Norwich - back from the game

[Hoop Blah]

That's quite a bit to put right!!

Although we've scored more than I think our attacking play might warrant, there are still only something like 5 teams who've scored less goals than us at home, and likewise away from home.

As for hating everything about the club etc, don't be such a tit brendy!

[melonhead]

the winky denote that i dont really think that about you!


agreed, its quite alot, im not blinkered as to the negatives. i just prefer to focus on the positives

and like i said if it wasnt possible to fix those problems with gradual evolution of the side, id rather go down than import a whole new side

[Hoop Blah]

To be fair, I've not got a massive emotional attachment to this group of players, a few of them aside that is.

I support the club and players come and go. Together this lot have achieved great things but I don't feel that they've really won a place in my heart (like previous players have) that I'd favour giving them time and opportunities at the expense of the clubs success.

[melonhead]

i dont view it as one or the other like you do

i view it that getting rid of them and doing a total rebuild with loads of expensive mercenaries wouldnt guarantee/deliver success, AND it would jeopardise the club, the way we run things, and our ability to attract kids to our youth set up

i also think, like i said, that with this awful team, full of players who just arent good enough that should all be relaced cos you dont like em, or care about them, weve lost 1 game since west brom, and will be in with a shout of staying up by th end of the year

i understand that you disagree.

[Hoop Blah]

Expensive mercenaries? How many of our players do you think came here for anything other than the money, opportunity to play and fact it was a offer on the table.

They're mercenaries as much as the next ones, just probably not quite as good!

[cmonurz]

i view it that getting rid of them and doing a total rebuild with loads of expensive mercenaries wouldnt guarantee/deliver success, AND it would jeopardise the club, the way we run things, and our ability to attract kids to our youth set up

This is NOT what anyone is advocating!

[melonhead]

Expensive mercenaries? How many of our players do you think came here for anything other than the money, opportunity to play and fact it was a offer on the table.

They're mercenaries as much as the next ones, just probably not quite as good!

yeah, i like my mercenaries realistically priced

[melonhead]

i view it that getting rid of them and doing a total rebuild with loads of expensive mercenaries wouldnt guarantee/deliver success, AND it would jeopardise the club, the way we run things, and our ability to attract kids to our youth set up

This is NOT what anyone is advocating!

calm down to a meh emoticon m8




what are you advocating?
what should we have done, how many and who should we have bought, how much money should we have spent, who should replace brian?

we bought alot of players, some have worked, some havent yet. we spent more this season than in any other i can remember in our history, we straight away dropped half the team that got us up.
what would you have done different to that, that wouldnt require getting in nearly a full team of new players or spending alot of money in an expensive pissing contest/gamble?

[cmonurz]

I think we could have spent more money, in a logical and thought-through manner. Your refusal to believe that spending a penny more than we did amounts to financial suicide is ridiculous.

Looking only at marginal cost - so not including wages, because every player cost wages - it would not have been unreasonable to spend £20m or so on a handful of quality and experienced players. We didn't. We spent £5m in the Championship and added a couple of free transfers. Imho, this was short-sighted, and I said so at the time. For now I think it's proven to be the case.

An example of the sort of purchase we might have made is Arouna Kone - app. £3m to Wigan. An experienced international goalscorer with a good record at each of his previous clubs.

[melonhead]

my point isnt that its finacial suicide-its simply that the extra ten million doesnt guarantee anything, and if the extra players coming in/our players being dropped/total change in the club/style etc disrupts the squad its possible wed still only have 6 points.

i asked for examples. how many players, who were they, and for how much? - agreed- kone looks a good player a bargain and a low cost gamble thats payed off quickly, the bloke in the middle for QPR looks a good aquisition too, and was also quite cheap
but would they fit with us as a club, and with our style? would they play for us?(wigan is an established club with a well thought of high profile INTL style manager, QPR pay alot for players, and alot in wages) & would they have looked as good with us in our team?
-we went with the policy-ala norwich etc last year to go for mainly championship and english players.the policy that everyone was creaming themselves over last year, based on squad togetherness teamwork, and maintaining th estyle that got them promoted. i gree with that.


we spent ten million, and brought in alot of decent 1st team players including a little prem experience, and young hungry sought after championship players
you say you didnt want a whole rebuild, yet if we brought in another 2 or 3 1st teamers, then i cant see how it isnt a total rebuild, on top of the 4 we already got in.

you say ten million wasnt enough, you demand 20 million, yet have no idea what our budget actually was.

saints west ham and qpr all spent more than the 20 million, surely to ensure we finished higher than them wed need to spend even more than they did?

you say its shortsighted, but its not if they were fully aware that the investment may not be enough, and we may go down as a result, but took the choice that theyd rather do that, while spending what we can afford, growing the club sensibly, and gradually, taking the parachutes,& using them to get us back up again.

[Esteban]

He loves the club and has earned the right to manage in the PL and in 10 games, he’s lost away to Liverpool, Chelsea and West Brom and at home to Spurs. At the start of the season, with the possible exception of West Brom, who really expected us to get much from those games? He’s not resting on his laurels, he’s changing the team up and trying to find a winning formula and the players are still giving him everything they’ve got. And there have been some bright spots. Chelsea away for a long period, coming from behind against Stoke and Fulham late on shouldn’t be ignored and we’ve led in half our games.

Losing those games isn't really the problem, it's the lack of success elsewhere to balance out the expected defeats. Furthermore it's the way we've played and, 20 minutes against Newcastle and the QPR game aside, the lack of quality and threat we've shown against most teams we've played. Somehow our goals scored record isn't too bad though, which is a real positive at the moment.

Yes, that's true and I certainly wasn't trying to suggest that it's all a bed of roses at the moment. But we only have to find three teams worse than us and with 28 games still to play, I don't think it's all over yet. Though we do need to start winning very soon, of course.

[Ian Royal]

i view it that getting rid of them and doing a total rebuild with loads of expensive mercenaries wouldnt guarantee/deliver success, AND it would jeopardise the club, the way we run things, and our ability to attract kids to our youth set up

This is NOT what anyone is advocating!

Well, almost anyone.

[Hoop Blah]

Esteban, totally agree its not over yet and there is a long way to go, but the light at the end of the tunnel isn't much more than a distant and faint glow at the moment.

[Elm Park Old Boy]

FWIW, four days after the event, I think McDermott is fully aware that we lack quality and said as much in the interviews I’ve seen; but he’s not going to publically criticise his players and never will. In fact, not many managers do, because it is unprofessional. Save perhaps for Warnock and Di Canio.

Some people on here have suggested that we have a Championship side and squad. Which is true. But so were QPR and Norwich last season and they both stayed up, so it’s not all to do with spending vast sums of money. Speaking of which, had we spent out on Shorey, McLeary, Pogrebnyak and Guthrie, I guess we’d have spent somewhere in the region of £10-£12m in total. Southampton are below us, yet have spent massively, are conceding goals like there’s no tomorrow and have only scored three goals more than us, by comparison.

Brian has only been a league manager for three years (!) and has dragged a team looking likely of relegation to League 1 when he started, to a play-off final and a Championship medal. He loves the club and has earned the right to manage in the PL and in 10 games, he’s lost away to Liverpool, Chelsea and West Brom and at home to Spurs. At the start of the season, with the possible exception of West Brom, who really expected us to get much from those games? He’s not resting on his laurels, he’s changing the team up and trying to find a winning formula and the players are still giving him everything they’ve got. And there have been some bright spots. Chelsea away for a long period, coming from behind against Stoke and Fulham late on shouldn’t be ignored and we’ve led in half our games.

That’s not to gloss over the problems. The reality is, we are in the bottom three and we do obviously lack quality. There are reports of disquiet within the squad and our owner, if you take as read what has been translated (which isn’t always wise), is scouting his own players. In short, there is plenty for Brian to work on if he is to justifiably keep his job past Christmas.

As for the game itself, I don’t think either team can take much out of it, apart from the point. There’ll be plenty of other games like that up and down the league this season. They had 10 men behind the ball most of the game and tried to hit us on the counter, where as we were trying to get at them, even if we weren’t very good at it. Frankly, the only thing worth doing is to take the positive of a clean sheet and move on to Everton. Why bother wasting time and energy, dwelling on a poor performance?

Kerching! 18 pages in, common sense breaks out. I salute you sir.