Bladesway
Not a member of the reaction faction
Strap in, its a long one (said Ched)......
Much has been said of formation, lack of goals from here, there and everywhere and how we really aren't very good. Our two assets in Long and MaGuire are looking worth less and less each week. I cannot see the point in talking about which formation, which tactic and which person is responsible without having a potted history as evidence of how woeful our decline into misery is.
We have some awful players from years of underinvestment (and poor luck) and the poor bastards who have been manager have been (for whatever reason) held accountable for this. Our managerial choices and decision making has been about as woeful as you could wish for if you were sat in S6 hoping for us to combust. Right on cue that is what we did.
Warnock-Did a great job getting us there and you can argue he was robbed by cheats down in East London. However he combusted when it mattered most and his January spending spree (no one has ever said he had a limited budget, even Warnock himself) was well short of what we needed. I blame him for relegation but to be fair to him that was only the start of our woe.
Robson-McCabe terrible choice No1. When choosing captain blade as manager should have got us at least in the play offs. He bought some good players like Beattie but couldn't manage them. That squad should have walked the league but it didn't. The fans (myself included) were still in "McCabe knows what he is doing" mode. By the time of the shoes off campaign the scales had fallen from almost all eyes.
Blackwell-Happy to be here but was limited. It was under him that mid season the rug really got pulled away from us in his first full season. From here on in we went in ever decreasing circles. The right decision would have been to accept his resignation following the play off final. My guess is McCabe thought he couldn't get anyone cheaper (and he had given Blackwell a contract extension that he neither asked for or warranted). Of course there was another opportunity to get rid of Blackwell but I can only assume that McCabe saw the 3-0 win at Ipswich as a new dawn. If he did he was the only one.
The succession of crap in the door at the expense of better players while not unexpected has had a cataclysmic impact on our position in the league. We got rid of both Blackwell and Wilson at the worst possible time. I still cannot believe that someone would let a manager (Blackwell) spend the transfer money and then fire him after a couple of games into the season. A creditable draw at Cardiff with 10 men showed me that while we were limited we were still capable. To fire him in a fit of peak after the QPR game was a huge error of judgement. Unless you have a better man lined up. Speed wasn't better in spite of us hammering Scunthorpe (although we lost 4-0 we apparently hammered them!!!!) Speedo god bless him moved on quicker than you could say let me out of here when Wales came knocking. Adams was another massive error of judgement bought in just because he was one of us. While you wanted the man to succeed you knew he wasn't good enough following his interview on bringing Dave Basset in to be his secretary. I shudder now at him saying he only got 2 calls a day at Port Vale and didn't know he would be so busy here.
So we got relegated to the hellhole of league one and we sacked Adams. Wilson walked in under a hail of bullets and totally revamped the team ethos. We played the best stuff I have seen from us in years, scored hatfuls of goals and generally looked unbeatable. Of course our Welsh Wizard got himself caught being a naughty boy and when it looked like we had sewn it all up, the unthinkable happeed. I remember that day and thinking it could only happen to us. The other guy innocent but our bloke caught with his finger in the pie (so to speak). This didn't just effect Ched, but the team (understandably in my opinion) just fell to pieces. Of course the pork overtook us and went up in our place. I felt deeply for Wilson because in spite of it all he maintained his dignity when he had his wings shot off.
Even then you would think that upon the 4th penalty of a penalty shoot out that just needed to be put away, against a team that didn't seem able to hit a cows arse with a banjo we would do it. Even at that point most of us knew we could still screw it up. And of course we did. Simmos penalty is still orbiting mercury as we speak.
With hindsight poor old Wilson should have chucked it in then, but he gave it another shot. However, Quinn went, Lowton had gone and just as we hit the top of the table at the end of December we went and sold Blackman our leading scorer (thats Nick, not Larry) so we got worse and hobbled our way around the top of the table but never looked assured. Even so we had enough games in hand with 5 games to go to get promoted automatically. So what did we do? Sacked the manager and replaced him with sir shoutalot. I lived in Scotland at the time and got many a text from colleagues saying we were a basket case club with an owner who had totally lost the plot. I agreed. We slipped out of automatic promotion (of course) and then out of the play offs at semi final stage.
Weir is the new hopeful and so far it hasn't gone well. Of course the fans are all asking why. Formation? Tactics? New Manager? Players not gelling? I wouldn't overanalyse it. Just look at my rant above and then look at what we had to what we have.
Hulse, Stead, Sharp, Beattie, Henderson, Evans have become Porter and Taylor. New bloke in from Oldham is yet to show what he has but you can see the problem can't you? Some hothead from Walsall is our only real outlet going forward (if he can stay on the pitch). It isn't 4-4-2, or 4-5-1 its selling a merc and replacing it with a trabant. We are where we are because we have made a series of awful decisions. And we keep making them.
However, there is light at the end of this tunnel. I am laughing as I write this though. We have an investor. IF (and fuck me its a big if) we invest wisely in 3-4 good players we may just scramble out of this hole. I would be happy as a clam if we got out of League One and bobbed about in the Championship for the next 10 years.
I don't think we will because I have absolutely no faith in anyone at BDTBL in making the right decision over whether to put the bin out or not let alone over investment. I fully expect Presiden Assad to be named the new investor. Timing has never been McCabes strongest point has it?
Anyway, if you are still reading well done. But next time you are sat thinking why haven't we put an extra man up front, or why don't we play down the wings just think back to this post. It doesn't matter because we really don't have anything worth mentioning in our team. Lets face it we are hanging our hats on a bloke called Diego from Chesterfield who has been out for months to come in and save us. An extra play maker in midfield really doesn't matter.
Much has been said of formation, lack of goals from here, there and everywhere and how we really aren't very good. Our two assets in Long and MaGuire are looking worth less and less each week. I cannot see the point in talking about which formation, which tactic and which person is responsible without having a potted history as evidence of how woeful our decline into misery is.
We have some awful players from years of underinvestment (and poor luck) and the poor bastards who have been manager have been (for whatever reason) held accountable for this. Our managerial choices and decision making has been about as woeful as you could wish for if you were sat in S6 hoping for us to combust. Right on cue that is what we did.
Warnock-Did a great job getting us there and you can argue he was robbed by cheats down in East London. However he combusted when it mattered most and his January spending spree (no one has ever said he had a limited budget, even Warnock himself) was well short of what we needed. I blame him for relegation but to be fair to him that was only the start of our woe.
Robson-McCabe terrible choice No1. When choosing captain blade as manager should have got us at least in the play offs. He bought some good players like Beattie but couldn't manage them. That squad should have walked the league but it didn't. The fans (myself included) were still in "McCabe knows what he is doing" mode. By the time of the shoes off campaign the scales had fallen from almost all eyes.
Blackwell-Happy to be here but was limited. It was under him that mid season the rug really got pulled away from us in his first full season. From here on in we went in ever decreasing circles. The right decision would have been to accept his resignation following the play off final. My guess is McCabe thought he couldn't get anyone cheaper (and he had given Blackwell a contract extension that he neither asked for or warranted). Of course there was another opportunity to get rid of Blackwell but I can only assume that McCabe saw the 3-0 win at Ipswich as a new dawn. If he did he was the only one.
The succession of crap in the door at the expense of better players while not unexpected has had a cataclysmic impact on our position in the league. We got rid of both Blackwell and Wilson at the worst possible time. I still cannot believe that someone would let a manager (Blackwell) spend the transfer money and then fire him after a couple of games into the season. A creditable draw at Cardiff with 10 men showed me that while we were limited we were still capable. To fire him in a fit of peak after the QPR game was a huge error of judgement. Unless you have a better man lined up. Speed wasn't better in spite of us hammering Scunthorpe (although we lost 4-0 we apparently hammered them!!!!) Speedo god bless him moved on quicker than you could say let me out of here when Wales came knocking. Adams was another massive error of judgement bought in just because he was one of us. While you wanted the man to succeed you knew he wasn't good enough following his interview on bringing Dave Basset in to be his secretary. I shudder now at him saying he only got 2 calls a day at Port Vale and didn't know he would be so busy here.
So we got relegated to the hellhole of league one and we sacked Adams. Wilson walked in under a hail of bullets and totally revamped the team ethos. We played the best stuff I have seen from us in years, scored hatfuls of goals and generally looked unbeatable. Of course our Welsh Wizard got himself caught being a naughty boy and when it looked like we had sewn it all up, the unthinkable happeed. I remember that day and thinking it could only happen to us. The other guy innocent but our bloke caught with his finger in the pie (so to speak). This didn't just effect Ched, but the team (understandably in my opinion) just fell to pieces. Of course the pork overtook us and went up in our place. I felt deeply for Wilson because in spite of it all he maintained his dignity when he had his wings shot off.
Even then you would think that upon the 4th penalty of a penalty shoot out that just needed to be put away, against a team that didn't seem able to hit a cows arse with a banjo we would do it. Even at that point most of us knew we could still screw it up. And of course we did. Simmos penalty is still orbiting mercury as we speak.
With hindsight poor old Wilson should have chucked it in then, but he gave it another shot. However, Quinn went, Lowton had gone and just as we hit the top of the table at the end of December we went and sold Blackman our leading scorer (thats Nick, not Larry) so we got worse and hobbled our way around the top of the table but never looked assured. Even so we had enough games in hand with 5 games to go to get promoted automatically. So what did we do? Sacked the manager and replaced him with sir shoutalot. I lived in Scotland at the time and got many a text from colleagues saying we were a basket case club with an owner who had totally lost the plot. I agreed. We slipped out of automatic promotion (of course) and then out of the play offs at semi final stage.
Weir is the new hopeful and so far it hasn't gone well. Of course the fans are all asking why. Formation? Tactics? New Manager? Players not gelling? I wouldn't overanalyse it. Just look at my rant above and then look at what we had to what we have.
Hulse, Stead, Sharp, Beattie, Henderson, Evans have become Porter and Taylor. New bloke in from Oldham is yet to show what he has but you can see the problem can't you? Some hothead from Walsall is our only real outlet going forward (if he can stay on the pitch). It isn't 4-4-2, or 4-5-1 its selling a merc and replacing it with a trabant. We are where we are because we have made a series of awful decisions. And we keep making them.
However, there is light at the end of this tunnel. I am laughing as I write this though. We have an investor. IF (and fuck me its a big if) we invest wisely in 3-4 good players we may just scramble out of this hole. I would be happy as a clam if we got out of League One and bobbed about in the Championship for the next 10 years.
I don't think we will because I have absolutely no faith in anyone at BDTBL in making the right decision over whether to put the bin out or not let alone over investment. I fully expect Presiden Assad to be named the new investor. Timing has never been McCabes strongest point has it?
Anyway, if you are still reading well done. But next time you are sat thinking why haven't we put an extra man up front, or why don't we play down the wings just think back to this post. It doesn't matter because we really don't have anything worth mentioning in our team. Lets face it we are hanging our hats on a bloke called Diego from Chesterfield who has been out for months to come in and save us. An extra play maker in midfield really doesn't matter.
