Manfred Archie Mac Gerbil, on 20 March 2024 - 09:06 AM, said:
No I wouldn’t have been happy with anything less than first in the league tbh, player injuries and fixtures pile ups are 2 of the drawbacks of success at this level but we were flying in the league when we fielded the youth team at Welling and I’m sure Cook could have found us something in the loan market to adequately cover for any potential injuries.
Don’t you think the fact we’ve now got 7 games with nothing to play for proves that the FA Trophy was there for the taking, the remainder of the season is just gonna be exhibition football now with the players minds on their summer holidays, I don’t begrudge them this btw, they’ve earned it but it just seems really strange that competitive football has ended in March.
Cook has said himself that in hindsight we could have been competitive in the Trophy, however at the time we were only 4 points clear at the top, we'd recently lost at Solihull and then fought back to win 3-2 in the return game, followed by a very proud last minute defeat to Watford and a victory over a ravaged Gateshead team.
Nobody could foresee that we would win the next 5 in a row with the couple behind us faltering so much that we built what has turned out to be an unassailable lead
The right decision was made at the time
In hindsight back in 1996 we could have put a scratch side out against Bury in the 1st Round and be done with the Cup for that season and possibly have pushed for promotion to the Championship