I've had a sleepless night as I'm sure many have. The indoor courts are booked so my work is cancelled at least for now but I don't really care in truth.I'm so sad at what has occurred and I have a deep sense of foreboding as to what lies in store. I'm not convinced that the players don't care but I do agree some go missing. I would call this the ' Bogarde Principal ' and symptomatic of the wealth in a game where performance related pay isn't a factor. Players in the higher leagues have everything on a plate and a Midas plate too. However it does have the Midas impact in that they are so cosseted that a large number have no drive,no ambition once they earn that big contract. Dele Ali is a prime example. Riding high but thought he'd cracked it and now he looks finished. A metaphor for Mr Pozzo. Getting to the top in any profession is incredibly difficult but remaining there is harder still. I don't believe many footballers have the independence to change matters,they never have to solve problems, someone else can take the blame. Congratulations to our club for selecting the very best/worst examples of this.
Bilic will go hard on them then probably get sacked when the players go crying off to Pozzo or Duxbury complaining they are being treated unfairly . This will only end one way as usual .
There is no chance of promotion. I doubt we will finish it the top 10. We are weak and the players at the club are just not good enough for this level. So what should the club do now? We can't keep limping along with mediocre players and keep telling the fans the club has a plan. It doesn't. Bilic is not the guy for the future. Which route will we take? Crusty old Pro's on their last meal ticket or a fresh new look. What difference will Manga make? What is his history and how long will he have? Costa is irrelevant and will have very little input. She will be sidelined as she was at Frankfurt and Clermont Foot. Who will be in control of the transfers Manga or Bayat? We have wasted £15m on Bayo, Kalu(38yrs) Manaj and Okoye. None of these players are required at the club Would relegation from the Championship be such a bad thing for the club? We are in a real mess and l would like to think it will get better, but l doubt it under the current circumstances. Perhaps it is time for the Pozzo Family to consider their options as their formula is not working now.. Happy New Year to all fans
Good points, however you say Bilic is not the Guy for the future, who is? Pozzo doesn’t think about the future he only cares about results today, that’s why when results don’t come he fire’s the coach and starts again, even those that get us promoted are either sacked without a chance of taking into the P.L. Or very soon after! It’s a scattergun approach which will only end in tears, us the supporters can only stand and watch and if like me you have been a supporter for over 50 years you can say we have had more than our fair share of highs over that time, however to see money wasted on players that don’t seem up to it is disappointing when the clubs has been on its knees before. We are miles away from 2 seasons ago when we had a very good home record and finally clicked away after the Coventry shambles meeting, worrying times indeed!
Proves as everyone says not the coaches fault!, we have had enough of them in a ridiculous short space of time, Wikipedia keeps asking me for more money just to keep the page updated!
I had a long think about the rest of the season last night. Whoever (else) we get in next month - nothing is going to change. Toxicity is rife in the club and any new boys will soon be brought down to their level of mentality. Kone', who I am looking forward to seeing... might see what a dumpster fire he has walked into.
And neither of them is the ideal fit for any of the gaping holes in our squad. Once again, we sign players for Pozzo, not Watford.
Kone is a midfielder so is more than ideal for what we need at the moment as Bacuna is the only fit midfielder at the moment. I’m not sure on Martins best position to be honest
As well as not replacing quality players we’ve never replaced Deeney’s leadership and it becomes more obvious with each week.
‘More than ideal’ is generous. He could be a superstar - but he’s 19 and didn’t start playing football professionally that long ago. ‘Ideal’ would be experience, guile and brawn. Not sure Kone brings that. We need a few Ben Watson/Behrami/Malky Mackay types.
And he was meant to be the problem..? I mean yes was injured and past his best but we’ve just replaced him with more injury prone players ( Kalu , Minaj or ones that cost 5 million to make sub cameo appearances. And Davis who is a non scoring lazy and quite ineffective big man .
We did in body, Danny Rose. However I get what your saying, nobody since has cared for the club as much as he did. Yes he was poor in his decline, but he cared. He is still enjoying his football at Brum (his boyhood club) and I always look to their results also. We do not have a leader now. Cathcart is not a leader - he has no voice, and if he does he never uses it to bemoan players and point fingers. You could give that armband to anyone, it makes little difference anymore. A captain brings a side together and stands with the manager on any decisions, and challenges them when needed. We need 11 leaders on the pitch now, not 1 leader and 10 spinless bottlejobs. Which is exactly what we saw last night.
We needed to move on from Deeney on the pitch, but the key was to either keep him in the club or replace his leadership. We did neither and now have an indisciplined rabble of players not putting effort in and cnuts like Sarr who are happy to go AWOL.
Yep, I think a lack of leadership has been one of the biggest issues the past few seasons. As Deeney's ability started to fade, his leadership did go downhill - he'd scream at others for his own limitations - that's when we should've been mentoring a replacement. Back in those days we had Deeney, Behrami, Holebas and a young Hughes - all of which gave 100% every game and demanded the same of their teammates. Now we have nobody. Add to that, set pieces. We've not had a good, consistent set piece taker since Abdi and even then we had a few other options if he was having an off day. Now it seems like they just draw lots and whoever gets the short straw gets the job of kicking it out for a goal kick. Our recruitment team/ownership don't seem to look beyond flashy step-overs, nutmegs and top speed. All teams need balance and ours hasn't for years.
Well at least we have the right people behind the scenes now to rebuild the squad and ship out the deadwood. I just hope Gino tells them what money they have available then leaves them to it. I think we are looking at four transfer windows until we get to that point though.
We spent good money on Bayo Kalu and Okoye, signed Davis and Gaspar, ostensibly for our first 11. And these players are available to us, just not fit for purpose.
That's the attitude. Rather than sign a balance of midfielders to fit our needs, we can just bring in 'a midfielder.' That is the problem.
You forgot international goal machine Rey Manaj and Kourtney "the rock" Hause on your list of hungry, all action recruits.
The other problem is that questions like "is he up for the fight?", "Does he want to come here?", "Can he be relied on when the going gets tough?" and "will he rule himself out at the first sign of trouble?" are deemed irrelevant next to the transaction on the balance sheet.
The thing with this is, I expect those traits are ticked by some of the players in their careers before us - I don’t think these players are natural shirkers. I think they come to us, see the culture and sink into it. I think the very last vestige of hope about having a better culture was lost when Gino decided he didn’t want Hughes and Chalobah hanging around anymore. 2 players who lead the changing room in our last promotion season binned off in favour of Kucka and Etebo.
First time since before August 1992 that i forgot we were playing. Only found out when i received a gloating text off a Swansea supporter i know. Club is definitely on a downward trajectory. Struggling in the Premiership was probably more fun than championship mediocrity which is where we are
That’s like saying you’d rather a cat turds on your lawn than a dog. Still turd, still stinks and neither make your lawn look good.
A good analogy. Cat turds are generally a lot smaller so if I had to choose one that would be my choice. Kayembe is the cat turd
