I don't see any harm to James Maddison's development if he were to be started tonight. Let's not forget he was playing senior football at Coventry last year and has had half a season in Scotland, he has that experience of senior football, so it's less of a gamble with him.
In the interest of fairness, Martin returned from injury at the beginning of January when we went on our good run of results, so I'm not sure the evidence is conclusive, though I do think that Jonny would make a good captain.
I agree Suffolk and Pritchard's knock at the end of Saturday's match may give him the chance, though I think it's more likely to be from the bench.
I agree that when Martin plays at CB we are generally a poorer side and leadership on the pitch seems to be much better when he isn't playing. From memory we also seemed to play better when Tettey was not playing. What I disagree with is that we have played to our full potential at any point this season, even when we were top.
Agree with this - had we done so, we'd be top 3 by now, not languishing 24 points off the leaders and 9 outside the play off slots
He SHOULD have gone before Xmas and with this pathetic board, it wouldn't surprise me if we're closer to relegation than promotion and he's STILL in charge this Xmas!!!
Well looking around at the clubs which did sack their managers, Bruce's 'new manager bounce' has taken Villa down to 15th in the table, Zola has taken Birmingham down to 17th and Lambert has taken Wolves down to 21st, one point above relegation. I can't see that much to recommend it really.
Interesting point Rick. From our perspective, not sacking our manager has seen us drop from League Leaders in September to 8th and out of it six months later. Would a change of manager in December have provided a different trajectory ? We'll never now will we ?
To not play Maddison or Godfrey in that game, to only bring on past it Bassong for a young attacker and leave those young prospects sat there! Makes me more angry and frustrated that the result and performance. I'd feel less depressed with a 1-1 there, if Maddison, Godfrey, and both Murphy's would have started. But the thing is, they probably would have won that game with them in.
We can only speculate OCF. We certainly wouldn't have sacked him when we were top of the table or even when we were still in the play-offs. Had we sacked him in December would we have had the revival in January? Hard to know really.
Hold on lets not forget PL relegation. Changes of manager have certainly kept teams in the PL in the past that had looked almost certain to get relegated before the change. Look what a change of manager has done for Leicester & Swansea this season and Sunderland, Palace & West Brom in the recent past. To be fair to Bruce, Lambert & Zola they haven't had anywhere as long as AN has had to sort things out. What about Leeds seemed to change there manager every other week at one point, seems to be working out okay for them now. Not that I'm suggesting we follow the Leeds model.
At the start of the season most posters were of the view that he should be given a couple of months to sort things out, not unreasonable. It was blatantly clear after 2 months that things were not right. Yes we'd accumulated a decent amount of points, but our performances were general poor and there was virtually no evidence to suggest AN was learning from experience. We should have sacked him then and given a new manager time and a transfer window to try and sort things out before the parachute payments run out. We didn't there's too much sentimentality at the club, far too often the heart rules the head, which is one of the reasons why we're stuck with so much deadwood that is stifling younger player development and we take forever to sack underperforming managers.
Of course it is all speculation, but I believe yes (Obviously dependant on what poor sap took the job). A new manager might have moved on to actually troubling the odd team in the top half of the table. Might have found some consistency that Neil has obviously failed to do. As for January's revival, what is it now 5 games without a win? 3 points from the last 15! Abject capitulation vs a direct rival for the playoffs. I can't garantee it would get any better, certainly not straight away, but a change would at least give hope that better things may come. With Neil it is pretty hard to think better the Devil you know! And on the flip side you also have some successes to varying degrees; Leicester (early days I know), Swansea the second time, Derby, Blackburn. Has he been sacked yet? Bah!
Agreed Rick and there are two sides to every argument. Let's not also forget that after the Wolves 'Chinese Yake Away' they spent quite heavily and also had the cash from the sale of Afobe - all to no avail. What rankles me (and it seems MOST other posters) is that the 'spine' of the squad - ie the oldies, are obviously past it as they have shown over the past few weeks with their meagre points haul against some of the league's bottom teams; but AN, despite his soundbites, REFUSES to play the youth players who MIGHT get us out of this mess!!! As FML says below, I was LIVID when I saw Bassong come on as our only sub last night!! Pretty accurate summary canario!!!
It's good to see someone being honest and not calling people disrespectful names for having a different opinion. There are a few on here who are allowed to call me and RBF some insulting names for seeing things in a different light, whereas if we return the favour, we are warned and threatened with being banned!
