Cold Light Of Day: Where It's All Gone Wrong...

[Olé]

It starts with recent dealings in the transfer market - Adebola was one of the best players at the Championship club we acquired him from, Agyemang is not. Basic intuition tells you that we can't improve on Championship average signing Championship average players (or worse).

Unfortunately the manager sees his role as taking other teams garbage and trying to polish them into something halfway decent. But halfway decent isn't cutting it any longer and the last 12-24 months signings have been more and more erratic and send a message to players that average is okay.

The immediate remedy and humility required by GJ is that a policy of only loaning with a view to a permanent transfer has got to end TODAY. Get a talented central defender, full back and keeper from the Prem who have no intention of joining us but set one hell of an example to the current lot.

Some of these players have impressed in patches but that's all it's been, we have assembled a squad of bit part players who, Skuse apart, cannot put together consistent performances or justify their place in the team from one week to the next.

The complete experimentation and alteration with selection and formation tells you that. I can't remember anything like it. Can anyone honestly say Williams, Haynes, Sproule, Clarkson have demonstrated that they're 46 game a season players?

I'll concede some of the signings had excited me on first view but there's always this suspicion that someone stole Gary and replaced him with Barry Fry, there's quantity but no quality this season. We have lots and lots of decent substitutes.

It's clear to me also that our standards are very low. Maynard beat the left back last night with a nice touch and whipped in a cross which had pace but sailed across the area with no one attacking it. Everyone roared and gasped in excitement.

If that had been Cardiff it would have been their worst play of the game. We too readily accept whatever BS players serve up, we have an immaculately gifted player in Maynard who goes missing in games, we salute as limited a player as Orr.

The fact is we have no truly class players (class is not one match a month, it is visible in every game) we just have a lot of middling players so can hardly expect any better than we're getting, let alone a serious Premier League promotion push.

And if the manager is not able to properly remedy it in the transfer market as seems to be repeatedly the case, why are we not using the likes of Ribeiro and Akinde? I don't even know where James Wilson is. His use of youth is his biggest failing.

When Skuse is the stand out player of the season, I'd quite like to see what other homegrown talent we can introduce to the team, at least they play with heart. Instead we sign average players to fill attacking positions we keep signing crap for.

The handling of Akinde is astonishing, frankly. For Johnson to have such little faith in these players but then all the faith in the world in players like McAllister, Clarkson and some of the loan players, really makes you question the guys judgement.

Go through all the signings of the past 2 years, the failure to keep Adebola - a mistake a lot of people predicted would have this impact (I'm reminded of Reading scoring 4 at AG last season when Dele was out and we couldn't hold the ball up)

We then failed to do the necessary to convince Basso this was his home either which when all is said and done has nothing to do with aspirations or contracts, the guy is under contract, something pretty serious has happened behind the scenes.

Taken together that is a pretty serious downgrading of the team's quality stemming from what is arguably mismanagement and little evidence that our attempts to replace and improve have been any more than throwing a lot of new players at it.

Anyway, sit down and list the squad, the average number of games each player is playing a month, then alongside each list their best attribute and list their weakness. You'll find a lot of bit part players with well known weaknesses throughout.

Hardy says much for the development of this team through the transfer market or on the training ground does it.

[headhunter]

Agree with everything you have written

[The Casual Connoisseur]

Great post.

Can I ask a serious question, how many left footed players have played for us this season?

[Bodiesaffer]

I think you hit the nail bang on the head chap.

[Dynamite Red]

Agreed, I think the club needs a clean sweep, there are far to many players in the squad and many of those are to inconsistant, unfit or simply just not up to the standard, unfortunately for Gary a clean sweep also means his position and staff being put under review and for the first time I actually believe his time is up.

I don't think we have a cat in hells chance of either being relegated or making the play-offs, a change at the top now would allow a new manager to properly assess the squad and give it the shake up required in the summer.

[Daniro]

Very good post - agree with pretty much all you say. Perhaps Hartley deserves more credit - he's a very solid performer and exactly what we need - not at his best last night but then ... what's a guy to do in those circumstances?

What was exposed so painfully yesterday was, in spite of the fact we have a very big squad, we hardly have any defenders. Who does he turn to now? Is it a case of "bring back McCombe, all is forgiven?" When you think of how many strikers he's got on the books now, you realise what a terrible lack of balance there is in the squad.

Lansdown is right - it's back to the drawing board and it's hard to see how GJ can continue after that performance. It's no good staying we're still in with a shot at the play-offs. We are 0-6 at home distance away from the playoffs. Cardiff are 10 points or so behind the leaders ffs. We are a very long way from being ready to compete at that level and the last 2 years has given us all the information we need about the manager's capability.

[havanatopia]

Well written and argued but i think the thread title is incorrect and well wide of the mark.

[mindjuicer]

Some of these players have impressed in patches but that's all it's been, we have assembled a squad of bit part players who, Skuse apart, cannot put together consistent performances or justify their place in the team from one week to the next.

Skuse is the most inconsistent player we've got, though at least he's broken his good game/bad game/good game pattern.

Can anyone honestly say Williams, Haynes, Sproule, Clarkson have demonstrated that they're 46 game a season players?

Haynes has.  Why you picking on Williams now?  Sproule has had a very good season by his standards.

I'd say Hartley, Sno and Maynard are all class.

There's a major presupposition in your title - that it's all gone wrong.  To quote SL, "This football club has done a lot in the last few years and one bad result doesn't undo all that."

[CotswoldRed]

there are far to many players in the squad and many of those are ... unfit ...

Oh come on. That's not what Prozone says is it?

[cityhead]

I think the title of the thread is slightly off track - Where it's GOING wrong would be more appropriate. As itstands at the moment, as SL said where we are at present is far better than we had a very short time ago.

Cannot argue with some of the players in question, but probably one thing we probably agree on is that we all have different opinions of different players. Whilst the likes of Saborio, Sno and Hartley show glimpses of class, they also have very big defficiencies. IMO primarily that the roug and tumble of the championship is far tougher than they have hasd to deal with previously.

I'm not a happy clapper nor do I moan about everything but I am starting to qeustion GJ when Akinde comes on against Cardiff last week and completely unsettled their defenders and yet goes and signs alame duck like Agneman.

As for the rest of them - last night's debacle should produce a responce on saturday - let's wait and see.

[Olé]

Haynes has. Why you picking on Williams now? Sproule has had a very good season by his standards.

Haynes has had several good games and is one of the better signings from the summer but he hasn't been consistently good and that's a pattern for every player we bring in. I'm not picking on Williams just illustrating he really can't be that much of an asset to games with the amount of times he gets picked. Sproule has had a good season by his standards, but standards is the operative word. Our standards seem to allow for glaring weakness and inconsistency

In my view Gerkin, Orr, McAllister, Nyatanga, Carey, Williams, Sproule, Clarkson, etc all have weaknesses to their game whether crossing, pace, consistency, defending, fitness, concentration. Carey you accept because he has been a fantastic servant and Orr you put up with because he plays with so much heart and belief. But in general when did Johnson last sign a player and a year later we felt they were still devoid of weakness - perhaps Elliott, where's he now?

To everyone who's pointed out the title is wrong because "it hasn't gone wrong", "it's just going wrong" - okay, fair enough. From expectation at the start of the season I think it has been going wrong for a while and last night it had gone wrong. But it's all just semantics, the point is things have been going astray since losing Dele and falling out with Basso and we've been muddling along dropping points waiting for something like this to happen (i.e. actually go wrong).

[Mr Mosquito]

To everyone who's pointed out the title is wrong because "it hasn't gone wrong", "it's just going wrong" - okay, fair enough.

To me your title to this thread is correct because it has all gone wrong. For example, I've lost count of all the forwards Gary Johnson has signed. How many of them are still on the BCFC payroll because they must be costing this club a fortune in wages. Why is there such a high turnover of playing staff under Gary Johnson?

Red Army leader Joe Stalin said that quantity has a quality all of its own in answer to one of his Generals complaining about poor quality equipment compared to what the Germans had. However, we aren't fighting a war we need quality players to work with for promotion and not a large quantity of mediocre players who'll do no more than keep us where we are.

How much could we buy Whittingham, Chopra and Boothroyd for? They oozed quality last night and they're all English according to yesterday's programme so they should be playing for us not Baaaadiff. Dave Jones certainly has a better idea of how to improve a Championship team than Gary Johnson does.

[beaverface]

Gary Johnsons teams lose ideas when they get to the final third of the pitch.

Every side GJ has assembled (probably 4 teams - 1. The League 1 Relegation escape side 2. The promotion side 3. The play off side and 4. the current side) could not/cannot score goals.

I know that last night, the defence fell to bits, but even when we got near the Cardiff goal we ran out of ideas - the whole attack needs fresh input.