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Match day thread: Exeter

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  • @Wanderers82 was correct after all. I feel bad now.

  • He didn't play today. His manager has thanked him for his backing several times. It's gone tits up obviously, it'll get better.

  • We need to go back to having less possession IMMEDIATELY

  • I'm not sure it is. Sure, Mawson is a hell of a signing, but some players will inevitably have declined since last season. In any case, we haven't strengthened enough relative to what others have done if we really are targeting autos (we might mount a play-off push if we get our act together, but something clearly isn't right at the moment).

  • It wouldn't be so bad if we hadn't got our hopes up about challenging for top 2. Anyway, it's 4 games gone. Us and MK Dons scrapping it out to stay up.

  • Agreed but why are we for games into the season and not signed a keeper ?

  • The injury list is misleading. Vokes - yup. Definite. Tafazoli nicely replaced by Mawson. McCarthy is a loss but not massive compared to Grimmer (imho). He certainly can’t cross.

    Thompson, got Wing/Gape

    Hanlan, wasn’t a first choice last season

    Kaikai, see above

    Can’t see this excuse holds much water. You put Vokes in that team tonight instead of Wheeler and we’re cool. Hopefully Livingstones reserve keeper will turn this around

  • A lot of people need to calm down a bit and get a bit of perspective.

    We're on a bad run but the current management and owners have shown over a much longer period of time than 4 games, that they get things right.

    The toys currently flying out of prams left right and centre does us no favours as a fanbase.

  • We have been unlucky with the number of players out at the same time. Makes me wonder if there might be some covid or its recovery implications in the house

  • edited August 2022

    You say 'something' as if it isn't quite obvious.

    • No Vokes, Tafazolli, Stockdale/New No1, Thompson, Kai Kai, McCarthy, Bayo/target man replacement, Hanlan, De Barr (injured)
    • Unfit Wing, Forino, Mawson.
    • Ageing JJ. Very out of form Grimmer.

    Bullets 1 & 2 will be solved.

    Bullet 3 can be managed with ease if everyone stays fit.

    I'm not blindly optimistic. The first half was an utter disgrace. But our squad is evidently good enough - 80%+ made the playoff final last season.

    JJ ageing and Grimmer out of form, but Mehmeti and Forino have developed much further in their ability levels. Hopefully we've got more coming from our development squad too. Put a trustworthy new goalkeeper into the squad and when we get more off the treatment table we'll be up and around playoffs.

  • Interesting that some are saying lack of fitness. I have wondered about our pre-season game selection. We very rarely pitch ourselves against league opposition and then we don’t seem to take the games against non league opposition seriously enough. Yes pre-season games are friendlies but we seemed to go into them without any thought or plan this season. Maybe we are now paying for that unpreparedness with all these injuries.

  • I refuse; I absolutely refuse to believe that we wouldn't have been able to sign Blackman this summer if we'd wanted him. Choosing a Manchester United loanee over him may well end up ranking as one of Gareth's biggest mistakes since taking on the role. Conjecture, sure, but there we are. Gareth has had a very poor start to this campaign - transfer-wise, tactical strategy-wise and results wise. It'll be interesting to hear what Rob Couhig has to say about it all on the 24th. The optimist in me thinks he's doing this Q&A then because by then we'll have signed a goalkeeper for him to crow about. The pessimist in me wonders whether he will want to issue a public warning about poor form, putting the management team on notice.

    I won't be at that match but it will be interesting to know if anyone presses Rob Couhig on whether there's been any reduction in playing budget this season and if so, by what percentage of the total wage bill. Also very keen to know how much he's paying himself / Missy / Pete / other family members in salaries / consultancy fees / dividends / expenses for flying over from the States. Suspect we won't get an answer though, even if the question is posed.

  • Clearly injuries have hit us hard at the start of the season but lack of recruitment has been a major factor to our shambolic start. You have no control on injuries but you can control recruitment. Why haven’t we replace Stocko. You can’t blame Dickinson who currently is way below the standard needed at the top end of League 1. Rumours are we are after now the Livingston goalkeeper. Is that the best we can get? We took too long to replace Stewart. We know Bayo is irreplaceable but we needed a striker. Automatic promotion Mr Couhig, you must be having a laugh .

  • Agendas on display tonight.

  • edited August 2022

    I was preferring more to lack of preparedness recruitment-wise. When did we last have a summer transfer window this bad?

  • Agreed to a certain extent but we have lost to 2 teams who will finish in the bottom half. It does feel that we have given other play off hopefulls a significantly head start. No need to panic but a reliable keeper definitely required for Saturday

  • A thoroughly disappointing evening. Having the match tonight so soon after Saturday's loss was the perfect opportunity to put it to bed - opportunity wasted. First some positives:

    1. Al Hamadi put himself about when he came on. If Vokes is still unfit by Saturday, I'd say he's earnt himself a try.
    2. Another decent cameo from Freeman.
    3. Mawson - calm and assured with some wonderful cross field passes. Once he is fully match fit and alongside Taff (let us hope...) then that is a wonderful pairing.

    To the rest of tonight - perhaps mostly said before:

    • Dickinson - he's not up to it I'm afraid. No fault of his own - I am sure he is currently a good National League / League Two goalkeeper, but he is rooted to his line, doesn't come out when needed and clearly isn't filling the defence with confidence. A good young goalkeeper, but we can't be relying on him if we are aiming to finish anywhere above mid table at best.
    • Grimmer - awful performance sadly. Out of position, passes astray and just not up to scratch.
    • JJ - I love this man in a Wycombe shirt and am sure he will come storming back as he does every time he garners criticism, but he has been off the pace by quite some margin over the past 2-3 games, even his passing and set pieces don't seem quite there. Could be due a rest with Obita coming in at LB.
    • Wing - not match fit? Surprised he lasted 93 minutes tonight.
    • Mehmeti - a wonderful talent, but he certainly isn't going to be that £1million "player" if he turns up once every three games.
    • GA and Couhigs - perhaps the main point is that as many posters here have said, we look woefully underprepared for the season. These games in August are not a throwaway - they are worth the same amount of points as a game in May - and we are already putting ourselves in a position where we will be chasing the pack, rather than keeping up with them. Last season was sensational and 83 points was a brilliant haul, but good sides strengthen each year to make themselves better. Naive? Too loyal / faithful? Stubborn? I'm not sure which is right, but we could rue waiting so long to make any significant impact on the squad if we don't add some first team level squad depth in the next 14 days.

    Someone here earlier this week said the Couhigs may have outlived their honeymoon phase. I wouldn't go that far - the club is so much stronger than before their arrival. The brash American proclamations that we are going for nothing less than automatic promotion this year though do not exactly tally with anything on the pitch or in the transfer market so far though. Best to either keep those claims in-house, or back them up. Plenty of time to do so, but 3 losses from 4, with an injury hit, weaker squad and no first team goalkeeper isn't a good start.

  • It was incredibly foolish to put our entire trust in Man Utd's word before the final signatures were pen on paper - especially given their goalkeeper current predicament and recent track record. You and I both agree on that.

  • cannot believe that we did not go for Blackman , he was so commanding , something we lack massively

  • The most worrying thing for me is not the injury list or the recruitment, it’s the fact that whoever we put out there, I can’t even work out what formation we’re playing. Tonight, absolutely nobody appeared to be playing where they were supposed to be, leaving huge holes all over the park and weird clusters of Wycombe players hanging around not where the ball is. I watched with a non-Wycombe mate who kept remarking on how our players appeared to be marking each other, at one point we had three players just outside the box on the left wing all getting in each other’s way.

  • Listening to Gareth's interview, said he hopes Taf will be back at the weekend (again not sure if he is playing mind games), made no reference to Vokes, so he will probably play! In an serious if Vokes and Hanlan are out for more than a few weeks, we need to invest in a striker, AHH looked good however cannot rely on him or Mellor to lead the attack, its unfair on them both , they need to be blooded in just like Dickinson should ihave done also .

  • How do you know we didn’t go for him? Maybe he just chose Exeter over us.

  • Yeah fair point, i suppose we dont know the ins and outs, i would be incredibly dissapointed if Exeter were able to offer him a better package than we were able to .

  • Ironically I think Bishop chose us over Exeter, which then led to Blackman going there relatively unchallenged.

  • Man United are atrocious at managing keepers, as both Henderson and Bishop (I am sure) will attest to, wasting time on the sidelines (Henderson last season, Bishop this) when they could both have been playing. Man United deserve every last shred of bad goalkeeping they receive.

  • we should of moved onto other targets, we can only blame ourselves here, Dickinson comes across like a nice lad however is simply not ready to be a number 1 atm. has he made any saves of note in the 5 games so far?

  • Would anyone take David de Gea?

  • Oh absolutely. This is the most frustrating thing of this whole situation, Bishop remaining at Man Utd does nothing to help them, he won’t get a minute of football. Yet he’d be a key player for us.

    Maybe Rob is working on a case to file against them as we speak

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