I sit high above play in the east stand. Midway through the second half Eckerslike got the ball in the left back position and I looked up the line to see who he was about to pass to. There was a huge green hole with no-one (red or blue) in it. Howard was in centre midfield, as he was for much of the game because the 2 player playing there were losing their battle. Because they lost their battle the two forwards received very little quality ball and partly because he had little help from Howard, Eckersley was poor. So, the manager's poor choice of centre midfield pairing unbalanced the whole of the team. In view of the managers poor tactics, why do the anti Ritchie brigade (and particularly Johnny Coachman) continue to defend the sacking of Ritchie rather than question the wisdom of sacking a manager of proven success. Surely, this management game is not easy, after all there were only 3 successful managers in our division last year. You point out that Ritchie's team is of poor quality, so Ritchie deserves even more praise because he was successful with a poor side. All I hear in response is that he refused to strengthen. Unless you are tapping Gordon's phone, how pray do you know the truth of conversations reported by only one side.
