?

Might be. He's doing alright so far and I certainly wouldn't be looking for alternatives at this stage.

I think Craig Harrison was doing a better job of taking us out of this league. For me Bates is a step in the right direction, we do need to be scoring more but given a chance over a full season I'm confident this squad is good enough to reach the playoffs. Another striker wouldn't go amiss mind.

I've been waiting for a post like this to start.

When you are in the lower reaches of the league as last season, a draw is a point won.
When you are striving for a playoff spot,a home draw is two points lost!
This season we have the squad to be up there going for a playoff spot but playing as though we are struggling for survival.
Our away form and play is fine but at home there has to be a change to a more attacking style of play even if that means losing some games.
DD = 2 points, WL = 3 points. Solihull Moors have lost 4 this season but are well above us because home draws are shit results.

Beige football.

I think he's made a good start,I'd have taken 8th at this stage but I would love to see him mix it up a bit at home, it always seems so negative. We ended today with 4 central midfielders and a striker he signed sitting on the bench, if he doesn't rate dinanga why is he here,I barely seen him play so he's obviously not going to be sharp or at his best. We lack a bit of creativity in the centre which I suppose Williams was brought in for and on the left we need another option, kitching looks a defensive left back not a wing back,he doesn't have the pace. I do feel for our strikers as they aren't getting much service and we don't play to their strengths. We need them sitting on the defenders shoulders looking for through balls but they are always out wide. We are only a couple players away from having a good side though.

Its starting to look like we have been over achieving rather than a team that was going to get stronger as the season progressed. Once we start losing away , and we have some difficult away games coming up, then what?.

Bates got the job and he should get a fair chance we need stability and he needs an opportunity to grow and learn from his mistakes. With stability the team will improve and get stronger in areas it needs to in time. Sacking managers every five minutes does not work and is the opposite of what the club needs.

The home form needs addressing though we are dropping too many points and games are following a similar pattern. I think it’s naive to set up the same we do away as we do at home. We have got to be on the front foot and impose ourselves on opposition and make them worry about us. Winning one and losing one gets you more points than drawing two at the end of the day. Even sat 4,000 miles away I couldn’t really understand Hawkes for Muir just after they’d equalised, I understand that after his knock on Tuesday they thought he’d only last an hour but what sort of message does it send out to the striker on the bench, if he doesn’t rate him and isn’t prepared to give him a fair chance then we might as well send him back to Burton and try someone else.

We look a mid table team, at start of the season I would of taken that, its not just the draws its the lack of entertainment as well, today was mind numbingly boring. Glad I'm at the theatre next Saturday afternoon.

Don't say that! You'll have PJ at your throat.

Mr horden has never been glass half full but he isn’t an attention seeker trying to get nibbles like yourself I respect his opinion and posts. You on the other hand....

Feel sorry for Bates in a way that he has to put up with a squad where there is so many players either on transfer list and/or overpaid that we can't shift.

Raj backed him well but it's fairly obvious we won't be signing anyone else unless we can ship some out. The decision to loan Cassidy out has turned out to be an awful decision but maybe finances dictated it? (Presuming they are paying at least some of his wage)

Wish there was another Jordan Hugill type lurking about available on loan but imagine if we do get a loan signing in then it will just be a young kid.

Lack of strikers and lack of any real wide players is limiting our options massively.

Surely he has to think about using Donaldson further forward, rather have him up front than Hawkes and Anderson/Kioso at CB/WB doesn't weaken us that much?

You mean like you've been at the team since day one?

I like Donaldson were he is , I just think he should be a bit more greedy when running at the opposition, looking to beat a man , shoot and score himself rather than always looking to lay it off. He used to be a forward, albeit not a great one in terms of goals, scored for fun for Newcastle Reserves then couldn't do it in the Football League , you would still think though he would have that forwards mentality of wanting to get on the scoresheet, at least occasionally.

without a big lad who can get 20 goals a season then no one could get the current side promoted.

Do you mean the player everyone is looking for. Easy to find one of them eh

Do you mean the player everyone is looking for. Easy to find one of them eh

Do you mean the player everyone is looking for. Easy to find one of them eh

[quote="phil"]Correct me if I'm wrong, but at the beginning of the season Bates and Singh said this season was about stopping the rot downward slide we've been on for what feels like a decade. I believe the target set was a top half finish, which we should do with ease. I know people want out of this league as soon as possible, but we've got to realise that is not always possible. The club have a plan and they have put budgets in place to match. There is no doubt we have hugely improved on last season. The squad is better and the performances are better. At the end of this season a lot of the overpaid and underperforming players will leave, and they will hopefully be replaced by better players.

I want to get back to the football league too, but at the minute I'm just glad we exist and we're not losing week in week out. We still have an oversized, over paid squad that lacks width and lacks depth upfront. I don't think a top 3 finish is realistic with this squad, regardless of the manager. I hope that as the season progresses we will address that, but it's clear no one else will come in until others leave. That said, I think we look good to be competing for the play offs, which is huge progress from last season.

I know I'm not the most demanding poster on this board, but that's enough for me. We have a squad filled with players that have got into the habit of losing and breaking that habit isn't easy, but we are breaking it. I still think we're going to get better as the season goes on and players get used to their roles and injured players get fit again. I'm not panicking yet.

Yes i agree with the comments made.
Yesterday i had a chuckle to myself whist several people around me were slagging players/manager off and i looked at the score board and we were drawing 1-1.....last year that would have been 0-2.
Its going to be a long term project and we are going to have to be patient. We have a club,decent gates and are 8th in the league and hopefully lessons were learnt from the last two games.
I am just glad i dont support Man Utd.

At last, a bit of sense.

2 good posts there

We’ve lost a game and drew a game.

No need to go overboard


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By keeping a squad as large as he has, the eggs are in 1 basket and that is to get promoted this year or the alternative is the possibility of running out of money.

I worry about his experience with tactics, we seem to have 1 plan which has faltered of late and don`t seem to be able to change things around to see a game out, switching to 4-4-2 or making the correct subs at a time which would secure a win and stop the onslaught.

Aldershot were awful yet had us on the back foot most of the second half

I'd say you'd definitely need to go up this season or be trapped in the non-league for a good few years..Not that i'm trying to panic you or anything but there you go..

I wasn’t too worried but I am now Sussex has said that. You can’t the word lightly of such font of footballing knowledge who follows his team in the Non League scene home and away religiously.

It looks like it’s shit or bust everyone, the oracle has spoken.

You can only release players who are out of contract and without a large budget you can’t overhaul an entire squad in one transfer window. It will take time before we can move the players out who we don’t want and create a more balanced squad.

As for tactics and plan Bs he’s a 31 year old manager he’s going to make mistakes and learn as he goes. The club needs stability after years of mismanagement and turmoil and that’s got to start with giving a manager a fair chance to succeed and build a team. Bates seems to have the dressing room and we appear to have more character and spirit about us. It’s a start, we aren’t a great side by any street but we are competitive and we have a shout of the top 7.

Where do you get this running out of money thing from and how are you pinning on Bates? He has nothing to do with budgets or finances. He’s not even the main man in terms of signings that’s Hignetts job. Your narrative has been negative since the new regime came in from day one. They are commercially inept, the manager is rubbish, we are going to run out of money. Get behind the club we nearly didn’t have one.

The Sussex Oracle..I quite like that PJ.


All the same even a Orifice like you must worry about loosing out on the FL windfalls?

The windfall we are ‘loosing out’ was about £475,000 last year (God knows were that went, but God knows were the money from the ten players we sold for cash went either) and this year we get 50% of that. A significant amount of money certainly but hardly a windfall in the grand scheme of things or an amount that would put a club at financial risk. We have a clean slate now and with new sponsors like Sky committed next year I am sure it’s budgeted for.

After the mess of the last year talk of ‘shit or bust’ is a bit ridiculous to be honest. If the club is ran properly we have the fan base and profile to get back into the League without parachute payments, especially an amount that adds up to not much more than Salford are paying one player in salary for the year.

The owners said we didn’t need to go up this year

Bates listed half the squad almost, released who he could n leg players under contract leave if offers came in.

What more could he have done?

I’m with PJ here. This sacking managers culture at hufc has to stop. We’ve had no stability off the field in the boardroom or on the field.

It’s no surprise we’ve ended up where we are

WE DREW A FUCKIN HOME GAME

can people calm down


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Plenty of sand to bury your head in over there eh?

I want the club to be a success, however I don`t want to have to watch hoofball and be bored for 90minutes, you don`t have that misfortune!

Do you always have to be so obnoxious? Are you incapable of debate? Why bring up that I am out of the country with cringeworthy barbs about sand and camels as a response to reasoned points? It’s without fail. Seriously can’t you do any better?

If you bored find a new hobby, you are supporting a non league football club that nearly went of business 7 months ago. Support it otherwise you just, again, sound like someone with an agenda.

Come on Mr Butt, you can't honestly expect not to see your fair share of shit in this division?

Yesterday was shite from beginning to end and it won't be the last time we see a shit performance. BUT we drew. Last season, that would've been nailed on loss.

The squad now is so much better than last season. We have a number of players who could/should be in League Two or higher.

This is an exciting squad and if Bates can sort them out, we'll do well. Enough to go up? Not sure but whilst I want us to go up, I keep reminding myself how dire things were a matter of months ago, some have way too short a memory and very unrealistic expectations. Any negative talk about Bates is just silly. There are things we're doing that I question (like not utilising James and Muir as out and out strikers, they spend too much time out wide for my liking) but in the main, we're so much better to watch now than in recent years.

Chill out and hope for the play offs accepting that mid-table is actually acceptable.

I honestly think we've shit out a bit this season because it seems to be a much stronger division than last season. Salford are what they are and with their budget they'll go up (no different to Forest Green really), Leyton Orient have sorted themselves out and again probably benefit from location and wage budget - they're also a 'big' team for this division. Wrexham also are much improved and then after that you have Sutton who are well accustomed to this division, knowing it well and also Fylde who aren't short of a few bob.....but we aren't far off. I would love to know how our squad this season would've done last season because there were no stand out teams at all.

I've went to every home game this year and 2 away games, And I fully agree the hoofball last game was as worst as I have seen in a few year, Defenders passing back to Loach, HOOF!! Aldershot redeem possesion, Midfielders passing back to defenders, HOOF!! Aldershot redeem possesion!! Take a risk for fuck sake and make a forward pass with pace on it on the deck! Like i said Worst I've seen for years.

It's not the fact that we drew a home game we dropped points at another home game that we should be taking advantage off, Its not just home games it's away games to like Braintree (I was there) Frustrating as fuck, Orient went there the other week and hammered them, Harrogate at home 90 odd minute equaliser, Ebbsfleet at home should off took advantage off that game, Barrow at home, Eastleigh at home again, Aldershot the latest game, See the pattern? All the points we have dropped? Ain't having a go here but All these points we have dropped will come back to bite us on the arse, Wait and see what happens when we play boreham wood this Saturday my gut feeling is it will be a draw again or a Loss they are not far behind us in the league. Yes we have improved massively since last year I accept that 14 games played into the season and 2 losses. I hope I'm proved wrong Saturday.

If this is the worst you've seen for years, you must have been in a coma for for several years. After years of being on life support and clinging on to life as a club, I can be comfortably patient for now . Jeeeeeeeez

The worst "hoofball" I have seen for years there is a difference, Are you heavily sedated or did you not read what I said? I said we have MASSIVELY improved since last year, Reduce your drug intake.

You said it.
So I can safely reduce my drug intake and you'd best pop along to the opticians for a pair of those massive jam jar bottom glasses.

Yes I did, The worst hoofball!! Not the worst team, A Start to a season, The Players we have signed, You are on some heavy hard drugs my friend, What day is it exactly?

It's Monday. Getting your days mixed up ? I understand, it's awful when your memory goes and you get muddled. Put the kettle on, have a nice digestive and it'll come to you eventually.

Just had a coffee, Me getting my days mixed up? Don't think so my friend I've been awake 36 hours at work all weekend nearly 2 full days hence why I'm talking to you this early, What's your excuse for been up this early have the nurses arrived for your daily injection and your bed bath? Don't worry put the kettle on (Or ask the Nurse to) It will come to you eventually.

I don't agree that it was "hoofball" for 90 minutes at all. The last 20ish minutes were more like that after it seemed we ran out of ideas but otherwise I thought the team passed it around well. Unfortunately we just don't seem to have much fire power at the business end of the pitch at the moment.

That's not to say the match wasn't tedious. It was. But, like others, I'm happy with what we've got at the moment after the last couple of seasons.

I didn't say it was for the full 90 minutes I said I had never seen a ball lumped forward more than that in a few years, Seems to me we ran out off ideas way before the last 20 minutes but your right we did have some spells off knocking it about good. I'm happy with what we have to I just think we need to be more ruthless in games and go a few up before half time 60 minutes ish, It seems to me the more the games go on when we are one nil up its only a matter off time before we concede. If it wasn't for loach we would off lost 3-1 4-1.

You’ve been at work 36 hours?


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Happy with where we are me like. Perspective required.

Interesting to see that the card count in The Non League Paper put Pools second botton with only 15 and zero .
Top is Solihull Moors with 26 and 4 .

Perhaps we need to stop this HOOF ball and start HOOFING the opposition.

Solihull Moors are 5th.

Not quite early enough, as I've been out and come back from mine. Best part of the day.
36 hours?

Yes 36 hours awake I've just woke up from a 5 hour sleep.

36 hours continuous?