No need to go into elaborate answers here... MoN had the pedigree. The squad, more so the team, is full of international players, al be it for a few, but... Who is to blame for the state of the team? Which also has a reflection on the club as a whole, with the impending mega bucks tv deal. Thee is so much more at stake this season, survival or maybe oblivion, as as been shown by some clubs.
The premier league is changing I think it's a more continental league now days, and oneil is very old skool and my feeling is it just dosent go together . Who is to blame its a combination of things but when push comes to shove it all falls at the managers feet
MON keeps picking players who are out of form for 10 or more matches, WHY? MON keeps playing players in wrong positions game after game. WHY? MON can't see what 40.000 see consistently WHY? MON doesn't have a plan A, B, or C. WHY? MON has a team who can't do the schoolboy basics. WHY?. Like it or not. No matter what the team does. Buck stops with the manager. We seem to sack a hell of a lot of managers but why don't we start sacking a few of the players?
This is what I was going to say the buck stops with the manager he will be the one sacked , the players continue to pick up a tidy salary ,truth is I would sack the whole squad apart from 3 sess mig fletcher
Ok sensible head on here. My club, up until 1992, had never sacked a manager. Since then we have done nothing but sack managers and our club is in a right old state. There is far too much short termism and in particular in Scotland where there is not much TV revenue if you keep having to pay compensation to managers well it does not work. O Neill is not a bad manager. I'm not saying he is great either but who would you get in instead? Much as I dislike the boy Ferguson at Man United if the club had not backed him I wonder where they would be now? 4 years in and his jacket was on a shoogly peg. That replay final win over Crystal Palace kicked things off. It's too easy to blame managers and sack them after one or two seasons. Look at us. In 1992/93 we were the second best team in Scotland and were runners up in all domestic competitions. Now we are a club in turmoil with a dwindling support. Be careful what you wish for. Sometimes stability is better than wholesale changes every season.
Some good points there Toiler. But you have to agree the game has changed , up until 20 years ago clubs could afford to be patient with a manager. These days the rewards are so great that the owners of the clubs demand instant success. If success doesn't come it's the manager that pays the price.
Very true. I know it's a cliche but I truly do believe football has been ruined by big money. To be honest I have my doubts whether scottish football can go on.
been thinking about this for 3 hours now and i honestly dont know, i can only conclude that it is a combination of both
Buck stops with the manager, it is his job (whichever way he goes about it) to get the players playing. If he can't do it (which he cant), get somebody in who can. He has also had a good bit of money and spending nearly 10m on N'Diaye and Graham, says it all for me. In 3 transfer windows he has come up with Steven Fletcher and a loan signing. Shocking.
Somebody gave these percentages on another thread my apologies don't recall who. But I agree. 25% Manager. 50% Players 25% We are SAFC!
Martin O'Neill could leave us tomorrow, join any other club in this league and using the exact same tactics, formations and plan and be a massive success. I just don't buy this dinosaur argument as its only 3 years ago villa were a fleas cock off champions league doing exactly the same. I'm sorry lads but the game hasn't moved on that far in 3 years at all. These players apart from Johnson, Fletcher, Graham, Rose and Cuellar (who had a class game until his injury) are now going to be responsible for sacking 2 managers in 18 months. Mignolet (our player of the season granted), Gardner, JOS, Sessegnon, Mclean, Wickham, Bramble, Larsson and Vaughan are all Bruces players not Mon's. If doesn't have the resources to replace them all in just 15 months and is paying the ultimate penalty. Mon must take responsibility for the current demise as the manager and I concede it should be far better but he has not been helped by a sorry excuse of a squad of well paid and over rated players and that like it or not is down to Bruce not Martin. I'd love to see a Mon team after 3 years but sadly I admit this won't happen now and that has depressed me hugely.
Agree with a lot of the above, but I can only forgive oneil for just keeping us up this season, I can't if he takes us down. He hasn't drastically changed the squad in a short space of time, he is slowly building which I agreed with, but then all that compounds is that the inherited players have gone backwards under him.
This season reminds me of when a certain Lawrie McMenemy became manager of us. Supposedly a top manager at the time he tried his old tried and tested tactics of buying seasoned pro's such as Gates and Kennedy. What worked for him previously sadly did not work for us and he did not have a plan B or a clue when it went wrong. I don't have to tell you the outcome. Now O' Neil is having the same problem, his tactics that have worked for him previously are just not working and he hasn't got a clue how to correct it.
I can't disagree with any of this. I'm sure that the coaches and MON do a lot of work on the training ground and prepare well for the next match, but then it all goes to pot the minute the players take to the field. The team are down on confidence which in turn effects their performance and decision making. I think an awful lot of our problems stem from the size of our squad. Many of our players are under no pressure for their place in the starting line up, because in many cases there is no better alternative waiting in the wings to take the place of our regular starters. For me it's the players that have to take a large chunk of responsibility for our current prediciment.
