So our ever so wise new owner has listened to all the moaners and acted faster than old Flavio to do something. I hope there is someone already lined up but doubt it somehow. I'm not really interested in trying to guess which of a number of failed managers actually gets the job. On present PL owner form he has precisely two games in which to start winning before the owners and the fans start demanding a change. We have just over 3 weeks to buy the necessary reinforcements. Just ask yourselves who would want to come as we are now without a manager and TF will not appoint anyone until he has carried out a poll of the fan base on Twitter to ensure that his decision is popular. Let's not forget that at the start of the season, especially after the Bolton game, we all believed that we would go straight back down. The fact that Bernie and Flavio refused to part with any money at all meant that by the time dear old Tony bought in, we had precisely one week in which to do business. The best available talent had already been snapped up. Rant over. Mistakes were made and it may well be (judging buy the reports from fans at the game yesterday) that NW has had some sort of melt down with the players. From my humble perspective as a long-suffering fan who has seen it all before too many times in the recent past, my opinion is that the following mistakes were clearly made: 1 TF in an effort to show that he was a clean break with the previous regime, let it be known that anything Neil or we wanted, we only had to ask. 2 NW acted like a child in a toyshop at Christmas told he could have anything or anyone he wanted. 3 The players he bought, with the notable exception of Luke Young, have all underperformed. They were clearly mistakes for which NW has to take responsibility. 4 All parties concerned (TF, NW and 99% of the fans) seemed to think that this meant we needed to buy big established names. Collectively we all "took our eyes off the ball" as the names tripped off the tongue, Joey Barton, Shawn Wright Phillips, Anton Ferdinand. We now realise the reasons why SWP could not get into the Manchester City or Chelsea teams and why Newcastle were prepared to let Barton go. Please compare our purchases with those made by Norwich and Swansea. Now that we're PL have the lower divisions suddently become out of bounds for our talent scouts? But wait. I must be wrong. Bigger and better names are just dying to come to us. David Beckham, Jermain Defoe. Come on guys. Get real. 5 Clearly there were tactical mistakes on the field. I saw that for myself at Anfield when we failed to show any ambition at all until the last 20 minutes of the game. Holloway learned the lesson that playing simply with the aim of not getting beaten never works. The last time we played in the way the game should be played was at Stoke when we could and should have scored 4 or 5. We didn so at Swansea but only after we had let them bore everyone to death up to half time. 6 Punishing Adel Taarabt for his tantrums on the field by freezing him out proved to be disastrous for us. Who would you rather have? AT who will try something special and every so often win the game for us by a piece of individual magic worth the ticket price alone or Jay Bothroyd who just sulks every time the ball is not teed up for him perfectly? 7 The goals we conceded have largely come from a gap in the centre of our defence wider than the Dartford Tunnel. We could all see that time and again. So why did NW not plug it? 8 What was the point of signing a goal poacher to play alongside a big guy if we only let him come on in the 85th minute each game? 9 Why slag off individual players every time they make a mistake and praise those who come on if they are not going to be given a proper opportunity? 10 It was probably obvious that we would not have the same team spirit and work ethic once we broke up the promotion team, so why do it just for the sake of it? 11 Big name players need to be dropped and substituted just as much when they are playing badly as any of last season's team. 12 Players who tweet and comment about any of their colleagues should be fined, relegated to the reserve team and shipped out as quickly as possible. Alex Ferguson wouldn't tolerate it and we certainly should not. The biggest mistake we can now make is to repeat the Chris Wright fiasco of blowing away the financial jackpot on over-priced, overhyped PL has-beens who are only interested in the size of their signing-on fees and pay cheques. So what if we are relegated at the end of the season? If we have saved our money and bought wisely, we can yo-yo between PL and championship over the next few seasons investing in the squad slowly and surely. Look at Bolton, Sunderland, Wolves, WBA. That's the model for a club which has a stadium large enough for 18,000. Not Chelsea or Arsenal. There are plenty of decent young players playing outside the PL We do not have a divine right to be where we are. So lets wise up, get behind the team, thank NW for all that he has done. The guy worked absolute miracles. AND GET BEHIND THE NEW GUY. If only we can lighten the mood and bring some optimism back, any fool should be able to do something with the "new manager bounce" in his favour.
If NW himself selected those players in August then he has to take the blame. But if they were bought for him then he has my sympathy.
Great article Yorkshire! How are you fixed? reckon you'd do better than most of those on the shortlist
Good article. Too many players have not performed and NW seemed to be afraid to drop them. If you are not playing well or more importantly not putting the effort in, you don't get picked. Put someone else in who is prepared to put the effort in for the team. The important thing is get behind the team and the new manager whoever it is and let get moving in the right direction.
Good article. Why was he not given time to pick players coming. Too many egos - and you cannot run anything on Facebook / Twitter.
I'm a lawyer and therefore have to be able to see both sides of the argument. On balance, I think it was the wrong decision and owners cannot deal with these situations by tweeting and making public announcements.
Thanks. I'll pass that on to my bosses next time I want a pay rise! It's easy for us but a bit harder I think when you actually have the responsibility.
Good post, good points - I agree with the Taarabt comments. There are indeed some excellent lower league players out there who can make it at Premier League level, e.g. James McClean from Derry City, currently proving himself at Sunderland. I imagine that a striker like Jordan Rhodes could also make it at this level if properly supported. Unfortunately we don't have much time to turn the ship around, so the new recruits will have to gel with the existing squad and hit the ground running.
Good post YorkshireHoopster I agree with a lot of what you've said. We'll all get behind the new manager no matter how we feel about this, but it does leave a bitter taste. I think shafted is about right. What really worries me is how quickly this has come about. Only 6 weeks and two days ago we were ninth, and nobody would have dreamt then we'd be sitting here now having sacked the manager. A bad run sure, but considering some of the fixtures we've had in that time alongside some pretty awful, game changing decisions from certain officials, hardly the freefall that some are painting it to be. Truth be told I think the start we had to the season probably worked against us in that respect, raising expectations as it did. Whoever the new manager is, if he does a good job for a year and a half, I hope he doesn't get bounced out the door when he hits a bad patch lasting 38 days. (Oh and welcome to the board.)
Thanks Telford. Wanted to do so for some time and intended to do so before yesterday's news. My points were directed at managing expectations, ours and the owners. Although this is indeed a results business, if Liverpool in the 70's and 80's Arsenal in the 90's and Manure since Ferguson's arrival had adopted such a short term view, they would never have achieved the success they did. Too many fans (on this board as much as any other) behave in exactly the same way that Flavio Briatore did when things did not go quite as planned as early as they would have liked. If TF really wants to win he needs to choose carefully then back off for 6 months. Go back to earning money in the day job. If we go down, we go down. We can rebuild in August. We will be able to afford to do so if we do not spend bucket loads now buying in panic mode. TF, I hope you are reading this.
Good thread Yorkshire. Sadly i had decided not to post on this forum anymore as i feel there are too many rubbish threads and too many people on this forum who consistently post ridicilous comments. But your article has prompted me to momentarily come out of retirement. I agree with your post and it highlights the turmoil that our club has faced now for several years. The next few weeks are vital. I know that sounds obvious but our next managerial appointment must be someone who can bring us forward and regain stability. I would like to see our next manager given a 3-4 year contract. The players we buy in the next few weeks will determine if we stay up or not. Our current squad is poor and IMO we are relying on other teams being worse. Quite frankly i was amazed and disheartened at some of the posts on this forum over the last few weeks. Fans saying that the likes of Wayne Bridge or Andy Johnson not being good enough for us. Who do we think we are. Realistically we are not a Prem league size club yet. We have a ground that holds 18,000 odd fans and its not even sold out every week. We have been badly administered by our owners, badly managed by managers/coaches and badly served by our players for years. One new owner can't fix all of this instantly. It will take us years to stabilize our club and establish us as a Prem club. We may end up going down and up to achieve this. Some of our fans have lost the run of themselves. We are a small club, its nothing to be ashamed of. With the size of our stadium and fanbase we can't afford world class players. It's ok to dream but be realistic. I loved NW. I loved his passion, energy and honesty. Last june i posted a thread here where i asked an honest question : does NW have the managerial experience to manage a Prem club" I was not having a pop at him just asking a genuine question as a concerned fan. Too many here callled me a Warnock hater and questioned my loyalty just because i asked a question. I did not have high expectations for this season. What i did expect however was honesty in effort and performances from our overpaid players. I think a blind man could see that our team was malfunctioning for the last few months with our team playing with no real effort, enthuasism, honesty. We looked lethargic. We were not playing as a team. Who's fault is this? NW has to take his share of the blame but so too do the players. They have underperformed collectively and as individuals. I find it hard to accept people on this site having a pop at Mark Hughes. FFS he has Prem and international experience. Get real. We are QPR, not Barcelona. We would be really lucky to get him or anyone of his pedigree. Some fans on this forum are delusional with the managers and players that they have been mentioning. We can't continually afford top players with our fanbase. Our directors will run this club as a business and that means buying players that we can afford. That means players the top clubs do not want or players from the Champ. Get real guys.
In business when a worker is underperforming or behaving like a prat they are removed and replaced. In football you can't do that. The players have contracts that cost far too much to cancel. The "workers" are also club assets. Get rid of one and you not only have to pay them off but you lose the monetary value of that asset or sell it off on the cheap to get rid of it. If two or three get players get together they have so much power. In the upper leagues it is far cheaper for the directors to pay off the manager than it is to get rid of the underperforming, recalcitrant players. Football is now getting ridiculous. We have a government trying to give power to shareholders to be able to have control over the wages/bonuses of captains of industry because people moan and groan. But many of these people control enomous global businesses with turnovers in the billions that make a profit. Yet it is quite alright for footballers to earn millions, get paid millions in bonuses, have hidden perks worth hundreds of thousands/millions, yet their "companies" do not turn over billions, they make a heavy losses and many of the players underperform. If a club does look like going under, who pays? Not the club, the players, the manager or the directors. They all just walk away and leave the creditors to sit their licking their wounds. The top pop stars make millions, but only if their records sell and they fill venues for live performances. If they don't "perform" then people walk away and the money stops coming in. We have not even started to look properly at the amount taken out of the game by exorbitant agents fees. Whilst we personally are going through very bad times, the players wages increase year on year. The top teams have to spend millions and millions that they don't have to get and keep the top players. If they don't win the silverware or achieve champions league status - or at the other end of the scale, get relegated - and rake in some money then all of a sudden they could find themselves in freefall as the debts mount and the creditors/banks start getting gittery. We also pay for the money provided by the owners. The only reason they got that rich is by taking money off us. In our case the Mittals are worth billions, having made their money on the back of a country with incredibly poverty. Football at the top levels is now all about greed. The greed of the players and the greed of the owners. I care a lot less now about football in general than I did 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago. It is not that I am getting older, it is just that the "game" - which afterall is supposed to be entertainment - has changed so much for the worse.
The only thing I could add to the article fellow Yorkshireman is regarding Warnock being star struck. I'm actually quite amazed it hasn't been picked up on yet (if it has i apologise for not reading it). But in my view, Warnock hasn't exactly had the pleasure of working with so called big name players so when he got the chance he was star struck straight away and in essence made wrong decisions. JB seems to have taken the piss out of NW in a way, excuse my french, but he should never have made him captain straight away. Morally that was wrong for the team. Other than that thoroughly enjoyed the read.
Star Stuck Neil? he He! Yeh I could see him all shaky at the knees at the sight of the scums bosses red nose!
