plenty worse! Our form over the last few months would've been good enough to avoid relegation if replicated in the first half of the season.

    As for the settled side. No you're right, we haven't had a settled side. But then nearly all of our key players have had lengthy spells out injured and the constant 2 games a week schedule is not really conducive to keeping the same team week in week out.

    Personally I've seen plenty to be optimistic about the the season. At long last, we're really starting to see some new stars emerge within our squad.

  • Not wanting to be part of a pile on but any call to change the management is utter madness.
    I am 100% sure that our management team next season will be far better than at the start of this. GA has shown what a learner he is and with the additions to his team and Bloomfield as the apprentice we should all have a degree of confidence and excitement for the future.
    With the rub of the green this season could have been better but the football gods were awol for a large part when it came to competent officials and injuries. Still proud of everyone connected with the club and this season will be one to celebrate. Just a fecking sh1t sandwich this god awful pandemic meant we never saw it.

  • Of all that’s shit about modern football, and it’s a very long list, the disposable nature of managers these days is one of the worst. I take pride in the fact that we’ve stuck by our manager through thick and thin, and it’s lifted us two divisions.

  • I can't add much to what's been said above but the list of positives to take from this season is a very long one, and personally I'm already looking forward to next season.

  • @drcongo said:
    Of all that’s shit about modern football, and it’s a very long list, the disposable nature of managers these days is one of the worst. I take pride in the fact that we’ve stuck by our manager through thick and thin, and it’s lifted us two divisions.

    This is a great point. Continuity in management over a long period of time has to bring strength and is the only way to get a lasting positive culture. I am proud we kept faith with Ainsworth when things weren't going so well. Those who kept faith have moved on but the benefits are there for all to see

    It does make me chuckle that a few are grumpy about us being bottom of the Championship. I really think that with crowds and a more normsl rhythm of matches we would be lower mid table

  • I do hope, when the dust is settled on this season, we'll be able to discuss the pros and cons of our campaign with a certain level of dispassion. Gareth and his team deserve a huge amount of credit for how this campaign has been conducted but, ultimately, it will failed in its objectives to keep us up and some of the reason for that lies at the door of Gareth and the decisions he's made. Partly personnel, partly style of play. Lessons have been learnt but later than perhaps they should have been.

    That does not mean that he should lose his job. I'm firmly in the camp that hopes he will stay and apply the lessons learnt to the next campaign. But the idea that we shouldn't raise these issues out of a sense of loyalty is wrong, in my opinion. Likewise, claims like @floyd's that any change in manager would destroy the culture of the dressing room I find unlikely and certainly unprovable. These are professional footballers, the vast majority of the current team have only been with the club a couple of seasons at most. They're not going to stop being nice, intelligent, diligent professionals just because someone else comes in and tells them how to train and where to play.

    Anyway, the dust hasn't settled yet, we still have points and pride to play for and hope to hold dear in our hearts. But in those long summer weeks we should hold a post mortem on this season, we should try to do so constructively - but no one should be afraid to express their opinion when we do.

  • Almost everything is unprovable.

    It is clear to me that it is this management team that has introduced the current positive culture at Wycombe and that losing that management team will likely end in the loss of that culture.

    I agree that the season should (and I have no doubt will be) reviewed for what lessons can be learnt in order to build for next season and beyond.

  • Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.

  • @Ozzie_the_Relaxed said:
    Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.

    What a lovely pop-up.

  • Beauty lies in....if we want to be pedantically true to the original.

  • I found this link quite illuminating in relation to the debate (aka slagging off @Doob).

    https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/apr/18/how-norwich-made-getting-straight-back-to-the-premier-league-look-easy?

    The key point of his (provocative) comment was ‘in a few years time’.

    Clearly before the season started the owners took the view that they wouldn’t throw everything at trying to stay at this level but some astute signings and loans and a trust in the management team may
    be enough.

    But if not we have a bit of money left and a more experienced management and football team to build on going forwards.

    We could have gambled mid-season and it may have worked but it would have been a gamble and probably an expensive one (hard to imagine a new manager wouldn’t want to buy new players).

    If in a few years time we look back having never reached the Championship again will we regret not taking that gamble?

    Personally I hope I won’t. I hope the way things have gone will see us established as a decent League 1 club over the next few years occasionally challenging at the right end of the table.

    There are never any guarantees but I feel if we had gambled and lost, ‘doing a Yeovil’ would have been far more likely than playing it safe and sensible.

  • I think the pros and cons of this season have been done to death already @aloysius. I see no reason for some kind of post mortem to be conducted on the Gasroom, whether with “a certain level of dispassion” or not. Let’s leave that to the management team. Let’s not waste time discussing matters over which we have no control and minimal influence.

    Thinking that replacing GA would not change the fabric, culture, ethos, attitudes, carefully cultivated relationships etc (call it what you will), betrays (in my ever so humble opinion) a fundamental misunderstanding of all the work that goes into identifying and attracting the right kind of players to fit into the complex jigsaw of the squad. The majority of the Wycombe squad are at the club, not because they have been offered highly lucrative contracts but because they genuinely want to be part of a very special set-up. Several have returned after short (and generally not particularly happy spells) elsewhere.

    Do you really think a change of manager would not jeopardise that situation?

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