****ing hell! What do you want? That's as good as as it gets given our position. Jesus Christ! Who are are you gauging him by?
We're still in the bottom three, so hopefully it's not as good as it gets. Cifuentes might well do the job. I'm just not yet convinced, that's all.
Manager Win Rates ... Neil Warnock ... 39.2 % Mark Hughes 25 % Harry Redknapp 35 % Chris Ramsey 26.7 % J F Hasselbaink 28.9 % Ian Holloway 32.5 % Steve McLaren 34.8 % Mark Warburton 37.3% Michael Beale 40.9 % Neil Critchley 8.33 % Gareth Ainsworth 17.9 % Marti Cifuentes 44.28 %
When we play 3 games a week, with a thin squad and with a number of our more senior players having recent or current injury problems, he has to rotate. If not more long term injuries are very likely to happen- check Beale with Willock. We have Willock, Cook, JCS, Colback, Armstrong, possibly Cannon, maybe others the medical people are probably saying can't do 3 full games a week.
Perhaps there's something to be said for not signing crocks. As I said in an earlier post, in 1975-6 we used just 17 players, 5 of whom only contributed 20 appearances between them. That's like twelve and a half players used in the whole season. Yes, it's a different game now (blah, ****ing blah), but for ****'s sake just get your best players on the field.
You're just being your usual argumentative self. We were looking an absolute certainty for relegation under Ainsworth. Everyone acknowledged that we would suddenly need promotion form to get out of trouble and Marti has got us on the right track. I'm not a fan of rotation, but **** me, he has started brilliantly, given the squad at his disposal and their collective lack of confidence when he arrived. We may still go down but at least now we have genuine hope.
Weirdly I agree with both of you. I guess I want to see a core of our best players picked for (mostly) every game on one level, but also want to have a manager capable of changing things around/up to meet the opposition or manage fitness/injuries. I realise it’s difficult with our squad (abilities and level) to make it work fully too. I guess I don’t want to over-criticise Marti for trying and, while disappointed at results like Shef. Weds, want to see him manage the players, teams and squad with a more open approach. But too much fiddling can get a little frustrating - I guess, as Sb intimated, it’s just about getting it right more often than not, and not throwing our toys out of the pram when it doesn’t work out and we lose. I do believe we will evolve positively with Marti (from what I’ve seen so far). I much prefer this than the regular ‘revolution’ of manager swapping.
What frustrates me most about that game is we fluffed chances to put the game to bed. Then had three centre halves on the pitch and still couldn’t defend an injury time cross into the box Different manager. Same old problems.
I’m sure Marti looks at the team he has and wants to make changes when he can. It’s very difficult to control any matches with Dozzell flouncing around the pitch.
75/76 we had about the best team in the Country and were fortunate to have so few injuries. The season after wasn't so good injury wise with key player Gerry out a lot and also more games 1st part of the season in midweek with the Euro games. Now we have key players with bad injury history and International breaks cramming League games into 3 game weeks through the autumn.
We had pretty good control of SW's attacking efforts in the more defensive part of midfield while Dozzell was on the pitch. That went immediately after he was replaced by Cook. We went 3 at the back which we've not used and maybe not trained in much since MC came in, went far too deep defensively and gave that midfield control to them.
We have some weak players in our team and a striker that doesn’t. If we stay up, it will be a triumph. looking far more likely under our new manager though.
We’ve got some tough matches coming up so nicking points here and there and hopefully get out of the bottoms 3
