[Devongone]

We have two permanent signings up front, plus one loanee who I think from his style of play was meant to replicate Doyle. We also have almost all the money from selling Doyle. That should make us stronger, but we are losing (but maybe we'd have been doing that anyway).

If you look at Championship gates they tend to be 12,000+. The maximum we could expect without a sea change is 10,000 (and we'd need to be winning a lot to reach that). So the Championship isn't our natural level. Equally the Premiership is a rich man's club where Burnley and Bournemouth hardly seem to fit. They, like us, have to dream ..... and then they have to find ways of financing that dream. I'd love us to be doing that too.

We are bound to lose our best players to financial pressure, but so did Exeter, Rochdale, MKD etc. We have to use those deals to come out stronger and find new talent. That isn't likely to make our progress a smooth upward curve. Pooch, Dancing and I are all old enough to know that smooth, upward and Chesterfield are words rarely found in the same sentence.

[bluepooch]

That last paragraph is the reason why we need the likes of Paul Cook and his staff at the club .He has proved he has the ability to bring in a raw unproven players and make them into a valuable assets for the club.It is always going to be two steps forward and one back that's how we have to do it.The fact that we are loaning our fringe players out to league clubs shows we have made progress.Maybe thats to do with lack of reserve team I don't know but that is going to be rectified next season .I think I read that Chelsea have had something like 30 players out on loan this season and I'm not an advocate of the loan system but my point is that is a sign of a clubs power .

[spireitematt]

That last paragraph is the reason why we need the likes of Paul Cook and his staff at the club .He has proved he has the ability to bring in a raw unproven players and make them into a valuable assets for the club.It is always going to be two steps forward and one back that's how we have to do it.The fact that we are loaning our fringe players out to league clubs shows we have made progress.Maybe thats to do with lack of reserve team I don't know but that is going to be rectified next season .I think I read that Chelsea have had something like 30 players out on loan this season and I'm not an advocate of the loan system but my point is that is a sign of a clubs power .

Chelsea sign a lot of young players so City, Spurs, Arsenal and United don't get them and they stick them in the youth team or loan them out to L1/L2 clubs. Swindon have a lot of Chelsea youngsters on loan and MK Dons have a few Arsenal youngsters on loan as well.

Paul Cook and his staff are good at going into Non-league and finding unproven players but maybe we should hold open trials like FC United do to find new players and stick them in the reserve team and turn them into footballers. Have like an age range of 16-24 and if they are good enough then push them into the first team and then they can be sold on for a fee which makes the club a profit. It's a win-win situation. The reason Brentford are doing well in the Championship is because of there youth policy. Another team who has a fantastic youth policy is Southampton.

[Devongone]

Non-league scouting, picking up the most likely-looking rejects from even successful academy systems like Southampton (big systems always run the risk of making mistakes), and yes open trials not only find the odd talent, but also raise the profile of the club ....... so yes they'd have my support. As does the whole idea of a reserve team providing a bridge between age-group football and the real mccoy.

You can create a reserve team which is virtually useless to the club. We had one for years, but when significant talents broke through (Ernie Moss, Kevin Davies) they leapt from the Northern Intermediate as it was then to the first team, largely by-passing the reserves. If we have a reserve team it needs to be used wisely. In our current manager we have pretty much the ideal kind of man at the top to use it to take the club forward. (Maybe the Hump could get involved in its development.)

[spireitematt]

Looking at the rest games we have in March on paper 4 out of 5 are winnable. Coventry at home will be a tough game especially with them appointing Tony Mowbray as manager and players will want to impress him to stay and get in the first team but we should be able to win that. Gillingham at home will be another tough game because they've been playing well since they appointed Justin Edinburgh but we should have enough to see them off. Peterborough another tough game but they have a poor record at home so on paper we could win but then again they've appointed new coaches since Ferguson left and they've got into a winning record. Walsall currently sit bottom half of the table and are only 8 pts from safety but again we should have enough to see them off. Bradford will be a tough game and one I expect us to lose, Bradford good team good enough to get promotion to the Championship with there team and manager and the only problem for us will be there pitch as its like a quagmire and we won't be able to play on the deck so we will have to resort to lumping the ball in the air and having it knocked down for someone to shoot. The Bradford game would suit Armand down to the ground if he wasn't on loan at Oxford because we could punt the ball up to him to knock down and set up Harrison or Lavery.

Teams in the top 6 have been playing poor the last few games like we did for 4 now if there bad run continues then we have a chance to capitalise on it and get into the playoffs. I worked out games such as Rochdale, Scunny, Yeovil, Bradford, Preston (home and away) games which we had a real chance of winning but drew or lost, now if we had won 2-3 games more we would be 5th or even 4th but that's all if's and but's and could.

[Devongone]

It seems to me we played well against an inconsistent Fleetwood ...... and MKD ....... were they really at the races? They were lovely wins and I'm thrilled, but I'm not reading too much into them. I'd have to say the apparent decline of MKD and Swindon might turn out to be simply the mirror image of the improvement at Doncaster, Barnsley and Gillingham when the last eleven or twelve games have been played. I'm guessing Doncaster's the only name in the top six in danger of missing out entirely.

We've an outside chance of making the play offs, only slightly stronger than our outside chance of relegation. My ideal would be to beat Coventry and to see what we can pick up on the long run-in. We'd have to play very well and the combination of results amongst our opponents would need to be very favourable for us to extend our season into the play-offs.

[spireitematt]

Well MK Dons are worried because every season they get into the playoffs but fail to get to the final at Wembley and Karl Robinson has a very good budget every season to get them into the Championship but its not working and if MK Dons bad run of form continues then I can see Robinson being sacked then they'll probably come after Cookie if they sack Robinson.

I think the way the table looks now we have a very very very slim chance of making the playoffs but it all depends on the teams in the top 6 and how well they do in the forthcoming games. Seeing as we aren't in action tomorrow because Bradford are in the cup we have to hope teams around the top 6 and around us don't do very well. Looking at the fixtures tomorrow we need most to be draws.

[Devongone]

Matt I think the only way Karl Robinson is going from MKD is up into a top job. He beat Man Utd 4-0. His best player is currently injured. Their early goals were transferred to Wolves. He doesn't have a big budget and they have a tiny squad. I think he's done superbly ..... the only bit he got wrong was the rambling for the defeat against us the other night.

I still think MKD will go up ..... because they are almost the best team playing certainly the best football.

[spireitematt]

Matt I think the only way Karl Robinson is going from MKD is up into a top job. He beat Man Utd 4-0. His best player is currently injured. Their early goals were transferred to Wolves. He doesn't have a big budget and they have a tiny squad. I think he's done superbly ..... the only bit he got wrong was the rambling for the defeat against us the other night.

I still think MKD will go up ..... because they are almost the best team playing certainly the best football.

I read somewhere that they've got the 4th or 5th highest budget in L1 behind Bristol City, Sheffield United and Leyton Orient that statistic was probably made up. Yeah they have lost Afobe who was on loan from Arsenal and Wolves signed him. I heard his ramblings and thought that we should have had a player sent off for constant fouling.

Well the playoffs is a lottery and everyone has a chance in the playoffs. There's only a point seperating 2nd, 3rd and 4th. I think Bristol City will win the league because they look unstoppable and they've got a very strong team and Cotterill is a very good manager. Preston I think will go up as well because they've got some good players like Garner, Daniel Johnson who is scoring nearly every game since he joined from Villa and Kevin Davies who is there playmaker and not forgetting there manager Simon Grayson who is very experienced in L1 getting Blackpool, Leeds and Huddersfield out of this division. Swindon Look good they have a manager who learnt a lot under Di Canio and looks like he is more experienced since the days he was at Peterborough. They've also got a few loan players from Chelsea and Spurs which has helped them. Sheffield United have a good squad and were probably distracted from the league when they went on the League Cup and the FA Cup run, they don't have a good record in the playoffs and they'll be hoping to end there curse. Doncaster have good home form and I think they might just slip out of the playoffs.