Chorley (h)

[puritanmk]

How's the pitch looking? Any pitch inspection planned?

[geoff95]

Pathetic beyond belief. There is absolutely nothing positive to say

[Sparky]

Utterly shambolic performance, totally clueless. Notwithstanding players that are injured or unavailable this side will not keep us out of trouble. It’s time to ask questions given that we are now four months into the season and some sort of a competitive side should be evident but on tonight’s showing we are below falling short. Chorley fully deserved their win being quicker all over the pitch and direct. This is now down to the manager to sort out.

[Dale]

I appreciate we have a low budget, that we're not a Full Time club and that we started the season with 1 of last year's squad, but this was a truly dismal performance. Seems to be no game plan other than aimless long balls to someone who can't hold it up. Fans leaving after an hour is not a good look. Drastic reduction in attendances is worrying and tonight's showing is probably going to make that worse.

[spoons]

Painful watch.

[petet]

Okay,here we go. Tin hat on, and I'm hiding behind the sofa.
We all understand that the manager had to assemble a completely new team. He had to work with a limited budget. It was a difficult task. But after four months of trying it is now obvious he has failed. His team are just not up to the level. They are his players, he scouted them. This manager and his team are going to see us relegated.
It is now the time for Ronnie to be brave and do something about it before it's too late.
It took many, many years to get to this level, and make no mistake it would take just as long to get back to it. It is so important that we build on recent success. We need a competitive national league team. A team with a chance of the play offs, something for the people of Banbury to support. Crowds are dropping at an alarming rate. The vocal support we enjoyed for the last couple of years has gone. We are losing the newer supporters, the atmosphere at games is flat, football in a library.
The first team manager sadly has to take the vast majority of the blame. His team is simply not good enough. We are very poor to watch. Negative football. No more excuses. Two more months of this will see us in an impossible situation in the league. The club must act fast or the dream will be over.

[goosegog]

Petet.   After the King Lynn game you said, what a great win and with a win at the weekend we would be half way up the table.  Your now saying the manager needs changing and the club needs to move fast.  Might we remind you that we are only 4 points behind the bogside bottlers with all their resources. 

The manager, staff and players have done an amazing job from the start of the season.  Yes we need to improve that is obvious but changing this manager would be insane.

[petet]

Goosegog, if we bury our heads in the sand the inevitable will happen.

[Sparky]

Unless we turn the home form around whatever resources the club have will disappear very quickly as is reflected with the attendances dropping. Without the revenue through the turnstiles there won’t be any money to invest in improving the team. I haven’t been critical of the manager because of the situation he came into but we are now reaching the point where the performance of the team especially at home is of real concern, as I said earlier the performance last night was awful and we have in recent games scraped draws.The away form is truly baffling but on last nights showing that isn’t going to last unless changes are made either at team or management level.

[Steve T]

The goal difference is worrying for a team that's lost only one game more than it's won.

Home:
Chester     +1 -1 Curzon Ashton
Warrington  +3 -3 Spennymoor
               -2 Scunthorpe
               -3 Buxton
               -3 Chorley

Away:
Boston      +1
Farsley     +1
King's Lynn +1
Southport   +1
Tamworth    +1
Gloucester  +2 -2 Peterborough
               -3 Hereford
               -3 Scarborough
               -4 South Shields

I wrote after the Bishop's Stortford match that an average of a point a game (W7 D7 L14) would get Banbury to 53 points and safety. So far so good (W1 D1 L2) but what's likelier from here – winning enough or losing too many?

For the record, the average for 21st place in a 24-club division in Steps 1-3 since 2003-04 is 47 points, with just 7 of 28 getting at least 50.

[didier]

If I were Ronnie Johnson's position, the last thing I'd be doing now is questioning Mark Jones position.

22-23 season ended at the end of April and we had survived in the NLN despite a poor latter half of the season

In Whingy we trusted, a very good Manager who had us punching above our weight

End of May and the Whingy era drew to a conclusion unfortunately. It was absolutely rubbish timing for us, other clubs had all signed the spine of their teams and most of their squads by the time

Mark Jones is appointed Manager early June of a club that (from memory) had only one player signed up when pre-season was just around the corner - that's an absolute shocker of a situation to be in and what none of us know is what Mark Jones remit was - was it just "get us a squad together and try to keep us in this division". If so, he's doing well !

Current standing, we're nearly half way through the season and we're sat in 16th place (out of 24) which is one place above where we finished last season

Would any of the current squad have been Mark Jones first choice signings - probably not, his 'ideal squad' would've all been signed by other clubs when he joined us.

We're punching well above our weight, we need 'a Dunkirk spirit' to try and get every bit of energy out of the players.

Survival in this league this season would be an absolutely massive achievement.

[petet]

I agree with a lot of what you say David ,but the home performances have, on the whole been abysmal. That is why the attendances are dropping at an alarming rate. In these difficult times people are not going to fork out to watch dross. Without the income from the gate we are going to be in all sorts of difficulties.
Punching above our weight? Yes probably. But we've got to this level, surely we should do everything in our power to stay there? The team that has been assembled is just not good enough. No one is criticising the effort, it's just a fact that the players find it hard to compete. Yes, some clubs are paying huge money to players, and as a supporter owned club we can't match that money. But I believe we have still got a healthy budget.
If something isn't changed we are going back down to the Southern League, and that would be a very bad scenario. Lower crowds, lower income, lower budget. It took many decades of struggle to get where we are, let's not see it all disappear. Let's try and do something about the situation before it's too late.

[Sparky]

Let’s not forget back in the day when we were relegated from the Southern League into the Hellenic,that took us many years to get out of. I for one went to many fields in the countryside during that period following the team through thick and thin and it has taken an equal amount of time to get where we are.If we lose this position after only two seasons then I fear I will never see this level again. Action has to be taken sooner rather than later as this group of players barring a couple are not good enough.

[aarons14]

Whilst I agree with the points that the standard of football has been awful to watch and that the attendances are a real concern, getting rid of the manager at this point of the season would be a massive error in my opinion. With our current budget, playing squad and attendances, it would be almost impossible to attract a manager of a higher calibre. And whilst the performances are very bad, we have to be realistic and appreciate that implementing a real style of football (similar to what Whingy created), would take a lot longer then the 4 months that Mark has had so far (albeit we should have some vision of a playing style at the moment, which we don't). As much as we would love to all attend and watch a better standard of football, it is a results business at the end of the day, and whilst we have had a lot of very bad results, we have also had a lot of very good ones to balance it out, which is why we still sit in a fair position in the table. Get behind Mark and the boys, huge games coming up and they all the backing right now.

[essexpuritan]

Dec 20, 2023 23:32:24 GMT 1 didier said:

If I were Ronnie Johnson's position, the last thing I'd be doing now is questioning Mark Jones position.

22-23 season ended at the end of April and we had survived in the NLN despite a poor latter half of the season

In Whingy we trusted, a very good Manager who had us punching above our weight

End of May and the Whingy era drew to a conclusion unfortunately. It was absolutely rubbish timing for us, other clubs had all signed the spine of their teams and most of their squads by the time

Mark Jones is appointed Manager early June of a club that (from memory) had only one player signed up when pre-season was just around the corner - that's an absolute shocker of a situation to be in and what none of us know is what Mark Jones remit was - was it just "get us a squad together and try to keep us in this division". If so, he's doing well !

Current standing, we're nearly half way through the season and we're sat in 16th place (out of 24) which is one place above where we finished last season

Would any of the current squad have been Mark Jones first choice signings - probably not, his 'ideal squad' would've all been signed by other clubs when he joined us.

We're punching well above our weight, we need 'a Dunkirk spirit' to try and get every bit of energy out of the players.

Survival in this league this season would be an absolutely massive achievement.

We’ll always be ‘punching above our weight’ if everyone has the same attitude. What happened to ambition? When we got promoted everyone was excited to see where it could lead.
Once upon a time Cheltenham were our level, now they’re an established league side.
If we’re just happy to be here we’ll never be anything.

Also, he chose the players. He thought they were good enough, and most of them clearly aren’t. No one else can be blamed, it falls squarely in one place.