Exile 1976 wrote:I keep reading on here and social media that effectively Flynny dining out on what he did last season (which was something special) and now he's been found out etc.
Would like to point out in Flynny's defence that THIS season has been very good so far, 13th in the League & only going out in the 4th Rd FA Cup after a replay against one of the top 5 Premier League sides...all this on a bottom 3 of League 2 budget...

Agree - We can all question MF's team selections/tactics and there do seem to be some issues. But we've earned almost an extra million quid and we are (virtually) safe.
But what bugs me is this late game 'mental frailty' groundhog day scenario that seems to happen whenever we are in front.
Contrast this with the Leeds game when we came back into it late in the game and seemed fired up towards the end ...

rgds Dave

Stan A. Einstein wrote:

Exile 1976 wrote:I keep reading on here and social media that effectively Flynny dining out on what he did last season (which was something special) and now he's been found out etc.
Would like to point out in Flynny's defence that THIS season has been very good so far, 13th in the League & only going out in the 4th Rd FA Cup after a replay against one of the top 5 Premier League sides...all this on a bottom 3 of League 2 budget...

Newport County's gates whilst disappointing are 15th out of 24 in League 2. Colchester, Cheltenham, Yeovil, FGR, Stevenage, Crawley , Barnet, Accrington, and Morecambe all have lower average attendances than County. Add the recent transfer fees and Cup run and this low budget excuse is starting to wear a little thin.

The budget set at the start of the season, with the cup run we should have an increased budget for next season....FGR, Accrington and Barnet for starters, have rich benefactors, for example, FGR playing budget already reported as that as more than Newport County's annual turnover, so the comparisons start wearing a bit thin.. Doesn't matter how low your gates are if someone bankrolling you. Plus, of those 9 teams only 3 of them are above us in the League

rncfc wrote:

Alan G Bryant wrote:Justin Edinburgh , Jimmy Dack, Terry Butcher , John Sheridan and Warren Feeney have all been heavily criticised by the experts on here at some point. My view is that sustaining League 2 football on our budget and expecting us to brush aside teams is delusional. We have had a hard run of fixtures sandwiched between the Tottenham games so a lapse was expected for a small squad. The first thing a good manager should do during a poor run is make his team hard to beat. Depending on being a glass half full or half empty person , we are three games unbeaten against three teams with considerably bigger budgets than ours. Maybe it is time for a reality check.

Fair comment, but we don't have a small squad really, do we? I think there's a bit of frustration that the likes of Hayes and Sheehan have been left on the sidelines for so long when the players who had done so well initially had stopped performing. Surely comments like that are to be expected when we're losing games? Otherwise just close this place down now.

I do not disagree with you, but Flynn is the manager and is looking after the players best interests and that of the team. We do not know about Sheehan and Flynn sees him every day, maybe he is nursing him back to fitness. Any team in League 2 with a small budget will miss their best players, no matter how big the squad. We finished up on Tuesday with no Labadie, Bennett or O'Brien on the pitch, arguably three of our best performers this season against a team fighting for their lives who incidentally had just spent thousands in January and we still should have been out of sight.

I think the first half had "end of season match" written all over it. The players were clearly told to tighten up in the second half but, actually, that allowed FGR to build up some momentum. I've seen someone say elsewhere that Dolan and Tozer shouldn't play together in the middle and I agree completely - they're both far too slow whilst having other qualities which make them valuable to us individually.

Exile 1976 wrote: The budget set at the start of the season, with the cup run we should have an increased budget for next season....FGR, Accrington and Barnet for starters, have rich benefactors, for example, FGR playing budget already reported as that as more than Newport County's annual turnover, so the comparisons start wearing a bit thin.. Doesn't matter how low your gates are if someone bankrolling you. Plus, of those 9 teams only 3 of them are above us in the League

We are mid table in terms of gates and mid table in position. Now I'm not knocking Flynn in that he did a very good job last year. However we are not doing brilliantly this season. We are mid table, we haven't won in eight league games, we have a minus goal difference.

My view is that we need to always be looking to improve. We won't do that if we accept average. It is true that we have had a difficult run of games. It is true after Leeds and Spurs there is probably a bit of a hangover. That said there is always an excuse, but to win you have to stop finding them.

After two seasons finishing 22nd we have already improved this season, (exceeding your expectations so far i believe as didn't you say at the start of the season we'd struggle again) and it will be Flynny's job to ensure that improvements are made next season. Again, the attendance figures mean nothing if you have benefactors, as a few of the teams that average less than us do.

Good realistic article from MF today to take each game as it comes with an eye on the playoffs and having targets for both scenarios of league 1 or league 2 football next season. Some of the comments about him not listening to Lawrence are laughable it's clear he massive respect for him. Not sure where we'll end up but for me the management team of Flynn, Hatswell and Lawrence remains the ticket to take the club forward in a planned and measured way. In many ways MF will learn more in this period than in the Great Escape, a period let's not forget included beating Leeds United, playing Spurs twice and a run of 3 away fixtures that in any given season would've proved challenging to say the least. So it's either 4-6 more points possibly or close to a million in the bank and the season disrupted with work now taking place to get back on course, second option for me.

I agree. Not only that , going up without some collateral could quickly turn into a downward spiral that we would do well to recover from. It is very easy to slip two divisions very quickly. We often read on here about sustainability, stability and building a platform etc, but then so many seem to demand success. My view Is you cannot have one without the other.

supporter wrote: In many ways MF will learn more in this period than in the Great Escape,

I agree. That's my point. Whether he has the capability to kick on or not he and we will learn. If I am being critical of anyone it is not Flynn but rather those with the tendency to raise people to impossible highs.

He has been in the job 12months. He has taken the team from heading to the conference to mid table in league two. He has had the most valuable cup run in the clubs history and he has already committed to us for the future by signing a contract.

Yes he has made errors. and yes he will continue to make errors because he is a young manager learning. Id rather he made his mistakes here and continued to be our manager than somewhere else.

But he isn't above critism like nobody is at this club but he also has earnt the right not to face questions about his job right now.

As a manager you want him to make progression. By taking a club from relegation to mid table that is progression. Now in the summer with a bigger budget (which we should have considering the money brought into the club and that people keep saying how well the club is run) he has the chance to take this club even higher.

Trouble with football is people only rate you on recent games. if we win two games and stay in the same position people will be buzzing. If nouble scores a few goals in next two games people will continue to say how well he plays by dragging defenders away from armond.

Bush wrote:He has been in the job 12months. He has taken the team from heading to the conference to mid table in league two. He has had the most valuable cup run in the clubs history and he has already committed to us for the future by signing a contract.

Yes he has made errors. and yes he will continue to make errors because he is a young manager learning. Id rather he made his mistakes here and continued to be our manager than somewhere else.

But he isn't above critism like nobody is at this club but he also has earnt the right not to face questions about his job right now.

As a manager you want him to make progression. By taking a club from relegation to mid table that is progression. Now in the summer with a bigger budget (which we should have considering the money brought into the club and that people keep saying how well the club is run) he has the chance to take this club even higher.

Trouble with football is people only rate you on recent games. if we win two games and stay in the same position people will be buzzing. If nouble scores a few goals in next two games people will continue to say how well he plays by dragging defenders away from armond.

I agree entirely with all but one point you make. I can't comment on other social media but on this board I haven't seen anyone questioning his job. My concern being that some idiots will start saving anyone who has criticism of Michael Flynn is calling for him to be sacked. If you recall nobody on here had said that Sheehan had broken down in training. When Flynn made criticism of supporters who raised this the prize idiot was straight on here saying we should be ashamed of ourselves.

For me in the last 5 seasons there have been three great escapes, us, Hartlepool (22 points adrift in January) and Wycombe. I said at the end of last season that the club would go one of two ways, either it would not learn and two seasons after their great escape get relegated like Hartlepool or it will learn and set realistic growth targets based on a budget we can afford and look to improve season on season like Wycombe, thankfully we appear to have chosen the route of another trust run club in Wycombe. The other point I would make is we are one of three trust run clubs in league 2, Wycombe as I've already mentioned and Exeter, I don't think its any coincidence that the other 2 more often than not are fighting at the right end of the table and this is no small part is down to the time they spent developing their new management teams. I was once told Andrew if you don't get the foundation right in any venture then the only thing you should prepare for is failure, I believe we now have the right foundation to push forward on and off the pitch.

Stan A. Einstein wrote:

Bush wrote:He has been in the job 12months. He has taken the team from heading to the conference to mid table in league two. He has had the most valuable cup run in the clubs history and he has already committed to us for the future by signing a contract.

Yes he has made errors. and yes he will continue to make errors because he is a young manager learning. Id rather he made his mistakes here and continued to be our manager than somewhere else.

But he isn't above critism like nobody is at this club but he also has earnt the right not to face questions about his job right now.

As a manager you want him to make progression. By taking a club from relegation to mid table that is progression. Now in the summer with a bigger budget (which we should have considering the money brought into the club and that people keep saying how well the club is run) he has the chance to take this club even higher.

Trouble with football is people only rate you on recent games. if we win two games and stay in the same position people will be buzzing. If nouble scores a few goals in next two games people will continue to say how well he plays by dragging defenders away from armond.

I agree entirely with all but one point you make. I can't comment on other social media but on this board I haven't seen anyone questioning his job. My concern being that some idiots will start saving anyone who has criticism of Michael Flynn is calling for him to be sacked. If you recall nobody on here had said that Sheehan had broken down in training. When Flynn made criticism of supporters who raised this the prize idiot was straight on here saying we should be ashamed of ourselves.

Sorry Stan I was typing that in the hospital car park waiting for my mrs. What I was trying to say is not that people are calling him to be sacked but that he isn't above criticism even if he has enough credit at the moment for no one to call for his head.

rncfc wrote: Fair comment, but we don't have a small squad really, do we?

Strongly disagree. Ideally you want seven on the bench most of whom are pretty much interchangeable with those in the best starting team and half a dozen besides most of whom are pretty much interchangeable with those on the bench. We are nowhere near those numbers.

George Street-Bridge wrote:

rncfc wrote: Fair comment, but we don't have a small squad really, do we?

Strongly disagree. Ideally you want seven on the bench most of whom are pretty much interchangeable with those in the best starting team and half a dozen besides most of whom are pretty much interchangeable with those on the bench. We are nowhere near those numbers.

Looking this morning at the programme from the Morecambe game we had a squad of 34. The squad would appear to be big enough, but perhaps not strong enough.