Dpl v Wycombe

We need about 5 players for next season minimum.

Left back, Right back, Centre half, Central midfielder and a striker.

I have every faith in Fergie to get those players and quality ones too.

To be shown the door has to be Etheridge, Taylor-sinclair, Williams, Keegan, Evina. They'll all be on some decent wages I'd have thought so it will free things up. Also I hope we don't offer Mason a contract not impressed with him most of the season. Don you summed his performance up perfectly

Lanza: You could say that, but Spurs have only conceded 22 goals this season. In fact before now I had never looked all that seriously at goals against, but having now gone a bit deeper it is surprising how few the best teams do let in even though you would not put them in the Plymouth bus-parking ranks.

When we won League 1 we let in 44 scoring 62.

A general look at the numbers over the last 30 or 40 years suggests that fewer goals are conceded now than used to be and this must have something to do with defensive organisation. In European games in the old days English teams would often encounter opposition which would put total emphasis on defence, crude and cynical quite often, and I suppose that modern defensive organisation sprang up from that. You only have to listen to Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher to see the science around it now.

I know I may sound hypercritical and I have enjoyed what we have done this term, but Fergie needs to address this next season if we are to sustain success.

I have not been masons biggest fan but for most of the time he has been played out of position on his wrong foot.
When i have seen him play in Houghtons role i thought he was outstanding..

Lanza, I agree with you about Mason.
He has played most of the season at left back, clearly not his preferred position.
In the JH position he has looked very assured.
He is a young player who is clearly getting better in his first full season in first team football.

On the goals conceded thing, we have to take into account that we are talking about L2 standard players.
To put this into perspective, only six teams in our division have conceded fewer than us and even Park the bus Plymouth have conceded an average of one per game against ours of 1.13636 per game.
Not a massive difference.

In the first 22 games of the season we conceded 30 goals but in the most recent 22 we have conceded just 20.
You can conclude that Fergie has addressed the problems we had and corrected them.
No team has conceded fewer in the last 22 games.

Furthermore, our 50 goals conceded us from 44 games.
The Spurs 22 conceded is from just 32 games.

Indeed, in the PL with the higher standard of quality, only Chelsea,Spurs and Man Utd have a better ratio of goals per game conceded.
In Man Utd's case, they also have only scored 50 goals which is the lowest total of the top seven clubs.
If that was a Dickov summary there would be bedlam on here.
Given that along with a current good defence (proven by stats) we are also by some distance the top scorers in the division I think there is somewhat of a knee jerk reaction to our current situation.
It is also interesting that the top scorers in the PL are Liverpool and they have conceded more goals per game than we have, 1.2352.

Even L1 runaway Champions Sheffield Utd have conceded marginally more than a goal per game whilst scoring just six more than us.

I agree that we will need to strengthen the squad next season but we are far from being a side that will struggle.
DF has already indicated that he is aware of the players he needs to cover certain positions.

On the departures, Keegan and Evina are leaving anyway, Etheridge has no future with us if Marosi and Lawlor stay so I think he will be looking for a move anyway.
Williams has only featured for half a season and has contributed 11 goals so I would be happy for him to stay.
ATS has no chance of winning the fans over, he is very much in the Curtis situation, even when he does well he is knocked by those who won't give him a chance.

I've been hoping to spark a response from you Hound; you see more games than I do and mine recently have all been away from home, so it's good perspective.

I want to believe that it is better than it seemed after my recent run of away games. I really do think ATS has been pretty solid.

As I have hinted, my view of Mason may not be entirely balanced, although he was worse in the right midfield at Col U than he was back on the left!

Grant has needed a rocket behind him sometimes and McSheffery ought to be able to match Copps for energy, but he really hasn't in my last 4 away games.

We are going to get a lot more from Mandeville once he gets back in his stride and there were flashes at Wycombe.

We would have expected either Rowe or Copps to have put in a performance at Wycombe or May if he'd stayed on, but you can forgive them for on off day.

So that leaves the CBs. Baudry, who dawdles on the ball sometimes, but is constructive and Butler who is all heart. I'd like to believe that Wright will develop, but I have seen very little of him.

I agree about Evina, Keegan. It is a pity about Etheridge (whose confidence evaporated, as it can for a goalkeeper after a bad start), but he would probably always have had to compete with Marosi. If he (M) decided to move on you might not blame him.

The difference between ATS/Evina and keegan.
ATS and Evina the boo boys appear to give them no chance at all un like Keegan who appears to avoid the boo boys.
Ats was poor during his longest spell in the team but the team was going through a bad spell.
Evina just never gets a chance end of.
As you all know I could never see what Keegan brings to the team to me he just gets in the way and slows the game down.
Curtis no comment needed.

Can't complain about this season. However our defence has been fragile, especially so in the early season but still not as sound as it has to be for success in L1. I've only managed two live games this year but I think Wright and Baudry could have the makings of a good centre back pairing. I'm a 4-3-3 fan at this level with a slight variation of 4-3-1-2 if we have two good wing backs. Replacing 26 when he's not there for any reason is the biggest issue for next year.

Lol

https://audioboom.com/posts/1358258-brentford-vs-doncaster-rovers-final-minutes

Billy Paynter and Copps at Hartlepool! On opposite sides this time. Let's hope we don't leave sealing the title until then!