For me the whole squad structures and playing ability has gone down since Andy hay left the club.I'd love to know if that was gentle's decision or something else that he knew was happening behind the scenes ??

but on the other side, Pearson has more money himself these days following selling his City shares.

I don't think he's intentionally ran the club on the cheap, just made several bad decisions. Even though we have a poor squad this season it will still have cost a decent sum to sign Sa, Rankin, Colborn & Carvell. I think his decision to employ Radford was an ideological one, he did the same 'local club' thing with City by appointing Barmby.

Yep, good point. However, one exception to that would be Arundel and Crookes, neither figured a great deal with the Crooks/Lineham combo. Not sure about Crookes but I hear that the Arundel money is obscene.

Maybe so, but again that doesn't explain our terrible season. We might have wasted money that could have been spent on better players, but regardless this is not a bottom 3 squad.

Spot on. There are much weaker squads doing better than we are.

You seem to have hit the nail firmly on the head there - is it a question of motivation or dodgy coaching/training methods from the coaching staff ? The squad seems pretty strong generally so they should be doing better I would say. But it's easy to say, isn't it ?
Would it be fair to say good young players like Lineham haven't improved that much over the past twelve months ?

I don't think the squad is that good,we lack anyone with leadership qualities,no one with a kicking game and a pack of forewards with no real hardmen who can intimidate an opposition .

For me, the squad isn't the best around but it's certainly capable of better than we're currently getting.

Tbf, in Linehams case he has been injured for much of those 12 months.

The league tables don't lie.

Yer to a degree I see what your saying it's a better squad than 12th but before the season started I thought we would be around the 9/10 position. Like you say we have no halfbacks no decent distribution from dummy half, I can't imagine any opposing forwards worried about facing our pack other than Ellis who plays it tough it's a very workmanlike but average pack. The rumours are 10 leaving I could easily add another 5 or 6 players who I wouldn't be uspet if they we're to leave