Its taken me 4 days, but now feel able to post! On the game, Telfords game plan worked out better than ours. Every time we looked like getting a foothole or doing something creative it was snubbed out by fair or foul means.
There were 2 occasions where Telford players should have been shown 2nd Yellows but unfortunately the referee bottled it!
We didn’t do enough to win the game on Saturday.
Having said that I can’t believe some of the stuff posted about being players short of a winning team.
We have the players its just that the games and injuries have taken there toll.
On Saturday 3 out of our 4 (IMO) First choice midfield weren’t available - Brown/Peers and Connors. Forget Val Owen, he wouldn’t get into our team!
Tony Barrass was a massive out. Both Full Backs - Spearitt and Hockenhull were struggling with injury.
In short we still haven’t had the opportunity of playing our first choice eleven for 90 mins against Telford.
Good luck to them in the Conference North, I did the turnstile on Saturday and their support warrants them playing at a higher standard, even if the methods they use to get there don’t.
Appreciate your point Chad and don’t get me wrong I am not knocking any of the playing staff because they have done an amazing job on very little money and as I said everyone should be proud of themselves.
But looking at next season I still stand by that 2 or 3 "quality" players would make a massive difference to this squad because you can bet your bottom dollar than all the teams around us will be improving and even at the top level the likes of Man Utd won’t sit back know doubt Fergie will make another couple of shrewd signings before the start of next season.
Also you have to look at the fact that Warlow could go back to Crewe and there’s also the Benny factor as I understand that he has expressed an interest in a couple of our lads already.
As regards my comment about Val Owen, I think he could still do us a job but if not then that type of experienced hard man would suit us ideally should Steve Connors be injured or suspended.
In summary what I am saying is the 3 quality editions to the squad could really make a difference when we are faced by injuries etc and hopefully we won’t be in a situation like last Saturday with a scratch team out and various people playing out of position. I am sure Jim already has his feelers out for players of this calibre and have heard a couple of rumours of who maybe coming next year who are of a good quality.
So as a Wittoner it’s a time to look forward and not backwards at what might of been, the league title can be and will be drapped in red and white ribbons next year! COMON THE ALBION
I agree that we probably need 2 or 3 players to make a solid push next year. However, i wouldn’t say that we need an improvement in ‘quality’, i would say we need more experienced players.
Apart from at centre half we do lack a lot of real experience, and i think that has shown in the games against Telford and Burscough. So i would say we need someone in the centre of the park with plenty of experience at this level and who is also a bit of a ‘scrapper’ - look at Brabin and Morley in the Burscough midfield for example. I would also like to see us bring in a big powerful centre forward in the mould of Lee Spike or something similar.
Finally i think ideally we could do with a specialist fullback. i think Tom has grown into the fullback position over the course of the season, but it’s not his natural position and i think both he and the team would benefit by having an out and out full back operating down both flanks.
Some regrettable comments on here regarding Telford and their players. We should not stoop to that level.
They were better than us on the day. Yes, we had a depleted, injury hit team and yes, they exploited the weak refereeing, but we should move onwards and upwards and learn from this. Valid comment I think regarding the fact we need some more steel in the team. History tells us that teams with a very physical presence are invariably most successful in this league. The 2 promoted teams this season have that in abundance. We have seen numerous times this season, our flowing attacking football be disrupted by in-yer-face closing down by less able opponents.
Congratulations must go to everyone concerned for the great season and we mustn’t be too downhearted although that’s very hard having come so close. Hopefully the whole club can stay together and be positive for the future.
If we’d gone up of course we’d have needed to strengthen the team. :
It’s taken me days to even consider posting on here. Saturday was an awful experience and not deserved after a super season. Having said that, for those criticising the play-offs, how happy would we have been had there been play-offs back in 2000, when we’d have gone into them in 3rd place (on goal difference, again!!!) and on the back of an immense winning run. This year it was always going to be more difficult with patchy performances and results in recent weeks.
If we were in any way complacent last time we just missed out, I’m sure that won’t happen again.
ps better team won on Saturday (that’s what I’ve struggled to say for the last 3 days) so best of luck to Telford next year and thanks to the Albion for a what I think we should still term a successful season.
Agreed, if we went up we would of needed those 2 or 3 players. But by the same reasoning the fact that we didn’t go up also means we were slightly short when it mattered. OK it was only ONE goal, but we failed to beat either of the 2 teams that gained promotion. Infact we failed to even score against Burscough. To me that shows we did fall short of what was needed. I’ve said previously that if we’d had the same squad in August that we finished the season with, then i’m sure we would of won the league. However, with this squad (ok, injuries have played a massive part) we have lost alot of games during the run-in. Ultimately we weren’t quite up to it, and as Pritch has said himself recently, not many teams lose 10 games and still come away with the title.
One point i do feel like making is that when we went away and got a FANTASTIC 2 nil win at Whitby, we made FOUR changes to the team for the next match. Gaghan dropped to the bench despite being MOTM at Whitby in place of Connors, who then didn’t even make it to half time. Moseley dropped in favour of Warlow, who finished the season in poor form compared to what we’d expect of him - whereas Mike had actually played his way back into suberb form and was scoring again.
I think that if we keep the squad as it is then we’d have a great crack at the league next year. But Warlow is unlikely to stay, Moseley has pretty much already signed off, Farquarsaronarison will go back to Crewe, and what of Lloyd, JK, Gaghan, Griff Jones?
Plain and simple we are going to need reinforcements during the summer, and i think we should be looking for some experience to blend with the great footballing talent we have at the club.
As usual I agree with most of what’s been said on here and Robbo in particular your views coincide with mine as I’ve already suggested that a Dominic Morley type player would be a welcome addition to our ball playing midfield. I’d like to pose a number of questions to sum up the season -:
What Did we Win ?
Trophies NONE
Hearts and Minds -YES The type of attracive football we’ve played has had opposing fans almost drooling and high in praise of us. Our fan base has become stronger. Everyone know about Witton Albion we are back on the non league map!
Respect- YES see above - Every team in the league fears us as they know if we get it right we’ll score goals. Our fans have been well behaved apart from a couple of isolated incidents, and have represented the club with Wit, Humour and fun.
more expectations
higher average gates (even excluding Telford)
Cups runs AND high league finish
Hopefully all this supported by a good set of accounts come June (ie we have not gone bust achieving it!)
also for anyone who is interested think we have had the highest gross club shop sales for around 10 years!
Healthy accounts, Increased attendance, back on the map, runners up in league and play offs, quality football, highest goal scorers in all leagues.
Dysfunctions:-
No promotion, likely to lose key players (MM does spring to mind after something Pritch said at end of Telford match) Warlow is expected to hit Crewe 1st team.
I think the majority would have taken this scenario 12 months ago, yes it is disapointing not to go up and yes it will be disapointing to lose players, my view, right or wrong is that if we had of gone up could we have held our own with the finances.
Its Ok having a great season but you have to cut your cloth accordingly, surely there is a few quid already in place for next season, but not as much as would be needed had we gone up.
If it takes us 3 years to go up and stay up and then progress further, so be it, it wont happen in one year the club has to build, build build and build, with the current set up it is in place to continue.
I’d sooner go up and stay up, afford to stay up, build the club, build the team, build the future.
[color=red][move]Anyway, Robbo when are we getting this game on? [/move] [/color]
i wouldn;t worry yet, warlow still not offered a contract when 3 or 4 (cant remember) other strikers have, nick farqhason being one of them, you never know, we might get lucky and keep warlow
You can’t say we are short on the playing side and then state that if we’d have had the same squad in August as we had at the end of the season we’d have won the league!
To all those saying we need this,that and the other, get off your a*ses pre season and raise/contribute money to the fund to ensure that we are able to MAINTAIN the standard of footballers at the club BEFORE we start thinking of bringing new (more expensive) players in.
Mr Chadwick, if you read my post again (i’ll help you with the big words if need be ) you will see that i am offering a balanced view.
On 1 hand, i feel that had we kicked off the season with this squad then we would of won the league. But on the other hand, during the run in - with this squad - we did fail to get results against both of the teams that gained promotion, and also some teams that came no where near to promotion. So maybe this squad wasn’t good enough?
So i go back to my inital point. I think the ‘quality’ within the squad is more than sufficient to have won the league, but maybe it was ‘experience’ where we fell short. In summary, we need a couple of experienced heads to provide balance to a squad with a fairly low average age.
Just to add another strand to the discussion… does anyone think that the on-loan players have the stomach for the fight when it gets down to the nitty gritty of putting your neck literally on the line when it comes to the cut and thrust of a play-off situation?
Not trying to be mischievous here, just reflecting something that was said of a Charlton player on Sky the other night and it made me think. Thoughts anyone?
we can outplay anyone in this league but teams like telford muscle us out of the game - danger is other teams know about us and will look at telford as an example of how to beat us three times in a season - we need a couple of big athletic thugs so that we have more than one option for when teams adopt telford tactics…that said without injuries etc there are a lot of maybes
I think thats why I agree with what Robbo is getting at. To insure we go up next season we need to add two experienced hard players to our squad. They need to be a midfielder and an attacker and be battlers. Its obvious that one or two players need to leave and I don’t want to name names but its pretty obvious from those who miss loads of games due to injuries, suspensions or other means. It’s not getting at players its fact. We need all our players to be available most of the time. It’s no good having someone sat in the stand with a 3 match ban every couple of months or so, or someone who is continually injured with diffrent types of injury. We can’t afford to carry that sort of thing with our low budget. Lets get more steel and experience and add them to our class squad.
I hope that the latest news means we have a try to sign on Adam Warlow. Know he perhaps went off form in the closing stages of the season but given the right service the lad will get goals. Its also imperataive to get Lloydie and Griff signed on again. These lads are integral to our style of play complimented with two harder players!!
Lets forget not going up, get positive, learn from the past ,but look forward to the future.
The key other thing for me is the Jim/Nigel partnership and whether this will work. Thats the most important thing to sort out because one of these guys needs to be a strong disciplinarian hard but fair , while the other needs to do the arms round a players shoulder touch when its needed. Not sure if we’ve got the Hard but fair side of it in place but I could be wrong and hope I am!!
) you will see that i am offering a balanced view.