Originally Posted by
the other bob wilson
Or they actually watched the games and judged him on what he was doing rather than indulge in a warped version of hindsight years later. Caulker acknowledged himself that he had an opportunity he didn't take at Cardiff, so he shares some of the blame for our failure - of course he does. However, if we'd had ten more who played to the standard Caulker did throughout 13/14 I believe we would have stayed up - it's old territory that has been gone over many times before, but, for me, the appointment of Ole was the single thing which did for us, rather than signings like Caulker and Medel (I accept Cornelius was a terrible buy at that price).
What cannot be proved is whether we would have stayed up under Mackay or not, but what is fact is that, with seventeen points from eighteen matches at the time he was dismissed, we would have stayed up if we had managed to double that figure in the twenty matches which remained - about a third of which were at home to sides who were in relegation trouble themselves at the time Mackay was sacked. What is also fact is that we had beaten the only two sides in relegation trouble we had faced at home up to then with the winning goal coming from Caulker in the win over the jacks - on paper, we had an easier fixture list to come under Ole than we went through under Mackay.
Anyway, back to Caulker. The facts are for all those who want to slag him off that he PLAYED for three more Premier League clubs after he left us, so there were still plenty of clubs out there who thought he was a chance worth taking despite the issues he had which were becoming more apparent by the season - I'm not going to kick someone when they're down, in fact I wish him all the best at Dundee.