Worst United Manager

[Chali 2na]

Putting the boot in on Morgs also
ticks the superior sniding at the Bladey Blades.

Are you talking about those arseholes who enjoy watching players graduate from the academy, and particularly enjoy seeing Sheff Utd fans play for the club? Bastards.

 

[I should coco]

Are you talking about those arseholes who enjoy watching players graduate from the academy, and particularly enjoy seeing Sheff Utd fans play for the club? Bastards.

"Ironside, Ironside, Ironside"

Bladey Blade numberwang and I win!

 

[tomtheblade]

Have to pick whether to interpret the question as 'who did the most damage to our club', which is unquestionably Robson, or 'who is the worst manager on this list' which for me is Weir.

Since it says 'worst United manager' i'm going to go for who did the worst job for us. Robson.

 

[South London Blade]

Robson

 

[SB_90]

I forgot on my post that only positives of the david weir was off pitch & listening to Radio Sheffield commentary with Keith Edwards. As it was only fun feeling the bubblingly hatred through the radio. As he hated weir more than higdon. Particually the Carlisle game how he did take them off air is beyond me as i felt he was on verge of snapping of swearing rant

 

[BladeInIreland]

Blackwell essentially got Robsons team (minus Beattie) to the play off final and nearly took us up automatically. So I think voting for Blackwell is very unfair.

In fact I think as Blackwell dug us out of the Robson hole, he deserves a lot more credit than he gets. He should have left after the play off final though, and I think he was going to but McCabe talked him out of it

He had Beattie for half of that. Think he also had naughton for the season and walker for the run in, along with the players he added to the squad. All down hill after.

 

[DronnieBlade]

Sorry to those who've read all the Basham thread, as this is a bit of a re-hash. The reason I've started this thread is because I saw a couple of people mention that they thought we've had worse managers than Bryan Robson, namely Adams, Weir and Adkins.

To me, Robson is the pièce de résistance in the United's Shit Manager Hall all of Fame. I'm a little gobsmacked to learn that this isn't a universal opinion.

Thought this poll would be somewhat interesting, while simultaneously passing another 2 mins of the international break.

Seems you were right.

And wrong

UTB

 

[Balham]

There's an argument for most of those:

Bryan Robson 2/10
First appointment after relegation and handed the biggest budget ever seen by a United manager, Robson managed to guide us to the safety of midtable in the Championship before being relieved of his duties after 5 months. A diabolical choice as manager, his legacy was felt for years as we struggled with the financial burden he left behind.

Kevin Blackwell (6/10)
A mark inflated by that run to the play off final in 2009. Picked up the pieces after the Robson debacle and nearly took us into the play offs in his first 5 months; managed it second time round but that defeat was catastrophic; the last season-and-a-bit became more turgid as the tactics were reduced to kick it long, kick it hard, kick it high. McCabe should have accepted his resignation after the Burnley defeat.

Gary Speed (5/10)
Took over from Blackwell. Short spell which included a humbling 0-4 home defeat to Nigel Adkins' Scunthorpe; left us for Wales just before Christmas 2010

Mickey Adams (1/10)
Inherited a side just outside the relegation zone but with some significant personnel issues. What that needed was a calming influence capable of getting the players to pull in the same direction, what it got was Alehouse Mickey who proceeded to alienate the few talented players we had. Discipline was a shambles: we finished games with 9 men, threw away a 2-0 lead against Scunthorpe and took until his 14th game to get a win. We weren't a great side when he took over but he made sure we got relegated. Completely out of his depth and lucky to last as long as he did

Danny Wilson (6/10)
An 8/10 first season which saw off-the-field events overshadow some great performances (5-2 wins away at Rochdale & Notts County) followed by a 4/10 second season as the belief drained out of him. Remained a clearly decent chap but put out of his misery with three months of his second season to go

David Weir (2/10)
Clearly an intelligent man with a grand plan but absolutely zero idea of how to change things once they started going wrong. His recruitment was awful (Jasper Johns, anyone?) and his record remains the worst of any permanent Sheffield United manager. I still think Adams was worse - not that I can put anything empirical forward to support that.

Nigel Clough (4/10)
Those cup runs save Clough from a worse score. His intransigence was ridiculous: blacklisting players without warning and playing four full backs across the back when a centre half sat in the stands, frozen out. Egotistical, stubborn yet convinced of his own superiority.

Nigel Adkins (3/10)
Led United to our worst league position in over 30 years, signed some truly awful players, talked a lot of shite yet gets a 3 for convincing Billy Sharp to drop a division to lead the line. I'm pretty sure he was angling for the sack from January.

Chris Wilder (9/10)
It was looking so grim when we lost 3-0 at home to Southend then 2-1 at Millwall to sit bottom of the table with 1 point from 4 games. Something changed - we only lost 3 of the remaining 42 league games to smash our way out of League One before taking the Championship by storm. Winning 4-2 over the border in South Barnsley has to be a high point; the low so far was the inconsistency in the second half of last season which saw us fall away from the play offs. Refreshingly able to admit his errors, Wilder has put the pride back into being a Blade.

 

[United Aren't Back.]

Sorry to those who've read all the Basham thread, as this is a bit of a re-hash. The reason I've started this thread is because I saw a couple of people mention that they thought we've had worse managers than Bryan Robson, namely Adams, Weir and Adkins.

To me, Robson is the pièce de résistance in the United's Shit Manager Hall all of Fame. I'm a little gobsmacked to learn that this isn't a universal opinion.

Thought this poll would be somewhat interesting, while simultaneously passing another 2 mins of the international break.

Wilson ?
Instead of Adrian Heath??

 

[Revolution]

There's an argument for most of those:

Bryan Robson 2/10
First appointment after relegation and handed the biggest budget ever seen by a United manager, Robson managed to guide us to the safety of midtable in the Championship before being relieved of his duties after 5 months. A diabolical choice as manager, his legacy was felt for years as we struggled with the financial burden he left behind.

Kevin Blackwell (6/10)
A mark inflated by that run to the play off final in 2009. Picked up the pieces after the Robson debacle and nearly took us into the play offs in his first 5 months; managed it second time round but that defeat was catastrophic; the last season-and-a-bit became more turgid as the tactics were reduced to kick it long, kick it hard, kick it high. McCabe should have accepted his resignation after the Burnley defeat.

Gary Speed (5/10)
Took over from Blackwell. Short spell which included a humbling 0-4 home defeat to Nigel Adkins' Scunthorpe; left us for Wales just before Christmas 2010

Mickey Adams (1/10)
Inherited a side just outside the relegation zone but with some significant personnel issues. What that needed was a calming influence capable of getting the players to pull in the same direction, what it got was Alehouse Mickey who proceeded to alienate the few talented players we had. Discipline was a shambles: we finished games with 9 men, threw away a 2-0 lead against Scunthorpe and took until his 14th game to get a win. We weren't a great side when he took over but he made sure we got relegated. Completely out of his depth and lucky to last as long as he did

Danny Wilson (6/10)
An 8/10 first season which saw off-the-field events overshadow some great performances (5-2 wins away at Rochdale & Notts County) followed by a 4/10 second season as the belief drained out of him. Remained a clearly decent chap but put out of his misery with three months of his second season to go

David Weir (2/10)
Clearly an intelligent man with a grand plan but absolutely zero idea of how to change things once they started going wrong. His recruitment was awful (Jasper Johns, anyone?) and his record remains the worst of any permanent Sheffield United manager. I still think Adams was worse - not that I can put anything empirical forward to support that.

Nigel Clough (4/10)
Those cup runs save Clough from a worse score. His intransigence was ridiculous: blacklisting players without warning and playing four full backs across the back when a centre half sat in the stands, frozen out. Egotistical, stubborn yet convinced of his own superiority.

Nigel Adkins (3/10)
Led United to our worst league position in over 30 years, signed some truly awful players, talked a lot of shite yet gets a 3 for convincing Billy Sharp to drop a division to lead the line. I'm pretty sure he was angling for the sack from January.

Chris Wilder (9/10)
It was looking so grim when we lost 3-0 at home to Southend then 2-1 at Millwall to sit bottom of the table with 1 point from 4 games. Something changed - we only lost 3 of the remaining 42 league games to smash our way out of League One before taking the Championship by storm. Winning 4-2 over the border in South Barnsley has to be a high point; the low so far was the inconsistency in the second half of last season which saw us fall away from the play offs. Refreshingly able to admit his errors, Wilder has put the pride back into being a Blade.

Wilson's record in 2012-3 before he was fired was W17 D17 L7, having lost Lowton, Evans and Williamson amongst others and having Blackman sold out from under him in January. That's a good job well done.

And a higher mark for Speed than Clough? Really?

 

[Weasel]

I have to abstain as it is Martin Peters by a country mile. In charge when we got relegated to the fourth division after winning about 4 games from December onwards and we were up against the might of teams like Chester and Swindon. This was despite managing a team with a top 3 wages budget.

He even managed to drop our top penalty taking star about 10 mins before the kick off for the big relegation decider against Walsall (Tony Kenworthy who was just about faultless from the spot).

The man was beyond fkin hopeless

Surprised he could even wipe his arse without managing to get a fresh turd on his fkin head.

Out of that list, fuk me what a choice. It's like choosing between syphilis or gonorrhoea. I would say Weir. Nearly up there with MP for being fkin useless.

 

[Chali 2na]

Seems you were right.

And wrong

UTB

Sorry? I'm not following you..

Wilson ?
Instead of Adrian Heath??

Post Warnock

 

[Balham]

Wilson's record in 2012-3 before he was fired was W17 D17 L7, having lost Lowton, Evans and Williamson amongst others and having Blackman sold out from under him in January. That's a good job well done.

He may have lost those players but he brought in Kitson, McMahon, Westlake and Barry Robson. He was still supported with one of the, if not the, biggest budgets in League One that season. The football was increasingly defensive (hence the high number of draws); some result highlights: Stevenage 4-0 United, United 0-2 Crawley, United 0-2 Yeovil, United 2-3 Hartlepool, United 0-0 Carlisle. He deserved to go.

And a higher mark for Speed than Clough? Really?

Yep, really. It was all about Clough to the detriment of the team. He spent a fortune on shite and left a legacy which Adkins - a man with promotion to the Premier League and numerous promotions to the Championship - couldn't fix.

You clearly see it differently. I'd be intrigued to hear your reasoning.

 

[Sheffsteel]

It’s all about context, the squad/ resources, style of play and the strength of.the opposition.

Almost picked Adkins and in the end it has to be Robson.
However people need to realise that the Robson appointment was more of a corporate decision than a football decision.
McCabe wanted to raise our profile for the world markets he was trying to attract,
In fairness Robson is a total legend (one of England’s best ever players) and a much much bigger name than Neil Warnock.

Blackwell proved how poor Robson was.
He replaced Robson mid season and with the same squad we shot up the table and almost reached the playoffs.

 

[DronnieBlade]

Sorry? I'm not following you..



Post Warnock

Right in that Robson is the most popular answer. Twice as many votes as the 2nd place guy. Or is that least popular ? You know what I mean !

Wrong in that the answer, contrary to popular misconception, isn’t Robson

UTB

 

[Chali 2na]

Right in that Robson is the most popular answer. Twice as many votes as the 2nd place guy. Or is that least popular ? You know what I mean !

Wrong in that the answer, contrary to popular misconception, isn’t Robson

UTB

Who's your pick then? Don't just put a winky face.

 

[United Aren't Back.]

Sorry? I'm not following you..



Post Warnock

Point taken.In that case, Adkins, for being such an absurd cretin who just annoyed the living fuck our of me.

 

[DronnieBlade]

Who's your pick then? Don't just put a winky face.

UTB

 

[Chali 2na]

UTB

Great answer

 

[DronnieBlade]

UTB

OK.

I’ll give you a clue.

All but 1 of those managers “tried” to elevate this knuckle dragger of a football club from out of the primordial ouze and in to the modern era.

A Herculean task for any mortal, and not surprising therefore that they mostly failed.

1 of them set us back about 10 years. Would have been more if Lord Tufty of Tuftance hadn’t arrived.

UTB

 

[AdamSufc1997]

For me has to be Robson or David Weir, I suppose it is Weir because we was in the third tier and it was tragic

 

[Harry's Game]

In order of shitness..

Robson, pisshead who blew our only ever big budget.

Weir. Like appointing a sixth form graduate who played Football Manager well on his PC.

Adams. Completely out of his depth, as culpable as McCabe & Trevor Birch in our relegation

Clough. People keep banging on about the cup runs but he nearly bankrupted the club, played boring football, alienated senior players, implemented a ludicrous transfer policy that included signing a bloke off a YouTube highlights package and making him captain only to find out his legs had gone... I could go on but won’t..

Adkins. Close call with Clough but he was hampered with the financial mess Clough left behind and got lumbered with Sammon. However he signed Hammond which was appalling judgement.

Speed. Not here long and only was appointed cos the numpties in charge thought a Far East millionaire was about to invest, turned out to be a scam. Had no chance and got out quick.

Blackwell. Turned the Robson team around and nearly got us into the Premier League. His performance after the Parachute money ran out showed his limitations though.

Wilson. Excellent first season got enough points to get a team promoted from that league 9 tomes out of 10 and had it stolen from him. Second season was pretty dire fare though but not helped by the usual fire sale of players

 

[Broomhall Blade]

Adams by a mile.
If i didn't know any better i would have sworn McCabe had just nipped into West St Job Centre and picked the 1st person he saw looking at the Job vacancies.
I still have nightmares over those folded arms after we had just conceded again.

 

[Lane Ender]

I have to abstain as it is Martin Peters by a country mile. In charge when we got relegated to the fourth division after winning about 4 games from December onwards and we were up against the might of teams like Chester and Swindon. This was despite managing a team with a top 3 wages budget.

He even managed to drop our top penalty taking star about 10 mins before the kick off for the big relegation decider against Walsall (Tony Kenworthy who was just about faultless from the spot).

The man was beyond fkin hopeless

Surprised he could even wipe his arse without managing to get a fresh turd on his fkin head.

Out of that list, fuk me what a choice. It's like choosing between syphilis or gonorrhoea. I would say Weir. Nearly up there with MP for being fkin useless.

I would have said Haslam / Peters purely for the misery of relegation to Division 4
But Peters got dementia brings things into context

 

[McGrath]

There's an argument for most of those:

Bryan Robson 2/10
First appointment after relegation and handed the biggest budget ever seen by a United manager, Robson managed to guide us to the safety of midtable in the Championship before being relieved of his duties after 5 months. A diabolical choice as manager, his legacy was felt for years as we struggled with the financial burden he left behind.

Kevin Blackwell (6/10)
A mark inflated by that run to the play off final in 2009. Picked up the pieces after the Robson debacle and nearly took us into the play offs in his first 5 months; managed it second time round but that defeat was catastrophic; the last season-and-a-bit became more turgid as the tactics were reduced to kick it long, kick it hard, kick it high. McCabe should have accepted his resignation after the Burnley defeat.

Gary Speed (5/10)
Took over from Blackwell. Short spell which included a humbling 0-4 home defeat to Nigel Adkins' Scunthorpe; left us for Wales just before Christmas 2010

Mickey Adams (1/10)
Inherited a side just outside the relegation zone but with some significant personnel issues. What that needed was a calming influence capable of getting the players to pull in the same direction, what it got was Alehouse Mickey who proceeded to alienate the few talented players we had. Discipline was a shambles: we finished games with 9 men, threw away a 2-0 lead against Scunthorpe and took until his 14th game to get a win. We weren't a great side when he took over but he made sure we got relegated. Completely out of his depth and lucky to last as long as he did

Danny Wilson (6/10)
An 8/10 first season which saw off-the-field events overshadow some great performances (5-2 wins away at Rochdale & Notts County) followed by a 4/10 second season as the belief drained out of him. Remained a clearly decent chap but put out of his misery with three months of his second season to go

David Weir (2/10)
Clearly an intelligent man with a grand plan but absolutely zero idea of how to change things once they started going wrong. His recruitment was awful (Jasper Johns, anyone?) and his record remains the worst of any permanent Sheffield United manager. I still think Adams was worse - not that I can put anything empirical forward to support that.

Nigel Clough (4/10)
Those cup runs save Clough from a worse score. His intransigence was ridiculous: blacklisting players without warning and playing four full backs across the back when a centre half sat in the stands, frozen out. Egotistical, stubborn yet convinced of his own superiority.

Nigel Adkins (3/10)
Led United to our worst league position in over 30 years, signed some truly awful players, talked a lot of shite yet gets a 3 for convincing Billy Sharp to drop a division to lead the line. I'm pretty sure he was angling for the sack from January.

Chris Wilder (9/10)
It was looking so grim when we lost 3-0 at home to Southend then 2-1 at Millwall to sit bottom of the table with 1 point from 4 games. Something changed - we only lost 3 of the remaining 42 league games to smash our way out of League One before taking the Championship by storm. Winning 4-2 over the border in South Barnsley has to be a high point; the low so far was the inconsistency in the second half of last season which saw us fall away from the play offs. Refreshingly able to admit his errors, Wilder has put the pride back into being a Blade.

I am some what surprised that Adams got a one and Weir a two. Weir made us crap, we were already crap when Adams took over, he just couldn't fight the fire.

Personally I think that if Blackwell gets a 6 then surely Clough should too. There's a lot of animosity towards Clough (dunno why); we were League 2 bound until he took over, and he turned then ship around and we nearly made the playoffs.

 

[John Street West Terrace]

With an extra voting option - Adrian Heath ..absolutely fucking useless & clueless followed closely by Robson & Adkins .. all three put together couldn’t complete a 4 year olds dot to puzzle

 

[Isaw Joeshaw]

There's an argument for most of those:

Bryan Robson 2/10
First appointment after relegation and handed the biggest budget ever seen by a United manager, Robson managed to guide us to the safety of midtable in the Championship before being relieved of his duties after 5 months. A diabolical choice as manager, his legacy was felt for years as we struggled with the financial burden he left behind.

Kevin Blackwell (6/10)
A mark inflated by that run to the play off final in 2009. Picked up the pieces after the Robson debacle and nearly took us into the play offs in his first 5 months; managed it second time round but that defeat was catastrophic; the last season-and-a-bit became more turgid as the tactics were reduced to kick it long, kick it hard, kick it high. McCabe should have accepted his resignation after the Burnley defeat.

Gary Speed (5/10)
Took over from Blackwell. Short spell which included a humbling 0-4 home defeat to Nigel Adkins' Scunthorpe; left us for Wales just before Christmas 2010

Mickey Adams (1/10)
Inherited a side just outside the relegation zone but with some significant personnel issues. What that needed was a calming influence capable of getting the players to pull in the same direction, what it got was Alehouse Mickey who proceeded to alienate the few talented players we had. Discipline was a shambles: we finished games with 9 men, threw away a 2-0 lead against Scunthorpe and took until his 14th game to get a win. We weren't a great side when he took over but he made sure we got relegated. Completely out of his depth and lucky to last as long as he did

Danny Wilson (6/10)
An 8/10 first season which saw off-the-field events overshadow some great performances (5-2 wins away at Rochdale & Notts County) followed by a 4/10 second season as the belief drained out of him. Remained a clearly decent chap but put out of his misery with three months of his second season to go

David Weir (2/10)
Clearly an intelligent man with a grand plan but absolutely zero idea of how to change things once they started going wrong. His recruitment was awful (Jasper Johns, anyone?) and his record remains the worst of any permanent Sheffield United manager. I still think Adams was worse - not that I can put anything empirical forward to support that.

Nigel Clough (4/10)
Those cup runs save Clough from a worse score. His intransigence was ridiculous: blacklisting players without warning and playing four full backs across the back when a centre half sat in the stands, frozen out. Egotistical, stubborn yet convinced of his own superiority.

Nigel Adkins (3/10)
Led United to our worst league position in over 30 years, signed some truly awful players, talked a lot of shite yet gets a 3 for convincing Billy Sharp to drop a division to lead the line. I'm pretty sure he was angling for the sack from January.

Chris Wilder (9/10)
It was looking so grim when we lost 3-0 at home to Southend then 2-1 at Millwall to sit bottom of the table with 1 point from 4 games. Something changed - we only lost 3 of the remaining 42 league games to smash our way out of League One before taking the Championship by storm. Winning 4-2 over the border in South Barnsley has to be a high point; the low so far was the inconsistency in the second half of last season which saw us fall away from the play offs. Refreshingly able to admit his errors, Wilder has put the pride back into being a Blade.

I think that's a very thoughtful and well delivered assessment , particularly in relation to Alehouse Mickey who , as you rightly say took a poor situation and made it much worse by alienating what few good players we had .

I know the OP says post Premiership but , extending it to all time , for me he's right up there with Haslam and Peters as the worst ever .

 

[Revolution]

He may have lost those players but he brought in Kitson, McMahon, Westlake and Barry Robson. He was still supported with one of the, if not the, biggest budgets in League One that season. The football was increasingly defensive (hence the high number of draws); some result highlights: Stevenage 4-0 United, United 0-2 Crawley, United 0-2 Yeovil, United 2-3 Hartlepool, United 0-0 Carlisle. He deserved to go.

Yep, really. It was all about Clough to the detriment of the team. He spent a fortune on shite and left a legacy which Adkins - a man with promotion to the Premier League and numerous promotions to the Championship - couldn't fix.

You clearly see it differently. I'd be intrigued to hear your reasoning.

Re Wilson: the games you mention were all poor performances...but that's only 5 games, and you've named 4 of our 7 defeats under him that season.

Of course the football was defensive. United scored 92 goals the previous season. Evans was incarcerated (29 goals gone) Williams wouldn't re-sign (13 goals gone) Lowton was sold by the board (6 goals and an excellent defender gone) Quinn was sold on the cheap because of his wages (3 goals and a key midfielder gone) Matty Phillips had only been on loan (5 goals gone). That's 56 goals you need to replace, when the club's budget was being reduced, not increased. Plus Cresswell (9 goals) was done, and only scored once. How are you going to replace all those goals when the club is in sell mode?

Wilson tried. He brought Blackman in, who did well (11 goals) and he was sold on the last day of the transfer window over Wilson's objection. He brought Kitson in, who did ok given his age (11 goals). Shaun Miller looked good but got injured at Christmas. Wilson was only able to scramble around and bring in Forte and Poleon at the end of the window. Both were useless, scoring once in 19 games combined. Joe Ironside was tried but was also useless. You mention Carlisle and Crawley - Forte effectively got Wilson fired as he was almost single handedly responsible for United failing to win those games thanks to a series of appalling misses.

Meanwhile, we were more defensive because we had a good defence. Maguire was excellent. Collins was excellent then (no one will give him credit for it given his form later but he was). George Long played well. We conceded only 36 goals in the 41 games Wilson managed. That's excellent. We didn't lose till November. Things were not perfect, but we let Wilson go with United in the playoff places. He'd done a good job.

Deserved to be fired? McCabe was asked at the press conference introducing Morgan as caretaker why Wilson had been fired. There is a video of that somewhere. McCabe was unable to give a cogent reason for the decision. The best he could do was to say we hadn't been winning at home. No we hadn't. 3 0-0 draws and a 0-2 defeat to Crawley, thanks to Forte. We declined under Morgan and ended up being away for the second leg of the playoffs, sealing our fate.

Re Clough: whilst he was his own worst enemy, he left us after a season and a half having achieved the following:

He took us to 2 major cup semi finals. No third tier club has ever achieved this in consecutive seasons. Only one (Wycombe) has ever done it at all. We beat 6 PL teams in Cups, 4 times away from home.
He took a team that had won one of its first 11 games and had 5 points into 7th place
He led the team to 10 successive victories in all competitions in 2013-14. This run inculded a spell of 7 straight league wins without conceding a goal.
He took the team into the playoffs into his second season. Should he have done better? Yes. But at the same time it's not nothing.

Clough is a flawed manager. 2014-5 was extremely frustrating in the league to say the least. I was glad he went. Wilson was a flawed manager. He should have done better in 2011-12. His recruitment could have been better in 2012-13.

But Gary Speed was manager for league 18 games, winning 6 and losing 9. How can he be rated better than Clough or Wilson's 2012/13 season?

 

[grafikhaus]

time to rehash my name-dropping story .... I bumped into Kevin McCabe one Monday morning, I was getting on the Leeds train at Doncaster, he was getting off on his way to Sheffield there to 'unveil' Robson as manager.

I knew him, so asked him if the rumour I had heard at a wedding over the weekend was true and that Bryan Robson was to be appointed, he said yes, it was true and when he registered the dismay on my face, he said - by way of cheering me up - [it's OK because] Brian Kidd would be his deputy .... the idea being that he would look after him.

To make the best out of what was obviously disastrous day for United, on arrival at Leeds, I withdrew £200 from a machine and went to a bookie's - who wouldn't even take my bet.

We A L L knew Robson had no ability ...... apart from McCabe - he was certainly more focussed on trying to get the FA to punish Wet Sham at the time (we spoke briefly about that).

Kevin was guilty of a serious misjudgement though the men he surrounds himself with MUST have realised that.

I think they were probably 'yes men' who dared not 'speak truth to power' for the sake of keeping their jobs.

Not kidnapping McCabe and locking him in a cubicle in the toilet on platform 3 that day at Doncaster was one of the major mistakes of mine in a life peppered with bad errors.

From Wikipdedia:

In August 2006, former United player Roy Keane was appointed manager of Sunderland and there were reports that Keane wanted Kidd to become his assistant manager at the Stadium of Light. However, Kidd instead accepted an offer to work as assistant to Neil Warnock at Sheffield United a few months after their promotion to the Premier League. After the Blades were relegated and Warnock resigned, Kidd remained at Bramall Lane under new manager Bryan Robson (another former Manchester United player) but left the club after Robson departed in February 2008.

I didn't realise that Kidd was already in situ when Robson got the gig, but I do remember seeing him snoozing on the back row of the director's box during most matches. Why the fuck he's still involved at Manchester City is beyond me.

Anyway, obviously it doesn't tell the full story, but here's the United records of this shower:

Bryan Robson (22/5/07 to 14/2/08) P: 38 W: 14 D: 12 L: 12 Win%: 36.84
Kevin Blackwell (14/2/07 to 14/8/10) P: 125 W: 53 D: 36 L: 36 Win%: 42.4
Gary Speed (17/8/10 to 14/12/10) P: 18 W: 6 D: 3 L: 9 Win%: 33.33
Micky Adams (30/12/10 to 10/5/11) P: 24 W: 4 D: 5 L: 15 Win%: 16.7
Danny Wilson (27/5/11 to 10/4/13) P: 106 W: 55 D: 31 L: 20 Win%: 51.89
David Weir (10/6/13 to 11/10/13) P: 13 D: 1 L: 2 Win%: 7.7
Nigel Clough (23/10/13 to 25/5/15) P: 104 W: 49 D: 30 L: 25 Win%: 47.1
Nigel Adkins (2/6/15 to 12/5/16) P: 54 W: 22 D: 14 L: 18 Win%: 40.7

So you can try to compare division, length of tenure, budget, squad inherited, entertainment, boardroom shenanigans etc. I don't think there was a half-decent manager among the fucking lot of them. We're being asked to compare a turd with shit.

 

[vorpal blade]

What about Adrian Heath btw ?


(that David Weir stat. is a misprint isn't it?)