Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2015 3:32:24 GMT
for me last season is gone,dead and buried,,iConference. stand the constant return to last season,,,were 2nd which im pleased with. I am pleased the freefall has stopped, hopefully. Not pleased that we are in the conference. It was with a heavy heart yesterday that I watched league highlights and saw a 38 year old Cureton show how to take goal opportunities for that massive club Dagenham & Redbridge and cringed at the league tables when I see our traditional peers Bournemouth and Brentford pushing for promotion way up the league. So pleased that we are not heading for the Conference South, frustrated at the number of chances Taylor misses every game it seems, bored quite often with the tactics that DC employs and amazed at the ability of a club with the support we have to screw things up. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2015 8:21:58 GMT
After all the experienced Dave Penney showed who to do a good job! If Higgs had shown some leadership and stuck to his guns rather than give in to the spoilt brats who didn't like Mr Nasty Penney, thus avoiding appointing Buckle, we might have got back in to League One! Never mind drop out of the football league. What a spineless turd. It's all John Ward's fault. |
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LPGas
Stuart Taylor
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 1,240 
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Post by LPGas on Feb 9, 2015 8:56:01 GMT
Ward 38 matches, and tells us we don't need a striker, so no additions in Transfer windows
Clarke 8 matches AFTER the transfer window has closed
Only a muppet would totally blame Clarke for relegation.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2015 10:00:41 GMT
Ward 38 matches, and tells us we don't need a striker, so no additions in Transfer windows Clarke 8 matches AFTER the transfer window has closed Only a muppet would totally blame Clarke for relegation. Who blamed Clarke and only Clarke? We had a striker, and a good one too, but Clarkeson spent most of the season playing out of position. The Evening Post reported that Ward was trying to bring a goal scorer in and late evening on deadline day when he reported back to his overlords that he had failed to sign anyone he was 'moved upstairs'. Ward takes a massive share of the blame, but just remind me who was his assistant all season, and who made results (and performances) worse when he took over? I wonder if a club with the profile and support base of Rovers has ever previously been relegated out of the League and not a single board member resign as a result and the manager kept his job? |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2015 10:26:15 GMT
for me last season is gone,dead and buried,,iConference. stand the constant return to last season,,,were 2nd which im pleased with. I am pleased the freefall has stopped, hopefully. Not pleased that we are in the conference. It was with a heavy heart yesterday that I watched league highlights and saw a 38 year old Cureton show how to take goal opportunities for that massive club Dagenham & Redbridge and cringed at the league tables when I see our traditional peers Bournemouth and Brentford pushing for promotion way up the league. So pleased that we are not heading for the Conference South, frustrated at the number of chances Taylor misses every game it seems, bored quite often with the tactics that DC employs and amazed at the ability of a club with the support we have to screw things up. i dont think any of us will ever be happy with being in the conference but im pleased we have an honest team having a real good go at getting back in the league,, |
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irishrover
Global Moderator
Joined: June 2014
Posts: 3,372
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Post by irishrover on Feb 9, 2015 10:34:51 GMT
Ward 38 matches, and tells us we don't need a striker, so no additions in Transfer windows Clarke 8 matches AFTER the transfer window has closed Only a muppet would totally blame Clarke for relegation. Who blamed Clarke and only Clarke? We had a striker, and a good one too, but Clarkeson spent most of the season playing out of position. The Evening Post reported that Ward was trying to bring a goal scorer in and late evening on deadline day when he reported back to his overlords that he had failed to sign anyone he was 'moved upstairs'. Ward takes a massive share of the blame, but just remind me who was his assistant all season, and who made results (and performances) worse when he took over? I wonder if a club with the profile and support base of Rovers has ever previously been relegated out of the League and not a single board member resign as a result and the manager kept his job? Ah - but if you are going to judge in hindsight negatively you have to also judge positively and based on where we are now the decision to hold onto Clarke looks like a good one and there is a decent wider defence of it too; if due to wage bill reductions you're not going to have the capacity to bring in a ton of players and you're stuck with some player in your squad you'd probably rather get rid of then you may as well stick with the manager who knows the players that are left quite well and has an idea where we might be able to get some cheap additions. You can't have it every way under the sun - if you're going quote 'facts' about relegation then you also take into consideration 'facts' from this season that show Clarke in a much more positive light; ie making a much better fist of it in the first Conference season than most of the 'bigger' clubs that drop out of the football league do. Given that football lives eternally in the present I don't think it's surprising that the majority think Clarke is doing a decent job and yes I challenge you to come up with a manager that you think would definitely be doing a better job right now given the relatively restrictive hand he was dealt; ie reduction in wagebill, big wages still on the books and unlikely to go anywhere, an incredibly pissed off fanbase and a club in the doldrums. Not really the most auspicious of circumstances and surely if you're going assign him that much of the blame for relegation you need to give him quite a bit of credit for what he's done since otherwise it seems unfair and one eyed frankly. I thought we should have let him go in the summer because irrespective of anything else I didn't think the relegation stench would wash away unless we had a clean break but the results say I was wrong. |
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Deleted
Joined: January 1970
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2015 10:44:26 GMT
Who blamed Clarke and only Clarke? We had a striker, and a good one too, but Clarkeson spent most of the season playing out of position. The Evening Post reported that Ward was trying to bring a goal scorer in and late evening on deadline day when he reported back to his overlords that he had failed to sign anyone he was 'moved upstairs'. Ward takes a massive share of the blame, but just remind me who was his assistant all season, and who made results (and performances) worse when he took over? I wonder if a club with the profile and support base of Rovers has ever previously been relegated out of the League and not a single board member resign as a result and the manager kept his job? Ah - but if you are going to judge in hindsight negatively you have to also judge positively and based on where we are now the decision to hold onto Clarke looks like a good one and there is a decent wider defence of it too; if due to wage bill reductions you're not going to have the capacity to bring in a ton of players and you're stuck with some player in your squad you'd probably rather get rid of then you may as well stick with the manager who knows the players that are left quite well and has an idea where we might be able to get some cheap additions. You can't have it every way under the sun - if you're going quote 'facts' about relegation then you also take into consideration 'facts' from this season that show Clarke in a much more positive light; ie making a much better fist of it in the first Conference season than most of the 'bigger' clubs that drop out of the football league do. Given that football lives eternally in the present I don't think it's surprising that the majority think Clarke is doing a decent job and yes I challenge you to come up with a manager that you think would definitely be doing a better job right now given the relatively restrictive hand he was dealt; ie reduction in wagebill, big wages still on the books and unlikely to go anywhere, an incredibly pissed off fanbase and a club in the doldrums. Not really the most auspicious of circumstances and surely if you're going assign him that much of the blame for relegation you need to give him quite a bit of credit for what he's done since otherwise it seems unfair and one eyed frankly. I thought we should have let him go in the summer because irrespective of anything else I didn't think the relegation stench would wash away unless we had a clean break but the results say I was wrong. I'm judging in hindsight objectively, based on known information and outcome. Positive about where we are now, now I know you are joking, scroll up and read the list of teams we have failed to defeat this season. With the resources at our disposal we should be putting village pub teams like Dartford and Woking to the sword 9 times out of 10. The game played in this division isn't even football as I recognise it, it's more like a Saturday night fight interrupted occasionally by big blokes seeing how high they can kick the ball. Anybody who can get the ball on the floor, pass it quickly and have team mates prepared to move into space will blitz this division. Yes, I can name a man who will do a better job, I did it before the season started and I'll remind you again at the end of the season when he takes his team back into the League. |
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dido
Predictions League
Peter Aitken
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 1,883
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Post by dido on Feb 9, 2015 10:54:07 GMT
Bit difficult, Irish, when only one of you is capable of rational thought.
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Post by michaelb on Feb 9, 2015 10:54:06 GMT
How about outthinking a few managers who probably get to train and drill their part-time players a couple of nights a week if they're lucky? I think he has done OK but failing to win at Dartford, Woking, Alfreton, Braintree, Altrincham, Wrexham, Chester, Aldershot and Welling (may have missed some) isn't great when he still has players to call on like Mildenhall, Brown, Parkes, Lockyer, Monkhouse and Mansell, who are all Football League standard. I know people will say these teams raise their game when they face Rovers but did anyone really think that Dartford excelled themselves, or Woking come to that? I get the fact he has had to rebuild the spirit, and he's done a decent job with that, absolutely. But sometimes his team selection and tactics are open to question and he's a bit of a tinkerman, as Daniel Leadbitter confirmed the other day. I certainly don't agree with him saying "we deserved to win the game" as he did after Dartford. People who didn't go to that game might think we dominated the game. We didn't by any means. I don't think we did anywhere near enough to take the three points. No point trying to reason with the happy clappers. Clarke is great, if we are even allowed to call him Clarke? It seems that now that we are all best buddies we call him DC. Obviously I must have just imagined that we were not in a relegation position when he took over, and that a farcical performance against (all but already relegated) Torquay followed by a totally insane formation against (nothing to play for) Mansfield made sure that after 8 games Clarke took us out of the League. When he took over we had 43 points from 38 games, I make that more than 1 point per game, Clarke managed 7 points in his 8 games. Just in case anyone says that we were on a dreadful run of form and he did well to get 7 points from 8 games, we got 9 points from the last 8 games before he was appointed. Sorry to disrupt the 'DC' love-in, but them's the facts. As for this season, there are no easy games in the Conference, totally unreasonable to criticise the manager for failing to organise a team to beat Altrincham, Alfreton, Welling, Woking, Dartford or Braintree. What i struggle with is that DC is gainfully employed as a manager of a club second in their division, and you fellas aren't . Where did it all go wrong ? |
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Post by Curly Wurly on Feb 9, 2015 11:05:22 GMT
But Ward quit as manager. He was sacked as director of football at the end of the season, but it was his choice to leave his post as manager, leaving Clarke with a poisoned challice. Who told you that? That's not the impression he gave by writing his programme notes for the Saturday immediately ahead of the event, or the somewhat pursed lipped air he gave off for the rest of the season. it's also not what the club told us at the time, which was that, as part of a stable and long established vision in which, at an opportune moment when all was ticking over nicely, a smooth transition would be effected, and so it came to pass, the day after the transfer window closed and with the team dicing with relegation, that an opportune moment was declared amidst mutual congratulation about a job well done, and Wardy was elevated to still greater things, so nothing to see here, all is tickety, move along please. 'It's all John Ward's fault' was a later bit of convenient revisionism. I'm not going to argue the point, but I'll have to agree to disagree. Clarke did make mistakes in those 8 games which proved fatal, but Ward should not have left him with that job to do. In the context of the original question - Clarke is learning and improving. |
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Post by droitwichgas on Feb 9, 2015 11:39:33 GMT
But didn't JW have family problems he needed to deal with hence his sudden departure? Although seeing as all DC eventually had to do was not lose to Mansfield, who are hardly setting Div 2 alight this season, was that a massive task for him?? it's looking more & more like he's going to have 3 cup finals at the end of this season, who's he going to cope with them?
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irishrover
Global Moderator
Joined: June 2014
Posts: 3,372
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Post by irishrover on Feb 9, 2015 11:50:49 GMT
Ah - but if you are going to judge in hindsight negatively you have to also judge positively and based on where we are now the decision to hold onto Clarke looks like a good one and there is a decent wider defence of it too; if due to wage bill reductions you're not going to have the capacity to bring in a ton of players and you're stuck with some player in your squad you'd probably rather get rid of then you may as well stick with the manager who knows the players that are left quite well and has an idea where we might be able to get some cheap additions. You can't have it every way under the sun - if you're going quote 'facts' about relegation then you also take into consideration 'facts' from this season that show Clarke in a much more positive light; ie making a much better fist of it in the first Conference season than most of the 'bigger' clubs that drop out of the football league do. Given that football lives eternally in the present I don't think it's surprising that the majority think Clarke is doing a decent job and yes I challenge you to come up with a manager that you think would definitely be doing a better job right now given the relatively restrictive hand he was dealt; ie reduction in wagebill, big wages still on the books and unlikely to go anywhere, an incredibly pissed off fanbase and a club in the doldrums. Not really the most auspicious of circumstances and surely if you're going assign him that much of the blame for relegation you need to give him quite a bit of credit for what he's done since otherwise it seems unfair and one eyed frankly. I thought we should have let him go in the summer because irrespective of anything else I didn't think the relegation stench would wash away unless we had a clean break but the results say I was wrong. I'm judging in hindsight objectively, based on known information and outcome. Positive about where we are now, now I know you are joking, scroll up and read the list of teams we have failed to defeat this season. With the resources at our disposal we should be putting village pub teams like Dartford and Woking to the sword 9 times out of 10. The game played in this division isn't even football as I recognise it, it's more like a Saturday night fight interrupted occasionally by big blokes seeing how high they can kick the ball. Anybody who can get the ball on the floor, pass it quickly and have team mates prepared to move into space will blitz this division. Yes, I can name a man who will do a better job, I did it before the season started and I'll remind you again at the end of the season when he takes his team back into the League. Compared with the glorious Samba-esque festival of the game that is League 2 or the bastion of Total Football that is League 1?! Would you like to tell the 10's of thousands of local and pub players who play up and down the land every weekend that the game they play is 'not football as I recognise it'? That the only people who should be allowed to play the game are those who pass an arbitrary aesthetic requirement? I'm sure they'll be thrilled to know that your definition is the definitive one... No such thing as objective judgement, just objective facts; judgement is always subjective (only the legal professional tells itself the comforting lie that objective judgement is possible and even then doesn't really believe it) and doubly so for something as emotionally involved as supporting a football club. Surely the only 'fact' that really matters at this stage in terms of judging the manager is that we are 2nd in the league; that justifies the decision to keep him, you almost seem dissapointed that he hasn't done worse so you have more 'facts' to back up your position. In the course of a league season good teams fail to beat bad ones that's why you even it out over 46 games - I actually think our very good record against the top 7-8 is far more indicative of our overall level of performance. The resources argument is false because it doesn't consider context - our resources are greater than nearly every club in this division but they are not infinitely greater. It reminds me when City fans used to argue in the early 90s that they should be in the Premiership because their ground was better than many Prem teams (it was at the time). Resources are only worth something if the manager has access to them - and a lot of ours are tied up in players that were signed before he got here. This is why a lot of teams that come down don't bounce back immediately - they don't have the flexibility to be able to use those resources to their advantage. They have to spend 18 months getting their s*** together and adapting to the new reality before that advantage truly kicks in. I'm not surprised that perpetual yo-yo teams adapt quicker - because they probably don't go into League 2 with the expectation that they'll be a football league club till the end of time so they're not hamstrung for a period when they're relegated and nor is it such a cultural shock. Now it's a disgrace we are where we are but that doesn't mean Darryl Clarke got a blank sheet of paper in July; he inherited a shambles of a squad and went into August still not really knowing which players were staying and which going (which presumably had a knock on effect on the amount he could commit to new players) so he has to be judged by what he's done with that shambles. If you are talking about Martin Allen by the way - I think he'd have been disaster with this Rovers team at this time; he'd have not been able to get the cheap London based signings he normally gets by with, he'd have pissed off the players on long term contracts by sticking a rocket up them and fans would have turned on him very, very quickly because they'd have moaned about his style of play. I've seen us play half a dozen times this year and I'd say Clarke has his team set up to play more of a passing possession style of football than any manager we've had in a while. They don't move it quickly enough and lack quality outwide to make it pay regularly though but the emphasis seems to be on keeping the ball rather than playing direct. If anything I thought we were missing a bit of basic 'get it up to the big man' to vary it up a bit. What I have seen from Clarke in every one of those games is a switch of tactics that put the game in our favour - didn't always produce the result or a massive upsurge in performance but it did always improve us and get us on the front foot. Gateshead was the best example - adding the extra man to midfield, releasing Sinclair and pushing us further up the pitch exposed Gateshead as a bit one dimensional and over-reliant on deep crossfield passes for their game to work. But I saw him do something similar in all those games; it showed a flexibility which was impressive. |
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Post by PeterHooper57 on Feb 9, 2015 13:18:39 GMT
TBA if we do not win the league then I think we might struggle in the play offs. I watch most games and we struggle away from home, the defeats away at Barnet, Braintree and Altrincham were horror shows, and the awful draws at places like Eastliegh and particularly Dartford says we might struggle if we have go away particularly in the second leg of the play offs (thats if we make the play offs). The problem for me is that Clarke blames every body bar himself for every thing, maybe he is right, although only time will tell. And while the defence do make stupid mistakes, our defensive record is sceond to none; however, up front we are dog ****. Yes, Taylor is a good footballer and should be in the side, but he aint a natural goalscorer and chokes and missdes far too many opportunities. Clarke please give Ellis a chance ffs (upfront with Easter), you might then get the goals we need for automatic promotion. utg
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dido
Predictions League
Peter Aitken
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 1,883
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Post by dido on Feb 9, 2015 13:28:46 GMT
awful draw at Eastleigh?  ? |
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Deleted
Joined: January 1970
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2015 14:00:03 GMT
I'm judging in hindsight objectively, based on known information and outcome. Positive about where we are now, now I know you are joking, scroll up and read the list of teams we have failed to defeat this season. With the resources at our disposal we should be putting village pub teams like Dartford and Woking to the sword 9 times out of 10. The game played in this division isn't even football as I recognise it, it's more like a Saturday night fight interrupted occasionally by big blokes seeing how high they can kick the ball. Anybody who can get the ball on the floor, pass it quickly and have team mates prepared to move into space will blitz this division. Yes, I can name a man who will do a better job, I did it before the season started and I'll remind you again at the end of the season when he takes his team back into the League. Compared with the glorious Samba-esque festival of the game that is League 2 or the bastion of Total Football that is League 1?! Would you like to tell the 10's of thousands of local and pub players who play up and down the land every weekend that the game they play is 'not football as I recognise it'? That the only people who should be allowed to play the game are those who pass an arbitrary aesthetic requirement? I'm sure they'll be thrilled to know that your definition is the definitive one... No such thing as objective judgement, just objective facts; judgement is always subjective (only the legal professional tells itself the comforting lie that objective judgement is possible and even then doesn't really believe it) and doubly so for something as emotionally involved as supporting a football club. Surely the only 'fact' that really matters at this stage in terms of judging the manager is that we are 2nd in the league; that justifies the decision to keep him, you almost seem dissapointed that he hasn't done worse so you have more 'facts' to back up your position. In the course of a league season good teams fail to beat bad ones that's why you even it out over 46 games - I actually think our very good record against the top 7-8 is far more indicative of our overall level of performance. The resources argument is false because it doesn't consider context - our resources are greater than nearly every club in this division but they are not infinitely greater. It reminds me when City fans used to argue in the early 90s that they should be in the Premiership because their ground was better than many Prem teams (it was at the time). Resources are only worth something if the manager has access to them - and a lot of ours are tied up in players that were signed before he got here. This is why a lot of teams that come down don't bounce back immediately - they don't have the flexibility to be able to use those resources to their advantage. They have to spend 18 months getting their s*** together and adapting to the new reality before that advantage truly kicks in. I'm not surprised that perpetual yo-yo teams adapt quicker - because they probably don't go into League 2 with the expectation that they'll be a football league club till the end of time so they're not hamstrung for a period when they're relegated and nor is it such a cultural shock. Now it's a disgrace we are where we are but that doesn't mean Darryl Clarke got a blank sheet of paper in July; he inherited a shambles of a squad and went into August still not really knowing which players were staying and which going (which presumably had a knock on effect on the amount he could commit to new players) so he has to be judged by what he's done with that shambles. If you are talking about Martin Allen by the way - I think he'd have been disaster with this Rovers team at this time; he'd have not been able to get the cheap London based signings he normally gets by with, he'd have pissed off the players on long term contracts by sticking a rocket up them and fans would have turned on him very, very quickly because they'd have moaned about his style of play. I've seen us play half a dozen times this year and I'd say Clarke has his team set up to play more of a passing possession style of football than any manager we've had in a while. They don't move it quickly enough and lack quality outwide to make it pay regularly though but the emphasis seems to be on keeping the ball rather than playing direct. If anything I thought we were missing a bit of basic 'get it up to the big man' to vary it up a bit. What I have seen from Clarke in every one of those games is a switch of tactics that put the game in our favour - didn't always produce the result or a massive upsurge in performance but it did always improve us and get us on the front foot. Gateshead was the best example - adding the extra man to midfield, releasing Sinclair and pushing us further up the pitch exposed Gateshead as a bit one dimensional and over-reliant on deep crossfield passes for their game to work. But I saw him do something similar in all those games; it showed a flexibility which was impressive. Blimey Irish, hope your ISP don't charge you per keystroke? |
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Alveston Gas
Brucie Bannister
Once a Gashead always a Gashead
Joined: June 2014
Posts: 746
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Post by Alveston Gas on Feb 9, 2015 14:10:56 GMT
TBA if we do not win the league then I think we might struggle in the play offs. I watch most games and we struggle away from home, the defeats away at Barnet, Braintree and Altrincham were horror shows, and the awful draws at places like Eastliegh and particularly Dartford says we might struggle if we have go away particularly in the second leg of the play offs (thats if we make the play offs). The problem for me is that Clarke blames every body bar himself for every thing, maybe he is right, although only time will tell. And while the defence do make stupid mistakes, our defensive record is sceond to none; however, up front we are dog ****. Yes, Taylor is a good footballer and should be in the side, but he aint a natural goalscorer and chokes and missdes far too many opportunities. Clarke please give Ellis a chance ffs (upfront with Easter), you might then get the goals we need for automatic promotion. utg Anyone who would prefer Ellis up front to Matt Taylor really doesn't understand the game. There is a reason why Ellis has hardly started a game & why Taylor does start every game. Matt is a better, stronger, brighter more talented footballer. |
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Post by mehewmagic on Feb 9, 2015 14:12:36 GMT
for me last season is gone,dead and buried,,iConference. stand the constant return to last season,,,were 2nd which im pleased with. I am pleased the freefall has stopped, hopefully. Not pleased that we are in the conference. It was with a heavy heart yesterday that I watched league highlights and saw a 38 year old Cureton show how to take goal opportunities for that massive club Dagenham & Redbridge and cringed at the league tables when I see our traditional peers Bournemouth and Brentford pushing for promotion way up the league.So pleased that we are not heading for the Conference South, frustrated at the number of chances Taylor misses every game it seems, bored quite often with the tactics that DC employs and amazed at the ability of a club with the support we have to screw things up. true, but that happens all the time. you could take almost every season and find some such stats. when we won the third tier championship in 1990, we were helped by a remarkable comeback in 11 (yes, ELEVEN) minutes of extratime to beat cardiff City 2-1. Cardiff went down that season by 1 point. the moral of the story? 1) margins in football are often very very thin 2) I don't imagine cardiff city fans were too happy at being 2 divisions below us in 1990/1991. |
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faggotygas
Byron Anthony
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 1,862
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Post by faggotygas on Feb 9, 2015 15:45:20 GMT
Ah - but if you are going to judge in hindsight negatively you have to also judge positively and based on where we are now the decision to hold onto Clarke looks like a good one and there is a decent wider defence of it too; if due to wage bill reductions you're not going to have the capacity to bring in a ton of players and you're stuck with some player in your squad you'd probably rather get rid of then you may as well stick with the manager who knows the players that are left quite well and has an idea where we might be able to get some cheap additions. You can't have it every way under the sun - if you're going quote 'facts' about relegation then you also take into consideration 'facts' from this season that show Clarke in a much more positive light; ie making a much better fist of it in the first Conference season than most of the 'bigger' clubs that drop out of the football league do. Given that football lives eternally in the present I don't think it's surprising that the majority think Clarke is doing a decent job and yes I challenge you to come up with a manager that you think would definitely be doing a better job right now given the relatively restrictive hand he was dealt; ie reduction in wagebill, big wages still on the books and unlikely to go anywhere, an incredibly pissed off fanbase and a club in the doldrums. Not really the most auspicious of circumstances and surely if you're going assign him that much of the blame for relegation you need to give him quite a bit of credit for what he's done since otherwise it seems unfair and one eyed frankly. I thought we should have let him go in the summer because irrespective of anything else I didn't think the relegation stench would wash away unless we had a clean break but the results say I was wrong. I'm judging in hindsight objectively, based on known information and outcome. Positive about where we are now, now I know you are joking, scroll up and read the list of teams we have failed to defeat this season. With the resources at our disposal we should be putting village pub teams like Dartford and Woking to the sword 9 times out of 10. The game played in this division isn't even football as I recognise it, it's more like a Saturday night fight interrupted occasionally by big blokes seeing how high they can kick the ball. Anybody who can get the ball on the floor, pass it quickly and have team mates prepared to move into space will blitz this division. Yes, I can name a man who will do a better job, I did it before the season started and I'll remind you again at the end of the season when he takes his team back into the League. Where is your evidence for this? When was the last time that Allen took a side back to the football league in their first season in the conference? Barnet have had an extra 12 months to get their side together. How easy do you think it is to build a championship winning side from scratch in a few months? How many other teams have done that in the past? Are the resources at Clark's disposal that great? That's Clarke's, not the board's, please try to separate the performance of the rwo. What's his playing budget please? How much of that is tied up in the players that came down with us? What is Barnet's please? If you don't have the numbers, then what are you talking about? |
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irishrover
Global Moderator
Joined: June 2014
Posts: 3,372
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Post by irishrover on Feb 9, 2015 16:11:43 GMT
Compared with the glorious Samba-esque festival of the game that is League 2 or the bastion of Total Football that is League 1?! Would you like to tell the 10's of thousands of local and pub players who play up and down the land every weekend that the game they play is 'not football as I recognise it'? That the only people who should be allowed to play the game are those who pass an arbitrary aesthetic requirement? I'm sure they'll be thrilled to know that your definition is the definitive one... No such thing as objective judgement, just objective facts; judgement is always subjective (only the legal professional tells itself the comforting lie that objective judgement is possible and even then doesn't really believe it) and doubly so for something as emotionally involved as supporting a football club. Surely the only 'fact' that really matters at this stage in terms of judging the manager is that we are 2nd in the league; that justifies the decision to keep him, you almost seem dissapointed that he hasn't done worse so you have more 'facts' to back up your position. In the course of a league season good teams fail to beat bad ones that's why you even it out over 46 games - I actually think our very good record against the top 7-8 is far more indicative of our overall level of performance. The resources argument is false because it doesn't consider context - our resources are greater than nearly every club in this division but they are not infinitely greater. It reminds me when City fans used to argue in the early 90s that they should be in the Premiership because their ground was better than many Prem teams (it was at the time). Resources are only worth something if the manager has access to them - and a lot of ours are tied up in players that were signed before he got here. This is why a lot of teams that come down don't bounce back immediately - they don't have the flexibility to be able to use those resources to their advantage. They have to spend 18 months getting their s*** together and adapting to the new reality before that advantage truly kicks in. I'm not surprised that perpetual yo-yo teams adapt quicker - because they probably don't go into League 2 with the expectation that they'll be a football league club till the end of time so they're not hamstrung for a period when they're relegated and nor is it such a cultural shock. Now it's a disgrace we are where we are but that doesn't mean Darryl Clarke got a blank sheet of paper in July; he inherited a shambles of a squad and went into August still not really knowing which players were staying and which going (which presumably had a knock on effect on the amount he could commit to new players) so he has to be judged by what he's done with that shambles. If you are talking about Martin Allen by the way - I think he'd have been disaster with this Rovers team at this time; he'd have not been able to get the cheap London based signings he normally gets by with, he'd have pissed off the players on long term contracts by sticking a rocket up them and fans would have turned on him very, very quickly because they'd have moaned about his style of play. I've seen us play half a dozen times this year and I'd say Clarke has his team set up to play more of a passing possession style of football than any manager we've had in a while. They don't move it quickly enough and lack quality outwide to make it pay regularly though but the emphasis seems to be on keeping the ball rather than playing direct. If anything I thought we were missing a bit of basic 'get it up to the big man' to vary it up a bit. What I have seen from Clarke in every one of those games is a switch of tactics that put the game in our favour - didn't always produce the result or a massive upsurge in performance but it did always improve us and get us on the front foot. Gateshead was the best example - adding the extra man to midfield, releasing Sinclair and pushing us further up the pitch exposed Gateshead as a bit one dimensional and over-reliant on deep crossfield passes for their game to work. But I saw him do something similar in all those games; it showed a flexibility which was impressive. Blimey Irish, hope your ISP don't charge you per keystroke? And again, no actual counter argument presented? Just a snide remark from a man who claims the pedestal of 'objectivity'. I can explain why the length though. My problem isn't with your viewpoint it's with your claim to put that viewpoint on a pedestal. It's a cheap trick that passes off opinion as fact and prevents equal exchange of views. In the world of the internet we're all down in the gutter chucking mud around - you don't have some clearer more rational perspective than anyone else. Any vague claim at objective argument has to show why the facts that don't fit the argument aren't relevant; and given we're 2nd in the league there is quite a lot of evidence that doesn't fit and ultimately it isn't really based on objective evidence in hindsight but on a hypothetical (ie another manager would have us top; which is a fair argument but can't possibly be proven). What you did was take an argument and find the facts to fit it according to a set of arguable assumptions (ie who we should be beating etc), which is exactly what we all do. That's why you provoke a long response. In order to disagree with someone who claims an 'objective' position you have to point out why their position isn't really objective which takes words. I suspect (though don't know) that you blame Clarke for relegation and are therefore not going to give him any benefit of the doubt; that's a perfectly valid opinion and I agree that he has more to prove. But to claim it is 'objective' is to argue that your perspective (rather than your argument) is superior to that of other posters and that deserves to be challenged. |
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Deleted
Joined: January 1970
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2015 16:12:03 GMT
I'm judging in hindsight objectively, based on known information and outcome. Positive about where we are now, now I know you are joking, scroll up and read the list of teams we have failed to defeat this season. With the resources at our disposal we should be putting village pub teams like Dartford and Woking to the sword 9 times out of 10. The game played in this division isn't even football as I recognise it, it's more like a Saturday night fight interrupted occasionally by big blokes seeing how high they can kick the ball. Anybody who can get the ball on the floor, pass it quickly and have team mates prepared to move into space will blitz this division. Yes, I can name a man who will do a better job, I did it before the season started and I'll remind you again at the end of the season when he takes his team back into the League. Where is your evidence for this? When was the last time that Allen took a side back to the football league in their first season in the conference? Barnet have had an extra 12 months to get their side together. How easy do you think it is to build a championship winning side from scratch in a few months? How many other teams have done that in the past? Are the resources at Clark's disposal that great? That's Clarke's, not the board's, please try to separate the performance of the rwo. What's his playing budget please? How much of that is tied up in the players that came down with us? What is Barnet's please? If you don't have the numbers, then what are you talking about?a A very good post. Don't expect an answer any time soon  |
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