kevilsonlad wrote:

am i happy about where we are in the league ? NO
Am i more concerned about the clubs future as promotions ? No , really do think we should consolidate in this league but be a top ten side ...
Am i bothered about a owner throwing money at the club to get promotion ? Hell NO WAY 
Am i more bothered about the club being stable in the future so we have a club for the long term future ? Hell YES .
  Like i said i dont like the situation we are in at the moment but i suppose i am being blinkered in having a club thats stable so i am not pressing the panic button just yet. 
   Soneone said to me " you dont want promotions then Kev ? " I replied yes but not at the cost of the club being financially ruined which most likely would happen as we stand as a club now. I dont want Nally or anyone else throwing money at the club just to want it back in the future . 
   Again i dont like where we are in the league but we are here not like 100`s of club who have gone out of business and we know how that feels dont we . 
 

 
Spot on Kev. A self-sustaining club is the most important thing, so an owner doesn't have to chuck money in every month to keep it going. When you use that model though, and the manager doesn't have megabucks to spend on players, it sometimes feels like you're shopping in the bargain basement for players, or you need loan players, or you need your manager to unearth one or two diamonds. And however good your manager is, sometimes that's gonna catch up with you. What most fans want, and understandably so, is to see high-quality players, your team playing good football, scoring goals and winning games, and challenging for honours. Which, usually, is the 'rich owner' model for a football club. Which, as we've seen, can be great fun but it can also lead to your club going bust. It's a tricky balance, to say the least.

As for yesterday, we probably edged the first half but the second half was dire. I described it as relegation form. I know we lost Connor Dixon, but still. If it hadn't been for Alfie Roberts (early days, but he looks to be a good shot-stopper) pulling off 3 or 4 brilliant one-on-one saves, it would have been a real ugly score. He does seem to come a long way off his line, and it looked like he got caught out yesterday with their wonder strike from the halfway line, but I think you have to credit the vision and technique of the goalscorer. It's here (His own half!!! His own half!!!) ...

https://youtube.com/shorts/NkRdTz40O-k?si=CET-Wr2aPGwkBjvH

We only had 4 subs on the bench yesterday, and when things like that start to happen it becomes increasingly difficult to use your subs to change a game. Mitchell Lievers was one of them. And Deaks clearly didn't want to bring Thornhill on, so effectively we only had 2 outfield players (Sulkowski and Whyle) on the bench. Both subs were used (Sulkowski for Dixon (hamstring - so is he another one missing for Tuesday?) and Whyle for Fox), and Thornhill had to come on for the last 5 minutes cos the sub Sulkowski had to go off. To be fair, Thornhill really got stuck in in those remaining minutes and after the game finished he came back out to the pitch and did some running work, so perhaps he'll be fit for half a game on Tuesday. I really like Thornhill, he could be a game-changer for our season, but he's only played about 3 hours so far this season.

Sorry, but our centre-forwards (Fox and Kirby-Moore) just ain't cutting it. They could have played all week and not scored. Don't get me wrong, Stevens and Walker have done well at full-back (they're good technical footballers, so to some extent they would do a good job in any position), but I'm a big believer in specialist full-backs. I'll give the new lad Janneh a few games before judging. How long's Minkley out for? He always does a good steady job for us.

We've lost the last 4, lost 6 out of the last 7, and we're struggling to score goals. Nine games in, and we're on to our second goalie, and we seem to play a different back 4 in every game. And we've got an injury crisis. So we're struggling at the moment, quite clearly. We definitely need 2 or 3 players in, but who's available, and can we afford them?

In the first half of our first game at Morpeth, we played some of the best football I've seen ITFC play in a long time, and to sink to our performance in the second half yesterday in just 9 games is very disappointing.

Highlights are here ...

https://youtu.be/Tqb90FF522A?si=QUm5keN6RV6DyvBF

Yes we have a fantastic ground and it has always been a big selling point for football in Ilkeston. I looked at the average crowds in step 2 and they are enormous compared with ours. If we were in the National League North we would be 23rd in the average attendance table. To survive at step 2 we would have to double our average home attendance, probably double our revenue from sponsorship, go full time and therefore conjure up some very rich investors who are willing to give a lot if money away.
In the 1950s Ilkeston won the Central Alliance five times on the trot and were watched by four figure crowds and won by large margins nearly every week. The fans loved it! They never applied to move to the stronger Midland League because they rightly believed the fans wanted to watch a winning team. Year later when Ilkeston boldly stepped up to the Southern League crowds plummeted because they did not want to watch a team that did not win every week. Unfortunately the club went into a decline that was not halted until Paul Millership stepped in. So what I am trying to say is that the club maybe have found their level at step 3 to step 4 and perhaps we should just enjoy the football we get to see at that level.

Thanks PezAmb! I usually talk nonesense. However viewing things at Ilson from 190 miles away makes me a bit more detached. However after  tomorrow night I will be either dancing naked through Ilson market place or letting it rip on here!