Okay, the messiah has gone. Fucking hell, he's given us the most fantastic moments in the past twenty years, ones where hope and optimism can be fully pinned that we are indeed a club to be reckoned with. There's not enough space here to list them. We all know what they are and what he has done.
But hasn't this season spelled out a few things about out mercurial ex-manager?
Firstly, he managed to evade, largely undamaged from the mum-and-dad fighting between McCabe and HRH. He also kept the team's heads focussed entirely on the task in hand namely, don't get relegated in the first season like Warnock did. Great stuff, but in the cold light of day, that was largely down to two or three players we currently have no access to, and the surprise element of the new boys in town fighting with fists and feet rather than harsh words, prose and invective. That's a Wilder trait, by the way. You could see that even the bigger clubs were wary of us, Spurs, Chelsea, Man United, Arsenal and even Citeh didn't like playing us because we didn't play by the rule book. Wilder, writ large, is that.
But post lockdown return, and I keep reinforcing this, oppositions have clearly worked his shit out and play effective, simple tactics to stop our game in it's tracks. We were famed for it - even today on Gillette SS, they were still commenting on the 'overlapping centrebacks' yet since we have lost all of that capability, has anyone seen this used - effectively - since the beginning of the season? Have we scored a goal from that? But I am going to point at Wilder on this - why fucking carry on with that tactic when firstly, we don't have the players to do that (none of the LCBs were even a patch on O'Connell) and oppositions just blocked the advances, latterly turning them into advantages with som many defences pushed so far up the flank and just frail Oliver Norwood standing in their way.
His transfer policy has been laughable. In the divisions below it was canny recruitment based on requirement in spcific areas and to hone the 3-5-2 format. But moving up the the Premier League when we were promoted, in came some players, not marque signings, but you thought, 'more to come'. He signs serial benchwarmer, non-goalscorer and straphanger at Bournemouth Lys Mousset. Go on, tell me who didn't Wiki him and think, 'hmmm.' instead of 'reyt signing'. I keep hearing people saying he was instrumental in getting us to ninth last season. Six fucking goals and not one complete match from someone who cost more than our previous historic record signing by a large magnitude. He bought a few other players he has not even touched or troubled to bring into the side, two years down the line now. And although some featured in bits and bobs across both seasons, the spine of the Championship playing team still appears from front to back, despite an eye watering amount of cash being spent, much of which is on the treatment table, sat in the stands, or unpicked.
People are busy blaming the board for the current mess, the team's slump and Wilder's exit but this is 'footballing business'. If some are deluded enough to think that HRH works in isolation in his decision making and want and need to install a better regulatory, accountable level into the football team business then they certainly show their colours in the past few days. HRH will be taking advice from plenty of sources outside WIlder's earshot on his way ahead (it is his club now) and that includes business managers, consultants and even other football club owners. Although I am disappointed Wilder is not doing the captain's duty and going down with his ship, fighting until the last turret is submerged, it is obvious the core of this tragedy is his redoubtable stubbornness which may have worked with McCabe, but doesn't cut any ice with HRH. And really, who can blame the prince? We've been playing awful football, been serially beaten, relegated since before Christmas in all but numbers and the team he should have transformed is a shoddy hotch-potch of profligate waste and shockingly undercapable makeweights. As people have said, were he not Chris Wilder, he'd have been sacked in October, and we have just skated on over thin ice because of this until today. And if he can't take the consequences of his lack of capability, he is right in going, albeit I'd have preferred it based on our position in December this year rather than leaving us in uncertainty, right now.
Replacement? Eddie Howe. Anyone else and we are in trouble, although I think HRH will give Heckingbottom the benefit of the doubt to prove he isn't the one between now and the end of the season. If he plays Wilderball and 5-3-2 with the same old shit and the player's morale clearly dented, I feel those 'narrow margins' might turn into fucking pastings though, starting with tomorrow.
And for fucks sake people. Cheer up. We've had a host of worse situations we've been through in the past fifty years.
pommpey
