Big Ron fan

I've answered my own question. Pre-Gorre: P 19, W 5, D 5, L 9, points 20 Post-Gorre: P 10, W 1, D 4, L 5, points 7 (Reading are the only team currently in the top 8 that we have played during this time.) Clearly other factors affect results as well, but it is difficult to find any evidence of Gorre having a positive effect on the team.

Did Gorre not join immediately after the win at Reading? If so, our record is really, really shocking since he has been involved with the first team. Can one of you stats people put up the league points gained pre and post Gorre's arrival please?

Yes, this is the bit I find very confusing. Someone please explain.

Only one I think I can answer is 7. Wasn't it "Hope You Die Soon!"?

You've missed my points. 1. 54 points is a lot more than 43 or 44 and would leave a team well clear of relegation most seasons. 2. Pearson came in from outside to correct a mess. Wotte has clearly been part of the existing mess, so will need to do a lot more than scrape by to convince me. 3. Wotte has longer to turn it round (in terms of games) than Pearson, and is dealing with players with whom he is already very familiar. (Indeed, he has probably been involved in choosing many of the signings.)

There is a big difference between Pearson taking over last season and Wotte doing so now. Wotte has had a leading hand in the whole strategy this season, perhaps has even been the mastermind behind it. Somehow scraping together, say, 43 or 44 points and keeping us up by the skin of our teeth due to there being 3 even poorer sides would not get him off the hook. Personally, I think there's minimal chance of that, in any case. If he perhaps keeps us up fairly comfortably, averaging, say, 1.6 points a game, I might think he was worth persevering with. My views are not influenced by who appointed him (although it's difficult to imagine anyone other than Lowe doing so). Remember, he's got more games to put things right than Pearson had, and is not inheriting anyone else's coaching staff.

Like all of us, he'll die one day.

Yes, after the euphoria and togetherness on 4 May last year. Thanks Rupert and all those who have supported him!

Just added 150. First time I've been on the site. Very therapeutic! I think I'll tell my eight and ten year-olds they can spend as long as they like punching him if they get their homework done!

The most interesting bit for me was that he said he'd got to know Jan well over recent months. The implication was that he didn't know him much before coming here. I always assumed they'd been brought over pretty much as a pair. We know that Wotte has been a long-term target of Lowe, but at what point did Lowe become interested in JP, and on whose recommendation? Can any ITKers clarify this please?

Me too.

Big Chiv for me, but virtually all the other nominees are very worthy also.

None

Agreed - the right anology! Sad to say that I predicted relegation the day Sturrock was replaced by Wigley, and did so again last summer when Pearson was replaced by JP. As I also said at the end of last season, the protests should have been happening at that time to try to keep Lowe out, not wait until he has again ****ed everything up again with his arrogance, stupidity and lack of football knowledge.

With regard to the original question... It is not just Lowe to blame, it is also all the other idiots, from boardroom downwards, who back his mad schemes and dreadful decision-making.

Thanks. You've expressed very ably the sort of points I was trying to make.

Interesting to note the big drop in '86, the year after Heysel (and Lawrie leaving). Why the big jump in '59 - was that the promotion year to Div 2? I thought there would have been more of an increase in '66, our promotion year to Div 1 for the first time. Also, I'm surprised the average attendences held up so well during the Branfoot years, because I certainly remember some gates of not much more than 10,000 around then.

Probably makes more sense than a JP teamtalk!

I wouldn't get too excited about the fact that the reserves are top of a league that includes the likes of Aldershot and Lewes! Surely you'd expect a team with so many of the first-team squad playing in it to stuff most sides, if they have any real pretensions to first-team quality? My original point still stands. Is it really that they are not terribly good players, or are they just, with this Dutch 'philosophy', being badly organised/managed, even at reserve level?

The ressies lost 2-1 at that powerhouse Millwall today. Saints included 7 outfield players who've played for the first team this year, some of them (e.g. Lancashire, Gillett) on a fair few occasions. Further proof perhaps that most of our first team are not even decent reserve players? Or perhaps it's that Wotte is as clueless as Jan. Views?

Hope the same goes for Davenport!

I'm sure Berkovic was.

He may do...if we get through rounds 1 and 2 of the FA Cup perhaps?

I haven't seen him play so wouldn't be able to judge. However, it seems very odd to me that the management of the club, and many supporters too, seem to think that Everton's fourth choice right-back, who has never played first-team football, will automatically be good enough to play in the CCC. The year we were relegated, we reached the youth cup final. The majority of that team were effectively third or fourth choice first-team players (one or two, like Cranie, a bit higher up the pecking order). Several of that team have never made it at CCC level and probably never will. There must be a decent chance that Molyneux will unfortunately come into the same bracket. Of course, he may turn out to be real quality and an inspired signing, but given all the other largely terrible signings made under the current regime, I doubt it.