[Official Site] NEILL COLLINS DEPARTS OAKWELL

What do we really know? It might have been done to unite the TEAM for the final push

 

Confused on many levels and a lot about this doesn't make sense (to me).

However, we appointed a "Sporting Director" (link) in February who before today has offered zero communication - much like his mocked predecessor - and has today decided to break the ice and sack the head coach in the capacity of "Director of Football" (link).

What are you Mladen Sormaz? And is this your decision?

 

I think they’ll maybe end up in teams similar to ours some may end up in teams that get into the top 6 in league 1 - maybe Williams to Huddersfield for example if they come down or even if they stay up? / but I wouldn’t think the Huddersfield fans will be thinking he is one of their best players, if I was a Huddersfield fan and I was signing Jordan Williams if they stay up as their first choice I would fully expect to struggle.



What my initial point was though is we are 5th and what folk have been saying is that with the quality we have we should be doing better? What 1st/2nd?

I just think we’re about where we deserve to be with the quality of player we have. / And coach - don’t take me saying I don’t think the players are all top 6 league 1/ lower championship quality with me thinking Collins was good enough - he probably wasn’t but I just don’t agree we have a brilliant squad full of quality which has been touted in here

 

5 sackings I suppose that puts us on the low side and other than Daniel not many you could point to as wrong.

 

Don’t think you could say that sacking Stendel was wrong at the time. 1 win in 19 and no sign of getting a second one. I was gutted it didn’t work for him, but it was nailed on.

 

I loved Stendels promotion team but he had a lot of quality for league one

 

I always feel that to sack a manager there must be players out of the team who could improve it or a formation switch that he’s ignoring or a style of play that he’s ignoring.

I don’t think there’s any players who can argue they’ve not had a fair crack of the whip.

I don’t think the board would sack him for playing 3-5-2 when apparently they’re the ones who want us to play this way & of course we don’t have any wingers or pace at the back.

I don’t personally agree with others that Collins has been holding us back by playing at a slow tempo. From what I’ve seen when the game is end to end or played at a high tempo we tend to come off second best because most sides have bigger, stronger & faster players than ours. Our technically better players tend to do better in the second half of games when the opposition slow down & they have more time & space.

I’d also say that if half the team can’t be arsed anymore due to their futures lying elsewhere then what the hell is Martin Devaney going to be able to say to them to get them fired up?

I’m predicting the same as I did under Collins & that’s a victory on Saturday followed by a defeat in the play off semis.

That been said I hope I’m completely wrong & that we see a sudden upturn in fortunes.

 

I'd hope this is the case and the players were consulted, because if they really were behind him 100%, this would be too disruptive to deal with in such a short space of time.

 

I’m shocked to say the least.

 

I agree Gally. Something happened behind the scenes. Guess we'll never get to know what but Daturday presents a real opportunity now for the players to re-prove themselves, free of NC's overly cautious tactics.

 

I can only imagine the board of directors have talked to the players and come up with what they think is right for the players the fans and the club. We will never know,as for Collins goodbye and good luck for the future

 

This is the problem, we can churn through a head coach every week but if the players they're given aren't good enough it isn't going to make any difference.

 

Maybe some of them even think this is hilarious news!.
For me though this should be going up to the board room first as they are where the blame starts.
And does it really matter who they replace Collins with, because with them running the club as badly as they do, nothing is going to change.

 

And we had a significantly different team the next season (and much weaker).

 

Thing with stendel he was hung out to dry by conman, selling his top scorer and both center backs for peanuts then replacing them with no experience. He also had no plan b and attack attack attack and we just got picked off.

 

Yep Mark Kennedy, couple of points outside play offs and was sacked by lincoln and replaced by Skubula

 

Most of the squads are pretty poor in my eyes, or certainly lacking genuine quality, however the key point for me is decent coaches getting them to a point where the sum is greater than the parts. Plenty lacking individual quality but well drilled, with every player knowing their role etc etc. We look a million miles off that at times.

 

Pretty shocked at this. I wasn't a particular fan but personally I'd have given him to the end of the season. After all, 'twas only six days ago I saw us outplay the champions for 65-70 minutes and despite all the noise about his style of football we have actually outscored last season's team. I think he could have tried different formations and made more attacking changes in some of the games recently but fundamentally he's been let down all season long by being given defenders that can't defend. He should have at least tried two or three games without De Gevigney imho but other than untried rookie James he hasn't had much to play around with since Pines' injury.

Regards Saturday - if we get in to the play-offs, it'll look a genius move by the Board, if we don't then they've tried to cover their backsides and make it look like it's Collins' fault. The Board will still bear the larger part of the blame for me though if we don't.

Regards Early Bird - I may be the only one but if anything this has made me less likely to renew. I was 100% going to but this just sows a niggling doubt that the club is now being run as a reaction to the vile-mouthed cockwombles on twitter. I hope I'm wrong and there are some fundamental footballing reasons (who knows what) behind the scenes that meant that this move had to be made.

One last thought is that I'm assuming that this move means that the Board know the sanction or range of sanctions that will be applied to the outcome of the EFL investigation and that that sanction/sanctions does not include a points deduction this season. It would be bizarre to spend significant money on severance to Collins at this juncture, win the last game and then find that there's a deduction that puts us 7th.

 

Gobsmacking. And there we were taking the piss out of the massives for sacking Darren Moore and Birmingham for sacking 2 managers in a couple of months....

Barnsley, laughing stock of the EFL.