In simple percentage terms...

Yeah it disgusts me when these well paid players, under perform so disappointingly like this.
They are the ones who should take more (maybe not most, but more) of the blame.
We know they are capable of much better, and I've thought all season long that they have the potential.
But we just keep seeing the same nonsense don't we... sack Clarke because its all his fault etc.

 

Equal blame across the lot.

 

55% recruitment
45% coaching

What I don't know for certain yet is where I allocate the blame within the 55% figure. Logically, it points largely to Mladen, but I don't know how constrained he is by the ownership in that regard. My perception is that he's been largely responsible for two poor transfer windows and the recruitment of DC, but it's not sole responsibility and I don't know enough at the moment to be totally certain on this.

The fundamental flaw I see in the Board's thought process is that they've become too reliant on not selling our best players and allowing them to devalue as their contracts run down. They sell this as a positive (and in general it should be when it could make a difference in terms of promotion prospects) but this window should have seen Connell or Phillips sold, and investment made on new recruits with some of the proceeds. I think we could have accepted that far more than what was actually delivered, largely via last minute loan deals.

The players are not blameless within this, but ultimately the responsibility for that lies with either recruitment or coaching, which is why there are only two categories on my blame list.

 

Clarke 20% despite the fighting talk, does himself absolutely no favours at all.

Mladen 40% responsible for implementing a terrible style of play with his methodology, following it up with poor recruitment.

Board 40% constantly flushing funds down the toilet, haven't ever got the club by the scruff and haven't had a hands on approach, happy to watch us tread water without a strategy for this level.

 

If we asked our Statistics driven DOF he would say: 80% coach, 20% board 20% players

 

Board 80%
Clarke 10%
Players 10%

The recruitment team gave Clarke the players.

It’s my opinion that the players aren’t good enough or flexible enough to revert to another formation.

Different manager would have the same outcome.

 

This is a futile exercise. It's going nowhere. We need to accept that we are a better than average EFL 1 side. Constantly changing the head coach gets us nowhere. Successful teams tend to keep their head coach for at least three seasons. We can't get new owners without a benevolent godfather and the board won't resign because they need to protect their investments hoping someone is daft enough to buy their shares. So what does the blame game that seeks to to sack all and sundry get us?
Nixo di plonko.

 

Yeah I agree he's not blameless in all of this, and some of his decisions are just unbelievable.
He's now blaming the players again in interviews, which really comes across badly, and I wish he'd do this privately.
But whether he should do this or not, he is right what he says. This however leads to the threat of him 'losing the dressing room' etc, where they might refuse to put the effort in anymore.

 

This is a no-win situation though. We didn't sell our best players near the end of their contracts last January; failed to get promoted, and lost out on transfer fees. If we had sold, this would have been given as the reason for missing out on promotion, which we now know it wasn't. This window is the same. It's a tough decision, which is really only clear with hindsight.

 

Would we notice the difference?

 

The worst thing for me is - with the honourable exception of Neerav and a couple of the players (Luca, Mael, Marc Roberts) - pretty much everyone involved are pretty unlikeable people as well. Makes it even harder to get behind them when they aren't particularly people that i'd want to have a beer with.

Anyway, Clarke 40%, Board 40%, coaching staff 10%, players 10%.

 

Ho ho ho, the old ones are the worst ones aren't they.

 

Players need to take a long look in the mirror. Totally inept in the first half and turned up in the second half. When I thought we were the better side. Clarke needs to get a settled side. We also cannot compete against any side who don't let us settle. We were pressed when we had the ball and they were given the freedom to play when they had the ball.
During that second half we had plenty of the ball but they defended in numbers. And well organised.

 

The board has been shocking but Clarke also has a lot to answer for. Let’s take Stevenage for example, how many players from there squad would you swap for ours. What the hell do they do in training all week, yes the board needs to take a lot of the blame but to give Clarke a get out of jail card is criminal. But the board are to blame for bringing an out of depth head coach in.

 

Never in a million years are the board to blame only twenty per cent.

If Clarke was that bad you have to consider who employed him in the first place!

 

The people running the club are the main problem.

I don’t care what level of football you play at, whether it’s professional, Sunday league, even 5 or 7 a side you need runners. People to stretch the opposition & create the space for others.

We’ve got one at the club in Max Watters & that’s it.

Go through every other midfielder & attacker, Phillips, DKD, Humphrys, Russell, Jalo, Cosgrove etc. they all want it played into their feet.

It’s no good having talented midfielders if they’ve no one to pass to.

It’s a massive failure in recruitment.

After Cole went last summer we should have replaced him & we should have got a winger or two in.