1999/00

This team is worse. The smith team just weren't good enough whilst this team are that coupled with a serious attitude problem.

Agree. Smiths clowns were from all over the world and done on the cheap, some of this lot are on decent money and doing sod all to earn it. Is it me I just don't see enough people talking or shouting on the pitch, like a bunch of strangers or people who don't get on who are thrown together, little in the way of team unity,etc.  

A lot of them just seem to be stuck in their shells, showing little interest, going through the motions, not enjoying it. Genuinely not seen the club this bad on and off pitch for a good numbers of years, probably the smith period / Vaughan tenure, but at least we knew the end was in sight. The worry is I don't where the end is now, the gates continue to drop and I see nothing the club are doing to address this, we are staring relegation in the face, we have no cup run, some players on decent money who don't/won't commit to 4 days training and a number of players who the manager doesn't want, this board and Maguire have an awful lot to answer for.

Relegation is of real concern to me. Both short term and long term it would cripple the club. Lower crowds, lower income from games (due to having to reduce admission costs), no chance of TV money, sponsors will be put off as they are getting less exposure too. Not forgetting it'll be harder for us to get another FA Cup run due to number of extra qualifying rounds we would have to negotiate. We lose the derby against Wrexham, we lose the Tranmere game, we lose Halifax, we lose clubs relegated from the League bringing a healthy number of fans. Income streams would be down considerably and I don't think we could bounce back like Halifax have done. We may need to take a step back to progress, but in an ideal world, we would take it in our stride and make sure we finish above the bottom four.
To cut a long story short, relegation will spell real danger for the future of this club and it will leave us on the brink (again.....)

I don't know. There are similarities in the job's Atkins and Bignot have both faced, in that they've both inherited terrible squads, and both been immediately hit with a run of difficult fixtures. People often forget in took Atkins the best part of two months to get his team to gel and pick up any kind of results.

I do think there's a bit of hyperbole going on here though. Things are bad at the moment and it's not acceptable, but it's not on a Smith or Vaughan level. Smith was just signing anyone who turned up for a trial. Google the likes of Joe Carver, Goran Milosavijevic, Kamu Laird, Steve Malone etc and basically all you'll see about their entire football career is that they had brief spells at Chester City. They weren't footballers.

And as far as I know, nobody's frightened of getting their head kicked in by anyone at the club, so it's not on a Vaughan level either.

The lack of voices and leadership on the pitch was staggering yesterday. It was quiet in the stands so you should be able to hear constant instructions from Lynch and McCoomb, not a peep. McCoomb is the worst captain we've had and not leadership material. On the pitch it starts with him.

There's nothing in midfield either, James is a different player to the no nonsense battler we had 2 years ago. No fight and no drive, maybe he needs to grow his locks back. Even Shaw looks sluggish and unmotivated now he has to, you know, actually have to play football for his wage.

Players, who came with big reputations, need to step up, big time.