Staying up this season

The sooner we reach 50 points, the better. We're then in a position to budget for next season, sort out contracts, gear up for our new transfer targets. The bare minimum to achieve this is to finish fourth from bottom, which is not the same as believing where we may finish (be it a fan, the Head Coach, or the club owner).
Twelve months ago this weekend, we lost 2-1 at home to Crewe. We've come such a long way in a relatively short space of time. I honestly believe we'll finish somewhere in the middle third of the table at the season's conclusion. But, for me, I also believe that finishing fourth from bottom cannot be regarded as a failure, either.

 

We the fans of BFC have been through the full set of emotions since August. I was worried after the first 3 games and confident after the next 3. The last few have brought me back down to earth again, and I do not think that I am different from anybody else. We have had to reset our objectives from month to month. Like yourself, I am looking forward to the next transfer window, but perhaps for slightly different reasons. After the last one was over, and I had a think about what we had achieved, it seemed to me that the player that arrived fitted into a pattern.

We all know what the club's transfer policy is about. We scout the lower leagues looking for players with potential who can be improved and perhaps sold on. When we scout a player, we look at his ability and particularly his pace, we look at his statistics, his attitude, his willingness to learn and we look at his performances for his team over and over and over again. In the past, we have made mistakes and mistakes are costly. We have learned. But all this work takes a good deal of time and looking back to the summer transfer window, most of that work and that time would have been spent at a period when expectations would have been for another season in League 1. The players that we bought were mostly players that would have made a big impact in League 1, but who are having to make a step up to play in the Championship. Likewise, the players who came up from the league below are also having to make that step up. It is a steep learning curve. At the minute, they are doing OK, but who can tell what their reaction will be if they get caught in a bad run. They have no past experience to draw upon. Nothing that has worked in the past that they know will pull them through it.

The next transfer window is different though. We have more capital to spend, although I expect that wages will still be an issue and I think that this means that we will still be shopping for bargains. But the big difference is that our scouting system will have been targeted at a different type of player. There are no guarantees of course, but I expect that we will be looking towards the Premier League U23 leagues rather than Leagues 1, 2 and below. I am more hopeful now that we will survive, but we are also better prepared and cushioned for any drop. My attitude is exactly the same as yours, I will continue to look down until we reach 50 points, and only then will I look up.