Or would that be a bit mean ?
I think our transfer policy was the difference between staying up and going down.
We seemed to go for it more in January when it was arguably much more difficult to sign players.
Printable View
Or would that be a bit mean ?
I think our transfer policy was the difference between staying up and going down.
We seemed to go for it more in January when it was arguably much more difficult to sign players.
Without a striker of note it wasn't going to happen and we do look like our football is a throwback from a previous age. We need to re-group and play a more intelligent type of football - but players who can pass a ball would have to be found.
The buck stops with the manager
Warnock then .Quote:
Originally Posted by Taunton Blue Genie
For what? The result this season is about par.Quote:
Originally Posted by Divine Wright
Does it? You think the support he got out of the starting blocks was sufficient? Think we all can agree he didn’t.. But the buck surely stopped with his “man marking system”..Quote:
Originally Posted by jamieccfc
Agree, although it would take one hell of a striker to get any change from this team. No support and the only service is crosses from wide midfielders, if that dries up then there's very little to feed from.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taunton Blue Genie
Not entirely true, is it? We have had games where we have been on the front foot and and had some coherence. Somehow we never built on that. We changed it, chopped it and then we went back to it. Looking better every time we did.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tuerto
He bought two £10m players and barely played them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolfmother
10M.. That is a pair of shoes, isn’t it?Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry Paget Flashman
Its not a great amount but continuing to do the same thing that rarely worked was pathetic.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolfmother
Warnock. This situation is entirely his doing.
Turned around a relegation threatened side and got them showing playoff form in his first season. Against the odds and without spending much won us automatic promotion. Nobody can say we didn't deserve promotion - 90 points was an incredible effort.
We could argue that we went up a season too soon. We arguably weren't ready for the Premier League. The football we played in winning promotion was never likely to keep us up. Warnock's purchases were not always the best. At the top table his tactics and selections have been found wanting. Whereas he knows the Championship like the back of his hand, our lack of Premier League nous was telling in the opening couple of months and our squad limitations have been laid bare when we've needed to up our game for the final push away from relegation.
Nobody can deny that Warnock has been a saviour for the club. We're united again as a fan base. Our promotion season was memorable. This season has been a far better season than our first in the PL.
However, I feel that Warnock's tactics have taken us as far as they ever could. Promotion but relegation to follow. He hasn't built anything here. I don't feel there are any long term plans. We have some good players but are desperately short of players who are comfortable in possession. We have never really replaced Bothroyd and Chopra.
Time for Warnock to bow out. He's done superbly for us, but we need a new man with new ideas this summer with a plan to make us an outfit ready for the PL.
Agreed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric the Half a Bee
It’s been an eventful ride, but another season of Warnock and I think we in are in danger of being back to where we were with Slade.
It's weird because I felt in August that if we had a sniff of staying up with two games left we've done alright, but as the season has gone on the more I've become disillusioned with Warnock. His tactics and selections have cost us plenty of points this season, he's far too loyal to certain players that aren't providing for us.
I don't want to blame solely one person because our transfer work in the summer was frankly embarrassing, the only signings we made that start regularly is Camarasa and Arter. Who is even responsible for transfers? Why wasn't a striker signed in the summer? Why no right back? 20m down the drain on Murphy and Reid, it's just amateur stuff.
Either way I do know that Neil needs to step aside this summer. Build him a statue and all that for what he's done here, but it's best we move on and try to put a long term vision down at the club. Right now it looks like Ralls and Bacuna will be our only midfielders come the summer, that for me is inexcusable and shows we need a director of football or someone on the board with an actual football vision.
No blame required. Warnock over-achieved on a minimal budget and was brought in to rescue us in the division below. He eradicated the toxicity of the rebrand and galvanised the club and supporters. This season has been a great ride but we need to think of the future.Quote:
Originally Posted by Divine Wright
I don't think I could stomach another season of, well.. "Warnockball" (there, I said it - Warnockball).Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric the Half a Bee
We are what we are, get over it !!!!!
Fans come and fans go “BLUEBIRDS STAY FOREVER”
The owner. Never turns up and didn't back the manager.
A complete lack of class has cost us
We’re two places above where the majority of the country assumed we’d finish at the moment. Which, for me, makes it more annoying, if we were rock bottom with all hope gone weeks ago which perhaps a few City fans may have forecast pre season we may have wallowed or even revelled in our ineptness with the gallows humour that City fans can display brilliantly on times. But and in my opinion it’s a massive but we had a bloody marvellous opportunity to shove the the jibes & forecasts of the ‘experts ‘ right down their throats, in fact recently a few of them had turned these last couple of weeks and were very optimistic about our survival chances. Yes, I’m annoyed that it appears that despite giving ourselves a massive fighting chance we’ve f*cking blown it big time. Yes, there’s been some horrendous decisions against us & the Sala tragedy was a hammer blow but I'm afraid Neil Warnock’s decisions have been equally to blame. Culminating in yesterday’s approach to the game, only one game but it was THE game, the game where the cautious tactics had to go out of the window yet we rolled over and died for 80 odd minutes, unbelievable & unforgivable. We blew it big time when there was no need to.
What situation were you anticipating at the start of the season?Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric the Half a Bee
That sounds like we're an established PL team that has capitulated. As I recall nearly all of us thought we would be involved in a relegation battle.
To be fair we did sign someone who looked like a decent striker. It's not Warnock's fault he never made it onto the pitch.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taunton Blue Genie
One thing that has kept strong has been the dressing room and while that may not be enough in the end, we may even finish 19th, I think we've had a good season overall and learnt a lot from it. We were told at the start it might be like Burnley's first year and think we would have taken that then.
We shouldn't forget that our captain almost died; our biggest signing sadly was lost; NML, Peltier, Camarrasa, Bamba and Patterson all missed multiple games with injuries and now Ralls is missing the end of the season; we've had a number of decisions go harshly against us in big games especially during this run-in....there are things we could have done to improve things (a back-up RB, more depth in defensive midfield, another creative midfielder, another goal-scorer all to reduce risk of fatigue based injury) but many things have been outside of our control.
Oh, and we're still in with a shout of staying up.
Blame for what? Beating palace 2-1? Then an 85th minute bobby Reid worldy at OT to get 3 points there also? Hhhmmmm....
May as well just get relegated 7 times in a row then.Quote:
Originally Posted by BLUETIT
The refs for the Watford and Chelsea games.
Madness. Beating up the guy who got us up out of nowhere and has almost kept us there when virtually the whole world thought we were no hopers.
It's not like he lives in Splott :biggrin: I also heard some of his businesses were underperforming, so he is probably focussing on that.Quote:
Originally Posted by dandywarhol
Everyone. The owner didn't spend enough money. The manager spent money on players that didn't play enough.
The agent and the pilots, with Emiliana we may have stayed up, we needed a Striker that could score a goal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Divine Wright
Agreed and BurnleyQuote:
Originally Posted by bobh
Agree with this, we're still in with a chance of staying up with 2 games to go , albeit a very minimal chance. We've lost a lot of games 23 out of 36 but have given it a go, at least until Saturday. That was very disappointing playing defensively against a team that has a poor defence, as could be seen by the last few minutes of injury time when we could have scored on more than one occasion.Quote:
Originally Posted by surge
Murphy and Reid were top championship players, they weren't seen as awful signings at the time. I couldn't understand why we didn't sign a right back ( though in fairness to Peltier he,s been fine in recent games in terms of defensive duties) and signing a premier league standard striker was always going to cost money the club didn't have or weren't willing to spend. Reid did get over 20 goals in the championship last season so we should have found a system or way of accommodating him more often as probably the only natural goal scorer we had in the squad at the start of the season.
Despite so many defeats we could have stayed up if we had won on Saturday, in a game that was very winnable
I did a piece before the season started highlighting that goals scored keeps you up (more so than goals conceded). We didn't buy a centre forward last summer, lots of names linked but "we" never had the balls to make the move / splash the cash.
Ward 1
Zohore 1
Niasse 0
No centre-forward, no goals. Simple.
No other manager would of got tnis squad so near to staying up, defence is decent and no one apart from city has thrashed Cardiff, lack of investment in August has cost Cardiff, i they spent 25m on a good striker would of stayed up, it’s not N.W fault
It is a mixture of things really for me.
I am sure Tan could have backed Warnock further in the transfer market but when he did with the likes of Bobby Reid and Murphy they stayed on the bench. The fees might be peanuts in Premier League terms but for a club like us to spend that sort of cash and not improve the starting 11 for the majority of games is criminal.
Did this play a part in our January transfer window? I know if many managers had given funds to improve the team by their chairman and it wasn't they would think twice next time around. That is only natural.
We knew we needed a striker back at the end of last season and dragged our feet then we all know what happened with Sala.
Could the £20 million plus seemingly wasted on Reid and Murphy not have been spent on a striker that would have got us 10 or so goals? Personally I think it could and should have been spent better.
Then there was the tactical side of things. Our park the bus while having a porous defence did not work at the start of the season yet we stuck with it right up until Fulham last Saturday when we had to really go all out for the win.
Ultimately we do not have enough goals in the team or enough quality in all areas of the pitch.
This is down to a mixture of Tan not providing funds (partly due to not trusting Warnock too much with them) and Warnock's tactical shortcomings with players of little quality and a lack of glaring gaps plugged (striker being the main one and right back).
I can't see us realistically being able to go up and stay there until the purse strings loosen and, as sad as it is to say, we go with a progressive manager who feels that there are other ways to play than parking the bus in 90% of your games and hoping to nick them by the odd goal.
Fulham on the weekend was as down as I have been about a performance given what was at stake and how much joy we got when we did go at them. What could have been eh?
I've seen you refer to our decent defence a few times.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fulham traveller
I'm not sure I share the sentiment. We've conceded only 10 less than Fulham and 8 less than Huddersfield and have the third worst defence in the league. We concede not far off two goals a game on average. I think our defensive performance in the Championship clouds a lot of judgment of our defence at times.
Last year I said we needed Mitrovic and Fabianski or above level keeper and Striker, on reflection Etheridge has surprised me and stepped up, but not getting a Striker or the loss of Emiliano Sala has cost us !!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Des Parrot
The spine was almost there
Etheridge
Morrison - Manga (Bamba back up)
Arter
Gunner
Camarasa
Needed a goal scoring Striker and back up in midfield was not quite good enough especially for Camarasa when he was out or playing with a knock