As bad as our squad was last year, in at least some respects our squad this season is even worse.
Of the players we lost at the end of 2020, out of 7 that played first team a reasonable amount, 5 of them are now playing consistently in the same position for other teams (Foran, Tolman, Sue, Montoya, R. Smith). As much as there was hate for them on here, Foran is clearly streets better than Flanagan, and Tolman's all around game is better than Hetherington, hell, he is keeping Hamlin-Uele and Fatfita on the bench. He is a much better more complete middle forward than people give him credit for, and he is easily better than Hetherington (fans who don't know the game see Hetho do one line break and think he is a first grader, his defense is woeful and he goes missing for chunks of the game). For all of the hate for Sue and Montoya, they have been valued by their new clubs, both of whom have done way better than us this season. Smith is benefiting from playing in a well established team. The other two of those seven are Cogger and Holland.
We've also seen almost zero of our best player of the 2020 season, RFM.
Not saying TBaz hasn't made plenty of tactical and strategic mistakes, he has. Problem is his margin for error with this squad is razor thin. He wants to build an established squad, which is the right thing to do. Unfortunately we are missing the players we lost last season more than most people thought we would, and the season has been hit by the massive disease called 6-againitis, making this about the worst time possible to be starting from the bottom in an attempt to build an established team with a nucleus that sticks together for the foreseeable future.
The best thing about TBaz is that he is ambitious. Pay was a safety first coach, which was a better match for the squad he had, and indeed for the squad TBaz has this season, but Pay is not going to get any team into top 4. We need TBaz to figure out how to mix his ambition for the team with the realities of what our squad can do in reality. If he can't do that in the next one and a half seasons, then Gus won't re-sign him.
