Predictions 2008-9 - 6th Rochdale
Tuesday, 5th Aug 2008 11:45

Right its now time to turn the attention on ourselves, as we predict the team that we think will finish in sixth place - Rochdale.

Rochdale

last season at a glance

you know this bit. Don't you? Started badly, got good, got very good, scored a few pens, went to Wembley, took a few pictures and then came home. The End.

The gaffer - Keith Hill

What can we say about our Keith?

Well twelve months has proved to be a long time in football. Last year, Hill and Flitcroft were unknown quantities at this level. Whilst we'd taken great hope and expectation from the second half of 2006-7, they were still under the radar anywhere else. Not any more. We now have a management duo that are considered to be one of the hottest prospects in the game, and the day where it's not just our players that other teams come knocking for can't be that far away. But we can be encouraged by recent comments from Hill. We had in the Observer last week Hill looking at tying up contracts for Rundle and Kennedy even though they still had twelve months left to run on them. This is a manager who is looking very much at the long term, rather than the quick fix of throwing everything at a promotion push. There's no signing random people from the Post Office queue on pension day like at Chesterfield to boost a manager's short term profile.

We as supporters have learnt a lot from Hill. We've learnt the Rochdale way no longer exists. That rule book has very much been thrown out of the window, and replaced almost with a text book entitled "This is how we do things properly". The club has been dragged into the 21st century and the fact we may not operate at the same level of United or Chelsea does not mean that we shouldn't look after our players in the same way. It's as if we realise that finances dictate that we can't sign better players, so let's make the players we have better players.

The sale of David Perkins has possibly done Hill a favour. Knowing how the Dale mentality works, there'd have been heaps of pressure on Hill from supporters following previous successes. A similar finish would be considered by some to constitute failure and no doubt those who were looking on the club as genuine title contenders this time round. The sale of Perkins has brought some realism to the proceedings and perhaps even some understanding of the job that Hill does at the club.

Reasons for a better season

It'd be easy to look back at last season with rose tinted glasses and think of it as some sort of wonderful season where everything went according to plan (Wembley aside), and that it can't be improved upon.

But that would fail to take into account that we spent the first third of the season playing pretty much without a defence. That injury crisis that we suffered at the start of last season was as bad as anything I've ever known during my time as a Dale fan, and there's no doubting that it cost us points - perhaps the number of points that was the difference between a Play Off place and an automatic promotion spot.

On that front, it shouldn't be repeated. Even if we were to suffer the same injuries as last year, we now have a squad which is more than capable of coping with it. We have within our squad back up for each defensive position, so there should be no worries about scraping about and phoning Oldham up over and over to see who we could borrow to plug the gaps.

The season also suffered for the strikers we pinned our season's hopes on both missing half the season for differing reasons. Dagnall's cruciate injury last season was a massive blow which couldn't have been planned, and the sale of Murray. Whilst you can never account for stuff like the Dagnall injury, it isn't the sign of an injury prone player, and if anything his speedy comeback would suggest he's the opposite of that, and our finances as of now should not see us in a position where we are forced to sell players like with last season.

So if you'd said to us at the start of 2007-8, where do you think we would finish if we'd been missing a defence for a third of the season, losing Dagnall for over half the season, then selling Murray at the first available opportunity, I doubt anybody would have given a position as high as what we actually did finish. And that's forgetting that it took us till March to learn how to play at home.

We are better equipped on all of those fronts this time round.

Reasons for a worse season

The obvious answer is the departure of David Perkins. Perkins was an integral part of our side, and losing him for such a paltry sum is obviously a massive blow. Perkins was the one often cited by opposition fans as being our star man, as he ran the show in the middle of the park, giving opposition players no time on the ball whatsoever. It was his style of play which won the ball back so many times, or forced the opposition into that quick mistimed pass. How do you replace someone like that?

Furthermore, there is the much discussed Play Off hangover which has been prevalent for so many teams over the years. Just looking back at losing Play Off finalists over the years and see what you get:

2006-7: Shrewsbury: following season 18th
2005-6: Grimsby Town: following season 15th
2004-5: Lincoln City: following season 7th
2003-4: Mansfield Town: following season 13th
2002-3: Lincoln City: following season 7th
2001-2: Rushden: following season 1st promoted
2000-1: Leyton Orient: following season 18th
1999-0: Darlington: following season 20th
1998-9: Leyton Orient: following season 19th
1997-8: Torquay United: following season 20th
1996-7: Swansea City: following season 20th
1995-6: Darlington: following season 18th
1994-5: Bury: following season 3rd promoted
1993-4: Preston North End: following season 5th
1992-3: Crewe Alex: following season 3rd promoted
1991-2: Scunthorpe United: following season 13th
1990-1: Blackpool: following season 4th promoted
1989-0: Chesterfield: following season 18th
1988-9: Wrexham: following season 21st
1987-8: Torquay United: following season 14th
1986-7: Wolves: following season 1st promoted

It doesn't make pretty reading. I suppose we could grasp on to "Losing play off finalists that begin the letter R" or "losing Play Off finalists from the North West". But history suggests that the losing Play Off finalists are more than likely to finish in the bottom half of the division in the immediate season.

And what happens during that difficult spell for the pitch known as AutumnWinterSpring? Last season we weren't affected too much by the large number of postponements that we suffered from, but we've seen it happen before where a large number of games in a short period of time can derail a season. I know the pitch has had some work on it over the Summer, but I'd suggest that was paying it lip service rather than attacking the real cause of the problem and we'll again have a season where the morning of each matchday is spent looking skywards to see whether our afternoons are to be spent at Spotland or B&Q.

Season depends on - Gary Jones

Again, we could have gone for one of the more obvious choices of Alfie or Dagnall, but assuming fitness we know that given game time, they are going to score goals no matter what. We could have gone for the likes of Shaw or Keltie, both of which will have huge impacts on our season, but the last thing we wanted to do was saddle a new signing with the pressure of saying that our whole fortunes this season depends upon them.

So we've plumped for Gary Jones. And the reason we've gone for Jonah is as follows. We know how the defence will work this season. We know the forward line will score goals. But we don't at present know whether the midfield will be as commanding as it was last season. That's not to say it won't be, that's to say that we don't know.

We started badly last season, and aside from the defensive issues that we went through, we did have problems with the central midfield. After the previous season's successes of pairing Doolan and Perkins together during Jonah's absence through injury, we had a real struggle when Jonah returned to the team, and it appeared to be very difficult for Jonah to form any sort of partnership with either Doolan and Jones, prompting a few calls for Jones to make way for the previous season's successful partnership.

Of course, the perseverance of Jones and Perkins proved to be completely the right thing to do and it eventually twigged to become one of the best midfield pairings in years. So the question for me is how quickly will it take Jonah to form a partnership with either Keltie or Toner. Neither of them are direct replacements for Perkins so a different sort of central midfield pairing will be required.

And I guess its an assumption in the first place to say that it will be Jones plus one. Who's to say that his own spot won't be under pressure? Both Keltie and Toner are very experienced at this level, and I'm sure neither of them will be coming to Spotland with the intention of just sitting on the bench.

But there's no doubting just how highly Jones is thought of at Spotland, with Keith Hill citing Jones as an example of what he expects from a player when discussing Ben Muirhead last week, and I think its fair to say that last season Jones played the best football of his second spell with the club, and arguably as well as he's ever played for us with the return of the goal scoring Gary Jones that we saw first time round.

RochdaleAFC.com Prediction

6th - Play Offs

Reasons for our prediction

Will the loss of David Perkins really be as big a loss as we think it will be? The thing with the loss of Perkins is that we don't know how it's going to affect us. We have replaced him with two players who come with pedigree, and based upon that are more than capable of doing a job in this division.

It has to be a different style of midfield this time round, and for me that will be the key to the season. It's how long will it take for us to learn to play a new way. Besides, we actually had a better win percentage when Perkins wasn't playing than when he was playing last season. That's not to suggest he was holding us back, but just that his absence might not be as big a loss as we fear it might do.

You could argue that the sale of Perkins has benefitted the club in terms of keeping everyone's feet on the ground. Had he remained, I think there'd be many a Dale fan looking around at our rivals for this season and thinking that we were realistic title challengers to the extent where anything less would be a disappointment.

The blow of selling Perks has brought some reality to the the fanbase in my opinion, and because of that reaching the Play Offs again would be rightly seen as an achievement. There was always the danger that some supporters would see that as standing still.

As for the so called Play Off hoodoo, I think that's more of a mental thing that any sort of curse. I think the difference for us will be that we are well aware that many teams have suffered the following season after a Play Off final defeat and that will be the key to avoiding it. Too often teams who lose at Wembley will look upon the following season and see themselves as being the best remaining side in the division, and that promotion should be automatically forthcoming.

I think we're different. I think from the very next day after Wembley we were conscious of this, and there has been countless steps taken over the Summer to ensure that the hangover doesn't exist with us. I wouldn't be surprised if Hill and Flicker haven't spent lengthy periods of time speaking to people associated with the previous losing Play Off finalists and finding out from them what it was which specifically lead to the following season's hangover so that we didn't make the same mistakes that they made. We don't leave anything to chance these days. If it can be planned, then we plan it.

I still think we're more than good enough to be up there battling it out at the top end of the division, and I'm convinced we will be. It's the most open that I've ever known it to be, and looking around at the other sides in the division, I don't see many sides that I would say were better than we are. Of course, there will be sides with better strength in depth, and those with more financial muscle to go and bring in a twenty five goal a season player in January just because they can.

But we've proved over and over again that we can match anyone and will do again this season. Hilly calls it over achieving. I call it having better players, having better management and having better motivation. We'll show that last season was no fluke, because it wasn't. It was typical of the 18 months of Hill and Flitcroft that we've lapped up with open arms. And paraphrasing one of Hilly's sound bites, there is absolutely nothing for us to fear this season.

Photo: Action Images

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