Williams Signs On

Robbie Williams has signed a 1 year contract with Argyle. He played 30 times last season, scoring twice.

Isn't a great player, but he is quite steady and defends well. His left footed set pieces also give us an extra edge.

I think we may also have a chance of sponsoring him

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I'm not sure I can contain myself with this sort of euphoria...

According to Errington in the Herald, Fletch is 'relaxed' about the fact that there are no new signings imminent - because he already has 22 players signed up.

Yes Carl you have 22, but how many of those 22 have the necessary quality to make this season anything other than a painful bore?

I reckon 4 or 5 tops!

Robbie gets skinned a lot by opposing wingers especially when we are playing away.Teams seem to target him.On the plus side he does take a good free kick.

bring on The Flood of haters who will ensure Williams Never Forgets that he is rather chubby...

How exciting!

The reason most don't like this is because everyone has already had a share of popping at the current squad and desperately need a new face to have a go at before a ball is kicked in anger. It's no fun otherwise.

Neutral on this one. Good at times but equally a bit rubbish at times.

I guess he hasn't had any other offers then, we could sponsor him...as long as he promised to come along and sing at the freak meets.

I thought williams was sponsered by KFC.

This signing fills me with dread. Robbie Williams was a Peter Reid "Hobsons Choice" of a signing when basically he and us forfilled a mutual need ie there was no way in the world he'd of got another league club and we were 92nd on the pecking order of transfers for football league clubs.
Now we are lead to believe that we have a competitive wages budget and rather than parting company with a non league player we are giving him another contract! At least Berry is 10 years younger (with the potential to get better and god knows that cant be difficult after his start of last season) but Williams is 30 and isn't A) Get any better or B) Lose the couple of stone he's carrying. So why on earth are we resigning him

fridgey wrote:

This signing fills me with dread. Robbie Williams was a Peter Reid "Hobsons Choice" of a signing when basically he and us forfilled a mutual need ie there was no way in the world he'd of got another league club and we were 92nd on the pecking order of transfers for football league clubs.
Now we are lead to believe that we have a competitive wages budget and rather than parting company with a non league player we are giving him another contract! At least Berry is 10 years younger (with the potential to get better and god knows that cant be difficult after his start of last season) but Williams is 30 and isn't A) Get any better or B) Lose the couple of stone he's carrying. So why on earth are we resigning him

Because that is the level at which we are looking to recruit - i.e. the 'pretty shit' level.

At least we have a big flag!

Czarcasm wrote:

fridgey wrote:

This signing fills me with dread. Robbie Williams was a Peter Reid "Hobsons Choice" of a signing when basically he and us forfilled a mutual need ie there was no way in the world he'd of got another league club and we were 92nd on the pecking order of transfers for football league clubs.
Now we are lead to believe that we have a competitive wages budget and rather than parting company with a non league player we are giving him another contract! At least Berry is 10 years younger (with the potential to get better and god knows that cant be difficult after his start of last season) but Williams is 30 and isn't A) Get any better or B) Lose the couple of stone he's carrying. So why on earth are we resigning him

Because that is the level at which we are looking to recruit - i.e. the 'pretty shit' level.

Indeed! There I was naively hoping we had moved up from pretty shit signings to simply piss poor ones!!! On the upside, if there is room for overweight 30somethings in the side I may well pop up and have a word with Flecth....

Is there any chance that Williams actually had an option of one year extension. I can't quite make out why Fletcher doesn't think that Argyle couldn't get better than Williams.

I CONTINUE TO BE UNDERWHELMED.

Last season Reid didn't have any money and had to take whoever he could get just to put a team out at the start of the season.


Now we're celebrating the fact that we've managed to resign these little gems?



Have I missed something?

Only Argyle would scramble to re-sign 'players' who were responsible for us being rooted near the bottom of L2 all season.

Our nosedive down through the football pyramid has some way to go yet

Whilst I'm not exactly bursting out all over with glee so far with the signings or lack of them I still do think people are re-writing history at times.

The team ended up near the bottom of the league last season. However the first quarter of the season was spent with mainly kids in the side who simply were not good enough. Not altogether their fault havng been necessarily thrown to the wolves. Players were then brought in and over the course of the next quarter of a season became much harder to beat which, if they were to stay in the league was essential. The current squad plus a couple of loanees had in essence about half the season to get out of trouble. They did it having been written off by a lot of people both in Plymouth and probably the rest of the country. Statistically had they had that form for the whole of the season they would not have been rooted to the bottom.

It was often said that Argyle lacked one or two players of quality in a couple of areas. Not that there was a huge amount wrong with the players we had. They are more or less in the same situation now lacking a couple of players. Without having to play catch up this coming season who knows what they can achieve but I cannot see it is completely fair to blame this squad for what happened last term altogether.

Argyle did lack one or two players of quality in EACH position I think would be a fairer assessment, and Robbie Williams doesn't really strengthen us at all.

The 25-1 best price on offer with 2 or 3 bookies for us to win the league some thought wasn't bad, because the odds would shorten as our squad got stronger.

Here are the latest best odds and although the highest price is still 25-1, this price is now available with 9 different bookies so our odds have drifted at many bookies, and they are rarely wrong.

Ladbrokes and William Hill and Blue Square have us as 14th, 15th and 16th favourite for the league!

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Money makes favourites jock. The bookies only offer odds at the start to tempt the mugs to chuck a few quid their way. If everyone bet on Argyle and nobody else then Argyle would be well odds on. Favourites statistically do not win the majority of bets.

And these odds show that we are not thought of anything better than 11-17th place finishers to any bookie in the land.

Money makes favourites, but this shows that there isn't a soul in the land who thinks we could be challenging for promotion. Maybe in a couple of years or so then eh?

Was just pointing out that odds don't always dictate how results end up. There probably aren't many who think we could go up let alone as champions but there again I doubt many thought Blackpool would get to the prem either that season.

I used to have a punt once upon a time but mainly on horses due to my dad being in racing in his early years. Have a photo of him with the St Ledger winner at Newmarket in 1941 holding the reins in the winners enclosure as the Lad who looked after Sun Castle. Just think he might have been a Lester Piggott if the war hadn't happened. I did learn after a while though that betting on anything was a mugs game.

Anything can happen SG, and bookies occasionally get it wrong, but not often and that's why betting is a mugs game.

I would still be pretty confident of Rotherham, Fleetwood, Bristol Rovers, Chesterfield and Oxford being pretty much the main contenders for League 2 champions, and Argyle being a mid-table at best side. That's not what I expected for this season, and not what a "competetive budget" should be getting you in League 2.

The only way to get us out of this shit-hole league is to rip the guts out of this squad and invest in some better quality players. I hope to God I am wrong, but I have afeeling we're going to be part of the League 2 furniture for a good while yet.

After the last 3 years I've given up expecting too much anyway. Bookies are clever and know the cliental. Most football punters have a feel for a favourite of their own but can't resist a little side punt at least on their own club. That's where the bookies make a killing.

We are all hoping the season goes better than most of us truthfully expect it to. There again life is made up of hope mostly.

Sensiblegreeny wrote:

Whilst I'm not exactly bursting out all over with glee so far with the signings or lack of them I still do think people are re-writing history at times.

The team ended up near the bottom of the league last season. However the first quarter of the season was spent with mainly kids in the side who simply were not good enough. Not altogether their fault havng been necessarily thrown to the wolves. Players were then brought in and over the course of the next quarter of a season became much harder to beat which, if they were to stay in the league was essential. The current squad plus a couple of loanees had in essence about half the season to get out of trouble. They did it having been written off by a lot of people both in Plymouth and probably the rest of the country. Statistically had they had that form for the whole of the season they would not have been rooted to the bottom.

It was often said that Argyle lacked one or two players of quality in a couple of areas. Not that there was a huge amount wrong with the players we had. They are more or less in the same situation now lacking a couple of players. Without having to play catch up this coming season who knows what they can achieve but I cannot see it is completely fair to blame this squad for what happened last term altogether.

The team that wasn't good enough was also led by Captain Fletch, the man who is so fekn loyal he activated a clause in his contract to continue playing. He couldn't quit playing quick enough once the managerial role was secured. 1 point from 9 games followed a quick couple of victories over Maccs & Dags tell me enough about his captaincy. He doesn't give fk!

Recently he stated he only wanted players who want to be here. Williams doesn't care where he is, Fletcher's goal would only appear to be not relegated next season. Enjoy the 4k crowds.

I must be totally fair and say that Robbie Williams put in some better performances over the second half of the season [except against Cheltenham,when he was shocking].He's pretty good on the ball,not a bad left peg at all,but a bit slow on the turn and not really that quick over the ground.Wouldn't expect him to start the season as long as Bhasera is still at the club but he did keep Bhas out of the team on merit last year for a while,so maybe it's not such a bad deal to have him in the squad.