Congratulations Gary Owers and the players

It's been a tough and nervy few weeks but the new gaffer and players came through.

It's a massive relief. I couldn't have faced the Southern League again.

The loyal fans deserve a massive thank you and tonight can celebrate.

Hopefully we can party a bit next week but then the Board should try and keep Gary and build a new squad.

I am going to the pub.

Well done City boys!

Quite right. We all need some time to celebrate, but after that there is much to do. No-one can lose sight of the weaknesses in our current squad. Hopefully Gary wants to stay and we can afford him. If he does it will be really interesting to see what kind of team he puts together.

Agreed, but I also agree with Owers that we shouldn't get too excited about avoiding relegation. This has been a wretched, frustrating season on many levels - thank goodness the players put some results together at the crunch and the manager deserves all the credit for getting them over the line. Hopefully he will be here in August - if he is, I guess it will be a very different squad that we will see.

God... what a painful horrible season...

Very few high points apart from the first 6 games - however did we do that? - and the last few games, barring the Whitehawk game last Tuesday when we were comprehensively outplayed by an impressive team.

I have no doubt at all that if the previous management team had stayed on we would not have escaped the drop. The unravelling of what appeared to be a pretty talented squad at the beginning of the season was quite spectacular and Britton & Howells just did not have the answers or ideas to change things around and their resignations were LONG overdue by the time they finally threw the towel in.

Somehow...and great credit to him for doing it... Gary Owers has restored some pride, professionalism and most importantly desire to do well to a threadbare squad and without his 'inside the game contacts' for the young loan players - Kelly & Harvey in particular were excellent - we just would not have scored enough goals to have done the job.

I just hope the club can afford to keep the Gary/Jim/Matt management team together next season and they can then get an energetic young, keen and hardworking squad together bolstered by some older pro's in key positions. Being realistic even if we don't get close to the play-offs hopefully the season will be entertaining and the long suffering supporters will have something to enjoy, rather than have to put up with the clueless, lifeless performances without goals which unfortunately became the norm under the previous duo.

I agree with the above sentiments - hopefully Gary Owers can be confirmed as manager for next season as early as possible. His positive attitude - even when things weren't going as he wanted - was a welcome change from what had gone before and will I think be a great attribute going forward.

Phew got there in the end. When Owers took over I thought we needed about 48 points and that it was going to be touch and go whether we got them because of our abysmal form. The team responded well to what he wanted from them although we were helped in no small part by the young loanees - Batten, Harvey, Greenslade, Murphy and Kelly.

For me though, despite our predicament, I have enjoyed the football far more in the last few weeks that at any time for the last year or so. Yes we've been outplayed at times but we haven't been clueless

Well done lads.

Whereas on the other side of the fence, Hayes have parted company with their manager after the defeat.

I think this is more or less correct...Pre GO we had 29 points from 25 games, an average of 1.16 points per game which, if continued for the rest of the season would have seen us finish in 18th place with 48 points just 1 above relegation. Post GO we gained 24 points from 17 games, an average of 1.41 points per game which, if we had averaged for the whole season would have seen us finish in 9th place with 59 points just 5 short of the last play of place. My point being that if GO stays for next season along with the majority of the current squad but with a few additions to make us a bit more potent up front then just maybe we could get a play of place. I know of course that I'm over simplifying but the above stats do give some perspective of where we are and where we might be this time next year. Any thoughts ?

miker wrote:I think this is more or less correct...Pre GO we had 29 points from 25 games, an average of 1.16 points per game which, if continued for the rest of the season would have seen us finish in 18th place with 48 points just 1 above relegation. Post GO we gained 24 points from 17 games, an average of 1.41 points per game which, if we had averaged for the whole season would have seen us finish in 9th place with 59 points just 5 short of the last play of place. My point being that if GO stays for next season along with the majority of the current squad but with a few additions to make us a bit more potent up front then just maybe we could get a play of place. I know of course that I'm over simplifying but the above stats do give some perspective of where we are and where we might be this time next year. Any thoughts ?

With a great start to the season, City got 19 points from the first 7 games, but then the next 18 games produced only 10 points, just over 0.5 points per game. I think that a lot of people, including me, thought that this would continue, and we might have got only 10 points from the last 17 games, making a total of 39 for the season. Fortunately, we shall never know!