i'm very angry with the board. i don't think appointing hughton was a mistake though - he was clearly the best candidate at the time, he earned the club a third year of premier league football and brought in a guaranteed £100m to the club coffers in the process. hardly a disaster but certainly he should have gone at christmas or been given the whole season.
Letting Lambert go wasn't a mistake. They had no choice - Lambert broke the contract. Appointing Hughton was not a mistake IMO (though I'm sure you'll find plenty on here who will disagree) - he steadied a rocking ship over that summer after Lambert left and kept us in the Premier League. The mistake with Hughton was, as you say, hanging on to him when it was clear that the fans had irreversibly turned and Hughton was losing control. Difficult to say when that was, but they should have fired him a hell of a lot earlier. Appointing Adams can by no means be said to be a mistake at this stage. Six weeks ago people would have looked at you like you were mad if you'd said that. It will undoubtedly have been a mistake if we don't get promoted, but there's plenty of time left. If we do get promoted, it will be very much depend on the manner of our promotion whether you can say Adams will have been a success though. I get the feeling scraping through the play-offs won't look so great. And let's face it, escaping from League One, avoiding administration, three seasons in the Prem, a complete transformation in our club infrastructure which means we are better placed now than we have been since about 1995 - the board still has a lot of credit in the bank and can only be expected to make the odd mistake at first team level, because that's the one that's hardest to get absolutely right. Too much luck involved.
IF we win our next 3 and Ipswich lose their next 3 then this thread is completely pointless. fickle fans on both sides.
is it? even your own fans agreed when i said it the other day! you said he'd taken the club as far as he could.
I have been a huge supporter of Mick since day one and I blamed Evans more than Mick for the lack of perceived ambition in the transfer window! I was proved completely wrong and I am happy to admit that. If you can dig out the post where I actually said that then please feel free to do so!
but its goes further than league position munky, he forced Klug out, made the training ground a horrible place to be, forced decent players like rhodes and walters out of the club, brought in **** on long term mega money contracts. I could further! What Keane done to our club was disgusting. Your club is nowhere near that, but if you don't take this chance then you could be in for a long stint in the championship.
If, could, woulda, shoulda. All fair points, but unchallengeable because the converse applies equally.
Even by your standards Supers your last ' question ' is a bit - shall we say - peculiar. Are you seriously suggesting that no other Club requiring a Manager at times when few, if any, obvious candidates were available would not promote from within a Youth Manager who had the Clubs interests at heart, had all the required coaching badges, was well known and liked within the area and had just produced a cup winning side? I'm afraid that your hatred of his appointment is beginning to get the better of you. Of course he is inexperienced and has made mistakes but that doesn't mean that he won't come through a winner. Mistakes are only obvious with hindsight and we all make mistakes. Does Wenger wish he had strengthened defensively in the Summer? Of course he does but if he had bought a couple of costly defenders and the other injuries had not happened he would have been accused of wasting money. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I come back to the point I originally made - 6 weeks is a long time in football and nobody KNOWS where we will be in 6 weeks time. If every time a Club has a bad 6 weeks they sacked the Manager then the managerial roundabout would be even more ridiculous than it is now. I also cannot follow the line that when we lose it is down to tactical incompetence or poor team selection but when things go right - the beginning of the season, Grabban's goals, the turnaround at Cardiff etc - it is down to luck. Finally I have to say that McNally knows more about running a successful Football Club than myself and everybody else on here put together. Delia has put her financial clout on the line time and time again for this Club. Why would she want to put her finances at risk and McNally put his full reputation at risk just to try and justify a wrong decision. They wouldn't. McNally has obviously spotted what he thinks is the weakness and has acted but if Adams really isn't up to the job you can bank on one thing - he will be gone but it won't be the result of a knee jerk reaction to, what is hopefully, a short term problem.
Nice to see that, as usual, we are now beginning to go over decisions from the past to start those arguments up again. Should we have let Chris Martin go? Should we have appointed Hughton? Who is to blame for Lambert leaving? Was Adams the right choice? Was Gunn just a fall guy? Was our ground developed correctly? Should we have moved from the Nest? How far back do you want to go? I go back further than most!! They have all gone - done, dusted, finished - get over it. There is nothing we can do to change the past. The only current relevance is the appointment of Adams. I can see why he got the job. He ticked a lot of the boxes and good alternatives were few and far between. It could be said, unkindly, that he was the best of a bad bunch. That remains the position today. On another thread somebody raised the ' who replaces him ' question but such a constructive question was ignored until following a prompt the only names suggested were Pulis and Rosler!!! Seriously folks, particularly those who want Adams out, be careful what you wish for.
Changing the subject completely can I just say that I did not go to Australia for a holiday but to sort out whether myself and Mrs1950 were going to have to move to Australia permanently to care for our Daughter In Law, who has been seriously disabled by a brain tumour, and to help our Son cope with a young family. Whilst there we were told that her sister had been given a visa to move to Australia to live and work so we could other stay or return to live in the UK. After a lot of soul searching we have decided to live in the UK which is bad news for you lot as you are stuck with me on here. Mrs1950 returns to the UK shortly having been in Australia for the past year thank to sympathetic and helpful Australian authorities which is bad news for my golf club and the local pub and bad news for me as I will undoubtedly have to undergo a period of intensive retraining correcting any idea that the life of a married man involves days spent at the golf club, evenings spent at the pub and meals consisting of pub meals, takeaways or those supplied by wives of my mates. Oh well - nice whilst it lasted.
Sorry to hear about your daughter ,that is all that matters really tough decisions and my heart goes out to you and your family.
Midway, you missed out the bit about lady cyclists! Seriously though, I hope things work out for your daughter-in-law!
Sorry to hear about the tough times 1950. It really does put this nonsense in perspective, but perhaps it also explains why we need this nonsense. I think you have misinterpreted Super's question. I'm pretty sure he wasn't asking whether any other club would make a similar decision to recruit from within in a similar situation. He was asking specifically whether any other club would have hired Neil Adams at that time. I think it's a good question, mostly because I asked it myself months ago! At the time I also pointed out that Mark Robson was better qualified for the job than Neil and yet no one was clamouring for his appointment. Hearts and heads.
