Job done

That's how I see it, there are question marks but he deserves the summer to rebuild and go again next season.

Sure we all just hope he has learnt and will be looking for experience and nous to go with the backbone of a promising but inexperienced squad.

If he doesn't start signing some seasoned pros with some miles on the clock and we see too many young loanees coming in again and alarm bells will ring.

Pretty much how I see it.

There's no dressing up how bad our end to the season has been and how awful we've been defensively but it was only at the end of Feb/start of March we were looking up towards the play off places hoping we could sneak in, there are positives and negatives to take out of this season and if Lowe has learned from some of his mistakes and sticks to his word about recruiting more experienced players then I don't see a reason why we can't look more upwards next season.

Also we have fared better than the other clubs who came up with us last season (Crewe aside) in Swindon and Northampton so that's another positive, as frustrating as we've been the fans of those two clubs would kill for our final position!

Onwards to next season.

doozer":2dlj9zw8 said:

Before anyone accuses me of being a Lowe worshipper , I’m as upset and frustrated as the next man about our results/ performances since January ...I’m not fully convinced Lowe is the man to take us forward but I’m still behind him because over his 2 seasons here , you have to say job done .
If someone had said he would get us promoted in his first season and keep us up in his second, would anyone not have been delighted with that ?
I don’t think he got enough credit for getting promotion with virtually a new squad in his first year ...Bradford, Scunthorpe and Walsall who came down with us are still there 2 years later .
I’m sure he’s learnt a lot from this year and is under pressure to deliver better performances/ results next year .
For me , a top 12 finish would be satisfactory and indicate that we’re moving in the right direction

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....to add to that, Swindon and Northampton, who came up with us, have gone down again.
I think that, having allowed Canavan, Wootton and, to a lesser extent, Nouble, to leave in January, he became complacent with our results in the first 2 months of this calendar year when he should have replaced them with experience rather than 2 young loan signings.
Similarly, I think that DA became complacent with the problems that were flaring up in the dressing room and it proved his downfall because it resulted in our relegation.
RL has been fortunate that his complacency has not resulted in relegation and he now has a chance to rectify the situation and recruit more shrewdly before the next season commences.

I don't agree to be honest.

Last season we were not a top 3 team.but luckily at the time the Removed by Site Admin hit us we had been in a bit of a role and our PPG got us over the line.

This season apart from a fairly good start and the run post Xmas we have been dire.

Fans are not listened to by managers and rightly so but we all saw how bad the defence was last summer and the management did nothing.

I wouldn't be sad if RL was not here in the summer so someone else could rebuild but I fully expect him to be here. He has had his chances and hopefully he is either more successful this summer or our owner gets rid early into the new season of it starts going wrong.

Sorry job not done as far as I'm.concerned.

For the second time this weekend you have referred to Covid 19 as something else with racial undertones - Why not just call it Covid 19? - Site Admin

Overall, I would agree. Got us promoted and kept us in the division.

I don´t think the manager can be blamed for everything that doesn´t go right.

I´ve been watching Argyle since 1961 and am struggling to think of a season when players have made so many errors which lead to the opposition scoring.

Think back to Northampton at home when Luke tried to beat the on rushing attacker and lost the ball. This season there have been lots of them, pass backs, crossfield mis-placed passes, and the Watts "didn´t smash it into the stands" versus Pompey.

Someone more focussed than me can calculate how many points we have thrown away.

Then you look at Pompous ... finished 8th. We finished 18th. So what ? We all start next season in League One with 0 points. The difference being that the Cowleys were brought in to get promotion. No sensible Argyle fan would have expected us to go up. So we keep our status and Pompous ... have the same status.

Job done.

davie nine":2ff06drp said:

doozer":2ff06drp said:

Before anyone accuses me of being a Lowe worshipper , I’m as upset and frustrated as the next man about our results/ performances since January ...I’m not fully convinced Lowe is the man to take us forward but I’m still behind him because over his 2 seasons here , you have to say job done .
If someone had said he would get us promoted in his first season and keep us up in his second, would anyone not have been delighted with that ?
I don’t think he got enough credit for getting promotion with virtually a new squad in his first year ...Bradford, Scunthorpe and Walsall who came down with us are still there 2 years later .
I’m sure he’s learnt a lot from this year and is under pressure to deliver better performances/ results next year .
For me , a top 12 finish would be satisfactory and indicate that we’re moving in the right direction

Click to expand...

....to add to that, Swindon and Northampton, who came up with us, have gone down again.

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Swindon are a basket case of a club with serious off-field issues and could follow Southend next season unless that changes. Northampton were a bit lucky to come up and were always likely to struggle with such limited resources.

Crewe are a more realistic comparison and they have had a pretty good season overall, even though they also endured a 0-6 thumping at home in the particularly difficult circumstances that all clubs experienced.

Lowe has been found badly wanting with player recruitment, tactical nous, defensive organisation, set plays in defence and attack, half-time team talks and motivation in general, appearing to learn nothing from the repeated mistakes and shortcomings, getting the best from Mayor, etc. etc.

In post-Match interviews, he has blamed the players that he signed following supposedly careful data analysis for not following his instructions, saying it was not his fault and that he could do no more. He has shamelessly thrown them under the bus by describing them variously as a "Disgrace", "Sunday League" and "boys against men".

To his credit, he has now come out and admitted many of his shortcomings and acknowledged that this season has been a massive learning curve for him.

Only time will tell what he has or has not learnt but for now, he still retains my support.

I think he deserves that for getting us back up to League 1 at the first time of asking and then keeping us there.

Job Done = Yes

Job Done Well = No

Job Done Poorly = Yes

But the Job is done.

Mark Pedlar":eyi1wwz0 said:

Argylegames":eyi1wwz0 said:

You have to ask yourself, if last season had been a normal one and gone to a full conclusion, would we have seen the same squad this season as we actually had?

If we'd have played 46 games last season and won promotion, I think we'd have had a different squad. I suspect the uncertainty of who was going to be playing where last summer meant we kept most of the league 2 squad in case they voided the season and we faced another L2 season.

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Add to that - because of Covid some players weren't prepared to move, some targets may not have been available last summer, the injury to Sawyer and the whole unknown about when finance would come into the club, then the season becomes more about survival than many fans realise ot accept.

We are in League 1, we move on. I think we're in for a very interesting summer, coupled with the seesaw of opinion of whether player x is good or a waste of money. I imagine a few posters will have already made up their minds before they even know the names - both ways.

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I definitely think that player X is the piece of the jigsaw we have been missing and is superb value at twice the price and worth every penny of his vastly inflated wages. His defensive qualities and goals to games ratio is second to none, a pity we couldn`t have signed none. :twisted:

rsp4":373clv2y said:

I don't agree to be honest.

Last season we were not a top 3 team.but luckily at the time the Removed by Site Admin hit us we had been in a bit of a role and our PPG got us over the line.

This season apart from a fairly good start and the run post Xmas we have been dire.

Fans are not listened to by managers and rightly so but we all saw how bad the defence was last summer and the management did nothing.

I wouldn't be sad if RL was not here in the summer so someone else could rebuild but I fully expect him to be here. He has had his chances and hopefully he is either more successful this summer or our owner gets rid early into the new season of it starts going wrong.

Sorry job not done as far as I'm.concerned.

For the second time this weekend you have referred to Covid 19 as something else with racial undertones - Why not just call it Covid 19? - Site Admin

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And January 2021! Almost to a man, the whole of PASOTI was crying out for defensive signings. Instead of bolstering the defence, we lost Wootton & Canavan, and brought in loanees Woods & Lewis. Neither of those defenders has covered themselves in glory, and we're back to square one now they've returned to their parent clubs.

You could say it like this: in Summer 2020 and January 2021, Ryan Lowe's priority was to sign defenders. At the end of the 20-21 season, he has signed minus two defenders. This looks, smells and feels like a mistake, given our 12 points from 18 games this half of the season. Lowe either learns from this painful mistake, in which case he earns my support, or he doesn't, and we're doomed to repeat the drop to League 2 at the end of 21-22 season.

Can player X cross a ball? :think:

I will reserve my judgement until next season when things are back to 'normal'. Playing in front of empty sands must be akin to being in the reserves all season.
It's the same for all teams & I know they're professionals getting paid loads more than me but it's gotta be harder to get up for matches when there's no one there. I certainly don't think Argyle 0 Charlton 6 would have happened.