Reality Check

Continuing on from last season dick has got us 14pts from 15 games.. As every1 on here has said we're an upgraded side this season. Why isn't the impetus been put on dick yet? Look at Norwich with a young manager, Leicester too and Bournemouth. All unproven managers with squads no better then ours. Yet their picking up points consistently. Dicks resume against theirs Is second to none.. Time for dick too step up. Quite surprised he hasn't been questioned on here yet fellas.. I believe In Him but time for the bloke to pull his finger outta his ass..

 

It wont be long before people start asking questions mate.

I think our skins have just hardened after O'neil, pdc and gus debacles. They can't be on the pitch.

How the **** can you legislate for the ****e that was kaboul yesterday? or how ****e Coates has been this year after looking like a $20 million end of last season.

 

Hmmm I'm not ashamed or scared in asking this question SC. Different cultures I suppose mate, I have seen many coaches over here take a piss weak team and turn them into champions.. Preparation, respect for the club/manager, a love for their game! Most importantly bleeding for the jersey. If the fellas had one of these components this season we'd have won Atleast 2 games..

 

He has to be questioned yes. But to be comparing us to Norwich with a young manager, Leicester and Bournemouth is wrong in my opinion. We're a much more complex club with deep rooted problems which we've been trying to resolve while maintaining League status. We were never ever an over night fix. We've half of Dicks strongest team who've either had no preseason or hasn't played much football in the last year, and in some cases both. We also had a nightmare preseason which I can only assume was a result of Short's eagerness to tap into the US market which led to a large chunk of to the first team split, plus the ridiculous amount of traveling.

Dick is clearly taking the route of playing players for fitness and splitting the squad in training while the unfit chase fitness, there's clearly not a lot of tactical work going on on the training ground as a whole group as they aren't on the same page. This means playing an unfit team who've not been given training time to work tactically.

It's simply a case of how dick is going about it. Should the likes of Ola, M'Vila, Kaboul, Gomez and Borini be dropped and played through the u21s? This would bring fringe players backing contention like Buckley & Roberge and DG. Can they do any better? Dick seems to be taking the route of getting everyone as fit as fast as he can. Over a slow build and keeping poor players in contention.

Either way I look at it our early season is stunted significantly. Is there anything Dick can actually do that will solve all our problems in an instant? I don't think so. What is more, as our last two inexperienced managers have proved, I don't think the likes of Howe and Co would even know where to start with this mess of a club.

 

Ne doubt mate. Dick is a proven winner , as was O'neil.
Im sticking to the "something is rotten" at the club philosophy, mostly because i can't for the life of me put a finger on why we are so ****ing ****e! With the squad we have we should be comfortable top 10. Easily !

We spend money, have the facilities and the fans. Not a scooby on the pitch for best part of 15 years. Hard for me to constantly blame 1 bloke , fire him every year and get a new one in. Great escape, ****e start rinse repeat.

 

Pre season was a ****ing joke!! Nee crowds, almost zero exposure in short laughable. Worth noting that all other teams that came state side have also been utter gash.

Im racking my brains to think of an other team that has virtually replaced their entire core, as we have. They all seem to be unfit. Very brave call by dick to get them up to speed when points are at stake, but thats what he is paid for.

 

Well that's it, I can't see any way how we could look decent at the moment as we lack the quality in depth. All I see is two differant ways to go about a gradual improvement. I can't see a quick fix myself.

 

Cheers roker! Not comparing DA to championship managers sorry just thought they'd be 3pts in the bag. Which SAFC fan wouldn't think that mate? I kinda see where your coming from in terms of fitness, although DA has been our Manager for quite some time now. He's been in the game a long, long time he should know when to rotate players and between their best positions.. I just reckon DA is above the opposition we've played so far, hence why I'm struggling to believe we've got 2pts on the board.

 

Thats modern football tho aint it? IMO it cant even begin to be fixed chopping and changing every season after 10 games, but thats what fans want instant gratification.

O'neil - managed to get points on the board , then dire
PDC - managed to get points on the board , then dire
Gus - managed to get points on the board , then dire
Dick - managed to get points on the board , then dire

These are all football men, some more respected then others, to think they were/are all ****e at managing a football team is mental. Every one bar imo O'neil needed more time.

Get laughed at for this but Guss' approach was similar to O'neil's, points over performance. Avoid the loss at all cost. Dick's on the other hand is similar to PDC's , in the fact its performance first and results will come. We just never found out if they would for PDC, (probably because he was a nutter and lumbered with Altidore).

 

But rotate with who? Our team when fit will be decent but the for this season the squad will remain poor no matter what. I seem to remember a fit squad last season who couldn't win football games either, the same players we have now minus Connor, these are people you want us to fall back onto? While the new signings then take even longer to reach full fitness as they're now not getting as much game time? Could that not prolong our misery? Rotating the squad and stunting the regeneration of our better players could prolong our bad form even longer. It's a call you need to be up close to make and Dick obviously feels getting them all back to fitness asap as a collective is the way to go.

Mate, if we looked remotely capable of winning football games last season I'd say yes, give them a run while the unfit gradually get there. But fact is it's a poor squad with very few to fall back on.

To me it's a simple question of Do you trust him or not. I know there's no magic remedy that's going to solve our problems in instant. It just doesn't exist.

 

Id's say more a case of

O'neil - managed to get points on the board while consistently dire through out minus a couple of status saving games
PDC -managed to get points on the board while consistently dire through out minus a couple of status saving games
Gus - managed to get points on the board while consistently dire through out minus a couple of status saving games
Dick - managed to get points on the board while consistently dire through out minus a couple of status saving games

 

This interview on BBC worries me a bit :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/34304092
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The first thing I thought of when it finished was Bob Stokoe's season in the First Division. He had a good team but they'd impressed too many people whilst in Div. 2. When they got promoted, teams like Stoke just shut up shop. They got draws but they couldn't get a win to save their lives, and their heads went down. About ten games in, Stokoe resigned saying "There's nothing more I can say to them." Dick's now questioning the team's commitment, and saying "I have to ask the players to think about themselves". To me, that's a bit too similar for comfort. I hope I'm wrong.

 

I trust the way Dick works the media. It's reinforcing his message to the players imo, it's **** all to do with telling us anything. The man is a disciplinarian. I wouldn't like to be at training with the lads today that's for sure.

 

What

What does that mean matey?

 

Yeah, I'm not saying he's on the point of resigning or anything like that. It's the downcast way he was speaking, the look on his face, his whole body language that reminded me of Stokoe that year. He's clearly very unhappy. Two points at this stage is only one better than PDC. It's no good guessing, but I'd like to know what's going on inside that dressing room right now.

I agree with you on quick fixes mind. Every summer for years, we've been buying ten bottom six players. At Stoke, Pulis bought Crouch plus one other for the same price. And bought two more top ten players the next year ... and the next. By the end of last season, they were streets ahead of us. M'Vila, Lens &co. was a good move in the right direction, and we'll have to build on it as and when we can afford it.

 

Can you blame DA if Kaboul is good one game and crap the next, a player on ££££ a week shouldn't need to be told about basic defending

 

In the meantime we have a very uncomfortable waiting game while he sorts this.

 

There's eleven men on the pitch not just Kaboul, there's 89 other minutes not just the minute in which Kaboul made the mistake which led to a goal. You're a one dimensional thinker thus it's very difficult to have a normal discussion with you. If only all our problems were about Kaboul, I'm sure you'd be the first person I come to. Football isn't that simplistic and basic. Knowing the only reason you're hanging about here this season is because of Kaboul, I think you should know you're wasting your time.

 

No doubt Dick will come in for a lot more criticism if we don't show a big improvement over the next month or two, at the moment though I don't see what he could do differently (other than demote Gomez to water boy perhaps). He was let down by the club for the arrangement of pre season and in getting transfer business done early, in essence this squad has only been together for 3 weeks or so, only problem is we're giving ourselves a mountain to climb while Dick tries to pull his team together, we've just dropped a lot of points from what should have been winnable games this might be the year that starting slow comes back to bite us in the arse.

 

You can blame DA but he's manged at a higher level and with better players, he can tell players what to do in the dressing room, but cannot hold there hand on the pitch .