CW to West Brom

[Keen Blade]

yes agree loved dave bassetts man management but got to be honest hated the type of football we played under him but john harris was a brilliant manager who played fantastic attacking football only thing that held him back from creating a top 6 side was the boardroom in particular dick wragg kevin mcabe was a saint at the side of him

Agreed , Dick Wragg was Chairman of the FA and in a prime position to put our feet firmly under the top table in the early 70s , but he was a total pussy at the only time in our Post-War (and I mean post First World War) history when we had a manager and a team that were truly top-drawer.

 

[Keen Blade]

Put it this way, I would have been some what disappointed if Wagner had come to us.
Maybe, just maybe Wilder is quite a difficult man to work with, he had a lot of leverage with PA due to what he achieved with us.. But going into a new club and laying the law down isn't always a good look.

CW enjoyed far too much leverage for a stubborn sod , derived from being a fan combined with a meteoric 4 years , but in the final analysis , our abject relegation proves that too much unrestrained leverage does NOT trump wise corporate governance.
The continued selection of the cunt Lundstram and the purchase of Brewster's Millions are the merely the most obvious examples of the irrational acts of a man losing the plot , who should have been gripped by his employers before he managed to undo all his previous good work in a relegation that was signalled in August 2020.

 

[Keen Blade]

£700k compensation for Appleton apparently. West Brom not prepared to pay anything so they're shopping in the pool of out of work managers.

I can't believe that WBA can be so short-sighted but that's great news for us

 

[Keen Blade]

Doesn't Lai want to sell?

Read somewhere part of the mandate was no compensation. It seems he knows they need a manager but don't expect much more funding.

All the loanees will return to their parent clubs and Johnstone and Pereira are such obvious departures. Makes their squad a bit meh.

Fulham and ourselves best placed. We weren't a one man team and as such will be able to keep a more than well functioning Championship squad. Fulham lost a lot of loans but they do have a lot of Championship ready loans coming back in the door. Adds another dimension them potentially saying tarrah to Parker.

Whatever happens, I think we did well acting early and getting Jokanovic.

I am so inspired by how quietly & efficiently the Prince went about recruiting the best (imho) manager for a club in our position.

 

[Keen Blade]

I've said my points re Soucek and we went for Berge instead, as recommended by VW I highly suspect.

One final point Balham. All of the players you've quoted that Wilder brought in. Most are from the Champ or from the squads of other PL clubs. Wilder spent around £120m and in my opinion wasn't even able to sign the best players from the Champ. The likes of Benrahma, Maupay, Watkins, Cash, Eze, Robinson. they all went to London/more money or bigger clubs Villa or more established prem clubs Brighton. So we've not even been able to sign the cream of the crop, McBurnie aside, who at 22 and having scored 24 goals can be considered to be the cream, but it's likely he was the second choice over Maupay. Freeman and Robinson were not the cream of the Champ, QPR's best player was Eze and Robinson was never prolific at PNE but granted he played as a winger also. So we've attracted decent Champ players and squad players like Mousset who Bournemouth hardly played and yet we were all raving about him for months last season, he got 6 assists and 6 goals - not bad for a first season, it's not Wilder's fault that he had application issues/fitness, we got a tune out of him for a season and that played a massive part in why we did so well in that first season.

Also, Wilder didn't inherit a great United team, he did inherit Sharp and Basham granted, the latter of which had largely played in midfield previously, Coutts and Freeman were not part of the promotion team to the Prem. So it was Wilder who created all of that from League One and then from the Champ adding Norwood, McGoldrick, Stevens, Egan, Hendo and Baldock totalled up to around £4-6m, compare that to what Leeds, Derby, Boro, Stoke and Villa spent on players, so it's crap to say he rode the League One momentum to get us up. Where we are now is all due to Wilder and the base we have is all his and Knills work, they get a 9/10 in my book.

They get 10/10 for what they did over 3.5 years from summer 2016 - it was amazing - it's a pity that CW was allowed by lack of corporate governance to fuck it up from the LunnyCunt rebellion & the JoC injury (without comparable replacement) from January 2020 onwards.

 

[Keen Blade]

We played 3-5-2, 3-4-1-2, 3-4-3 and 4-4-2 at some point under Wilder last season. It's a bit of a myth that he didn't try different things.

I just think that he, Knill and even the board (Prince said he was happy with the performances if not the results) thought that we weren't too far away from last year (1-0 wins becoming 1-0 defeats, fine margins etc) and that it would turn around.

C'mon Cat , performances were shit - Prince was being diplomatic - most of those 1-0 defeats we never laid a glove on the opposition - we could have played 900 minutes and never threatened their goal.
Have a look at the total goals for the season and tell me you're not cringing with embarrassment.

 

[Keen Blade]

That (in bold) is my point though Booker. Wilder couldn't sign the very best players from the Championship as our budget and standing didn't allow it so why the hell didn't we look abroad rather than signing substandard players whose performances haven't been good enough? I missed Ben Osborn off the signings list by the way. He's another one who's midtable Championship quality.

Wilder deserves enormous credit for the first 3.5 years of his time with us. The turnaround job he did from the ashes of Adkins' tenure was nothing short of miraculous. However, he thoroughly lost the plot for the last 18 months and that can't be overlooked.

This.

 

[Hagansbootlaces]

Spot on mate , he basically had a 12 month brain-fart , which doesn't bode well in a multi-million pound industry

I think CW was just like the rest of us, watching every game, waiting for things to just click back into place, not quite believing what was happening and left hoping, well its the next game then, when the players will not only hit some form, but the belief/fight will return, it never did, even after beating ManU, the belief and fight evaporated

 

[jono_t2000]

Looks like Slavs number 2 Pereira is coming back to England, but not to be Slavs number 2 at the Blades but to take the main job at West Brom

 

[Scarebus]

Looks like Slavs number 2 Pereira is coming back to England, but not to be Slavs number 2 at the Blades but to take the main job at West Brom

I read yesterday that he was staying in China. The football rumour mill makes my head hurt.

 

[Yogi]

There was a bit of stuff in the press last week that we were bringing in some back room staff from Spain but it didn’t mention any names.

 

[CaptainMorgans]

Absolutely spot on there JJ.

Even if Brewster's fee is split over the 4 years of his contract he will still be costing us approx £7m per annum based on £40k per week plus the £5m share of his transfer fee.

That equates to free transfer earning approx £134k per week, or whichever way you want to split transfer fee and wages, so I'm really not sure where the argument that CW did the best with what he was given comes from???

Brewster is a young player that was thrown in at the deep end of one of the league's worst ever teams. Let's give him a bit more of a chance to prove himself.

 

[Keen Blade]

Brewster is a young player that was thrown in at the deep end of one of the league's worst ever teams. Let's give him a bit more of a chance to prove himself.

My criticism of the purchase of Brewster's Millions is not of the player himself but of the wisdom of the impulse purchase itself , when defence needed a JoC quality replacement + midfield was simply shit all round + crying out for LunnyCunt to be binned off & replaced and an additional quality playmaker.
The BM purchase was just insane AT THAT PARTICULAR TIME.
And we don't have the budget to take that kind of financial risk on a youngster with even less pedigree than McKnob.

 

[Blade56]

I recon they’ll be after Knill next

 

[JJBlade]

Or CW wanting a lot more money in salary and budget!

No mate, everyone knows he walked out because of a leaky roof that the Prince wouldn't fix

Only Sheffield United fans can bring big business down to a squabble similar to what you might have with the Mrs

 

[Booker4]

My criticism of the purchase of Brewster's Millions is not of the player himself but of the wisdom of the impulse purchase itself , when defence needed a JoC quality replacement + midfield was simply shit all round + crying out for LunnyCunt to be binned off & replaced and an additional quality playmaker.
The BM purchase was just insane AT THAT PARTICULAR TIME.
And we don't have the budget to take that kind of financial risk on a youngster with even less pedigree than McKnob.

This is very much Captain Hindsight Keen. Firstly, we all know strikers cost a lot, and when we signed Brewster I can remember how over the moon the fanbase was that we'd signed a really exciting England under 21 international who'd scored 11 in 22 for Swansea. We struggled for goals in the first season up, from Christmas onwards it became obvious for reasons not many can fathom that Mousset was not the same player and we needed competition for the role he provided.

Lundstram had an excellent first season as did Fleck and Norwood, and we also had Berge newly signed. Yes we needed another, particularly a creative midfielder but again you have to take yourself back to last pre-season and where we were then. Wilder clearly did want a centre mid, hence the protracted pursuit of John Swift. He also wanted a JOC replacement and said so publicly. We can only assume that the impasse between the Prince and Wilder over recruitment resulted in why we didn't sign another centre mid or a JOC replacement, that my have been Wilder's fault but we don't know.

From your post it appears you're saying it was wrong to sign Brewster because that blew the bulk of the budget when there were other areas in the team that needed strengthening, but you're assuming that by signing Brewster we didn't have the money left to bring in other players, and again, I'm not so sure this was the case, more that Wilder and the Prince couldn't agree on targets as the Prince likely suggested players that Wilder didn't want, and Wilder pursued players that for whatever reason the club couldn't get over the line.

 

[MobileBlade]

No mate, everyone knows he walked out because of a leaky roof that the Prince wouldn't fix

Only Sheffield United fans can bring big business down to a squabble similar to what you might have with the Mrs

Actually when I drove past Shirecliffe earlier in the week, the scaffolding was out and they were fixing the roof. Some people are just so short-sighted.

 

[Houston_Blade]

Barnsley & WBA talking about compensation for Ismael now apparently. That will be pretty football!

 

[Wards]

I wonder if Ismael will change from the approach he used at Barnsley - he did well with a bunch of limited players last season but surely with WBA's resources he'd have to change tact a bit? That said I guess they laid the foundations with Fat Sam for a direct approach - he might be able to make use of the squad they assembled better than anyone else out there.

 

[Houston_Blade]

I wonder if Ismael will change from the approach he used at Barnsley - he did well with a bunch of limited players last season but surely with WBA's resources he'd have to change tact a bit? That said I guess they laid the foundations with Fat Sam for a direct approach - he might be able to make use of the squad they assembled better than anyone else out there.

Article on The Athletic refers to his 'high pressing style'. I don't know if Barnsley do or don't have a pressing style but it seems the go to 'style' for journalists when describing any manager under the age of 60.

 

[Roygbiv]

Weirdly the West Brom fans are happy with this when they were against Wilder for being "uninspiring". Either they haven't seen Barnsley play or they're just desperate now after Appleton turned them down.

 

[Original United]

Weirdly the West Brom fans are happy with this when they were against Wilder for being "uninspiring". Either they haven't seen Barnsley play or they're just desperate now after Appleton turned them down.

But a club that has employed Bobby Gould, Gary Megson, Tony Pulis & Sam Allardyce as managers might be used to that style

 

[Roygbiv]

But a club that has employed Bobby Gould, Gary Megson, Tony Pulis & Sam Allardyce as managers might be used to that style

Good point. Make Warnock look like Pep that lot

 

[Harry's Game]

Weirdly the West Brom fans are happy with this when they were against Wilder for being "uninspiring". Either they haven't seen Barnsley play or they're just desperate now after Appleton turned them down.

I think it is that they won’t have seen Barnsley play, those two play off games were the first time I saw them and my description would be “Pulis ball with the finesse removed”

 

[Rudders]

Good point. Make Warnock look like Pep that lot

I think it is that they won’t have seen Barnsley play, those two play off games were the first time I saw them and my description would be “Pulis ball with the finesse removed”

I can't believe the likes of Pereira (11 PL goals and numerous assists in a rubbish, relegated side) will want to stick around and get neckache watching the head tennis/aerial bombardment.

 

[Yogi]

Barnsley & WBA talking about compensation for Ismael now apparently. That will be pretty football!

He’ll make allardyce look like pep. I can’t believe how shambolic a lot of clubs have been in appointing managers this summer. Makes us look decisive.

 

[Yogi]

Weirdly the West Brom fans are happy with this when they were against Wilder for being "uninspiring". Either they haven't seen Barnsley play or they're just desperate now after Appleton turned them down.

Don’t think many will have watched Barnsley play why would they? I wouldn’t have if they weren’t local. They’ll be going off him getting a low budget Barnsley side into the play offs. There will be unrest by November over at the hawthorns unless they’re top two because his football is the most agricultural I’ve seen in a while.

 

[jt64]

My criticism of the purchase of Brewster's Millions is not of the player himself but of the wisdom of the impulse purchase itself , when defence needed a JoC quality replacement + midfield was simply shit all round + crying out for LunnyCunt to be binned off & replaced and an additional quality playmaker.
The BM purchase was just insane AT THAT PARTICULAR TIME.
And we don't have the budget to take that kind of financial risk on a youngster with even less pedigree than McKnob.

Financial risk? What do you think his resale value is right now?

 

[ancientblade]

would be a great appointment for us i think baggies getting their 4th choice

 

[Teofilo Cubillas]

Either they haven't seen Barnsley play or they're just desperate now after Appleton turned them down.

Roy...

They have indeed seen it all... so much so that one of them even put a video of it on Reddit. Specifically Barnsley vs Brum.

Allow me to summarise.

If before existed there was "tiki-taka", in this emergent era of the "new normal" we discover - in of all places Barnsley - the futuristic footballing concept of "tiki-head-it-taka-huff-it"...



If they are happy... I'm saying nothing...