So, the friendlies are over, and it's now on to the proper business!
Our pre-season hasn't been great. We seem to have a real problem scoring and it's anyone's guess if / when all the new signings will gel? So where will we be come May 2024.....
I reckon we'll finish 5th, and then, as we've always done in the past....bottle it in the play-off semi.
(29-07-2023, 07:44 PM)Mostlysunny Wrote: [ -> ]So, the friendlies are over, and it's now on to the proper business!
Our pre-season hasn't been great. We seem to have a real problem scoring and it's anyone's guess if / when all the new signings will gel? So where will we be come May 2024.....
I reckon we'll finish 5th, and then, as we've always done in the past....bottle it in the play-off semi.
We will be anywhere around the top 24
6th for me.
How many goals did we score against Crawley?
9th…lower if Bishop gets injured God forbid.
From what I saw today and at AFC Wimbledon, we are completely toothless in attack. There is little to no creativity whatsoever. I’m struggling to see what the difference is between last season and now? The only exception having more strength in depth off the bench.
It’s blatantly obvious since the season before last that we are crying out for an attacking midfielder. Yet this preseason we’ve signed 12 players and not one of them is a natural no. 10. It just beggars belief to be honest. Hughes and Cullen need to seriously work on getting some quality in at no. 10 before the end of the transfer window or I’m afraid to say this is a rinse and repeat of the last 6 seasons.
I don't know where we will end up this season but I do know there are going to be a lot of angry people if by Christmas we are not producing some results. Angry because of the trust we have (again) placed in the likes of Cullen and Eisner to make good judgements and back those calls with cash. I am open-minded about the decisions to recruit first Hughes and then Mousinho but the summer recruitment has left me wholly underwhelmed about the financial backing we were promised. Let's hope that we are lucky enough to have a first-time manager who can turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.
(29-07-2023, 08:54 PM)BigSmokeBlue Wrote: [ -> ]9th…lower if Bishop gets injured God forbid.
From what I saw today and at AFC Wimbledon, we are completely toothless in attack. There is little to no creativity whatsoever. I’m struggling to see what the difference is between last season and now? The only exception having more strength in depth off the bench.
It’s blatantly obvious since the season before last that we are crying out for an attacking midfielder. Yet this preseason we’ve signed 12 players and not one of them is a natural no. 10. It just beggars belief to be honest. Hughes and Cullen need to seriously work on getting some quality in at no. 10 before the end of the transfer window or I’m afraid to say this is a rinse and repeat of the last 6 seasons.
This season hasn’t started yet. What you saw today and Wimbledon were preseason friendlies.
How many did we score against Crawley?
(29-07-2023, 09:02 PM)Gerry Hatrick Wrote: [ -> ]I don't know where we will end up this season but I do know there are going to be a lot of angry people if by Christmas we are not producing some results. Angry because of the trust we have (again) placed in the likes of Cullen and Eisner to make good judgements and back those calls with cash. I am open-minded about the decisions to recruit first Hughes and then Mousinho but the summer recruitment has left me wholly underwhelmed about the financial backing we were promised. Let's hope that we are lucky enough to have a first-time manager who can turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.
What financial backing was promised?
Would you have been happy if we’d spunked a load of cash on a 20 year old prem loanee who has never played men’s football?
What are your issues with the transfer activity?
I think we’ll finish where we finished last season
(29-07-2023, 09:50 PM)Pompeyg100 Wrote: [ -> ] (29-07-2023, 09:02 PM)Gerry Hatrick Wrote: [ -> ]I don't know where we will end up this season but I do know there are going to be a lot of angry people if by Christmas we are not producing some results. Angry because of the trust we have (again) placed in the likes of Cullen and Eisner to make good judgements and back those calls with cash. I am open-minded about the decisions to recruit first Hughes and then Mousinho but the summer recruitment has left me wholly underwhelmed about the financial backing we were promised. Let's hope that we are lucky enough to have a first-time manager who can turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.
What financial backing was promised?
Would you have been happy if we’d spunked a load of cash on a 20 year old prem loanee who has never played men’s football?
What are your issues with the transfer activity?
No, I'd like us to sign a permanent player with some quality, even if it costs.
(29-07-2023, 10:24 PM)Jizbag Wrote: [ -> ] (29-07-2023, 09:50 PM)Pompeyg100 Wrote: [ -> ] (29-07-2023, 09:02 PM)Gerry Hatrick Wrote: [ -> ]I don't know where we will end up this season but I do know there are going to be a lot of angry people if by Christmas we are not producing some results. Angry because of the trust we have (again) placed in the likes of Cullen and Eisner to make good judgements and back those calls with cash. I am open-minded about the decisions to recruit first Hughes and then Mousinho but the summer recruitment has left me wholly underwhelmed about the financial backing we were promised. Let's hope that we are lucky enough to have a first-time manager who can turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.
What financial backing was promised?
Would you have been happy if we’d spunked a load of cash on a 20 year old prem loanee who has never played men’s football?
What are your issues with the transfer activity?
No, I'd like us to sign a permanent player with some quality, even if it costs.
And we havent?
Who would you have liked us to sign?
Stick my neck out and say top ten! No, reckon we’ll make play-offs but automatic depends on Bish scoring a hat load again and somebody else getting ten or so plus midfield scoring lots. That might not happen as last year only Pack scored a few, don’t think Morrell or Lowery even scored one between em. I’m always confident pre-season and hope this will be the one but many years of supporting Pompey tells you it’ll be typical Pompey, innit. Only Redknapp and Bally really gave us success in my time plus the odd good season down with the minnows. Hey ho, keep the faith (he muttered).
(29-07-2023, 09:50 PM)Pompeyg100 Wrote: [ -> ] (29-07-2023, 09:02 PM)Gerry Hatrick Wrote: [ -> ]I don't know where we will end up this season but I do know there are going to be a lot of angry people if by Christmas we are not producing some results. Angry because of the trust we have (again) placed in the likes of Cullen and Eisner to make good judgements and back those calls with cash. I am open-minded about the decisions to recruit first Hughes and then Mousinho but the summer recruitment has left me wholly underwhelmed about the financial backing we were promised. Let's hope that we are lucky enough to have a first-time manager who can turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.
What financial backing was promised?
Would you have been happy if we’d spunked a load of cash on a 20 year old prem loanee who has never played men’s football?
What are your issues with the transfer activity?
Eisner assured us that there would be proper financial backing for a genuine promotion bid this season. I can't see evidence that this has happened. Money spent on two or three quality additions in key areas such as midfield creativity and some genuine competition for Bishop would have been investments, not cash 'spunked'. It may not be Eisner's fault. He is just trusting Cullen and co to get on with it but it is his ultimate responsibility. Of course, this might still happen as the transfer window doesn't close for a while yet but I think with 12 players in we're probably done on the recruitment.
I think we're okay in defence although need a few more games with a settled back line for them to gel. The problems have been and will be with this squad, creating chances.
I predict a lot of nil-nils this season. Lovely.
Eighth, after flirting with the playoffs.
Bearing in mind that they only players to leave are the ones we wanted to offload and we kept all the players we wanted (so far)
The team was good enough for top six when not disrupted by injuries (the start and end of the season)
We have added wingers who cannot be worse in terms of chances created
We have some younger players who are a season more experienced (Lane for instance)
We have far more competition for places especially in defence.
We can add more loans which should mean decent young attacking talent I imagine.
On the other hand if you list the clubs of about our size as I did a few weeks ago, there are about 8 likely to be tough competition.
Predicting top two is difficult to see, but top 6, probably.
One problem might keeping this squad (28 I believe) happy as only 18 can be involved match days. I imagine Hume may well move on and maybe a couple out on loan but several of the new recruits might not make the team or bench.
I reckon top 5 .
Not bothered about results at friendlies as long as we don’t get tanked, we’re looking fit, however,I think we look a bit underwhelmed in central midfield and we desperately need an attacking midfielder. However, I’m sure there are still tweaks to be made the TW has about 4 weeks still to go. Poole and Scully look very good signings. Other than Lane we appear to be injury free. Roll on Saturday.
(29-07-2023, 10:38 PM)Pompeyg100 Wrote: [ -> ] (29-07-2023, 10:24 PM)Jizbag Wrote: [ -> ] (29-07-2023, 09:50 PM)Pompeyg100 Wrote: [ -> ] (29-07-2023, 09:02 PM)Gerry Hatrick Wrote: [ -> ]I don't know where we will end up this season but I do know there are going to be a lot of angry people if by Christmas we are not producing some results. Angry because of the trust we have (again) placed in the likes of Cullen and Eisner to make good judgements and back those calls with cash. I am open-minded about the decisions to recruit first Hughes and then Mousinho but the summer recruitment has left me wholly underwhelmed about the financial backing we were promised. Let's hope that we are lucky enough to have a first-time manager who can turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.
What financial backing was promised?
Would you have been happy if we’d spunked a load of cash on a 20 year old prem loanee who has never played men’s football?
What are your issues with the transfer activity?
No, I'd like us to sign a permanent player with some quality, even if it costs.
And we havent?
Who would you have liked us to sign?
So far we haven't signed a player that we have been crying out for for a long time. A creative attacking player. I would have liked us to be in for Wing but I think we might go in for Tommy Leigh, not sure who else.
8th for me same as last season. I too struggle to see where the goals are going to come from but there is still time to sign that elusive no 10.
We have depth in squad now but I also agree after what I saw yesterday that we look rather clueless going forward
Any attempt to predict league position based on a few pre season kick arounds is just a ‘stick a pin in’ job.
We have a new group of players bedding in and we need to see what happens over a series of real games to even hazard a guess at where we’ll end up.
I’m optimistic but time will tell.
10-1 with most of the bookies for a nil-nil Saturday.
Tasty.
(29-07-2023, 09:50 PM)Pompeyg100 Wrote: [ -> ] (29-07-2023, 09:02 PM)Gerry Hatrick Wrote: [ -> ]I don't know where we will end up this season but I do know there are going to be a lot of angry people if by Christmas we are not producing some results. Angry because of the trust we have (again) placed in the likes of Cullen and Eisner to make good judgements and back those calls with cash. I am open-minded about the decisions to recruit first Hughes and then Mousinho but the summer recruitment has left me wholly underwhelmed about the financial backing we were promised. Let's hope that we are lucky enough to have a first-time manager who can turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.
What financial backing was promised?
Would you have been happy if we’d spunked a load of cash on a 20 year old prem loanee who has never played men’s football?
What are your issues with the transfer activity?
Our midfield last season was inconsistent and creatively very limited. For all the free transfers, released players and nominal fee players we have signed there isn't serious competition for our midfield. The numbers we signed were always needed to replace a depleted squad but I still think we are trying to get up on the cheap and our senior management lack the nerve to go for it. We're just told that some of these players were really really wanted by other clubs honestly guv.
For all that, until we play a league 1 match none of us really know whether the team is good enough. If it doesn't it will get ugly this season because we were led to believe our owners were serious about this season. With this league arguably weaker than last season, it would be disappointing if we blew it yet again.
I think we have a stronger, and certainly deeper, squad than last year, and hopefully are better placed to cope with the injuries that destroyed our chances last year (unless its Bishop). So if we stay relatively injury free should do better than we would have done last year without the key injuries, which IMO would have been just squeaking into the play-offs.
But somehow I doubt that we have the firepower to be a top two side, however we should be hard to beat and should make the play-offs.
Thereafter is a lottery, but a lottery in which we are due some luck.
We haven’t really strengthened midfield though which is really needed if we’re to control play. We’ve replaced Tunnicliffe and Thompson with Stevenson and Devlin ( inexperienced but bags of potential).
IMO we need an experienced box to box midfielder along with the obvious missing No10.