The people who have suggested Clarke should be sacked..

Am I the only one who thinks we’ve done pretty much as expected these past couple of seasons?

Good team but a few were better under Duff. Finished 4th. I think we had the 4th best team in the league.

Finished 6th with a slightly weaker team under Collins.

Looking like we’ll finish slightly lower with a slightly weaker team under Clarke.

I think the only reason plenty of fans are grumpy is our home form as on the pitch we’re doing pretty much as expected. It’d just be nice to swap the home & away form around.

 

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. Had our home and away games and results been switched, there would still have been grumbles about losing 4-0 to Orient, etc, but I think there would have been very few calls for his head, if any. Pretty much 100% of our match going fans attend home games, but less than 10% regularly go to away games. I suspect the latter are less inclined to call for his head than the former.

But, I have no doubt that had we lost these three games over Christmas, as many (me included) feared we may, there would have been a lot of pressure on him and on the board to swing the axe, and they may well have done so. I’m glad things haven’t turned out that way though. First and foremost isn’t life better when we win. We’ve played well the past couple of games, even though both games we’ve raised our eyebrows at the team selection. Could it be the manager knows more than us? Similar with this ‘throwing the players under the bus’ thing. It’s not something we’re used to seeing and it does seem wrong to be knocking them in public, but we don’t know the characters of the players and what the best way to motivate them is. And we don’t know what he’s saying to the players behind closed doors and on a one to one basis. I also dare say that if he was singing their praises in interviews after we’d just lost, people would attack him for that too.

Clarke’s an experienced manager. Our next manager has never managed before. We could do with him continuing to improve in his coaching and learning from the experienced manager before he takes over. And hopefully he needs to take over because the success of the existing manager has led to him getting a job much higher up the food chain, rather than because the club is plummeting down the league and he’s been sacked. The three first time managers in my lifetime who have been promoted from within and have then won promotion with us all got the job after the existing manager had moved on of his own accord. It’s much easier for them to move into the role if things are going right. Conor seems to be doing well. Our (attacking) set pieces have improved and the way that Adam Phillips pointed to the bench when DKD scored yesterday backs up the comments that Conor went through set piece routines with the team at half time.

Fingers crossed Clarke can turn our home form around, calm everybody down and Conor can keep learning and build his influence on the team. Conor can take over next year, when Clarke leaves to take the Man United job after guiding us to the top of the Championship. Although why he’s then want to leave us for a Man United team fighting relegation to League One is beyond me…

 

I think you're about right.

Because we've spent the longest in the second tier, folk think that's where we should be. Football has completely changed in the last 15 years in particular. We're about right I think.

 

I think we under performed under Duff. We had mads thomas and kitch in defence sold that summer for over 10million combined. Collins as a keeper who now plays in championship. Beat Wednesday twice convincingly. It was the slow start in the league and the strikers not scoring enough that cost us.

 

Not starting with Norwood in the final killed us.

 

But how do you stop that slow start? We had just been relegated & had quite a lot of player turnover that summer.

Phillips & Connell were new signings, Kane felt like one with the loan spell.

Cole, Norwood & Cadden were all new signings.

Norwood & Cadden looked overweight & unfit for the first month or two.

Kitching had looked every bit as bad as Moon the previous season in the championship.

Thomas didn’t join until January.

Going into that season there were only really Collins, Williams & Anderson who I’d argue the fanbase expected to hit the ground running. There was bound to be a settling in period.

Also, it would have took another 13 points for us to go up automatically which was a big jump & that Ipswich team was something special. When they came to our place near the end of the season they were as good of a team that I can remember seeing at league one level.

 

Cole wasn't a new signing. And you could argue the same with the stendel squad in 2019 a mix of new players and once deemed not good enough by previous managers.

Kitching wasn't great he never looked as bad as moon though come on. The kid cost us every game he played.

One of the biggest problems was we had Cole who I think scored more than any Wednesday player than we had Norwood 2nd top scorer who 3 or 4 Wednesday players scored as many or more than Gregory, Smith, windass and the loans of tedic and watters didnt bring many goals

 

How many of those 13 points were at the end of the season? I seem to remember us in contention with games in hand.

 

I think we drew away at Lincoln who were in really good form at the time & then lost to Ipswich who were pretty special that night.

I think we were shafted with the Ipswich game though. They got it called off for 3 international call ups when they only had 2. It should have been played right in the middle of that spell of home games where we blew Wednesday, Plymouth, Derby & Pompey away.

We’ll never know whether it would have made a difference or not but our form was better & there’s wasn’t as good around the original date it should have got played. If we win that it’s a 6 point swing & there might have been a few nerves.

 

There wasn’t much turnover with the Morais - Stendel season.

I thought Kitching was nearly as bad as Moon that championship season. I don’t think I was alone either. Very few expected Kitching to improve like he did.

Completely forgot Cole was signed whilst Ismael was still manager. To be fair to me he did have a good go at playing hide & seek that season!

You’re definitely right we could have done with more goals from our back up forwards but we did hold pace with the top sides for the majority of the season after the first couple of months.

 

Just had a look at the results & we lost to Exeter who were our bogey team that season. They bet us home & away & we’re fully deserving of the points in both games.

Then we lost to Burton with the disgraceful handball decision. We should have had a pen & they should have had a man sent off at 0-0.

We drew 4-4 at MK Dons & lost to Peterborough on the last day but we were resting players for the play offs by then.

 

I kind of wanted him gone after Huddersfield away.

Whilst still not convinced I can’t honestly say I want him out right now. We’ve just had 2 very good away wins (performance as well as result by the sounds of it). It would be madness to want him out at this very moment in time.

I did temper my ‘Clarke out’ thoughts by saying we could really do without any more disruption. So whilst I have changed my tune a little there’s an element of splinters in my back side on both sides.

We have to turn our home form around though. It’s doing serious damage off the field as well as to the league table. Tomorrow is must win for me. Wrexham are nowt special. There I’ve said it.

 

Why don't we adopt the same tactics we employ away from home. Problem I've noticed in some of our home performances is we set off like a bull at a gate and get disheartened when we've thrown the kitchen sink at opposition and its amounted to nothing. Then after the storm is weathered we're hit with a sucker punch.

 

Clarke to Plymouth?

 

I can't see it, they need someone with experience at that level to try and turn them around.

 

Keep the faith, C,O,Y,R.

 

I agree wi thi mate