Wycombe Wanderers owner Rob Couhig has called the Chairboys’ failure to be in the promotion pack this season as ‘disappointing’ and that ‘it’s been hard to digest.’

The Adams Park club will finish in either eighth or ninth place this campaign, following last weekend’s 2-0 home defeat against Lincoln City.

The loss at the hands of the Imps means it is now mathematically impossible for Wycombe to enter the top six.

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And despite the season having mixed fortunes, Couhig firmly believes the future looks bright for the club.

Speaking on the failure of not achieving promotion, he told the Free Press and BBC 3 Counties: “It’s been disappointing.

“There’s no sugar-coating it, it’s not how I expected the season to end.

“I was pretty upfront at the beginning of the year that we had a reasonable chance of reaching the automatic places, and I certainly thought we would have been in the play-offs.

“It’s been hard to digest but we have to accept where we are.

“But we will always look at the positives.

"One of them being that for the first time since we have been affiliated with the club, we’ll have a legitimate off-season.

“We’ve already started preparing for next year, which should help our pursuit of enhancement a little bit easier.

“Remember, last year we finished the season at the end of May, and we were back in play at the end of July.

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“This time, we will have a bit longer and we’ll have a lot of time to put things to good use.”

It has been an eventful season for the Chairboys both on and off the pitch.

The campaign has seen an injury and goalkeeper crisis, the record sale of the club’s best attacker, the sudden retirement of the club’s most popular defender, a player collapsing on the pitch, and the exit of their long-serving manager.

This has been coupled with memorable results against Bolton Wanderers, Derby County, Ipswich Town, and Barnsley to name a few.

But with a clear off and pre-season, which will be Wanderers’ first since 2019, the American owner is positive for the future.

He continued: “I’m not a guy that uses excuses.

“But if I was, I would start back in August when our striker (Sam Vokes) got injured and he missed the first two months of the season.

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“There was a period of time we had something like seven of our outfield players missing due to injury.

"And it was the guys who would regularly start.

“This is a tough, competitive league, so when you have seven of your first team out, bad results will happen.

“We dug ourselves a hole and we never really got out of it.

“When we were getting out of it, Anis [Mehmeti] had an opportunity that he felt that he needed to take.

“That’s just part of the game, he took it, and it hurt.

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“We rebounded with that, but then Gareth [Ainsworth] felt that he needed to take the opportunity presented to him.

"And I think Matt [Bloomfield] has done a masterful job in taking over.

“I can’t put my finger on any one thing that caused us to be where we are, as we had one or two more hurdles to get over, but it certainly made things interesting.

“Next year will be our best year.”

The Couhigs have been affiliated with Wycombe since 2019 and bought the club in 2020.