Do People Still Believe

Yes.

 

I'm with Wenger on this subject!

 

You mean on the fence?

 

No I'm slightly on Hills side but completely confused as to why?

 

You are not the only one thinking that mate.
I am and have always be ambivalent to him, never liked his interview technique or his constant deriding of some fans, but he is not the worst manager we have had, but nowhere near the best either. His voice is irritating to me too, have I ever mentioned that??

 

Erm no I don't recall you bringing that up

 

If you could convince me that changing the manager and keeping the budget the same has any chance of being a successful strategy, then I would say, let give it a go. The problem is that football supporters seem to believe in fairies. Against all the evidence, that in the end, a bigger budget equates, most of the time, to a higher league position, most believe that the manager is the telling factor. This manager was brought to the club because the owner wanted a manager who could buy from the lower league, develop and sell on and thereby generate the funds that are not available to the club because the town is not prepared to fund the club properly by attending games in higher numbers. If the strategy remains, then we must expect the team to struggle for the forseeable future, because we are reliant upon that strategy bearing fruit in the development of players that we can sell in order to build a better team. That is the realism of life for a small town football club, particularly in these days of foreign investors being prepared to throw cash at second tier clubs in the hope that they will reach the Premiership promised land.

So what evidence have we got that changing the manager will save us from relegation if the strategy does not change. "We have to do something" and "things cannot get any worse" are not strategies, they are merely the mantras of the desperate. Has it helped in the past. Have other clubs in our position been successful. Before you answer, remember, the question includes the phrase "without changing the strategy". Have you any evidence to suggest that the next appointment will be better than the last. Remember, "he can't be any worse", is not an answer. The fact is that every manager since Danny Wilson has either resigned by mutual consent, been sacked or walked because the budget was insufficient. The fact is that the club has had too many managers, since Danny Wilson, and the reason for that is that the supporters want it that way. And the reason is, the year in the Premier league has given supporters an over-optimistic opinion the club's place in the pecking order. Supporter pressure on the owner will eventually tell. It always does. But more fool the owner for that. It is always time to stop the merry-go-round after the next appointment, but I for one think that it is now that the merry-go-round has to stop. When the going is hard, because it is dead easy to stop the merry-go-round when the going is easy. It just never lasts, that is all, as Andy Ritchie can testify.

I noticed last week that you told everyone that Keith now had a good squad. I was the only one who disputed that two players who cannot get a game at Forest and a striker from a club in a lower position than ours, who has scored in only one game this season, qualified as top class additions to our squad. But you needed to convince everyone that it was a good squad so you could isolate Keith from the strategy and pile all the blame for any defeats on him. Your campaign to get Keith the sack has a number of converts this week, and you may well be successful, but rest assured that if the next manager does equally badly, I shall be the first to remind people who organised the campaign for Keith's dismissal on here. As I have said before, your actions remind me of head-tennis-gate, the campaign to get rid of Andy Ritchie.

 

With the absence of any alternative suggestions...I can't think of any

 

The campaign against AR was started by who?

What Keef needs to realise is that we need to play in a more direct fashion and drop done of the passing for passing a sake.

 

Tl;dr

Small budget means buying poorer players, it does not excuse leaving out your best players and playing people out of position.

 

Football is full of opinions, who is good and who is not, who is best in this position and who is best in that, whether this system is better than that. Ultimately, it does not matter because whoever the manager picks, whatever positions they play, and whatever system he utilises, the other managers in the league will analyse our team's weaknesses and plan to exploit them, and analyse our team's strengths and try the counter them. In the end, the manager can do only so much, and only for so long. In the end it is about the quality of the players. Until Christmas last year, our team contained three players who were sold for £2.5m. Many said that Butterfield and Vaz Te were worth far more than the figures they were sold for. Can somebody point out for me the three players in our mid-field now who are worth that kind of money, and then argue that it is all Keith's fault because he has the players and it is just his wrong selections, poor tactical appreciation or inability to motivate that are the sole reasons for our poor current performance.

 

Spot on pal, you have put my thoughts into words much better than I could have.

 

No, but I reckon a few could do worse.

 

Red Rain, do you think Chelsea had the sixth best team/squad in the Premiership last season?

 

Please explain.

 

Thing is the squad on paper isn't bad.

The bizarre constant team selections and tactics are why the results aren't there.

Only one person can take responsibility for that.