Billy, you're absolutely right. The reason it's so close at the top is because this division is bang average. It doesn't take massive investment to get promoted (it takes fortunes to stay up). We just need an ambitious owner to invest enough and a manager that knows how to use it. I don't think Redfearnis doing a bad job but I do think this club is just too big for a rookie coach to get us promoted.
It's definitely a combination of the two of them, and this is the point I always try to make: Cellino has built the squad, and it is hopelessly unbalanced. Redfearn may not be getting the best out of it, but even Mourinho wouldn't be able to get this squad promoted. We're just not that good. You can't blame Redfearn entirely for that - Hockaday tried and failed, as did Milanic. Admittedly both had considerably shorter spells, but had they stayed longer I could envision us in a similar state to Blackpool. No manager can turn us into play-off or promotion contenders because the players we have just aren't that good. Sure we have a lot of potential and a few decent players, but how many would walk in Bournemouth's team, or Norwich's team? The team selection (Murphy, Morison, the other english players) was necessary - we were playing the foreigners and plummeted dangerously close to the relegation zone. Only when Redfearn went back to basics and utilised the players with Championship and English football experience did we move safely into mid-table. Relying on foreigners with zero experience of the English Championship to get us out of a relegation scrap would've been irresponsible and had Redfearn done so he would've been castigated even more. Cellino knows that, that's why he's let Redfearn do whatever he had to to keep us up because he knows relegation would've been disastrous - and was extremely likely. As for the game, have to agree Ristac - thought all the defence were poor but Berardi was terrible. Wootton not much better on the other side.
It still really tickles me when people mention signing wingers. What exactly have our strikers done with the crosses that have been fired over to them so far this season? Bugger all!
It's more than just crosses though - it's about a threat out wide, someone who can stretch teams defensively and occupy defenders. Taylor and Byram have done okay but it's patently obvious they're full backs/wing backs playing as wingers rather than natural wide men. Gradel and Snoddy opened up space for Howson and Becchio by occupying the full backs; in fact I seem to recall some teams putting two men on Snoddy! Every good squad in this division has a winger or two - Wolves' gave our full backs the run around yesterday, when was the last time we did that to a team?
We have players worth more in the squad than Snoddy and Gradel were sold for combined. And all that you said was that wingers cost a decent amount of money, jsut pointing out that our best two wingers since the prem cost practically nothing. And maybe Adryan is no good, personally what I have seen of him he looks like he'd be perfect to play out wide in this league. But again people were saying no wingers were signed, Adryan IS a winger. Still I don't think you can take blame away from either Cellino or Redfearn
He's played more competitive games as a winger than an attacking midfielder. Italian journo when we signed him said he was a winger, only person who said he was best in AM is Cellino
Agreed, we need natural width in the team. Its not even necessarily about getting crosses into the box, it gives us countless different routes to the goal when attacking
