Are we over or under achieving this season?

No but having the biggest budget by a mile, the biggest squad, spending the most money, having the likes of McLaughlin and McGeady in this league is massive. After the start we had and those things in our favour automatic should be achieved. That's nowt to do with history etc.

A huge amount of the massive budget is wages we're already committed to . If we could have peddled Catts Oviedo McGeady then I'm sure we would have done so .....where would that have left us ?
 


The history and size of the club are irrelevant to where we are currently.

We have no right to expect anything from our new owners, new manager and amended team this first season.

Make progress - good
Make play offs but not promoted - not the end of the world
Achieve promotion through play offs or automatically - great but next year will be tougher
Win the league - delighted but unlikely

Being a big club historically has no bearing on where we find ourselves. We arrived at this situation because the club deserved it; that’s got no bearing on the quality of support who have been unable to influence anything over the past ten years.

You're wrong. All big clubs have advantages when relegated to a league they very rarely if ever visit. The new owners (with the help of Short) stopped the rot at this club by the time the season had kicked off. The budget, income and ability to pay higher than average wages gave us an advantage over our competitors. The size and standing of the club is a more intangible thing to quantify but its difficult to argue its not a factor. The only two variables for me were quality of recruitment and quality of management, and imo both of these have question marks against them.
 
Because you have to understand the context. This time last year the club was on it's knees - double relegation and a disaffected squad, most of whom had no desire to be here and a fan base on the slide.
New owners, new manager and about 14 players on day one. We didn't sign anyone until late June - for us to be anywhere near ready to compete by August was a minor miracle.
Don't forget, McGeady missed the first 9 games of the season, and the midfield didn't really settle down until Leadbitter signed in Jan
We've also lost a lad who scored 16 goals in 26 starts


Agree 100%
18 Points from those first 9 games. Great start should have improved when McGeady came in?
 
,
Every other manager in league 1 keeps saying we have the best squad in the league, if we don't go up, I will be gutted !
For what it's worth, I don't think you ha e the best squad in the league. Best first eleven, maybe, but your squad is definitely thinner than Pompey's.
 
For what it's worth, I don't think you ha e the best squad in the league. Best first eleven, maybe, but your squad is definitely thinner than Pompey's.

I would argue that Luton have the best first 11 like. Seem to field basically the same side every week and they've played together for years when you think about it.

People look at our team and see McGeady, Leadbitter and probably Grigg who's scored loads at this level and think we should be pissing it.

The rest of the team (Cattermole when fit aside) is a League One side and such has been inconsistent.
 
I would argue that Luton have the best first 11 like. Seem to field basically the same side every week and they've played together for years when you think about it.

People look at our team and see McGeady, Leadbitter and probably Grigg who's scored loads at this level and think we should be pissing it.

The rest of the team (Cattermole when fit aside) is a League One side and such has been inconsistent.
Man for man, your first eleven is probably better, but they have a cohesion that makes the team greater than the sum of it's parts.

Sonny Bradley wasn't good enough for Portsmouth in League 2, yet he's a vital part of Luton's team.
 
Last edited:
In terms of actual spending, considering the amount of players we brought in, we've not spent a great deal. Wyke/Grigg/Baldwin are the top 3 buys IIRC

Grigg was probably over the top as we were desperate. But majority came in on free transfers. We have a league 1 squad with a few who would play regular in the championship, some would be squad players and others will go as not good enough for the championship more than likely.

Its easy to say we should be doing better because we have a bigger budget, but majority of that is down to a few players wages (Catts/Oviedo/McGeady/Matthews) who will all be on decent money for championship let along league 1.

There are a few games we drew which we should have won, and a few we should have lost. But surely almost every fan would take this current position at the start of the season. We had 14 players at the 1st training session, some of who weren't committed to the club at the time. Ross and his staff have done a huge rebuilding job, getting in players who not only have been able to compete in this league, but have shown passion and commitment. Something severely lacking over the past few years. Suddenly when we have that people find something else to twist about. We've had a cracking weekend at Wembley and promotion is within our grasp with 5 games left to play. We have owners that are committed, listen to fans and are enthusiastic about the future of the club. Get behind the players for the final push over the line rather than trying to pick faults. We could have been in a position where we were stuck in this division for years, if we don't get up this season then next season we should be right up there again!
Did Power and O'Nein cost more than Baldwin?
 
How's it bollocks? In our previous two matches alone we've had 13 and 15 players in the match day squad that weren't in the squad last season! So as far as squads go that's a massive overhaul. It's far from bollocks, we've got a new manager with as good as a new squad to except 4-5 youve mentioned.. The aim was promotion so how the.hell are we underachieving when top two is in our hands and play offs guaranteed.

Tbh its a miracle we're in the position we're in with the two centre backs we have playing for us.
Areet Rafa.
 
A huge amount of the massive budget is wages we're already committed to . If we could have peddled Catts Oviedo McGeady then I'm sure we would have done so .....where would that have left us ?
That’s true enough but brindles saddled with the best player in the league was no bad thing and irrespective of how much of our budget is inherited we have still spent more than everyone else on top of that. No excuse for not getting promoted imo
 
That’s true enough but brindles saddled with the best player in the league was no bad thing and irrespective of how much of our budget is inherited we have still spent more than everyone else on top of that. No excuse for not getting promoted imo

well 1 out of 3 isn't bad but we could have done without Catts and Oveido this season and presumably brought in a couple of League 1 players in each position ? The problem is that recruitment has been patchy despite us being the biggest fish in the league.
The goalie's been a huge success, all the other new arrivals are League 1 through and through. The legacy players Gooch and Honeyman look fine at this level.
 
Compared to our long history and the one and only time we've previously been in this league.

Well yes in that case then. Obviously.
But factor in the chronic problems off the field, some of which are still there, then it's a much different story.
The budget is considered an advantage but its hardly that when much of it is paying the wages of Oviedo and Cattermole.
 
People keep saying about only 3 losses which doesn’t exactly tell the full story.
3 loses is remarkable. However, not when you put 18 draws into the same sentence. Shows we’ve dropped points throughout the season.

Despite the 3 loses we are very much in a battle for 2nd place and looking at the bookies odds (Sky Bet) were 3rd favourite for that position (5/2) odds for 2nd place behind Barnsley (Fav) and Pompey (2nd Favs).

Many of those saying we are under achieving and slagging off Ross and the players were saying we were going to be relegated pre season......Im not sure how they think we are now under achieving given their starting point.
 
This league is awful and we have the best squad. Winning the league or getting automatic promotion is a must. Not getting promoted would probably be the worst failure in the clubs history.

Still time to turn things around but it isn’t looking likely, underachieving would be a massive understatement if we don’t go up.
True
False
 
Well yes in that case then. Obviously.
But factor in the chronic problems off the field, some of which are still there, then it's a much different story.
The budget is considered an advantage but its hardly that when much of it is paying the wages of Oviedo and Cattermole.

They're just excuses man. Burton came down with us, have a tiny budget by comparison but played us off the park for large periods of our home game and took 4 points off us. The football we are playing is rank and shouldn't be given our advantages.

Here's a question for you. How many of the other 23 clubs would swap us lock, stock and barrel for our facilities, owners, crowds and budget?
 
Last edited:
I thought it would be bad start while new squad got settled, get going a bit, buy more players in January window and late push to playoffs.
So in that sense we've done better than I expected before it started.

We've never looked like automatic in my opinion. Rarely dominated a game properly even against absolutely shit teams, go behind an awful lot for a promotion chasing team, all those draws where Luton were like 15 wins in a row or something.

Yet, here we are. In with a chance somehow.
 

Back
Top