"We've sacked too many managers, so we shouldn't sack this one"

Any money spent on Wilkinson at our club is too much!

 

We were the lowest in the league when Hills was here. Can't remember ever seeing us as the highest

 

There was no clapping at the end of the Crewe game and yet a lot of us get pigeon holed as "happy clappers" for merely trying to support our team when the chips are down.

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I'm inclined to agree with all that, BUT;

1) We lose key players in these transfer windows, does that restart the building process? Does it reset the three windows?

2) Where do we draw the line for the 3 transfer windows? Are we happy to accept a slide into the fourth division?

 

In 50 years of supporting the club, I have never chosen to withdraw my support because of poor results, boring football or any other performance related reason. During all that time, I have only thought that two managers deserved to be sacked (McSeveney and Spackman). Yet, there must have been upwards of twenty managers sacked during that period. Johnny Steele was our manager for ten years. Even though he took the club down to the 4th division for the first time in its history, the board stuck with him because there was a shared sense of responsibility for the situation. The board had an understanding that the manager should not be faulted for everything that goes wrong in a football club. That does not mean that the supporters did not hold the manager responsible in the same way that they do today. They did. It means that the boards in those days were much stronger in resisting the pressures that the fans impose on them.

The reason that boards seem happy to sack the manager is not results. It is not even the calls to do so on social media sites such as this. It is because in the end, the revenue lost through supporters withdrawing their support is greater than the cost of sacking the manager. They ignore their own beliefs, they ignore the majority of the long term supporter base, they ignore a sensible logic that calls for patience and they listen to those who are prepared to stay away in order to get their own way. It is so illogical, it is so irrational and it is just so wrong. But that is what has happened ever since Danny Wilson left for the first time, and every time it happens fewer and fewer fans return to the club when a new manager is appointed, there is even less revenue, and the downward spiral continues.

Everyone has a right to spend their disposable income in any way that they want, but if you are presently considering withdrawing your financial support, I would ask you to consider very carefully your answers to the following questions. Based on your experience over the last 20 years, has changing the manager every year been right in the long term? Has it improved the club either on or off the field? Is it right that stay away supporters expect Patrick Cryne to commit millions of his money every year, but that they are happy to withdraw their financial support on a whim? What happens to the club when Patrick Cryne decides to walk away because he is not getting the support that he thinks he deserves? We would all feel much better if we were support a winning team, but is changing the manager the best way to achieve that.

As I said, I have been a supporter for 50 years, and my view of our current situation is coloured somewhat because the team was in a lower league when I took up supporting them seriously. However, I believe that if anyone devotes the time to expressing their views on here, ultimately it is because they want the best for something that they love . If you love the club, you can moan on social media as much as you like, but please, please, please keep going to games. Does it really make sense to you to destroy the thing you love.

 

Nobody expects PC to spend millions. In fact a hell of a lot of us wish he wouldn't and quite a number think it is an irresponsible thing to do.

 

A lot of sense in this post again Jay. If I were Cryne I'd go in tomorrow morning and assure him he won't be sacked in the near future and give him some encouragement to get things going again. Give him until Christmas next year at the earliest and let's see how we get on.

 

I understand what your saying but on a whim seems to be a bit disrespectful to folk who will think long and hard before deciding to pack it in. I`ve thought long and hard for the last couple of season and I`m still here but cant guarantee being a season ticket holder next Year. Not because of whoever is manager more the state of what Football has become and that's stale and not entertaining.

 

I think most fans just want to see a clearly talented side and manager play to their potential instead of being beaten by much more limited sides every other week in the third tier. Most fans just want to see the likes of Harris, Winnall, Crowley, M. Smith, Scowen, Pearson, Watkins et al make positive runs, pick the right pass once in a while and pressure teams into making mistakes, instead of choosing to slow the game down by electing to pass sideways/backwards every time they get near the box, which then puts pressure on the defence when the ball is lost.

What is limiting this set of players from doing the above and going out and winning games against Crewe/Southend/Donny and all the other games we've lost in a pathetic fashion this season? If Johnson can't get a multi-talented, apparently hungry young side to do the above then surely his position, after a certain amount of time, becomes untenable? If there are no signs of improvement then what argument is there for keeping the current manager?

I don't want to see Johnson sacked, I want him to do well. But so far, with a number of gifted players at his disposal, he's failing miserably. Lose on Tuesday and Saturday and I fear the worst for him.

 

I think you're massively overestimating the talent we have in the squad.

 

I probably am. Our defenders, for example, which people rave about but which then end up conceding twice a game. But I still think we've a better team than any of the sides we've lost to this season. Whatever the case, the bloke who brought most of them in is failing to get even remotely near the best out of them. Hence the unrest among some of the supporters.

 

Even if that means relegation?

 

Good question, I seriously can't see us being relegated but you never know I suppose. Would be very difficult to keep his job if we went down. I'll change it to keep him if we don't get relegated... But, if we're bottom at Christmas we should keep him to give him chance to turn it around.

 

Relegation would be completely unacceptable but then again some people on here would be happy if we plummeted into the realms of non league as long as we gave the manager a fair crack of the whip

 

So essentially the argument to keep him is "ah, it'll be all right". Or that somehow we're a sacking club. The truth is we're not particularly any worse than most others. The average tenure for a manager is around 1.25 years. In the Championship it's .8 of a year.

Johnson has been able to bring in his own players. He's had a decent period to embed his own philosophy - and we've all seen what that was. Yet despite that we're no better than last year, in a league that is of significantly worse quality. We gave Simon Davey time. At this point I'd be hard pressed to say he wouldn't be an improvement. Flicker and Hill may be doing well this year, but their task was to do well when we were in the Championship. They weren't good enough then, and as much as you may wish to delude yourselves otherwise, LJ isn't going to transform us into promotion contenders no matter how long he gets. It'd be like putting me in charge and saying that with enough time I'd get us into Europe. It's nonsensical.

But if you really want the damning evidence that "time" shouldn't be the be-all end-all, here you go:

Gillingham. Top of the league. Finished one place behind us last year. Appointed their manager a full 18 days before us.
Burton. Third. Promoted last season after we hammered them in the FA Cup. Only appointed their manager three months before LJ got the job.
Coventry. Fifth. Finished six places behind us last year. Appointed their manager six days after we did.
Sheff United. Sixth. Appointed their manager all of two months ago.