The "If only..." thread

[Rattly Noise]

* Not taking our chances.

Overall i wouldn't say we have played awful,yes theres been a few times mainly away when we haven't turned up but alot of games we have dominated but not took our chances.

Linked with Hendo being out as well as in (apart from today of course).

We can afford to leak a couple of goals if we get a few the other end. Just not had the strikers consistently on form.

I'll add to that Cresswell's failing to continue where he left off last season and Ched getting injured just when he started earning his money and scoring

---------- Post added at 08:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:16 PM ----------

Let's be honest, there is no single factor. It's been coming - It looked so to me from that performance at Hartlepool.

We've sold quality and bought poorly since Warnock left. Loads of mistakes along the way, but if you trace most (if not all) of them back, you end up at McCabe.

UTB

So he's to blame for all the injuries? What does go on behind those closed doors?

 

[alcoblade]

Linked with Hendo being out as well as in (apart from today of course).

We can afford to leak a couple of goals if we get a few the other end. Just not had the strikers consistently on form.

I'll add to that Cresswell's failing to continue where he left off last season and Ched getting injured just when he started earning his money and scoring

---------- Post added at 08:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:16 PM ----------

So he's to blame for all the injuries? What does go on behind those closed doors?

Did you miss the "most" bit. Let's not get hung up on semantics. I can write a long list of indisputable fuck ups by the man. They are so clear cut they aren't worth typing out.

UTB

 

[Rattly Noise]

Kept us from going into administration without any Wednesday style shenanigans. You have to give him that.

 

[alcoblade]

Kept us from going into administration without any Wednesday style shenanigans. You have to give him that.

By not demanding payment for the huge loans that he's saddled us with? Admin would have been a better option - with McCabe getting 2p in the £. Avoiding it only helped McCabe.

UTB

 

[BladeHearts]

Kept us from going into administration without any Wednesday style shenanigans. You have to give him that.

As far as I am concerned unless you think that McCabe is some kind of evil genius plotting to destroy SUFC from within the assumption has to be made that any mistakes have been made in good faith.

If we work off that premise, we must believe that McCabe can change for the better and start making correct decisions, prior to 2006, he pretty much walked on water. Since relegation he has got almost every single major decision surrounding the club wrong - a bit like a gambler chasing his losses with larger stakes on increasingly short-priced horses whilst still losing.

I genuinely believe that in the last few weeks, our club has picked itself off rock bottom and started to sort itself out. The Academy making the FA Youth Cup Final reflects brilliantly on our club, sending the loanees home was a victory for common sense, the likes of Maguire, Slew and McAllister suggest a brighter future and the last two matches have shown that Adams hasnt lost the dressing room and that the club was right not to instigate a knee-jerk sacking.

If we stay United as a club at all levels from fan to boardroom, I genuinely believe that this time next year we will have sealed our place back in the Championship with a squad of players we can once more relate to.

 

[Rattly Noise]

By not demanding payment for the huge loans that he's saddled us with? Admin would have been a better option - with McCabe getting 2p in the £. Avoiding it only helped McCabe.

UTB

Didn't the huge loans mean we could pay our players and keep the club running or was he just meant to give it to us because we're nice? Don't get me wrong, I fully agree he's made lots of mistakes football wise, but until someone comes in with enough cash to buy him out AND invest in the club then we're stuck with the bloke.

 

[alcoblade]

As far as I am concerned unless you think that McCabe is some kind of evil genius plotting to destroy SUFC from within the assumption has to be made that any mistakes have been made in good faith.

If we work off that premise, we must believe that McCabe can change for the better and start making correct decisions, prior to 2006, he pretty much walked on water. Since relegation he has got almost every single major decision surrounding the club wrong - a bit like a gambler chasing his losses with larger stakes on increasingly short-priced horses whilst still losing.

I genuinely believe that in the last few weeks, our club has picked itself off rock bottom and started to sort itself out. The Academy making the FA Youth Cup Final reflects brilliantly on our club, sending the loanees home was a victory for common sense, the likes of Maguire, Slew and McAllister suggest a brighter future and the last two matches have shown that Adams hasnt lost the dressing room and that the club was right not to instigate a knee-jerk sacking.

If we stay United as a club at all levels from fan to boardroom, I genuinely believe that this time next year we will have sealed our place back in the Championship with a squad of players we can once more relate to.

Excellent post - but I don't fully agree.

I think McCabe could stay, but he should apolpgise, say what's gone wrong, and what we're going to do differently. I think the type of apology that's required wont come, and most fans will stay aginst him. The next stage will be the re negotiating of contracts. As several players leave, there will be the usual moans about being a selling club, in the ongoing belief that we can be funded by the money tree down the garden. There's plenty of scope for some real negative feeling still being present. Then the real issues come - who we bring in. Let's hope with more time, Adams can prove that Collins and Doyle were the exception and not the rule.

There's a bit to be positive about. IF we can renegotiate the contracts and pay players their worth or ship them out, relegation could be a real spring board. But I'd settle for just bottoming out by the end of next season.

UTB

---------- Post added at 08:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:53 PM ----------

Didn't the huge loans mean we could pay our players and keep the club running or was he just meant to give it to us because we're nice? .

The loans were required to fund the ridiculous contracts thrown about by the ridiculous management of Bryan Robson, after his ridiculous appointment by........

And let's not forget losing £2.5M per year in China, failed Hotel and property ventures. Being prepared to redevelop the ground to 44K for 3 poxy world cup games. The huge loans covered his monumental fuck ups.

UTB

 

[BladeHearts]

It takes a big man to say sorry and I agree that if McCabe was to come out and apologise to the fans for relegation but articulate his vision of a positive future then hopefully it would go a long way towards healing some of the divides running through our support.

At the end of the day, we all want the same thing which is a successful Sheffield United, history shows that a club at war with itself is never that club.

 

[Rattly Noise]

history shows that a club at war with itself is never that club.

That's us stuffed then.

 

[Hartley Hare]

For me, like others have mentioned the loss to Scunthorpe away when two up was just terrible.

We also lost to all our relegation rivals in the last two months, fatal.

Still, now is the time to look ahead and build a young hungry team.

HH

 

[scouseblade]

If
(1) Morgan wasnt out for the season. We missed our commander-in-chief, this guy would have rallied the troops some of the tighter games
(2) Henderson hadnt missed a hell of a lot of the season. Some might argue against this but I think with him upfront we would have scored more goals

 

[Northyorksblade]

I suppose the one game that had the most impact would be Palace away. Had we won and they lost, we'd be on the same points. But letting Scunny do the double over us is ridiculous.

 

[Jonny G]

The timing of Blackwell going and the number of occassions I'd leave The Lane and count the number of goal scoring chances easily on one hand under Speed have been the defining moments of the season for me. Speed speaking out against Referees for their bad decisions or lack of favour at home seems to stick in my mind too. That and Britton being hailed as the savour of our play and lacking any kind of creative touch for the majority of his time with us.

We went into the season with no creative impulse and a lack of a team unit. Seasoned pro's who weren't good enough or on the decline and our budgets stetched by a dependancy on them. The injuries didn't help and an even poorer use of the loan system left us in a worst state. I don't really think Blackwell really understood the loan system TBH and he blew a substantial amount on salaries just to show how bad his judgement was.

Next season forces us to be different to this and that is something.

 

[bricktop]

Jonny G. Glad you mentioned Speed in your post.

When he was appointed i thought it would be a decent appointment, but as soon as i saw his press conference the alarm bells started ringing, as he didn't seem confidence and was just saying things for the sake of saying things.

The rot set in pretty early under Speed, with the hiding off Scunthorpe at home, and there was a lot of insipid home defeats through playing slow laboured football, and we very quickly developed a soft underbelly, and listening to his radio interviews, very often he seemed bereft of ideas, confidence and didn't really seem to know how to stop the rot.

The difference with Speed and Adams, is that Adams has been honest about the mess the playing side of the club has been in, has been honest 9prehaps too honest) at times that he didn't know what to do to turn it around, but he seems to have a lot more about him, and slowly but surely he is beginning to show signs of being able to sort this mess we are in out.

 

[Jonny G]

In terms of the rot setting in, it probably dates back to the season after we lost the PO Final in Cardiff. We didn't evolve our style as the rest of the football world changed and whilst the rest of us knew the catching up was going to hit us at some point, I don't think the people on our Board or Management Team saw that until the end of last season.

Speed never seemed strong enough as a Gaffer and the pace we played in was more akin to that of his final season as a player. We became too soft and honest under him. As I've said before, visiting teams have come with an agenda of play along with a game plan. Does anyone really feel that the teams who are deemed by the media as classy have really performed with THAT much class at our place? QPR were solid. Norwich took their chances but weren't that much of a threat and Cardiff were thier usual over aggressive and gobby self. Forest came for a drawer like they always do and even the much praised Donny didn't show the greatest style! Nobody has looked worthy of a place in the PL for me.

Had Blackwell been up for the fight we would probably be clear of the bottom by now but the job this summer would still be as huge and he didn't have it in him to rebuild a team. There are signs that Adams now has us as a team unit and with a game plan. Some more pace and confidence and who knows!

 

[BladeHearts]

The appointment of Speed was a classic example of the wrong man at the wrong time.

The dangers signs were clear for all to see at the time of Blackwell's departure and it was clearly no time to hand the reins to a novice. We desperately needed someone with experience and ironically it would probably have been the perfect time to bring in Micky Adams.

Unfortunately we didnt and it has taken Micky a few months to sort out the mess he inherited. But I believe he has now fully got to grips with the job in hand and bizarrely it seems that we are going to be relegated with signs of positive momentum.

 

[SteelCity Blade]

We'd sacked Blackwell at the end of last season, OR the end of this season.

UTB

Yes, that's the one.

 

[boo radley]

The ref hadn't given that penalty to Liverpool in the first game of the season when Gerrard got his shot away.
The crap linesman hadn't given Kozzy offside Against Wet spam.
The ref had given that goal for Blackburn? against Wet spam.
The premier league had done the job properly.
We did not conceed a last minute goal to Birmingham in the 1st game of the season.

 

[Jim Chimmerney]

There's always games where you look and think that that was the turning point but to me, the situation we find ourselves in is down to three major decisions.

As people have said, McCabe was considered a god in the Summer of 2006 and what happened in the Prem doesn't need repeating other than to say we were hard done by. It's difficult to hold McCabe responsible although we'll never know what demands Warnock made during the season etc

Since then, McCabe has made three major decisions, and the first two, when you look back, seem totally against the grain and out of character based on how he helped us get promotion in the 1st place, prudence and stability. Regardless of the actual appointment of Robson, he decided to throw caution to the wind and bring in players on Prem wages to go for an immediate return. Whether it would have worked with a different manager no-one knows but it's clear that 4 years on, we're still feeling the effects of that financial decision. McCabe will argue that the cost cutting since then has safeguarded the club and it probably has but he can't deny that he agreed to those big contracts in the 1st place.

The 2nd and 3rd decisions both revolve around Blackwell. It's arguable whether Blackwell should have been given the job after his 1st half season but the way we finished the season, it was difficult not to give him the chance. However, having ballsed up another play-off final, Blackwell knew he couldn't cut it but McCabe persuaded him to stay, knowing full well that he was going to dismantle the team from under his feet. To then let him make signings and changes during last Summer and sack him 3 games in has to be the worst decision McCabe has been during his time at the club. If Blackwell wasn't the man then it should have been done at the end of last season.

We may have got away with the managerial errors and team changes but for horrendous luck on the injury front in the last 2 seasons and I'm sure we didn't intend to have half a team of loan players for the best part of two seasons but you make your own luck and if you sell players and cut costs you're always leaving yourself open to what has happened.

When all said and done, we still should have had enough to stay up this season but as I've said elsewhere, we might have just bumbled on again if we had. Relegation will force the club to re-build and hopefully, we can come back stronger. What McCabe has to say, and whether he'll still be around, remains to be seen.

 

[BladeHearts]

There's always games where you look and think that that was the turning point but to me, the situation we find ourselves in is down to three major decisions.

As people have said, McCabe was considered a god in the Summer of 2006 and what happened in the Prem doesn't need repeating other than to say we were hard done by. It's difficult to hold McCabe responsible although we'll never know what demands Warnock made during the season etc

Since then, McCabe has made three major decisions, and the first two, when you look back, seem totally against the grain and out of character based on how he helped us get promotion in the 1st place, prudence and stability. Regardless of the actual appointment of Robson, he decided to throw caution to the wind and bring in players on Prem wages to go for an immediate return. Whether it would have worked with a different manager no-one knows but it's clear that 4 years on, we're still feeling the effects of that financial decision. McCabe will argue that the cost cutting since then has safeguarded the club and it probably has but he can't deny that he agreed to those big contracts in the 1st place.

The 2nd and 3rd decisions both revolve around Blackwell. It's arguable whether Blackwell should have been given the job after his 1st half season but the way we finished the season, it was difficult not to give him the chance. However, having ballsed up another play-off final, Blackwell knew he couldn't cut it but McCabe persuaded him to stay, knowing full well that he was going to dismantle the team from under his feet. To then let him make signings and changes during last Summer and sack him 3 games in has to be the worst decision McCabe has been during his time at the club. If Blackwell wasn't the man then it should have been done at the end of last season.

We may have got away with the managerial errors and team changes but for horrendous luck on the injury front in the last 2 seasons and I'm sure we didn't intend to have half a team of loan players for the best part of two seasons but you make your own luck and if you sell players and cut costs you're always leaving yourself open to what has happened.

When all said and done, we still should have had enough to stay up this season but as I've said elsewhere, we might have just bumbled on again if we had. Relegation will force the club to re-build and hopefully, we can come back stronger. What McCabe has to say, and whether he'll still be around, remains to be seen.

100% correct - Best post of the day so far.

 

[Sothall_Blade]

The difference with Speed and Adams, is that Adams has been honest about the mess the playing side of the club has been in, has been honest (perhaps too honest) at times that he didn't know what to do to turn it around, but he seems to have a lot more about him, and slowly but surely he is beginning to show signs of being able to sort this mess we are in out.

There are signs that Adams now has us as a team unit and with a game plan. Some more pace and confidence and who knows!

It has taken Micky a few months to sort out the mess he inherited. But I believe he has now fully got to grips with the job in hand and bizarrely it seems that we are going to be relegated with signs of positive momentum.

I know we're all happy that we've finally won a couple but the way Adams is being exonerated of blame on this thread is very strange.
I was as critical of Speed as anyone but his team wasn't in the relegation zone and he was averaging 1.17 points per match.
That record would have given us 54 points and kept us up comfortably.
By contrast, Adams current record is 0.73 points per match or 34 points which would have seen us rock bottom and relegated weeks ago.

Yes, he inherited a poor squad which lacked pace and quality.
He immediately weakened the squad by replacing Ward, Britten and Bartley with Bent, Doyle and Collins.
He then persisted with these players through a long run of 13 matches without a win (the sequence of results that relegated us)
That sort of failure was bad enough when we thought he had no alternative but to keep juggling the same underachieving players.
Now we've seen how good Slew and Maguire actually are, it beggars belief that he didn't turn to them earlier.
Even after a couple of good wins, he allowed "match fit" Vokes to leave and let Henderson do his pre-season fitness work in vital matches that could have saved us.
To see McAllister come in and play better in one match than Doyle has in 15, doesn't give me a warm feeling about Adams, quite the opposite.
He didn't want to play these players because he didn't sign them but now he's been forced in to playing them, he's being given the credit for doing so.
Of the four managers we've had this season, he is the one most to blame for our relegation IMHO.