David Brooks

Neil Dawson said:
The games against Watford, Norwich, Brighton and West Ham away, Newcastle home and away. Watford at home. Southampton at home. All key key games where the effort and application was appalling. That’s what I mean about an easy relegation. How we played against the teams in the games that mattered.
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By that reasoning every team that ever got relegated went down easy.....or do you think some of them performed well in the 'games that mattered'?
 
Neil Dawson said:
While the margins were fine the performance and effort levels were awful.

It says everything you need to know about it’s talent that a team that barely tried in an awful lot of key games still only got relegated because of a bust goalline cam.
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I wouldn't say we went down easily...it was more a slow lingering death of a relegation that teased us up until the final game of the season. Norwich went down easily, Hudds the season before. I don't disagree about performance levels though.
 
red_house said:
I wouldn't say we went down easily...it was more a slow lingering death of a relegation that teased us up until the final game of the season. Norwich went down easily, Hudds the season before. I don't disagree about performance levels though.
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We had better sides than them. Relative to the squad we had and the effort the players put in we went down easily.

Me and you have seen relegation teams that bring fight and desire to every game but miss out due to a lack of talent. I think that was missing that last year, hence the easy reference. That’s how I am looking at it. If you look at it as a points total then no we didn’t go down easily.
 
red_house said:
I wouldn't say we went down easily...it was more a slow lingering death of a relegation that teased us up until the final game of the season. Norwich went down easily, Hudds the season before. I don't disagree about performance levels though.
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We were fortunate to still be in with a chance given how poor our form was for months before covid and after the restart.

really let ourselves down in some of the more winnable games. felt like were given chance after chance to claw ourselves out and we never really stepped up until it was too late.
 
Topfarrier said:
By that reasoning every team that ever got relegated went down easy.....or do you think some of them performed well in the 'games that mattered'?
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Watford and Norwich performed better in the game that mattered v us than we did in the games that mattered against them so that’s a very recent example of why I don’t agree with you.
 
Neil Dawson said:
We had better sides than them. Relative to the squad we had and the effort the players put in we went down easily.

Me and you have seen relegation teams that bring fight and desire to every game but miss out due to a lack of talent. I think that was missing that last year, hence the easy reference. That’s how I am looking at it. If you look at it as a points total then no we didn’t go down easily.
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Our squad was decent enough but it was nowhere near the bunch of world beater you're trying to paint them as now. It's quite a feat to shift from continually slating our squad and recruitment to now rewriting history and declaring them the best squad ever to get relegated.

I'm exaggerating deliberately for emphasis but your about turn really is that stark.
 
Neil Dawson said:
We had better sides than them. Relative to the squad we had and the effort the players put in we went down easily.

Me and you have seen relegation teams that bring fight and desire to every game but miss out due to a lack of talent. I think that was missing that last year, hence the easy reference. That’s how I am looking at it. If you look at it as a points total then no we didn’t go down easily.
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I quoted your last match report. You certainly didn't mention we went down easily then. You can understand why people are perhaps questioning you now when you suddenly lob phrases like this in.

Is this a 'hindsight easy' per chance ?
 
MB1980 said:
We were fortunate to still be in with a chance given how poor our form was for months before covid and after the restart.

really let ourselves down in some of the more winnable games. felt like were given chance after chance to claw ourselves out and we never really stepped up until it was too late.
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The manager declared it to be the best afcb squad in the pl era, too good to go down.

The management team and the players underperformed.
 
JIMNNINA said:
The manager declared it to be the best afcb squad in the pl era, too good to go down.

The management team and the players underperformed.
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The manger never said they were too good to go down.

I don't see the point in trying to say how good they were now, they weren't good enough and that is an irrefutable fact.
 
Neil Dawson said:
Watford and Norwich performed better in the game that mattered v us than we did in the games that mattered against them so that’s a very recent example of why I don’t agree with you.
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And yet we finished above them.....wow they must have gone down really easily......although we performed much better than Aston Villa in the two games that mattered against them and still finished behind them....what could this mean?
 
Topfarrier said:
And yet we finished above them.....wow they must have gone down really easily......although we performed much better than Aston Villa in the two games that mattered against them and still finished behind them....what could this mean?
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It means that all games matter, and that we were very poor for a large proportion of last season and deserved to get relegated. Although I think you could argue that about five clubs deserved to get relegated last season and that it was certainly in the balance up until the last minute of the last game.
 
SlowDownDerek said:
Our squad was decent enough but it was nowhere near the bunch of world beater you're trying to paint them as now. It's quite a feat to shift from continually slating our squad and recruitment to now rewriting history and declaring them the best squad ever to get relegated.

I'm exaggerating deliberately for emphasis but your about turn really is that stark.
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So dont exaggerate? If it’s stark you don’t need to.

The reality isn’t that we were the best squad to get relegated but we were our best ever squad and a squad that shouldn’t have gone down.

The recruitment piece I’ve answered many times. Right players for wrong roles. Danjuma in a front three this season and performing as opposed to a wide 4 good proof of that.
 
red_house said:
I quoted your last match report. You certainly didn't mention we went down easily then. You can understand why people are perhaps questioning you now when you suddenly lob phrases like this in.

Is this a 'hindsight easy' per chance ?
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I also said this

The last two years have become progressively more painful for the maestro as his hard-working over-achieving loyal stalwarts evolved into a more mercenary, self-centred bunch with more talent but less desire, ultimately disconnected from the values and morals of the man who signed them.

But just pick the bits you want!
 
Neil Dawson said:
I also said this

The last two years have become progressively more painful for the maestro as his hard-working over-achieving loyal stalwarts evolved into a more mercenary, self-centred bunch with more talent but less desire, ultimately disconnected from the values and morals of the man who signed them.

But just pick the bits you want!
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'Fine margins', 'one point' and 'narrowly relegated' - thats what I picked in relation to you saying we went down easily. Clearly it wasn't easy as you or I had no idea if the team would get relegated until halfway through the last game on the last day of the season.
 
Neil Dawson said:
So dont exaggerate? If it’s stark you don’t need to.

The reality isn’t that we were the best squad to get relegated but we were our best ever squad and a squad that shouldn’t have gone down.

The recruitment piece I’ve answered many times. Right players for wrong roles. Danjuma in a front three this season and performing as opposed to a wide 4 good proof of that.
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They weren't good enough. Players, manager, tactics, whatever you want to say about them they came up short. It doesn't matter if you think they were our best ever squad because they failed and rehashing everything after the event is pointless. Unless you're trying to create a stick to beat the current manager with of course.

What point are you trying to make other than bashing afcb for the sake of it?
 
It was an observation not a point. The usual four people that wait for me to say anything then pounce on it have turned it into a point.

I watched a highlights reel and thought ‘bloody hell how did that side go down’ that’s all. If anyone else had said it you and red house wouldn’t even have commented as it’s what most people think I’d imagine.
 
Neil Dawson said:
It was an observation not a point. The usual four people that wait for me to say anything then pounce on it have turned it into a point.

I watched a highlights reel and thought ‘bloody hell how did that side go down’ that’s all. If anyone else had said it you and red house wouldn’t even have commented as it’s what most people think I’d imagine.
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I would say it was a very valid observation, even question, probably not a point but it's splitting hairs.

I am happy to make the point that having the best ever squad at the start of a season and getting relegated can go hand in hand. Having your best ever squad doesn't avoid you relegation. There's still 19 other teams trying to up their level every year and send you down.

I would also make the point that Watford and Villa fans probably felt their squads were strong enough to not get relegated or survive by a point. It's really hard to be objective, we are ALL fans and not neutrals.

I probably share Neil's sentiment, that I would express now as we had a young, talented squad building in the right direction that showed us at times they could be top half, but frustratingly across management and players they couldn't find away to scrape through so they could push on again this year.

We can't change last year though, but some of us carry our hope for these players into a season at a lower level where we dream they can go up again. If that feels like we are setting the team up with unfair expectations, by implying that they were too good to down and it should be easy to go back up, that's not the intent. Personally feel this is a very talented group, with some great youth coming through which gives me belief that they can start to generate some highlights reels that make us feel similarly proud.

Lucky for them though, as really, if the players thought about, there's no pressure from us. We've been through enough and seen what's happened to Macclesfield and the like. They can count on us to support them whenever they wear the shirt, and some cases well beyond.
 
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