Reflections on the 2016/17 Promotion season | PASOTI
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Reflections on the 2016/17 Promotion season

twist of lime

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Feb 22, 2008
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Thought it would be good to have a thread to look back over last season and any "different" thoughts and observation on last season (I realize that it only finished a few weeks ago but may help to have some extra discussion on the site during the next few weeks of the off season.....)

So my initial observation looking back is...

I managed to get to the Reading and Carlisle away games in the first 2 weeks of the season and after the Carlisle game was a tad worried about where our season was going after the loss at Wembley and losing our first 3 games...

In hindsight looking at the 3 teams we lost to this does now not seem such a short run of bad results - Luton and Carlisle both made the playoff semi finals and may progress tonight to Wembley and Reading have reached the Championship play off final as well, so based on this are all strong teams.

Feel free to add any observations

COYG
 
Aug 30, 2006
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Was great going to away grounds knowing we had a very good chance of getting a result....very different from previous seasons under Fletcher, Reid, Mariner and Sheridan.
 

Leo's Grandad

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Mar 18, 2011
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I hated walking up to Home Park not knowing how the team would play - so inconsistent.
In previous promotion seasons I'd always been confident once we were on our way.
 

Princerock

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Aug 14, 2011
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Away results suggest that we are (2016/17 anyway) a good counter attacking team....the home team being more attack minded and therefore giving us more space to break out.

At home we where ok when we score first....when going behind we then struggled at times to snatch the initiative back.

We need to bring in players who can help us dominate at home....if that had happened this season we would have easily walked this league as champions
 

greenplumber

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Jun 10, 2015
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For the 1st time I think ever, I walked out of a home game against Blackpool when we went 0-3 down. I never did that in our other promotions. Although we won a lot of games we lost too many at home and that will need to change. Sooo pleased that we are finally out of that division, looking forward to next season.
 

twist of lime

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Feb 22, 2008
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As an exile I do not get the pleasure of Home Park that often and only made it to 2 home games last season and luckily for me that was Mansfield and Newport (promotion win). This was fortunate, as I do not have that "slight taint" that a lot of supporters have had to this promotion, after having to endure some of the home performances.

Agree that this is an area that DA needs to look at next season and try and improve the blend of being hard to beat at home but improving on the quality of the football at the same time... easy to request but harder to achieve....

COYG
 
Dec 23, 2010
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It got to the point on a Tuesday afternoon post Christmas where I knew in a few hours time i would be going up to Home Park to see us get beat by Barnet. We just didn't turn up on Tuesday night's at home.
 

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Any season that ends in promotion is a fantastic season.

There were a few low points like the three game losing run at the start of the season and the poor Tuesday night performances and results at home but overall 95% of the season was excellent.

For me the great away wins were memorable, the win at Blackpool and the atmosphere, which included the Twist and Shout chant, the late wins at Crawley and Cheltenham and the come from behind win at Crewe.

The 6-1 win against Newport to clinch promotion was one of the best games and atmosphere at Home Park for years.
The two Liverpool games gave us national exposure, money and a day out at Anfield!

The signing of Matty Kennedy helped get us over the line, he added a new dimension to our attack, yes the better teams quickly worked out how to play against him but he did the damage against the lesser teams.

The switch to the zonal marking system when defending corners in February was a crucial turning point, up until then we were regularly shipping goals from corners, the new tactic worked because we didn’t concede a goal from a corner until the last two games, although crucially one of them was against Grimsby.

Several players, like Slew, Miller, Tanner, Spencer and Bulvitis, had better first halves of the season than the second half, and to compensate for this the five new signings in January played a big part in the second half of the season.
The spine of the team in McCormick, Bradley, Fox, firstly Spencer and eventually Taylor was always solid which allowed Carey to weave his magic.
When you look at the whole season each squad member contributed to the promotion.

It was the grit and determination from the players to win games when not playing well that won us promotion.

I thought the standard of refereeing had improved this season apart from the Leyton Orient and Barnet games at home.
 
Jul 9, 2008
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Plymouth
Maybe we tend to judge on our memories of previous promotion campaigns? Times have changed, maybe no team is as dominant now, counter attacking football, 40% possession is all you need if you are effective, home and away, its about accumulating points and being strong mentally. Argyle /Adams sussed this and this season's squad reflected this mindset. I suspect next season (and next season's squad) will be more of the same!
 
Jan 3, 2013
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We were promoted........nothing else mattered.
Would like to see a tad more football next season, but as far as I'm concerned all that matters is getting into the championship
 

davie nine

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Jan 23, 2015
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I think that the fact that he has released so many suggests that he will take steps to improve the squad again. He managed to get us to the playoff final with several players who he inherited from Sheridan. They were not all bad players, by any means, but they did not have the same steel and determination that this season's squad had.

He has now made some quite ruthless decisions to release some players who had made positive contributions to our success this season. However, he has decided that they, in his opinion, will need to be replaced by players who can make an impression in League 1. There haven't been many complaints about the retained list or those who have been released.

The changes to the loan system benefitted Argyle as DA had experience of the new system from his time in Scotland. I think he was ahead of many other managers in dealing with the change. A bigger squad and only 3 loan players seemed to work well.

He seems to have more success in recruiting players to this 'so called' remote area than most of our recent managers. He showed that, particularly with the signing of Bradley and Fox who both seemed to escape the radar of other EFL clubs. The signing of Taylor in the January transfer window was also a shrewd move and the loan signing of Kennedy resolved a perceived squad weakness at a crucial stage of the season.

Hopefully, he will have similar success in the next 2 or 3 months to give us a chance of further progress in League 1.
 
Mar 23, 2008
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Job done! It often wasn't pretty but we have a shrewd manager who is a winner, I think with 5 or 6 good quality signings we have a great chance of a successful season ahead with momentum on our side.
 
Jan 6, 2004
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It was interesting to see the strengths and weaknesses of being a counter attacking team. When the game plan went well (which it did more often than not - hence promotion) we got great results but when we had to chase the game, like when we fell behind at home, we had a tendency to fall apart....
 
I totally agree with the point about comparing previous promotion performances. League two is now streets ahead of the standard we last experienced in the basement. Better players, better organised on improved playing surfaces, all means you can't just waltz out of this division. I think we'll find the same in league one which, from the games I've seen this season, matches the championship of twenty years ago.
 

John Cooper

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I was able to get to more away matches since 1986-87. As other posters have said, it was nice to go away feeling confident of a result.
It would've been better if we'd done better at home.

Overall, jobs a good un, where is the incoming transfer news.