What is wrong with our club?

[FATTYFOULKE]

...and no it's not as simple as McCabe out.

Today has simply been one of the worst most uninspiring performances I have ever seen from a United team. They couldn't string two passes together. They were dreadful.

They lacked confidence and cohesion but what puzzles me is it was half a new team, some the pick of this league last season.

It seems no matter what the manager or however right he seems at the time, no matter how much we spend and no matter how much we back them...nothing changes.

We're just on a never ending downward spiral.

I have to have faith Wilder will turn this around. But after what I've seen today I really do have my doubts. It was schoolboy stuff and schoolboy errors.

It was shocking, no other word for it.

 

[Pollingtonblade]

We are going down

 

[Ricky]

It's just an absolute rotting corpse of a football club. It's sad.

 

[Clarkey87]

No matter what we try - clear out of deadwood, new manager, new players....

Just doesn't seem to click.

What can we do? Other than stick it out in hope that it eventually turns around .......

One day it has got to, but when? Patience is very very thin on the ground at the minute.

 

[Muttley]

An excorsist?

 

[raul]

No, ir is as simple as that.

 

[robbiez666]

Maybe, just maybe, if we signed young physical players with some pace there would be more purpose. It's just tired and boring.

We lack players who can produce something out of nothing. we lack creativity. We lack pace. We lack height. We lack players who will drive us forward.

 

[Northyorksblade]

The first two games, I could see definite improvement, quick passing to feet, lots of movement, overlapping, intent. Today - nothing

 

[Kozzy_is_my_Dad]

In the immediate future? We lack leaders - it is as simple as that. We need someone on the pitch who identifies with the fans' collective view of disgruntlement and feelings of "this isn't good enough, we need to sort ourselves fucking out, stop feeling sorry for ourselves as a club and get our act together". We need a player or two that personify "give me the ball, I'll bloody sort this" and who don't shy away from responsibility, expectations or large crowds. That player won't be shirked by a shirty Bramall Lane crowd to begin with, but then by being there will lead to the crowd being more composed and less shirty overall. It's chicken and egg. We need one or two hard, uncompromising bastards that represent an attitude of "right then, let's get this done!". We've lacked that balls since we lost Morgan.

What does that look like right now? Someone to put their foot on the ball in centre of the park to dictate the tempo of the game - be that to stop the ball and slow things down when we are running about like headless chickens or to fucking hammer someone in the first 5 minutes when we want to show that we mean business. A prime example, but obviously well out of our league? Aron Gunnarsson.

Those values, that no-nonsense approach is typified in the dugout already in Wilder, but he cannot kick every ball himself. And lord knows it's needed with this board, but Wilder now needs backing to go out and find a player or two that represent all of the above. I said on another thread recently, we have several good players, I genuinely believe that - these players don't become bad players over night and we have finally started to cherry pick from those around us - but Brayford, Duffy, Done, Hussey, Fleck etc, and to a lesser degree O'Connell are not leaders - they are the good players that play next to a leader, they are the positive additions to an already strong spine - but a spine which we currently lack. Add in those leaders and watch the rest flourish...

 

[Tezza1889]

...and no it's not as simple as McCabe out.

Today has simply been one of the worst most uninspiring performances I have ever seen from a United team. They couldn't string two passes together. They were dreadful.

They lacked confidence and cohesion but what puzzles me is it was half a new team, some the pick of this league last season.

It seems no matter what the manager or however right he seems at the time, no matter how much we spend and no matter how much we back them...nothing changes.

We're just on a never ending downward spiral.

I have to have faith Wilder will turn this around. But after what I've seen today I really do have my doubts. It was schoolboy stuff and schoolboy errors.

It was shocking, no other word for it.

It's ok saying that it's not as simple as mcabe out, but what is the one constant factor during all this time.... Managers, players, they've all came and gone and we've got no better up to now.. I think he has to go and so does the invisible sheik.... We need real ambition at boardroom level... That's my opinion...

 

[super_pig]

No matter what we try - clear out of deadwood, new manager, new players....

Just doesn't seem to click.

What can we do? Other than stick it out in hope that it eventually turns around .......

One day it has got to, but when? Patience is very very thin on the ground at the minute.

there is one constant in all this. the board. the board are there not just to provide funds but set the tone of the entire organisation and provide leadership. they don't even turn up for the games

 

[Revolution]

Kevin McCabe

 

[Blade56]

Simple, we got it right by being promoted to PL, failed to invest in players, got relegated, sold best players bought cheaper players, got relighted, sold best players, stayed put, sold best players bought journeymen stayed put, sold best players bought loads of cheap Scottish players stayed put, sold best players dint buy owt but a donkey stayed put, sold best players bought cheap Unknown players and kept saying we need 4, still trying.

Potted history of what went wrong doing it ont cheap and thinking you've invested when you've paid the price putting right doing it on the cheap then doing it on the cheap again

I thank you

 

[JohnDenver]

there is one constant in all this. the board. the board are there not just to provide funds but set the tone of the entire organisation and provide leadership. they don't even turn up for the games

This matters too. The leadership should be visible, display a clear strategy and ethos (just for alco), and be eternally supportive, not just with cash. That message and culture filters down throughout any organisation.

At the moment any manager of SUFC lives in fear of his superior and there has been no football strategy at all. I'm not too worried about the financial support from above, or the basic good intention, but the wider leadership just isn't good enough.

 

[tyneblade]

It's ok saying that it's not as simple as mcabe out, but what is the one constant factor during all this time.... Managers, players, they've all came and gone and we've got no better up to now.. I think he has to go and so does the invisible sheik.... We need real ambition at boardroom level... That's my opinion...

It does go back to the Tevez thing; nothing changed materially, certainly not McCabe's ambition, but our club we went from a; united, confident, cocky, overachieving enviroment at the very top of its niche in the game, to the absolute opposite over one summer.

We are like the Ancient Mariner; having shot the albatross that was our swagger, we are doomed to drift aimlessly and never find home.

 

[BigBed]

They need a fucking big kick up the arse that's what's up with the bastards!!

 

[PeteBlade]

We've never recovered from our relegation and the suicidal decision to hand our biggest ever transfer budget to a drunken bum who should be banned from football.

We had one year in the sun and we've been chasing it ever since.

You only have to look at the rhetoric of the people at the club to see you that, we're a mid table league one club who bang on about 'getting back to the Premier League' despite being about as far away as we've ever been from realistically doing so.

There's no leadership from anywhere within the football club and the two owners don't even live in the country.

It's ok saying "McCabe's a Blade and wants what's best for the club" but some of his decisions have seriously set us back. If he's made these decisions in his work life he'd be challenged but who's around to challenge him here?

I think the best case scenario for all concerned would be one major UK based benefactor coming in and buying him and the Prince out, but that's the same dream for about 50 other clubs who dont have the burden of our weird set up.

 

[Alfreton14Blade]

Nine of the squad of eighteen yesterday were new additions (if you include Ramsdale). It's gonna take time to gell, inevitably.

Problem is that having changed 9 isn't enough - the main problems are amongst the remaining nine, not with the new players.

Wilder needs to continue pushing his revolution through.

 

[alcoblade]

The perpetual cycle of not giving anyone time has set in.

If we finish mid table with another new team, three quarters of this firum will want Wilder sacked, and 2 games in the next season will be questioning whats wrong. Repeat and rinse.

Let's hope Wilder can get his interviews right.

UTB

 

[PeteBlade]

The perpetual cycle of not giving anyone time has set in.

If we finish mid table with another new team, three quarters of this firum will want Wilder sacked, and 2 games in the next season will be questioning whats wrong. Repeat and rinse.

Let's hope Wilder can get his interviews right.

UTB

We aren't at the stage where he's been given a hilarious nickname yet like MADKINS so still early stages.

 

[Fulwood Blade]

, not with the new players.

.

have to disagree - wouldn't play 2 of them at all and a third is suspect - all played yesterday.

UTB

 

[bladesmanluke]

It is very much as simple as McCabe out actually

 

[BushBlade]

We've got so many things wrong it's a snowball effect. Modern football is complex and it just isn't a case of constantly changing managers until you find a good one. A manager can only do so much.
Almost every season since we sacked Robson the manager has had to work under a backdrop of a reducing wage bill and the sales of our best players. On top of that, we appointed a useless manager after Robson, a useless manager.
That lead to KM losing a shit load of money and he's never really got over it.
Then he finds Poundland, gets a tranche of money and does exactly what he did when he appointed Robson, replaced him with a 'name' an ex England player who'd built his reputation on slowly building teams on low budgets. And then gave him a pile of money to spend and sacked him for not sorting us out quick enough (and whatever happened at the famous end of season meeting).

Once again we finally appoint a manager who's CV suggests he might actually be able to do something but such is the size of the task he fails spectacularly.

And so we go again, the Poundland money has gone and we've got nowhere and done nothing other than build up our expenses to an unsustainable level. So now we're cutting back the wage bill and selling our best players again.

What KM wants is a Warnock. Someone who can run the whole club successfully and do it on the cheap. But not only that, someone who can get us up quickly. Managers like that are like rocking horse shit. And the game has moved on.

The best case scenario is that CW keeps us at the top end of the table whilst reducing the wage bill and that next season, when we've got the rest of the 'deadwood' out of the club, we can push on.

The worst case scenario is that CW is out of his depth, sacked by the end of the season or before and we get another mug who deems Wilder's signings to be deadwood and needs to bring his own players in.

That's being brief and I know I haven't even covered some of the other issues that we know about, never mind the 'behind the scenes stuff' we don't. But when players think they can get managers sacked by whinging to the people who run the club, then some of our problems are obvious.

 

[Sean Thornton]

It's ok saying that it's not as simple as mcabe out, but what is the one constant factor during all this time.... Managers, players, they've all came and gone and we've got no better up to now.. I think he has to go and so does the invisible sheik.... We need real ambition at boardroom level... That's my opinion...

McCabe appointed them but the other constant is a succession of managers who have found the job too big for them - from Robson onwards - who have spunked the budget on large numbers of useless players.

 

[alcoblade]

We aren't at the stage where he's been given a hilarious nickname yet like MADKINS so still early stages.

No, but all the usual signs are appearing.

On our present course it will be less than 3 weeks before an insulting nickname arrives, and the first calls change start happening.

UTB

 

[Alfreton14Blade]

have to disagree - wouldn't play 2 of them at all and a third is suspect - all played yesterday.

UTB

So which of the new players aren't an improvement on those they've replaced?

 

[BushBlade]

So which of the new players aren't an improvement on those they've replaced?

Depends on how you assess who've they've replaced. For example, I read someone saying one of our new defenders was better than Collins. But neither of them are better than Baptiste.
Is Hussey a replacement for Harris or McEveley? Is he any better? Too early to say.

Is Clarke better than Sammon? My mum's better than Sammon and she's 5' tall and 83 years old.

Fleck better than Hammond? Yes but is he a direct replacement? Is Chapman a replacement for Woolford or Che?

It's the same old shit Alf. Replace a manager with one who has a totally different approach to the game and then expect L1 players to be adaptable enough to cope.

 

[super_pig]

This matters too. The leadership should be visible, display a clear strategy and ethos (just for alco), and be eternally supportive, not just with cash. That message and culture filters down throughout any organisation.

At the moment any manager of SUFC lives in fear of his superior and there has been no football strategy at all. I'm not too worried about the financial support from above, or the basic good intention, but the wider leadership just isn't good enough.

when Warnock was here he basically took over both roles with Derek Dooleys help and that is why it worked with him.. but then when we got to the Prem. the usual suspects decided to get involved and it all went South again.. if maccabe had the club at heart he would say 'sorry guys but for whatever reason it doesn't seem to be working with me in charge' and step aside

 

[blade too long]

we have to give it a bit longer than 2 games

will newcastle be relegated from the championship because theyve lost the first 2
and after spending 70 million or whatever it is

are hull assured a champions league place now they are top

hell of a long journey ahead, havent started to bed in yet

had we won both wasnt going to be certs for the title just yet

lot of new faces have to blend in to the squad in game time

wigan started last season losing 2-0 at coventry then drawing at home 0-0 with doncaster
and were 17th after 2 games

sound familiar

 

[Alfreton14Blade]

Depends on how you assess who've they've replaced. For example, I read someone saying one of our new defenders was better than Collins. But neither of them are better than Baptiste.
Is Hussey a replacement for Harris or McEveley? Is he any better? Too early to say.

Is Clarke better than Sammon? My mum's better than Sammon and she's 5' tall and 83 years old.

Fleck better than Hammond? Yes but is he a direct replacement? Is Chapman a replacement for Woolford or Che?

It's the same old shit Alf. Replace a manager with one who has a totally different approach to the game and then expect L1 players to be adaptable enough to cope.

Yeah, admittedly, I'd thought of the players being replaced as the permanents/long-term loans who'd held similar positions last season:

Edgar > Wilson
Collins > O'Connell
McEveley > Hussey
Hammond > Fleck
Coutts/Flynn > Duffy
Sammon > Clarke

All improvements I'd say.

True, there's the big question of the Che sale on top of that. But, as you've suggested, that's still to pan out IMO. The four or five signings Wilder says he's still hoping to make are surely dependent on that money having been brought in.

Agree very much with your point about the manager coming in having a different approach - he's got to be given time. Judging a new manager after two league games is pretty breathtaking.

As for the great majority of the remaining pre-Wilder players, get rid (or let them show they're willing to genuinely fight for places from reserve positions).