Since the play offs...



I'm not usually one to get involved in the pessimism, however, I think that a lot of cracks were papered over last season, and as it stands, I don't see us looking better now than we were last year. I don't doubt there will be changes over the next month or so, but the season starts in a couple of weeks and as far as I can see, we're looking like part of the furniture.
Conor McLaughlin is looking quite assured at RB/CB.
 
Tough if you don’t like the twisting and moaning

48 years since I saw my first game and as it stands we have gone backwards since last season. You can read safc like a book and none of it reads very well atm

Past experience tells me that unless a footballing miracle occurs then Ross is on borrowed time

It is clear that the new owners were the people to stabilise the club. However they are not the people to take it forward

No money and no vision
47 years, since I watched my first game at Roker Park in 1972.
We played some decent stuff in the first half of last season.
We played with a swagger and had a cavalier approach to games. (admittedly, Maja's goals helped our cause)
We employed the high energy, high pressing game and suffocated teams, and even when the opposition scored against us, we always looked like we had it in us, to go straight up the pitch and put two or three past any opposition.
Obviously something drastically changed before Christmas as we started to look one paced and hesitant, we also lacked ideas and creativity, and the high pressing game that had previously served us so well, disappeared, as did Maja, to play in France.
We totally lost our way, and lost our confidence and were bullied, outfought and out-thought by teams who set up, knowing if they scored against us, we were unlikely to score enough to win the game.
On more than one occasion, we had enough games in hand to climb to the top of the table and win automatic promotion, but too many draws put paid to any hopes of getting into and staying in the top two.
We need to go back to basics, and hit the ground running at the start of the new season, and get back to playing like we did, in the first half of last season, because if we start poorly and carry on playing poorly, then we'll be in for a long and difficult season, which many fans won't stand for.
I'm an optimist, and hope we can keep key players fit, and also bring in a couple more additions that will benefit the team, and also hope lessons have been learned from last season's failure to win promotion.
 
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I can’t believe some our our fans would be happy with another play off run this season. We really have fallen so desperately low as a club over the last few years, it’s embarrassing.

We need to be going for 1st place and that is it, no excuses. If Luton town can manage this then we can.
 
Have I been on a different forum? For about 5 weeks there wasn’t much happening and the forum reflected that with little drama or heated debate. I certainly didn’t witness this cesspool of hate or anger the op relates to.
 
I must be on my own thinking we were a little unlucky last year - lowest number of defeats in the league, scored in almost every game, highest number of draws. if only 4 of the 19 draws had been wins we would have been promoted. If the focus is turning those 1-1 draws into 1-0 wins I'll be happy enough with that.
 
I don't think it was unreasonable to only be expecting play offs last season the club was a bit of a mess. There is no easy quick fix to that. However this season is different. Everything ismore settled, we have a little bit of continuity. We should be aiming top 2 at an absolute minimum. See where we are after 10-15 games

Agree OP, been painful on here. Constructive criticism fine but some posters have me thinking they want us to fail. Weird
Very evident this
 
This place has been nothing but a cesspit of twist and moaning. Yes we failed last season in not getting promotion, but let's face it, it was close. If you had asked me this time last year, play offs would have been the best I would have expected after the years that preceded.

I think in the first few pre season games we have done ...ok. yesterday playing a team from the Portuguese top flight and really were the better team for the majority. Take some positives man. Let's just see where we are after a few games eh?

Rant owa

It was close last season, but that was on no small part due to having Maja for the first half of the season. After he left we struggled and were relying on the keeper and McGeady. On form from when Maja left onwards we would be just scraping into the play offs.

We knew we needed a fair bit of work if we are to get near to the target set clearly by the owners, especially given the way we tailed off as the season progressed. Instead, thus far (and accept there's still time) we've done minor tweaking and haven't made significant improvements either to midfield or attack.

Of course some go over the top with their moaning and look to pick fault at everything the club does, but the vast majority who are complaining are genuine fans who are concerned, with good reason. It is absolutely vital that we go up this season coming, there's no reason why this club shouldn't be capable of comfortably gaining promotion with 2 seasons of having by far the highest budget. Ultimately we failed last season and until signs are there that things have changed for the better and we look likely to go up, some people will have concerns and will voice them on what is meant to be a place for fans to discuss things. The fans have backed the new owners, the manager and the team in great numbers since they arrived, the best way now for them to get rid of the negativity is to start performing when the season starts and prove to us all that there's nothing to worry about. Blind faith only gets you so far
 
Not moaning about a draw with Belenenses is not “accepting mediocrity”. I agree completely with the post you quoted, yet I see anything less than automatic promotion this season as failure.

Belenenses were in the Europa League 3 years ago and finished 9th last season. Effectively we drew 0-0 with a team who are about too end of the Championship standard in a meaningless friendly, yet the SMB make out we’d been beaten 6-0 by Blyth Spartans! I don’t even think there was this much moaning when we were beaten 3-0 at St Johnstone under Grayson.
erm we got beat !!!
 

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