One in, one out

[Garawa]

Quite surprised to see Ryan Williams being recalled in midweek having (along with Newcastle loanee Michael Richardson) not kicked a ball in 4 games at the club. Clearly the deal meant we only payed if they played so it was a very bizarre reason to take them in the first place. This also shows a great lack of confidence in the lad by his club. Surely him playing is in their best interest as well as the players if he comes back sharper and match-fit?

Anyway, I can only guess at the deal but it makes sense. It seems he has been replaced by a defender from Hull called Danny East. Not sure we needed a defender to be honest so we will see if he or Richardson gets to play Saturday!

[Robpthegills]

I dont know gary. Richardson is held in well regard at newcastle, I think they will be very disappointed to know a player they have loaned out to get experience is only warming a bench.

Personally I just do not get it. It seems to be a case of loaning players for loaning players sake. This new lad East coming in is apparently to cover for Fish so I can get that.

As stated on here, it is very hard to question a manager when we are top of the Tree. My only concern is the branches are getting closer. 3 weeks ago we had a sizeable gap between ourselves and everybody below Port Vale. Through our recent run and Port Vales a lot of the other clubs are now within striking distance should anybody suffer a faint heart.

For the life of me i cannot see why we cannot return to the football at the start of the season when we dominated possession, control and put teams on the back foot. We scored lots of goals and we won nearly every game. We have progressed from that to what comes across as Trench Warfare. We wont win any ground but we wont lose any ground. All well and good and I am pleased we are top, but as a spectator it is sheer Tripe we are enduring. I was thoroughly enjoying the football at the start of the season, now it is just boring me to death. People can flame me if they so wish but everybody around me seems just as bored as i am, albeit we satisfy ourselves with the "oh well we are top and will probably go up as champions" and go home fairly happy.

Anyway up the gill's lets hope for a win over Plymouth on saturday, please please please let us beat plymouth

[Garawa]

Plymouth is essential isn't it. Noircat was right is what he said, whilst there is an element that they will be fighting hard to get out of the bottom and would set up to not concede, we are both where we are after 35 odd games and anything other than a win cannot be contemplated. I am sure it all changed when we adopted 4-1-3-2. Previously we were scoring freely but didn't earn many clean sheets. We went more defensive which helped but the goals slowed down and we have regressed from there.

As for the player, Fulham seemed highly complementary about Williams and so to did the Toon about Richardson. If they were just cover why bring in that type of player. I wrote in my blog that these young English players (ok I know Williams was an Aussie but the principle is the same) will never get the experience they need and that could have knock on effects for the national side. The Premier League clubs have huge sums of money so invest a tiny bit on your players! Clubs lower down continue to pay their players providing they are used in every match, what a difference. Some of these players are in their twenties and still waiting for an opportunity. Most will be released and just end up as another face on the PFA list of out of contract former players. The national side is safest in Football League clubs hands it seems.

As for the gap, we really need to look over our shoulder now! Only 6 points ahead of the play-offs now, although Rotherham look really to be 3rd place if removing extra games played. Whatever we are only 5 clear of Chelteham, 6 from Rotherham, 7 from Burton and 8 from Exeter and we have to play them all! It's going to be a very nervy time and we need to go for the wins that is sure.

[gillsfan1066]

SIT DOWN you hysterical big girls blouses, were going up , maybe not as champions but were going up, God wants us to play First Division football next season, he said so, thats why the Cardinals are in Rome , not to pick a new Pope but to pray for GFC's continued push for promotion.
Anyway what do you want , attractive free flowing, goal scoring football or promotion?. Were like the team that is one /nil up with five minutes to go, take off three forwards , bring on three defensive players and play the clock out,( hell how many times have I seen that theory go wrong ). M.A. knows what he is doing, doesn't he ?
Were 6 / 7 points clear of the 4 th -7th pack with a game in hand , thats three looses for us and three wins for all of them just to catch us , only 10 games to go for most teams, as I said befor SIT DOWN at the back stop rocking the boat.

[Robpthegills]

lol gillsfan, i know thats what I keep telling myself, and your right I will be happy if we see out the season winning 1 0 and go up as champions. I will be happy as the gill's are back in div 1, but i cannot admit to actually enjoying what is going on in front of me. I just feel that if we wanted to tear up somebody we could do it quite easily yet we dont seem to want to.

[Garawa]

Carry on as we are and we will comfortably go up. However recent home games we have been happy with 0-0 and then come out fighting when we concede. That is slightly worrying and presently it is working away but I can't see us ending the season with only one defeat. There are some big games coming up, most notably Rotherham and Burton, and if we are a couple of points ahead at that point we are in trouble.

If we had continued to play the same way we started we would be out of sight by now. Quite why we feel the need to hang on for draws when we clearly can beat sides comfortably I don't know. If we get out of this rotten league then great, job done but if we don't it shouldn't be a shock. Worryingly I thought we would go up by Easter and carry the form into the League 1 campaign like Stevenage, Crawley and Swindon have done. Hanging on desperately doesn't bode well now for a tougher task next season if we do go up.

[steve347]

I think we will see a considerable change of personnel during the close season and a different style.
Once you get promoted, the previous season is irrelevant. We will grind our way to promotion.