I ultimately think we need to move on from him, but with the current board I do think we’d be worse off as they clearly don’t have any form of plan or footballing knowledge.
But that doesn’t excuse Wilder from criticism from things that are in his control. Brooks left at the start of pre-season & Hamer going was always likely yet we’ve wasted our limited resources on Phillips, Jairo, Hamza & Doherty. We have FIVE (or 6 if Hamza plays there) defensive midfielders, and 4 (arguably 3) right backs with Seriki, Doherty, Shackleton & Hamza. Fine these players individually are ones he knows & will ‘do a job’ but what’s the point when half of them will be sat on the bench?
We spent all pre-season playing 4-2-3-1 without having the depth of personnel, then have abandoned this & moved to a 4-4-2 / 5-4-1 that we haven’t prepared for. In fact Wilder point blank refused to switch to a back 5 last season even when the squad was set up for it (one dead rubber against Bristol City aside when he changed the whole team).
Everything about this summer from the board to the manager has felt so haphazard, reactive and so poorly thought out.
We have some individual talent still (Cooper, Seriki, Tanganga, Burrows, McCallum, Peck, Phillips, Donovan, Bamford, Oné) yet we seem to have zero idea how to use them, how to improve them and how to get the best out of them. This is why people are frustrated with Wilder - yes there are things out of his control, but he should be getting more out of this group than he is. The performances to date have been embarrassing and aside from a 6 week purple patch, they weren’t much better last season.
But that doesn’t excuse Wilder from criticism from things that are in his control. Brooks left at the start of pre-season & Hamer going was always likely yet we’ve wasted our limited resources on Phillips, Jairo, Hamza & Doherty. We have FIVE (or 6 if Hamza plays there) defensive midfielders, and 4 (arguably 3) right backs with Seriki, Doherty, Shackleton & Hamza. Fine these players individually are ones he knows & will ‘do a job’ but what’s the point when half of them will be sat on the bench?
We spent all pre-season playing 4-2-3-1 without having the depth of personnel, then have abandoned this & moved to a 4-4-2 / 5-4-1 that we haven’t prepared for. In fact Wilder point blank refused to switch to a back 5 last season even when the squad was set up for it (one dead rubber against Bristol City aside when he changed the whole team).
Everything about this summer from the board to the manager has felt so haphazard, reactive and so poorly thought out.
We have some individual talent still (Cooper, Seriki, Tanganga, Burrows, McCallum, Peck, Phillips, Donovan, Bamford, Oné) yet we seem to have zero idea how to use them, how to improve them and how to get the best out of them. This is why people are frustrated with Wilder - yes there are things out of his control, but he should be getting more out of this group than he is. The performances to date have been embarrassing and aside from a 6 week purple patch, they weren’t much better last season.