So long Martin, I'd like to say it's been nice, but it hasn't. In fact it's been sodding awful. Now **** off and pass my club onto someone who can coach us into winning a couple of games before Christmas. The guys time must be up. And to think Mo even went back to him after he'd mugged us about the previous season. God, it makes me so angry
Agree Fullhaman,pay Jol off Bring in Billy Mc Kinley till the early New Year,analyse his performances,and if need be get, shot of some of our under performing Prima Donas. We must and should preserve our premiership status,I amongst others,were hoping for a great season, what top 7 finish,cup, league cup,good Euro run.
the football has been dire - thats true. QPR being a smokescreen as they were awful on the day. Seriously who have we played? Man City home - we did well to come from 2 down but the rest has been pony. Jol saying we should have won today is all very well but when we scored to make it 1 all there was no shape, no leadership we went into a shell and should have wrapped the game up. To blame it on Gygera having to come off for me is a poor excuse. Murphy hit the post but that was it, it took a piece of super skill by Ruiz after 70 minutes to score - it take us far too long to create chances to score. We must be the slowest team in the PL. We have zero pace and never ever score on the counter attack, exactly why we dont win away games. Not good enough.
You're being ridiculous, he needs until Christmas at least. Last year we were in the bottom three going into the new year having lost to West Ham at home, and we stuck with Sparky, and look where that took us. And which Messiah do you suggest we sign up? Martin O'Neill? Ancellotti? Maybe we can tempt Mourinho away? I remember you writing off Ruiz after 45 minutes of football, which is almost as absurd as this. Like I said, if we're in a similar/worse position come Boxing Day, then we have a case for giving him the push.
getting rid of Jol and bring in McKinley sounds madness and desperate. For me Bobby missed the sitter, the whole team dropped their heads lost concentration and they scored - Saha always does late against us. I said it previously I don't think any of the players are on form right now. Wigan is crucial and a game we can win but we don't win away, its difficult. We shouldn't be calling for his head just head but I am sure Mo is getting ready. At least Ruiz paid some back today.
Not absurd. Sparky actually knew what he was doing and I never called for his head. I was soory he went, although how he went annoyed me. It was clear he could get results and could adapt plans as necessary. Jol can't and doesn't. Leave it until boxing day and we are done for. Clear out the dross now and give ourselves a chance. As for Ruiz, what's he ever done to impress? He's scored 1 goal, big deal. You wait - another Marlet in the making. And I didn't write him off, the british press did. I simply reported (and agreed with) their comments. No idea who we should sign up. I'm not after a messiah, I don't want MoN or anyone like that, just someone who is a competent manager, it won't be a star name, our managers never are are nor would I want us to have one - all I know is whoever we sign will be better than Jol. Let McKinley do it on a caretaker basis. What have we got to lose?
You say 'what has ruiz done?' but he has had very little time to impress. Look at how many quality players have taken a year or 2 to crack the premier league. Edin Dzeko and Mario Ballotelli demonstrated this today did they not, both being poor last year and fantastic this season. To say ruiz is marlet in the making is utterly absurd, especially after such a good goal today. To sack a manager in october is utterly ridiculous, Jol's task of managing a team with limited resources and an ageing squad, balanced with Europe and trying to improve a shocking away record is not easy is it. As bidley said, who that's currently out of work would want to take the job? Were surely not deluded enough to think O Neil or Ancelotti would come are we?
Will come good, Ruiz showed some skill today. Same story last year under Hughes. We were playing well but no results! Still time and is a crazy league this year! COYW
I wasn't suprised to read such a thread tonight but for me it is far too early in the season to be letting any manager go. Today's game was a funny one we so nearly won it at teh end and three minutes later we are down 3-1. Ruiz showed again promising stuff and his goal was skillful. I thought Everton wanted it more today and we might have suffered again from post European tiredness although I agree we did rest players and so that should not be the case. We have some tough games now coming up but I say we keep with it. Our play has not been awful. I'm confident we will start seeing results but I think there is some more pain to come. I want to be on record as being still fully behind MJ - as I was MH this time last year. COYW
I'm the same as Fulham COYW, I was pro-Hughes this time last year and I'm still pro-Jol. October isn't too soon to sack a manager, but it's too soon to sack one in his first season with the club. The biggest problem we've got is, as someone above said, the lack of pace in the team. Apart from that, there have been several games where we haven't got the result that our performance merited. All this from a team, for the second season running, getting used to a new manager and a new way of doing things. Jol will come good, as will Ruiz. Keep the faith!
Interesting ideas in this post. I agree with some, particularly those wanting to wait until at least Christmas before finding a new manager. But I don't think the problem lies with the manager, and here's why: A) We went through this fiasco last year with Hughes. He tried to impose his own philosophy on the team and we started the 2010/2011 season very poorly. Many of us, including me, blamed Zamora's injury and the late introduction of Sparky as the teams new manager. But I'm now convinced that wasn't the real problem. I think our players did to Hughes the same thing the Liverpool players did to Roy Hodgson - they closed ranks quietly and refused to go along with the new style he was trying impose on the team, not so much in open rebellion, but in a de facto strike. Instead of giving it their all and adopting his system, the players went through the motions, not giving 100%. By Christmas last year, Hughes had had enough and essentially told the players: "OK, do as you want" and let them return to training and playing the way Roy taught them. Realizing he wasn't going to be able to stamp his mark on Fulham with this set of players, Hughes quit at the end of the season, as if to say, "let someone else deal with this group of people." B) Our away form - How could a team that's generally so strong at home be so poor on the road? But not just poor ... beyond poor; uninspired, unmotivated, undisciplined, uninterested. To me, points A) and B) point to a prevailing problem with attitude and desire amongst the players. Worse than that, I believe the team members believe their bigger and know better than Jol (and Hughes). It stands to reason that if the same problems persist from year to year with a team, despite changing managers, the problem lies with the players, not the leadership. I bet that if you asked Martin Jol right now which players of the starting 11 he'd like to keep - he'd probably say none of them. Changing managers won't fix this.
DR, interesting point you are making. Definitely we have a few characters in there that they have an opinion on everything (i.e. Zamora and Murphy). Jol definitely needs Murphy on side as he is the longest serving of all and captain. On the other hand Ray is still with him and will have a good idea of the team's dynamics. I think Jol is determined to have his way and probably strong backing from the board. Then he should try and bag as many points as possible and get rid off whoever he thinks is causing this attitude problem. Can't believe it's all the first team.
Jol has had 21 matches in charge. Of these we have won 7. Of which 6 have been in the Europa League against some pretty poor opposition. League 1 at best. His win record is 30% for all competitions and 11% for the premier league on it's own. 21 games is over half a season in real terms so it's not like he hasn't had a fair crack of the whip. Let me make an anaology for you - if you had a car which failed to start 89% of the time you'd get rid of it, wouldn't you? You would do this regardless of the time of year or how long you had had it for. You'd just decide to cut your losses and not spend any more money on it (unless you had a a thing for the AA person). Well, Jol is that car which fails to start 89% of the time. Far too soft hearted some of you on here. Decisiveness is what is required. The trouble with leaving him in situ until December is by that time we will be so far into the mire that no one will want to come and take over. At the moment we may be able to tempt someone who is currently employed away from their post with the promise of european football.
DR - if your point A is true, and your post is extremely plausible, then we won't have to sack him - he'll do it himself when he realises that no one wants or likes him. Hopefully he will come to this realisation within the next few days. Our away form has been bad for years, right from the Coleman era and the team has changed beyond all recognition since then. It is difficult to imagine that the attitude you suggest would percolate down through several iterations of FFC's 1st team squad.
Fulhaman, I would say the car is the team and Jol the mechanic! The mechanic is trying to see where some of the bolts fit. I see it slightly differently. Jol wanted to secure Uefa money by participating in the group stages of Europa League. That's something which probably came as clear direction from the top to support his investment on players and improve the team's profile. Playing our strongest team against weaker opponents was the only option. At the same time he tried some ideas as we saw especially in the home games. If what DR claims to be the situation in the dressing room he is still giving a chance to the first team 11 or better to those who still oppose change. At the same time the new generation is coming along and moulded in the Europa League games (Kasami, Gecov, Frei, Briggs, Ruiz, Sa, etc.). At some point he will start dropping first team players. But the time might not be right as the results might fail to come with the young squad and we all blame them. If that is the case it will be a masterstroke plan. Just speculating at the moment. In any case as I said players value raises with team's fortunes.
We need to develop an actual system and formation. At the moment we are too narrow and too slow, the only players who are out on the wings are Riise and Johnson which is ridiculous. We can't keep playing Dempsey on one wing and Dembele on the other. I want both of them to start but one has to be in the centre, neither has any positional discipline and spend most of the game floating in the middle. Against Everton we looked clueless for large portions of the game and relied on individual skill (Ruiz goal, Johnson's fabulous pass to Bobby Z). I quite like the personnel in the squad, even though we seem to be stockpiling the type of player who plays in the hole. Given the players we have a 4-3-3 formation might make more sense with one of Duff/Ruiz/Johnson on the forward flank, Dempsey as CF and Dembele sitting at the point of the midfield with Sidwell and Etuhu behind him. I think Murphy has been a great servant to Fulham but we need to start looking at ways to play without him. He can dictate play, but is also prone to one hospital ball and a nasty challenge every game. By 60 mins he out of it. Neither Etuhu or Sidwell are particularly creative (Sidwell was playing the role of wall in the last game, knocking it immediately back to the player who just gave it to him) but they can do a job protecting the back 4 and letting the others attack. Bobby Z, when he was on form had it all - clearly his confidence has been missing since his return from the ankle break. I don't think he will recover from yesterday, I'd be surprised to see him shoot again really. He was already laying it off and not taking his chances often enough before hand, but that miss has got to take it out of you. Truly awful.
I truly understand everyone's comments on this thread, very empassioned etc. I think that it's too early to sack Jol. He is a good manager, is Fulhamish and he doesn't become a rubbish manager overnight. Give him time, there is still some left. Fulhaman, your stats offer good reasoning fella but you know as well as I that football is more than stats. Everton are having a terrible start to a season but no-one is calling for Moyes' head. They have the same financial constraints as Fulham and come good as the season progresses, I see Fulham doing the same. Perhaps we should knock the Europa on the head and concentrate on league form? I think, and this is a personal opinion, that all fans should be more positive to Jol and the players to help us get out of the rut we're in. We've all got be the 12th man from now on and really get behind them, no matter how difficult it might be and how poor their form is right now. COYW
Completely agree craving, I'm as frustrated as anyone with some of our performances and what on the surface appears to be a little tactical naivety from Jol, but I have seen enough this season to think there is light at the end of the tunnel. Zamora had an awful miss but since the blackburn game I think he's played well enough to be worth persisting with. The way I see it we have two options. Either Jol recalls duff and whens hes back davies to the first XI with zamora and AJ/dempsey up front, playing in a more rigid but solid 4-4-2 like we did with hodgson. Or alternatively we forget about this, which may involve dropping the likes of murphy, AJ or zamora and giving much more playing time to the likes of ruiz, frei, briggs and kasami as these players have enough potential to have their styles sculpted into our formation, more like the sort of football Jol promised when he took over. Personally, in addition to DR's comments I think our predominantly Hodgson squad is too old and accustomed to Hodgson tactics to play a major role in this process. However I'm still adamant that Jol is currently the best manager possible to oversee this and has my full backing. COYW!!!!!
Im sorry but i agree with captain and DR. i think it is too early to sack Jol people was saying at the beginging of the season that this is gonna be a transitutial season where we are getting new players and management and reducing the age of the squad. ive got faith in Jol and in MO to know when and if its the right time to sack people. Mo got it right when he got shot of Sanchez and the same when he got rid of Coleman, hes knows when its time and i dont think we are there yet. he has brought a refreshing look to us, how many of you over the last few years would of said that if we got rid of BZ we would be screwed? do you still feel that way now? how many said that we shouldn't start AJ hes past it and cant score Ect: how we has proved most of us wrong, im looking at it as the glass is half full. COYW
Agree too early to sack Jol. My glass is half-full, and agree that I also saw this as being a transitional season. We did have an aging team, the players brought in have strengthened the squad. A new manager, 6 new players to bed in, at the moment consistency is a problem. Can't agree with Fulhaman, very emotive words : we won't have to sack him - he'll do it himself when he realises that no one wants or likes him!!!!. Hopefully he will come to this realisation within the next few days. 21 games is over half a season in real terms so it's not like he hasn't had a fair crack of the whip. Sparky actually knew what he was doing. So who is your messiah Fulhaman that will take us to the top season after season ??
