[BaggieSteve]

I share the views of Salop and 4Eva; Southampton fully deserved it but, let’s be honest, having parachute money and the consequent ability to hang on to your Premier League players - or replace them if they leave - makes an incredible difference to a team’s chances of promotion (it also makes Ipswich’s achievement all the more remarkable).
Most of us didn’t expect to even make the play offs so I think it’s been an excellent season, marred only by the final outcome. I believe CC has been fantastic and has somehow kept us in the hunt for promotion whilst battling a completely disinterested owner, an injury list that seemed to keep growing by the day, no available transfer money,and having to play a striker whose pedigree is currently two leagues lower.

I just hope that, in the immediate sense of disappointment, fans take in a huge dose of realism and don’t start slagging CC. As many have said, this squad is not remotely good enough for the PL but somehow CC almost got us there, despite all the drawbacks. It will be an interesting summer regarding contracts and transfers, so I feel we need Shilen Patel to really demonstrate his worth

[Slick_Footwork]

Can't grumble too much, because we lost to a better team with higher quality players. It could be argued that we overachieved massively getting into the playoffs with this squad.

The game was frustrating though...

The most frustrating thing for me was that Southampton, despite all their possession, never looked that dangerous when going forward except when we gave them the ball with our persistent square and backwards passing. We set up Southampton's best chance in the first half when Mowatt gave the ball away trying to pass it back to Palmer, despite having forward passes on. And for their opener, it was Grady who gifted them possession with a sloppy square ball despite having easy passes on and then failing to mark the man he gave it, chasing the ball like u12s.

In addition, our set plays were dreadful. We forced plenty of corners first half, but rather than just putting them in for Bartley to attack, we tried "routines" which were easy for Southampton to defend. I've never really understood why you would choose to play balls across the floor or short when you have the best header of the ball on the pitch. We didn't have the quality to do anything from open play, so to overplay from corners was criminal in my eyes. It was ironic that we finally scored at the end when we just put one in.

When you end up 3 goals behind playing negative, you do always regret not going for it. I mean for all our tip tap and backwards passing, our best chance was when Mowatt just tossed a ball forward to Adam Reach towards the end. Had that same run been made earlier in the game, you can bet that Mowatt would've just played the safe ball back to the centre half or keeper.

The worry now is that our squad will be decimated...

2 of our best players, Kipre and Johnston will leave on a free and back to parent club respectively. Bartley will go. Mowatt will go. If the rumours are to be believed, Okay Yokuslu will probably want to go back to Turkey to finish his career. We'll be left with predominantly dross, Townsend, Thomas-Asante and the like.

We have a new owner, which is positive, but I'm not sure his pockets are deep enough for the rebuild at hand.

Time will tell...

Now let's enjoy the summer until England ruin it in June

[Blue Baggie]

Being Financial Secure was our greatest achievement this season. Making the play offs is testament to our manager and his team. He has shown what he can achieve without spending any money. With players moving on he has the opportunity to bring in a few more players and continue to mould his squad into the side we all want. With another youngster or two coming through and a few new faces who knows what the future holds.