Walter was absolutely ****e, Selles was better. That’s a fact. You’re making a point I’ve never made. At no point have I said we should have stuck with Walter in fact I was one of the first to realise he was not capable of managing at this level and was saying he needed to go in September. I don’t think Selles has done a good job, I think he could still have done a lot better. Tactics poor, subs usually poor, performances poor (some of the worst I can remember). People like to blame the players but we’ve got some proper quality in that squad. Even when he had the likes of Barry and Matazo available we were still ****. It’s not trolling to think he could and should have done a lot better. The final stretch of the season from the last international break in particular was nothing short of dreadful.
I think before the international break was fine, and his subs generally came on and made an impact, but after the break there were some questionable subs and generally awful team performances, to the point where we all wondered what had happened at the break. Then we had the rumours that several unnamed players were told to start looking for other clubs, and that seemed to make sense suddenly. But regarding his tactics, he played to our strengths. Earlier in the week somebody posted an article talking about his preferred style - attacking fullbacks, direct pacy wingers and a good all-round striker to get on the end of stuff. We don't have any of those things. Next season, if given the chance I think we'd see a marked improvement, assuming we can get in his sort of players. We have the wingers in the recovery room, so it's probably the full backs and the striker that are the priority. Hell, maybe even Giles comes good, given he likes to attack (steady on!).
We either drop a fortune on Giles, loan him out or try and integrate him into our team. Preseason seems to be a good time to try and see if we can use him.
When people say a manager's subs are poor, what does that actually mean? By what measure are they poor? I suspect a lot of the time it means the subs he made were different to what the person saying it expected. If it's about the impact they make, then surely you can only say that based on a reasonably long period of time because to expect an impact from subs in every match would obviously be unrealistic. And I think Selles' subs over the period he's been here have made an impact quite often really.
It's just another cliche that's lobbed about - in the same vein as ''he's lost the dressing room; still doesn't know his best 11, he puts square pegs in round holes'' etc etc. It's the internet, everyone's an expert and everyone has an opinion.
It's a bit like people complaining how terribly we're playing and how useless the players were, then in the next breath complaining that he kept changing the team.
Selles subs have been often gamechanging Which when i said that a few weeks ago Someone replied its becasue his starting 11 was wrong You cant win
His subs seemed to be absolute game changers and completely pointless, there never seemed to be any Inbetweener unfortunately
So this poll putting the poor season down to the appointment of Walter and the failure to bring a striker in. This coupled with some serious bad luck with injuries and topped off with leaving the signings too late in the Summer window. Hardly any blame put the way of Selles. This coupled with the Selles poll tells the owner/brain team where the blame lies. Deal with this side of things and move on.
Walter era was disastrous but naming Walter as cause of everything is scapegoating for me especially something our board would prefer to avoid directly taking ownership. Therefore my main reasons are below: Signings made too late in the Summer window Failure to bring in a striker Full backs and unfortunately injuries are close 3rd for me.
In retrospect Walter was poor, but he was also the most unlucky manager I've seen us have. The views expressed in my posts are not necessarily mine.