Keith Gillespie book

[Darren]

There's some figures out there that show that in the PL season we spent a very low % of turnover on players' wages and then went mad in the 07-08 season. Basically McCabe was miserly with the competent Warnock and extravagant with the incompetent Robson. Given how narrowly we were relegated if Warnock had had the wages budget Robson had we would have stayed up comfortably.

That is the root of our downfall.

 

[Cool Clint]

There's some figures out there that show that in the PL season we spent a very low % of turnover on players' wages and then went mad in the 07-08 season. Basically McCabe was miserly with the competent Warnock and extravagant with the incompetent Robson. Given how narrowly we were relegated if Warnock had had the wages budget Robson had we would have stayed up comfortably.

That is the root of our downfall.

And Mc Cabe from then on............

 

[Deadly_D'Jaffo]

There's some figures out there that show that in the PL season we spent a very low % of turnover on players' wages and then went mad in the 07-08 season. Basically McCabe was miserly with the competent Warnock and extravagant with the incompetent Robson. Given how narrowly we were relegated if Warnock had had the wages budget Robson had we would have stayed up comfortably.

That is the root of our downfall.

Robson was hired for the wrong reason; to raise commercial awareness in Asia (Wasn't we courting a hoax bid which was later televised at around this time?) rather then his credentials as a football Manager. Perhaps the same reason McCabe wanted to show some front by signing big names like Beattie, Naysmith, Hendrie etc.

I like McCabe, he has steadied us during his tenure but failed to take the chances available to take us to the next level where teams like Swansea, Wigan, Southampton, WBA and Cardiff have succeeded. Hopefully the final chapter of his time at United he can be creditted as the man responsible for bringing in a Saudi consortium that took Sheff Utd from a lowly 3rd division club to Champions League winners of 2019

 

[puppet]

There's some figures out there that show that in the PL season we spent a very low % of turnover on players' wages and then went mad in the 07-08 season. Basically McCabe was miserly with the competent Warnock and extravagant with the incompetent Robson. Given how narrowly we were relegated if Warnock had had the wages budget Robson had we would have stayed up comfortably.

That is the root of our downfall.

One little point missing from your post is Warnocks seemingly inability to spend money wisely. Given the biggest promotion push money McCabe had ever handed anyone, he bought Horsfield and Akinibiyi, neither of whom justified the spend and luckily a rare moment of humility saw Shipperley restored to the team having been unfair and inexplicably bombed out. Given a reasonable amount of money in January and with Hulse out - we bought some utter crap and truly confusing signings, which left us with the wrong players for what was always going to be a potential relegation battle come May. One goal in some of the lower scoring games from a player capable of the task wouldve made all the difference.

 

[Darren]

One little point missing from your post is Warnocks seemingly inability to spend money wisely. Given the biggest promotion push money McCabe had ever handed anyone, he bought Horsfield and Akinibiyi, neither of whom justified the spend and luckily a rare moment of humility saw Shipperley restored to the team having been unfair and inexplicably bombed out. Given a reasonable amount of money in January and with Hulse out - we bought some utter crap and truly confusing signings, which left us with the wrong players for what was always going to be a potential relegation battle come May. One goal in some of the lower scoring games from a player capable of the task wouldve made all the difference.

Hulse wasn't out until March.

Warnock made some poor signings, granted, but the idea that if he had the resources that Robson had he would not have been able to attract players with the extra skill to give us the tiny bit extra we needed to avoid relegation is, in my view, fanciful.

 

[puppet]

I thought it was before for some reason, duhh, you're right it was March. I don't think he was that good at judging a player to be honest, he was good in the £200,000 or less bracket because it was all he'd ever really known.

 

[Darren]

I thought it was before for some reason, duhh, you're right it was March. I don't think he was that good at judging a player to be honest, he was good in the £200,000 or less bracket because it was all he'd ever really known.

I dunno. Warnock made some reasonable over £200K signings - Stead, Kilgallon and Ifill spring to mind.

I think Warnock's dealings in Jan 07 have been over criticised. It is clear he had a very restricted budget, so went for good second tier players (Kilgallon and Stead) and players who had done it abroad (Shelton and Fathi). Bear in mind also that those were balanced by selling or releasing Akinbiyi, Shipperley, Unsworth and Kabba and his spend that month was minimal by PL standards

If our top wage was £13K a week when the PL average was around £15-16K a week, then it is clear that there is no way Warnock could sign established PL players. Had the purse strings been loosened for him as they were for Robson, he could have signed players like Beattie and Cahill.

 

[puppet]

But shelton and fathi were utterly useless - however good they had been elsewhere one player and higher wages wouldve been better surely?

 

[Darren]

But shelton and fathi were utterly useless - however good they had been elsewhere one player and higher wages wouldve been better surely?

Indeed. That's the beauty of hindsight.

 

[puppet]

or knowledge in the first place?

 

[Darren]

or knowledge in the first place?

I don't recall much criticisms of the signings at the time.

 

[LoughboroBlade]

I dunno. Warnock made some reasonable over £200K signings - Stead, Kilgallon and Ifill spring to mind.

And, after the disappointments of Akinbiyi and Horsfield, he spent even more money on the most expensive striker he ever signed for us - the aforementioned Rob Hulse at £2.2m, who was one of the best strikers we'd seen in years. It should be pointed out also that a lot of people on here and elsewhere, including myself, were very critical of both signing Hulse in the first place and in paying that much cash for him. A view that evaporated for virtually everyone after the Liverpool game.

 

[Darren]

And, after the disappointments of Akinbiyi and Horsfield, he spent even more money on the most expensive striker he ever signed for us - the aforementioned Rob Hulse at £2.2m, who was one of the best strikers we'd seen in years. It should be pointed out also that a lot of people on here and elsewhere, including myself, were very critical of both signing Hulse in the first place and in paying that much cash for him. A view that evaporated for virtually everyone after the Liverpool game.

Indeed.

 

[SRBlade]

Quite an interesting read this thread.

A few things I would like to add;

Given how we were to believe that the harmony in the squad from around 2002 - 2007 was fantastic, this may have been attributed to the fact that most players were earning around the same amount of money, which in premiership terms was quite modest. If Warnock had signed players on lucrative wages, the morale which had seemingly helped with promotion and results in the prem may have disappeared. Having said that, players should be professional, so additions of quality should have seen us through until the end of the season.

Robson's era was an absolutely disgusting one, Gillespie could say that players were 'soft' under him, but how can a player be inspired to play for a manager who gets pissed up until 6am on a match day. How is it that certainly players let him down? there were 16 in his match squad, yet we were lying around 17th in the Championship with a squad some are deeming better than the one we had a year ago, a squad of players that were unfortunate to be relegated by 1 goal.

I don't quite understand how a manager so detested as much as Blackwell managed to have such a successful time as manager with Untied (successful as in his win percentage), Blackwell was also part of possibly our best season in the last 20 years, was he really that bad?

 

[Deadly_D'Jaffo]

I don't quite understand how a manager so detested as much as Blackwell managed to have such a successful time as manager with Untied (successful as in his win percentage), Blackwell was also part of possibly our best season in the last 20 years, was he really that bad?

Short answer 'no', long answer 'yes'.

Blackwell was massively unlucky to be sacked two games into a season, after a draw and a loss to two promotion contenders. He was also unlucky that after the play off failure, the budget was slashed yet the objective remained the same; play-offs minimum. But it was at this time he made more mistakes in the transfer market such as Simonsen, Ertl and Taylor are 3 of the worst players I have ever seen at United.

On the flipside, like you said, Blackwell inherited a strong squad with plenty of talent at his disposal. Thinking about players such as Naysmith, Morgan, Killa, Walker, Ugo, Naughton, Speed, Gillespie, Cotterill, Sharp and Beattie makes me drool with envy of how good we had it! His job was fairly simple after the dull, uninspiring spell that Bryan Robson caused; motivate that group of players and get the best out of them and he did. Towards the end of 2007/2008 season we were sensational and the season after we were unlucky to be pipped by Birmingham to the 2nd automatic spot. But with one of the largest budgets in the division at that time, you could still label that year a failure.

 

[PeterNdlovu081]

It's extremely harsh to criticise Blackwell for not getting us back up at the first attempt.

He wasn't even brought in until March and then from then on we maintained automatic promotion form until the end of the season. He simply ran out of games.

 

[oaklandrdblade]

Short answer 'no', long answer 'yes'.

Blackwell was massively unlucky to be sacked two games into a season, after a draw and a loss to two promotion contenders. He was also unlucky that after the play off failure, the budget was slashed yet the objective remained the same; play-offs minimum. But it was at this time he made more mistakes in the transfer market such as Simonsen, Ertl and Taylor are 3 of the worst players I have ever seen at United.

On the flipside, like you said, Blackwell inherited a strong squad with plenty of talent at his disposal. Thinking about players such as Naysmith, Morgan, Killa, Walker, Ugo, Naughton, Speed, Gillespie, Cotterill, Sharp and Beattie makes me drool with envy of how good we had it! His job was fairly simple after the dull, uninspiring spell that Bryan Robson caused; motivate that group of players and get the best out of them and he did. Towards the end of 2007/2008 season we were sensational and the season after we were unlucky to be pipped by Birmingham to the 2nd automatic spot. But with one of the largest budgets in the division at that time, you could still label that year a failure.

Personally I thought Simonsen was very good when we first signed him on loan, he only played 2 games as a permanent signing under Blackwell I believe and it was subsequent to Blackie's departure that Simmo turned to shit.

 

[PeterNdlovu081]

Steve Simonsen was hailed as being an absolutey brilliant signing when we first got him. Many people thought he was better than Kenny.

 

[judge]

People who drag up warnocks bad signings when given money never mention the fact that the wages we were paying were peanuts comparably

 

[oldblade]

It's extremely harsh to criticise Blackwell for not getting us back up at the first attempt.

He wasn't even brought in until March and then from then on we maintained automatic promotion form until the end of the season. He simply ran out of games.

He didn't run out of games the following season though. He had a very strong squad and I would suspect a very high wage budget and yet we failed on two counts. Firstly, we did not secure automatic promotion. Secondly, having done that we then went on to fail in the play off final.

I do not think it unreasonable to regard anything less than promotion that season as failure.

 

[oldblade]

I thought it was before for some reason, duhh, you're right it was March. I don't think he was that good at judging a player to be honest, he was good in the £200,000 or less bracket because it was all he'd ever really known.

Yep. Hopeless judge of a £200,000+ footballer. Michael Brown. Total rubbish, wasn't he, and as for Danny Webber....fancy signing him when we needed someone who could score a few key goals to help earn us promotion.

 

[Bladesway]

I'm not known as one of Warnocks biggest fans but to hammer him for his purchases before pre-premiership is a bit rich. Yes Horsefield and Akinbiyi were monumental baddies but he was well in the credit balance with Hulse, Shipperley, Brown, Webber, Kenny, McCall, Morgan etc etc etc.

I'm equally perplexed at why Blackwell gets such bad press. Sure, not the most talented manager on gods green, but he did save us from Relegation that famous season, he then got us to the brink of promotion until someone we all know and love pulled the rug from under him when he got a twitchy sphincter. It was all downhill from there but we all know that Blackwell should have gone that day we failed in the play off final. All those who go on about Henderson being a bad buy etc seem to forget that he keeps scoring 10+ goals in the Championship season after season so he can't be all that shit. The players he sold he had to because we were already on that horrible slippery slope after KMac lost his marbles.

Whatever next, Danny Wilson worst Manager in our history?

 

[GRUMPY BLADE]

I do not think it unreasonable to regard anything less than promotion that season as failure.

Or this season [before we kicked off] and the two previous ones

 

[oldblade]

Or this season [before we kicked off] and the two previous ones

This season, before we kicked off, I did not think our squad was anything like promotion material.

The season before last, however, should be regarded as a failure.

Last season I thought an average squad achieved an above average position.

 

[Kenilworth]

Akinbiyi will always be remembered by me for that cracker he scored at the Sty, our second goal after Tongey hit the postage stamp from his free kick for the first goal of the game.

Any Blade that scores against the porkers gets my respect (yes, even Bobby Ford)

 

[Bladesway]

Akinbiyi will always be remembered by me for that cracker he scored at the Sty, our second goal after Tongey hit the postage stamp from his free kick for the first goal of the game.

And his debut goal against Derby that secured the points. But they were expensive goals when you consider we got Hulse for about the same money. Even Darius prompted a better return than Ade.

 

[Selly]

And his debut goal against Derby that secured the points. But they were expensive goals when you consider we got Hulse for about the same money. Even Darius prompted a better return than Ade.

Disagree.

At the point at which we signed Ade, Shipps was starting to look exceptionally jaded. Bringing in AA allowed us to rest Shipps.

Now clearly, and I'm sure this was NW hope, it would have been better all round had we been able to choose between Shipps and a fully firing AA in the run in, as it was, Shipps was immense and we pretty much had no need of AA.

I think what I am tryuing to sa is that AA was an attempt to shore up the team in an area we didn`t have too many options in, and it worked.

Horsefield ion teh other hand was a nightmare. We certainly did not need both of them...

 

[Foxy]

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