She like her Udders Feeled....

Understand Gaffer.....but I have to say that my interest is on the rise but in a rubber necking kind of fascination....

How long can the Club/Evans/Milne keep feeding the fans bullshit and telling us its ambrosia that will taste better if you keep chewing.

 

Wouldn't blame him for going and I would wish him well.

 

Never mind Paddy Kenny's probably available.

 

If Mick is still here(rumours that he has been sacked which I don't believe) then I suspect he will chose Douglas to replace Bart.

 

I think any player we have that's decent would want out at the moment. Poisonous atmosphere, no investment in the team and poor management. It didn't take Tommy Oar long to figure it out and we were better when he joined.

It's funny the players I've thought about lately that were better than what we have. Norris crossed my mind the other day. Another headless chicken like Douglas but he did supply 5-9 goals a season. Anderson on the wing at least got crosses in occasionally. We've definitely gone backwards and we haven't had good players for a long time. A lot seem to be better after they've left though.

 

Exactly Scowey! All very depressing. When passionate and knowledgeable fans like us get disillusioned, utterly brassed off, and stop going, posting, sharing, enjoying the happy banter....that is SERIOUS!
I turned on and tuned in to the score just twice!
Where do we go from here? another post perhaps, but a 2 hr drive up to Lincoln will revive one's spirits!

 

The cupboard is bare and nobody that matters gives a damn, we've just over a week before the window closes and so far we've attracted the usual players that no one else wants but they are cheap!!
What a pathetic way of running a Club that's failing through decent players being sold and replaced with cheap dross or even free of charge rejects.
Get out of our Club Evans or show some intent, you could start by communicating with the fans instead of sending your pet poodle Milne, your " reclusiveness " smacks of arrogance and is an insult to the dwindling band of loyal fans. You are clearly not a " football man " because if you were you would not need to be told this, so please sell up and do what you're good at and allow new owners to invest in our Club to take us forward instead of this continuing decline to God knows where.

 

It's a catch 22 really, the players we really want to bring in probably would rather go elsewhere and who would blame them, so we have to settle for lower league players who see it as a big step up. And now that we've cemented our reputation for playing mostly bad football I can't see that changing any time soon.

Thanks Mick for saving us initially and for the play offs season, but now is the time to gamble and have a fresh start,

 

I think MM will be sacked but ME will hold on until the window is closed so he has six months before he has to send Milne out with the same old excuses......

 

We can only hope (if you dare as a Town fan to hope!) that there are negotiations going on in the background for MM's replacement.

 

If we are going to start hoping let's hope that the new owner will chose the new manager.

 

I can't say with any confidence that anything will change, certainly not anytime soon. Looking at the fixture list I can't see where the points are going to come from anytime soon.

 

Very sad to see so many aspects of a once fine Football Club shot to pieces.
At least I and several of us on here have been lucky to have witnessed the remarkable years.
Who would have believed we have stooped so low?!

 

You've got that right Scg, who would've believed it was possible from the euphoria of reaching the play offs such a short time ago to this disillusioned, angry, discontented, bunch of fans who are still loyal to the Club.
We see our best players sold for huge profits and replaced with garbage nobody else wants even in non league football, we see already inflated ticket prices rise still further to watch the inevitable decline in the standard of play and the poor results which go hand in hand with that decline, it's very sad and doesn't have to be that way but no one has the will to change it.
Those good times were sadly a long time ago and I can't see them ever returning especially with Evans as the owner of the Club.

 

Marcus Evans was at the match Saturday and left ten minutes early. When Mick was asked about this, he didn't know Evans was there. Now, considering Mick says how they have such a 'close relationship', surely that's a sign Evans is contemplating doing the sensible thing?

It sounds like McCarthy won't be here next season. He's not being backed in this transfer window (to be fair to him, has he ever?) If we're gonna sack him in the summer, we may as well part company now and let the new man have half a season with the squad. He might need time changing the style of play!

Supporters are embarrassed, fed up, and apathetic. I have no motivation to watch us at Portman Road or away from home. Enough is surely enough, McCarthy, you don't look bothered, do the honourable thing and resign.

 

Me! MM was the wrong appointment to start off with. People said he kept us up but im sure there were plenty other managers out there that would have also kept us up!

 

Fair comment Spanish!

 

Spanish Mick did a very good job for three years - out of relegation, top 10, play offs. He clearly wasn't the wrong appointment at the time however that's the past and right now Mick probably DOES need to go for the sake of us moving forward. I cannot see him turning it around, nor can many others so it would probably be better all around if he were to go.

The rest of this season feels like a very painful time and it appears very likely Mick will walk in the summer.

 

Get John MvGreal in, last time we poached a young Colchester manager it worked out okay!! Paul Lambert is doing pretty well at Wolves atm also

 

I agree with Westy's judgement regarding Mick's time here. He's a better manager than the last two clowns we hired and I'll appreciate actually having a play off season to celebrate (even if we did scrape through by the skin of our teeth).

He came in and prevented relegation (to be fair, most managers worth their salt would have done the same), he cleared out the mercenaries and has-beens from the club and generally replaced them with a better squad, and we've seen gradual year-on-year improvement (until recently) on a shoestring budget.

I think he's overstayed his welcome now. Longest serving manager in the Championship at the longest serving club in the Championship. Loyalty and long-term planning are short commodities in today's game, but the board cannot seriously believe that McCarthy is our future? I think we're all effectively in unanimous agreement that we need a change, so why bother persisting with him? Get a new man in as soon as possible to help the inevitable transitional phase as we hopefully introduce some semblance of a footballing ideology. I mean, look at it. McCarthy's tactics are antiquated. He is deliberately picking fights with the fans. He picks his favourites over in-form players. And he doesn't sound or look interested, and that's being reflected in the on-pitch performances.

Not that the players should be absolved of any blame, by the way. Yes, the general mood about Portman Road is negative, but there are some players that are performing well below expectations. A new manager should give them a boost. If not, they can play elsewhere. But this is ultimately a team made up of cast offs, loanees, and freebies (with a few exceptions). We've been punching above our weight for a few years now, I think we can all agree, but is this our natural position? I can accept we're not going to win every game and we're certainly not guarenteed a play off place, but come on! Let's see a bit of fight and passion on the pitch! Let's see some entertainment! Let's at least play a game of football and not get played off the park (TWICE) against a non-league team.

My real, long-term concern is with the board. Are they serious about promotion? We were second two years ago around the January transfer window and I still believe that a decent level of investment and recruitment drive would have plugged the squad gaps, at the time, and gave us a better shot at promotion. The harsh reality is that Marcus Evans does not seem bothered either. Yes, there is merit in being financially prudent. No, I don't want to see us end up the way of Nottingham Forest, Portsmouth, Coventry etc and blow money we don't have on players, only to see it backfire. But some of the bids we're supposedly putting in are laughable. Do we live in the modern transfer market? Are we aware that asking prices are going to be higher than what they were three/four years ago? That Ward lad from Rotherham, a proven Championship goalscorer and we offer £1m. That's chicken feed for a Championship striker in this day and age! Look at the clubs around us, and way above us, investing smartly and using player sales to get quality back into the team. We still haven't replaced Murphy!

In short, I'm frustrated and incredibly disappointed with how this football club is being run and how it is being set up to play games. I'm not protecting McCarthy, he should clearly go. Dropping the impressive Emmanuel for someone who hasn't played a competitive minute of football since last season and replacing Dozzell with Douglas in the second half when chasing the game were two momentously stupid decisions. Then there was the whole Lincoln debacle. What made it worst was that we were embarrassed on national television and didn't even field an attacking line-up (Skuse / Douglas and five defenders. Pull the other one!) I don't blame fans for wanting to stay away, I really don't. Not with that style of football, not with those tactics, not with some of those players on the pitch, and certainly not for those ridiculous prices!