At least now everyone knows the score

[Finnieston]

Our glorious recent record with managers let go and the contracts we gave them:

Nigel Adkins – 3 year deal, sacked after 11 months
Nigel Clough – 2.5 year deal, sacked after 1 year 6 months
David Weir – 3 year deal, sacked after 4 months
Danny Wilson – 3 year deal, sacked after 1 year 11 months
Micky Adams – 2.5 year deal, sacked after 5 months
Kevin Blackwell – temporary deal to end of season led to 3 year contract, extended to 4 years, sacked after 2 years 3 months
Bryan Robson – 3 year deal, removed after 8 months

Let's also remember that having achieved promotion to the Premier League, Neil Warnock was considered to be fine on a 12 month contract by the club.

Thats some record......With that consistency who would you blame. Hope we get a manager with that consistency . In Achieving things obviously.

 

[GRUMPY BLADE]

Rebuilding involving "giving everyone a clean slate"; clueless, patternless football for the most part; and Sammon, Hammond, Edgar & Woolford as integral members of the first team.

And the twenty-odd players leaving included cast-offs from the under-9s.

Let Nigel do his "rebuilding" (while talking of promotion) somewhere else. We've moved on, thankfully.

Agree, tough world pro footie and you only get 46 opportunities in a season and each one only lasts 90 minutes so you have to be ready from day one.

Couple of things show Adkins was never ready:

Not getting centre halves in during August

Fuckin about with 1-1's and the end of the season.

 

[GRUMPY BLADE]

For example if Adkins had finished 3rd and just failed in the playoffs playing great attacking football.
If we'd developed young players with many of the players showing improved form towards the end of the season.

His CV indicated that he could/would do it but the history books show he failed miserably.

What's strange is how having failed so miserably people defend him still.

 

[Blade56]

He was sacked for "non-footballing" reason wasn't he?.

Yep, technically what the players were producing on the pitch was not related to any known definition of "football"

 

[super_pig]

Like Clough?

clough got us into the playoffs but was a grade A Ahole .. there is more to it than football

 

[super_pig]

Why do posters keep pointing out what Adkins did wrong like they're the only ones that noticed?

because some seem to have NOT noticed.. amazingly

 

[BushBlade]

because some seem to have NOT noticed.. amazingly

I think there are very few people who'd say NA did a good job this season. Some were prepared to give him another chance but that doesn't mean they're blind to the shit he served up or the many errors he made.
And I'd guess most of those who were prepared to give Adkins another chance will get behind Wilder and continue to do so when he makes the occasion mistake, which he'll do, because he's human.

The king is dead, long live the king.

 

[Minty]

I believe we gave Porterfield a ten year deal.

And he lasted about half of those but I'm pretty sure that longer contracts for managers were far more common in those days. I don't know the stats for the average tenure of managers in the modern era but can't imagine it being more than 2 to 3 years, obvious exceptions Ferguson/Wenger.

 

[SB_90]

And he lasted about half of those but I'm pretty sure that longer contracts for managers were far more common in those days. I don't know the stats for the average tenure of managers in the modern era but can't imagine it being more than 2 to 3 years, obvious exceptions Ferguson/Wenger.

Average tenure is about 18 months I would say but there is changes because great stat saying there has been 57 managerial changes this season. But I have just looked & Gary Caldwell had only been in charge of Wigan for 1 yr & a month hes already in the top 10 longest serving league 1 bosses

 

[lazyfecklessblade]

Clough wasn't sacked for losing in the play-offs, he was sacked for being a weapons-grade cuntwaffle.

'non football reasons'

 

[1danewhitehouse]

Clough got us into the play offs and still got sacked so the precedent is set. As Harry says, 1 season promotion or sacked. So why give someone a 3 year contract?

Because people won’t take the job on a 1 year deal knowing they’re out of work and skint 11-12 months later with no pay-off.


The pay off is all that managers will come here for going forward.

 

[1danewhitehouse]

Amazing how incredibly unambitious some Blades have become, when finishing 11th in Division Three is now perfectly acceptable to them.


P.S. Nigel's "three year Division Three rebuilding project" only took effect after he'd totally bollocksed this season up.

It’s far from acceptable. Some just don’t accept that every manager we’ve had for the last 6 years is the cause of the problem. It’s not acceptable to hire a new manager and then sack him after bringing in less new players than anyone in the league whilst selling his best player. If that was the sum total of our intent with Adkins we might as well have let Clough have last season as he had a better chance than Adkins with his squad. But I believe Adkins had a better chance than Wilder going forward for the following reasons.


1. Better track record (3 promotions at this level)

2. More money (Cost of changing manager reduces player budget)

3. Knows the squad and who needs to go.

4. Might have already agreed some deals in principle.

5. Billy Sharp performs for him. Next season’s Billy may well be this season’s Brayford.

 

[1danewhitehouse]

well yes
no one had seen any decent football
looked more like netball

Could have sworn you spent the last 4 months praising Clough to have a go at Adkins?????

 

[1danewhitehouse]

Rebuilding involving "giving everyone a clean slate"; clueless, patternless football for the most part; and Sammon, Hammond, Edgar & Woolford as integral members of the first team.

And the twenty-odd players leaving included cast-offs from the under-9s.

Let Nigel do his "rebuilding" (while talking of promotion) somewhere else. We've moved on, thankfully.

Except Sammon and Woolford were dropped from the team and were squad players for much of the season. I don’t see anything wrong with Edgar. Hammond’s not many people’s cup of tea. Starting with about 40 mediocre players was always going to take some trial and error though especially when you can only get rid of the ones you can persuade other clubs to take and the only good 2 are injured or sold.

 

[1danewhitehouse]

I've heard some great claims about the 5 players Adkins was allowed to buy over the last two weeks.

My personal highlights are:
* Adkins had the 2nd highest budget in league one
* Adkins spent £10.5 million on players this season

And here’s me thinking he was only allowed to buy one player for a third of the price of one of the players sold?????

 

[1danewhitehouse]

Disagree.

If most people on the forums showed support towards Adkins.

....
Then Adkins would still be in a job.

60 odd percent I believe wanted him to stay when we did a poll on here a couple of weeks ago. About the same number that wanted Clough to stay.

 

[1danewhitehouse]

Adkins was sacked because he was utterly clueless.

He took a side who finished 5th the season before and finished 11th.

He made awful signings in Woolford, Hammond and Edgar as well as going through with the Sammon signing.

He obviously did zero research on our previous season as he failed to sign a centre half in the close season and didn't get a decent one in until Baptiste. He also brought Collins in from the cold and stuck with him for 7 months despite him being shite.

He moved on lots of players, that is true, but in loaning out Campbell Ryce and Freeman we lost any pace that we had in the side and loaning out McNulty until the end of the season limited our striker options. Whatever you think of McNulty he would have got more goals than DCL or Sammon off the bench in the run in.

Biggest negative for me though was his tactics, bizzare selections, motivation skills (or lack of) and his frankly laughable substitions/ability to change a game. We often seemed to come out after half time half asleep. We never once came from a losing position to win. On several occasions when we had a real chance to kick on into the top 6 with a win we failed miserably, often with a whimper and little urgency or desire.

His worst for me was Swindon at home. One nil up and solid, he changed our entire central midfield - even putting Flynn in the middle and Read out wide which just handed the game back to Swindon. Southend away was bizarre too - played Flynn central but young Whiteman wide. Then when behind he took off all midfielders again for four strikers leaving us totally shapeless following Phil Brown changing their formation. Players also went backwards under him. His big main signing in Hammond who he pursued relentlessly was worse than Ian Fucking Hamilton, yet he continued to extol his virtues and extended his loan deal in January when those wages could surely have been better spent.

So yes he inherited a big squad that needed trimming, yes he didn't have a lot to play with in the transfer market but even considering that, what he did do with the team, as above, was absolutely pitiful and showed not one bit of positivity that made you think giving him time would allow him to turn it round.

So no, I don't think failure to get promoted automatically gets you the sack. But failure to get top 6 while being totally tactically inept, making constant idiotic substitutions, god awful transfer market decisions and not being able to motivate the players to play to the maximum of their ability means, rightly, you will be in trouble.

As a footnote all Adkins failings were exactly what Reading fans had said about him so it was hardly a one off.

V Swindon- Basham was injured and Hammond was on a booking. That’s why he changed the midfield.


V Southend we were chasing the game and went all out attack. We hit the post at the death and they scored from the resulting break to kill it off. Very fine margins.


Hammond was not the main signing. Sharp was and was the only player we outright bought a was a very good one.


He brought Collins in and played him for 7 months because those above him didn’t get any deals done for new players like he wanted.

 

[Bladepicker]

V Swindon- Basham was injured and Hammond was on a booking. That’s why he changed the midfield.

So you lose one centre midfielder to injury then take off your other midfielder leaving the side totally exposed just because he was on a booking. If you can't trust your player to not be sent off in that scenario you shouldn't be playing him. Terrible management.

V Southend we were chasing the game and went all out attack. We hit the post at the death and they scored from the resulting break to kill it off. Very fine margins.

We hit the post from a set piece but aside from that created nothing and had no shape at all. You can't deny that his subs and plan to counter Southend's tactical changes that night were absolutely ridiculous, we looked like a bunch of kids playing in the back yard.

Hammond was not the main signing. Sharp was and was the only player we outright bought a was a very good one.

Granted Sharp may have been the marquee signing but Hammond was certainly a big one in a position we deseprately needed filling. He pursued him relentlessly then, once he had seen how shit he was decided to extend the deal in January rather than using the wages to sign someone else.

As for Collins, if as a manager (given the funds he had to bring in Hammond and Woolford) he couldn't find a better centre half than him to improve the area we were weakest in the season before, then it is hardly a ringing endorsement to keep him in a job.

 

[1danewhitehouse]

So you lose one centre midfielder to injury then take off your other midfielder leaving the side totally exposed just because he was on a booking. If you can't trust your player to not be sent off in that scenario you shouldn't be playing him. Terrible management.



We hit the post from a set piece but aside from that created nothing and had no shape at all. You can't deny that his subs and plan to counter Southend's tactical changes that night were absolutely ridiculous, we looked like a bunch of kids playing in the back yard.



Granted Sharp may have been the marquee signing but Hammond was certainly a big one in a position we deseprately needed filling. He pursued him relentlessly then, once he had seen how shit he was decided to extend the deal in January rather than using the wages to sign someone else.

As for Collins, if as a manager (given the funds he had to bring in Hammond and Woolford) he couldn't find a better centre half than him to improve the area we were weakest in the season before, then it is hardly a ringing endorsement to keep him in a job.

He found more than one. Edgar, Burn, Baptiste and who knows how many others. The board didn't sign the players we needed to improve.

 

[Dellas Cowboys]

Bladepicker,

It migh sound silly but I do think the final straw was the Scunthorpe game.
The players played like it was a pre season friendly....NA seems to struggle to motivat the players.
Although we did a lot of attacking against Scunnie we never troubled their keeper once.
We had loads of corners but all season we've never looked like scoring from a corner or set piece.
When we conceded against the run of play... The players heads dropped and there was no reaction
And not even any reaction or urgency in the 2nd half. We lacked belief, character and leadership as we lost with a whimper...it's happened many times under NA and for us Blades simply not giving it a go is not acceptable.

And don't forget the board should be in touch with the fans and monitor morale and reaction.

When the fans are shouting "your not fit to wear the shirt" and
"You're getting sacked in the morning"

The board knew that hopes for next season would be really low with NA in charge.

Bladepicker,

Good post.
I would have thought that the board really didn't want to sack another manager.
They've talked about stability and sticking by the manager and you can bet that someone will have said "we sack the manager every year and it's not getting us anywhere, maybe we need to be patient".

However in the cold light of day if they made a list of Adkins positives against his negatives.
Then the evidence is pretty compelling that if we found a suitable alternative then he deserved the sack.

It migh sound silly but I do think the final straw was the Scunthorpe game.
The players played like it was a pre season friendly....NA seems to struggle to motivat the players.
Although we did a lot of attacking against Scunnie we never troubled their keeper once.
We had loads of corners but all season we've never looked like scoring from a corner or set piece.
When we conceded against the run of play... The players heads dropped and there was no reaction
And not even any reaction or urgency in the 2nd half. We lacked belief, character and leadership as we lost with a whimper...it's happened many times under NA and for us Blades simply not giving it a go is not acceptable.

And don't forget the board should be in touch with the fans and monitor morale and reaction.

When the fans are shouting "your not fit to wear the shirt" and
"You're getting sacked in the morning"

The board knew that hopes for next season would be really low with NA in charge.

At least now I have fresh hope and I'm looking forward to next season to see some new players.
By the law of averages surely we must get a good manager sooner or later.
Promotion will be all the more sweeter with a Blade in charge.

it's true that the Scunthorpe match felt like a pre-season friendly - in fact I said so to those with me. many players seemed to have signed off for the summer - perhaps they didn't want to get injured knowing that they might need to find new clubs.

Adkins had to sub Hammond at half time and I suspect had to ditch any intention of bringing on Sammon as the crowd had finally had enough of the lack of attacking threat. Woolford played ok, but the crowd had turned.

They should never have gone ahead with that lap of honour - it should never have been planned and definitely should have been cancelled once the crowd had turned on them.

Like others have said, Adkins could not have survived a couple of early 2016/17 defeats and so it probably is best that all move on and perhaps he could invest some time in attending a media relations course before his next appointment - otherwise I pity the poor fans at his next club.

 

[Bladepicker]

He found more than one. Edgar, Burn, Baptiste and who knows how many others. The board didn't sign the players we needed to improve.

Edgar had been poor and misses games for Canada. Burn didn't happen. Baptiste was never a consideration in the close season.

My point is there are many many better centre halfs than what we have at a similar or lower level that he could have signed. He is the manager. He failed to sign adequate players. His transfer market dealings have been terrible.

 

[1danewhitehouse]

Edgar had been poor and misses games for Canada. Burn didn't happen. Baptiste was never a consideration in the close season.

My point is there are many many better centre halfs than what we have at a similar or lower level that he could have signed. He is the manager. He failed to sign adequate players. His transfer market dealings have been terrible.

Could he though if the board weren't authorising permanent transfers (presumably because they weren't convinced he'd be here after this season). You have to pay fees to lure players from other clubs at our level. He could only get unwanted players on loan.

 

[Dog Blade]

One season at this level for the manager to win promotion or you are out.

No more talk of time to build, making progress or sorting things out behind the scenes.

That is how it is.

Good luck Chris, I have a feeling you are going to need it.

I don't think everyone does know the score.

I only think he'll need your good luck wishes IF...

He gives everyone a clean slate
He signs shite
He alienates all of the backroom staff
He tells the academy team that he isn't interested in the kids coming through
He doesn't have 'anyone on his list' in January when a load of cash is offered up, again
He talks the same old bollox week in and week out
He loves himself more than he loves the club

Could go on, but can't see Chris Wilder doing any of the above and so will be given time if he does the right things to progress us.

UTB!

 

[Alfreton14Blade]

It’s far from acceptable. Some just don’t accept that every manager we’ve had for the last 6 years is the cause of the problem. It’s not acceptable to hire a new manager and then sack him after bringing in less new players than anyone in the league whilst selling his best player. If that was the sum total of our intent with Adkins we might as well have let Clough have last season as he had a better chance than Adkins with his squad. But I believe Adkins had a better chance than Wilder going forward for the following reasons.


1. Better track record (3 promotions at this level)

2. More money (Cost of changing manager reduces player budget)

3. Knows the squad and who needs to go.

4. Might have already agreed some deals in principle.

5. Billy Sharp performs for him. Next season’s Billy may well be this season’s Brayford.

But aren't you saying there that it is acceptable (or acceptable enough not to sack the manager who delivered that 11th place Division Three finish at least)? And making excuses for his abomination of a season too?

I certainly see the "cutting the nose off to spite your face" argument - there's no point sacking Adkins merely to punish him for this season's failings. I just think that, in finishing in such a historically low position, the manager would need to show real evidence that there's some hope for the future under his stewardship. He didn't. There was just a brief flaring up of positivity when the 3-5-2 first seemed to click, which was quickly snuffed out as that initial promise faded away.

Adkins talked all sorts of bollocks. About his (virtually non-existent) pathway for youth for example. His actions contradicted his words. There was the absurd excuse about Ben Whiteman's emergence being unnecessarily delayed because the "bloated squad" prevented him being noticed. Yet Clough had managed to notice Whiteman enough to give him his debut a year and a half earlier.

Who knows if Adkins was talking similar crap about his "behind the scenes" work. It became very difficult to trust him, or to retain any faith in him recreating his past glories, given the shabby evidence in front of our eyes.

Always respect your point of view, just happen to be diametrically opposed to it on this one.

 

[Harry's Game]

I don't think everyone does know the score.

I only think he'll need your good luck wishes IF...

He gives everyone a clean slate
He signs shite
He alienates all of the backroom staff
He tells the academy team that he isn't interested in the kids coming through
He doesn't have 'anyone on his list' in January when a load of cash is offered up, again
He talks the same old bollox week in and week out
He loves himself more than he loves the club

Could go on, but can't see Chris Wilder doing any of the above and so will be given time if he does the right things to progress us.

UTB!

You're right I can't see him doing any of that...

.....and neither can I see him or anyone winning us promotion next season. Which points back to what the thread is about.

 

[Dog Blade]

You're right I can't see him doing any of that...

.....and neither can I see him or anyone winning us promotion next season. Which points back to what the thread is about.

The thread reads 'At least now everyone knows the score' etc etc.

I don't think they do. Not everyone knows the major shite Adkins was causing and what he has said and done.

If he does the same as Adkins then I'm certain he'll get sacked, probably by Christmas.

 

[1danewhitehouse]

But aren't you saying there that it is acceptable (or acceptable enough not to sack the manager who delivered that 11th place Division Three finish at least)? And making excuses for his abomination of a season too?

.

Sheffield United finishing 11th in League 1 is absolutely unacceptable. I think we can all agree on that. I think where we perhaps disagree is regarding the apportionment of responsibility for that and what represents our best opportunity going forward.

I think we can probably agree that we wish Wilder every success and hope he hits the ground running and is a successful manager of SUFC for years to come. I suspect we differ on how likely that is to happen. And I don't mean that as any slight on Wilder but those running our club.

 

[The Crab]

Clough got us into the play offs and still got sacked so the precedent is set. As Harry says, 1 season promotion or sacked. So why give someone a 3 year contract?

It dies beg the question doesn't it? Another pay off if it all goes tits up then.

 

[BushBlade]

The thread reads 'At least now everyone knows the score' etc etc.

I don't think they do. Not everyone knows the major shite Adkins was causing and what he has said and done.

If he does the same as Adkins then I'm certain he'll get sacked, probably by Christmas.

No we don't. What did he say and do and how do you know this? (I'm not asking for names obviously).

 

[Dog Blade]

No we don't. What did he say and do and how do you know this? (I'm not asking for names obviously).

From knowing several board members, players and staff Bush.

I wasn't happy with Adkins as manager but was one of those who became convinced when I first heard him speak. Same as some key board people as they wanted Parkinson until Adkins interview.

His attitude, decision making, and discussions with board, players and academy staff seem to have sealed it all for him.

Frustrating as we now start again, again.

UTB.