"It's too early to say" must be one of the most overused phrases in football. When I said after seeing him three or four times that Ali was miles too good for League two, loads of people either said I was mental or that it was too early to say. Of course if you never want to be wrong about anything in football, you're far better off never predicting anything early. By now you'll be convinced that Harry Kane is a pretty good striker, that Mo Salah will score lots of goals, and you might even be coming around to the idea that Ali Al-Hamidi is perhaps too good for League two.
I've never been a "wait and see" merchant and I'm not going to start now. So with that in mind, I'm going to make a couple of predictions here and also say what I think we ought to do about it.
1. We WILL get into the playoffs this season if we keep Ali Al-Hamidi in January.
Yep, forget all this "We'll finish mid-table" nonsense, it ain't gonna happen. We've got the best striker (by a country mile) in the league, a solid defence, a good keeper and an aggressive midfield. If we win our game in hand we'd sneak into the playoffs as it is, but I expect us to markedly improve as the season progresses. We are a very good team, and I expect we will comfortably get in if we keep Ali, probably top five.
Disagree all you want, but that's what I think. If we don't keep Ali in January (and I personally wouldn't even answer the phone for less than 1.5 million quid), then it's a completely different ball game. If we make the play-offs without him, it would be an excellent achievement.
By the end of Feb, I expect we will have developed our style into a more fluid 4-4-2.
We've seen glimpses of subtle little tweaks becoming more frequent as the season has progressed, and my guess is that our style is something of a work in progress. The Notts County performance showed both that the management team is tactically astute enough, the players plenty intelligent enough, to make some quite dramatic alterations if the situation demands it. Johnnie Jackson built the team spirit remarkably quickly this season, but we oughtn't to forget that it is still almost a completely new team. Patterns, nudges and tweaks take time. Despite the defeat at Gillingham, my impression/hunch is that we are a team who is improving as the season progresses.
We ought to offer the management team new contracts.
I said a couple of weeks ago that we were approaching the point where we ought to offer, in my mind we're now well and truly there. I know not everyone agrees, but to return to my "It's too early to say" point, we can't wait until the end of a very successful season then expect an out of contract manager to re-sign with us. It ain't in my opinion gonna happen.
If I'm right on us getting into the play-offs, on us developing our own style, improving as the season progresses etc, our manager is going to have lots of offers which financially dwarf anything that we can offer. It's not even as if he lives in SW London, so we ought to do the sensible thing and give him a new contract now, before it happens.
There'll be folks reading this and saying "You're off your head mate", but to those folks I'd urge you to forget totally about last season. Erase it from your mind. If you were to say "He shouldn't still be here after THAT" then I agree he was very fortunate, but he IS here and as I always say, "If you're gonna back the manager you gotta back the manager".
But put that aside and look at THIS season. We're much higher in the league than most predicted, we beat Coventry and had a great effort at Chelsea in the League Cup, and on Monday night we'll beat Ramsgate and go into the third round of the FA Cup. But for a few missed penalties we'd be higher in the league than we are, and like I say I'm pretty strongly predicting we'll improve as the season goes. To those that aren't happy THIS season I'd be asking what exactly is it you want?
And do I agree with everything the manager does, everything he says? No of course I don't. I think we should go for it more, be less fearful of losing and commit/risk more in order to win. I think his interviews are a bit boring, but then he does get asked the same monotone questions every week. I'd get Morgan Williams back sharpish and give him minutes, and I'd play Aaron Sasu more. I'm not at training every day though, I'm pulling pints, so with the greatest respect you can take my opinions with a bucket of chicken wings.
AND, I've a hunch that once the manager gets a contract, we'll see him become a better manager. There's a natural tendency when someone is fearful of their job to play it safe. Like a golfer who needs to make the cut in order to pay the travel expenses and sort out what he owes the caddie, he'll always lay up short of the water. The one who has already won twice this year though, banked two million quid and guaranteed next year's tour card ain't laying up. He's getting the big dog out of the bag and going for the pin. Every time.
Give our fella a contract and my guess is it'll be the end of him laying up. We might splash it into the water a bit more often, but we'll win more often too. As I keep saying, it's all about winning.
It's not too early to say it, let's get the management team signed up.
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