www.altyfans.co.uk

Again, agree with you both, and hopefully this summer we can strike the balance between cracking open the war chest and doing it on the cheap.

We must continue to be astute and smart in what we do, but we do also need to acknowledge that we played our best football with players who are no longer at the club: Colclough, Newby, Conn-Clarke, Jennings, Oyedele, Mullarkey specifically. Mooney, Senior and Hancock last season, three players who are still yet to be replaced permanently.

Serious money needs to be spent this summer if we want to replace them and progress - not in every signing, and we've shown we can really pick a player with the superb acquisitions of Marriott, Senior, Mullarkey, Linney, Lundstram etc - but we can't spend the first few months of the season looking at the likes of Sami and Kaja on a free again. Not at this level.

For every Conn-Clarke there's a Cashman, every Newby a Gyasi, and if we end up in that situation next season we can't guarantee that it's going to click as it did this time around. We got away with it this season because we got 5 months out of Ryan and were lucky to put together that RC-CCC-Newby-Jennings side for a good run. If Maxi Oyedele wasn't up to it in the second half of the season, we may well have been dragged into the scrap.

It's evident at Southampton, who have rebuilt numerous times in the Premier League after losing their better players (Van Dijk, Shaw, Mane, Wanyama, Forster, Clyne, Alderweireld, Lallana, Schneirderlin, Lovren...) that time finally runs out on clubs that aren't able to retain and attract.

There are similarities there in who we've lost in the past couple of seasons and we simply have to replace the quality like-for-like (Colclough aside, that's pretty much impossible) or we could be in serious trouble next season. We're walking a tightrope.

It sounds more negative than it is, I'm excited, and I know we're progressing. It's a huge summer ahead and I've full confidence in what we're doing but it really is a mammoth task and our most important window since 2017/18. I know Rob, Phil, Neil, Cathal and others will be working tirelessly.

Sorry this has turned into an overdue end-of-season retrospective (wasn't the plan when I started my dinner break!) but that's just where I think we're at!

Up the Alty.

Not the main point clearly but Cathal's had a couple of mentions on here lately - have I missed the something? I thought he'd left the board of directors and was no longer involved?

As someone who does these interviews fairly regularly, I'd be genuinely interested to know what sort of questions people feel should be being asked but aren't.

I would say that an interview with the manager for the club's website is always going to be non-confrontational - it would be totally unprofessional for it to be anything else - but we should still be able to ask searching questions (and I would argue we regularly do).

In the end, I think the tone of an interview is set more by the manager's overall response to the game than by the line of questioning. So perhaps people want him to be more critical of the team rather than us being more critical of him.

The walk back to the car from Oxford was a bit hairy !!!
The stadium doors for the away fans was shut to stop the morons from getting in (when the police contacted the stadium, after calls from Alty fans, the Oxford reply was "no trouble here").
I blame Danny Adams for our last minute equalizing penalty

Slightly harsh seeing it was Steve Aspinall who scored it and Danny had left us six years before that game.

If I'm not mistaken, that's our first clean sheet in the league since the Oldham game at the end of October and only our third of the season. The other being Aldershot in September?

We also kept at clean sheet at Bromley back in August.

I presume there are rules about what percentage of the tickets have to be made available to away fans in the FA Trophy. I think it's 15% in the FA Cup, which is a higher figure than for league games.

Would definitely have WH at full back if he's still with us.

It's too big a game to be getting Perritt and Ferguson up to speed so I'd probably stick with Jones and Baines as centre backs.

Some posters are selecting Hugill. Have I missed something? Was he a sub recently? I don't remember seeing him.

Ollie Byrne's confidence is shot, so I'd do everything in my power to get a goalkeeper in this week.

?
WH
Jones
Baines
Jones
Marriott
Lundstram
Oyedale
Sinclair
Hulme
Linney

Subs:
Gould, Perritt, Ferguson, Pringle, Osborne, Bennett - possibly one loan too many (lost track)

Linney is cup-tied.

As bad as Linneys miss / failed pass to Sinclair was the decision not give him offside was worse. I thought it looked miles off live and it was!

Not going to talk about the rest

I think the offside was quite a tight decision - possibly on? See attached image.

One thing that came out of the interview I did with PP on Saturday is that he said we don't practise set pieces in a genuine, contested way for fear of people getting injured. We just give them a lot of info on what the opposition will look to do. I can't help thinking that needs to change because it's clearly not working. Our vulnerability at set pieces is getting ridiculous.