Give it time

[Ponty]

I'll give it 'til 9.50pm. If we're still bottom I'll mutter some pretty harsh words under my breath and MIGHT consider making a detrimental post.

[Secret Site Agent]

I am fully aware of the financial restrictions that we have to operate under and that our options may be limited, but (at least in my mind) it is also clear that this current experiment leads to only one thing: relegation. A consequence of relegation would be even tighter finances, if not administration.

 

So instead of spending the salary on 4 "coaches" (Poortvliet, Wotte, Hockaday and the new Dutch guy) what about spending the salary of these 4 inexperienced guys on one experienced hard-nosed real old-fashioned manager?

 

What about the three main shareholders actually getting together in a REAL effort to attract investment? In-fighting amongst the various parties only has one effect on potential investors; It's scares them off, as proven in recent history.

 

What about respecting the supporters and stopping the incessant and blatant propaganda exercises such at the recent "question and answer" session in the Echo, which was clearly designed to only answer those questions that were "convenient" for Ru**rt and his side-kick, and showed a total and utter disrespect for the fans and insulted their intelligence. Maybe, just maybe, IF the club were more open and honest some more folks would come and watch, thus creating more income.

 

These are just some of the options open to the club. I'll grant you that none of them guarantee success, or even improvement, but if we let things go the way they are, there is an almost certain guarantee of failure.

 

I have also got to say, and I have said it in the past, that I don't think Lowe would, in the long run, allow this tbh as the egotistic c u next tuesday wouldn't want to blow his nest egg. He is thinking long term, as a business man, and he is enjoying rubbing our noses in the **** along the way no doubt. I think that we just need to see how JP pans out as he is all we got, and a old fashoned hard nose would just bring in a number of also rans again that we couldn't afford. And whose to say they would even want the job. We who watched the football recently say that we enjoy it as, unlike teams recently, the ones playing for us are AT LEAST TRYING, and you can see that from the way they continue to play when their backs are against the wall, as they did on sunday. And for once the popular press and Dowie agreed. They don't need their legs cut from beneath them from the likes of us.

[mulletsaint]

Yeh of course, let's all panic!

 

Sack the manager NOW! We haven't had a new one now for, let me see, all of 3 or 4 months. And of course the managerial merry-go-round has proven to be a great success for us over recent seasons. While we're at it let's start booing the performances, that'll help the lads' confidence. Anyone got any good new Lowe out chants we can give a try?

 

For god's sake give the guy a chance, he's working with an incredibly thin squad and virtually no money. Let's face it the defence is currently no worse than the start of last season and at least the green shoots of hope are visible elsewhere.

 

Apologies for quoting myself from another thread, but thought this was valid for here also.

 

On top of this I ask you to cast your mind back to the morning of Wed 27th Aug. We'd just won our 2nd match on the bounce with hugely impressive performances against Derby and Birmingham. We had a record of played 5, won 3, lost 2. Not a bad record although I'm sure we'd all agree that we'd have preferred to have beaten Brum in the league, but the doubters such of yourself were very much noticable by your absence.

 

Now OK we've lost the last two, but one of those was against a team who were favourites to win the league before the season started who have had investment. The 4-1 scoreline flattered QPR, decisions went against us and we played an hour with 10 men. Yes in hindsight JP made some bad decisions but he is still learning about his squad, yes we now find ourselves bottom of the league but we can't suddenly panic after a run of two bad results. OK the table doesn't lie but we didn't go from a good young team to no hopers in two matches.

[Mole1]

The fact we have a failed minor dutch league carpet bagger running team affairs (if Lowe gives him this much scope) is irrelevent. We have **** players so we are ****. Even the best manager in the world can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear.

[mprobert]

were all doomed......ffs

[Whitey Grandad]

Apologies for quoting myself from another thread, but thought this was valid for here also.

 

On top of this I ask you to cast your mind back to the morning of Wed 27th Aug. We'd just won our 2nd match on the bounce with hugely impressive performances against Derby and Birmingham. We had a record of played 5, won 3, lost 2. Not a bad record although I'm sure we'd all agree that we'd have preferred to have beaten Brum in the league, but the doubters such of yourself were very much noticable by your absence.

 

Now OK we've lost the last two, but one of those was against a team who were favourites to win the league before the season started who have had investment. The 4-1 scoreline flattered QPR, decisions went against us and we played an hour with 10 men. Yes in hindsight JP made some bad decisions but he is still learning about his squad, yes we now find ourselves bottom of the league but we can't suddenly panic after a run of two bad results. OK the table doesn't lie but we didn't go from a good young team to no hopers in two matches.

These are all valid points and I will wait until Saturday evening before re-assessing the situation, but we were down to 10 men because of the inexperience of a debut youngster. Whether this inexperience leads to a sending-off, letting in silly goals or giving away a penalty is irrelevant, these are the direct results of the decisions made to concentrate on youth and inexperience. It will be interesting to see who he picks for tonight's game.

[the stain]

With the exception of Burley, I don't really recall who was given any time. Perhaps (just perhaps) if some of them were things might have turned out differently. If I have a criticism of Lowe (and I have very few) it's that he sometimes listens too much to the fans when he ought to stick to his guns.

 

Lowe has clearly been trying to implement a more continental approach, a slightly more technical approach, to the club's structure for a long time, as evidenced by the focus on the Academy, the hiring of SCW, the attempts to promote coaches from within. All this strikes me as an attempt to build success from the ground up and promote continuity.

 

Now I'm not saying how many out of Luggy, Wigley, Gray would have been a success if given a longer stint. But in each case (and SCW paid a similar price IMO) when short-term results weren't favourable, there was a clamour for change and a quick-fix old-school chequebook manager has been hired at considerable expense. This has had the effect of stemming the anticipated flow of talent from youth to 1st team, in all but a couple of exceptional cases.

 

Now the chequebook managers have spent all the money, we've got to push all the backlogged youth players through at once (never the intention, I'm sure). But it does have the positive effect that Lowe can't afford to back down to short-termist outcry and will have to see his plan through.

 

I'm sure there'll be some "Oh, so the fans are to blame?" complaints after this; that's not what I mean. Fans want to see their team succeed and understandably don't like it when they don't. It's the Chairman's job to play the long game in ensuring future and continued success, and his burden is to sit through the abuse while he waits for his plans to bear fruit. Sometimes I think Lowe hasn't been thick-skinned enough.

[mulletsaint]

These are all valid points and I will wait until Saturday evening before re-assessing the situation, but we were down to 10 men because of the inexperience of a debut youngster. Whether this inexperience leads to a sending-off, letting in silly goals or giving away a penalty is irrelevant, these are the direct results of the decisions made to concentrate on youth and inexperience. It will be interesting to see who he picks for tonight's game.

 

I can see your point. However I would counter that with the fact that in recent years our "seasoned" pros have proved that it is not only the young and experienced that are capable of making schoolboy errors, particularly in defence. The only difference is that it can be argued they at least have the excuse of being young. Hopefully they will be able to learn from their mistakes unlike some of their older team mates. Part of this will be down to maintaining morale, which as fans we can help by not panicking and getting on their backs.

 

Buying experience doesn't exclude the team from the potential to ****-up.

[Whitey Grandad]

I can see your point. However I would counter that with the fact that in recent years our "seasoned" pros have proved that it is not only the young and experienced that are capable of making schoolboy errors, particularly in defence. The only difference is that it can be argued they at least have the excuse of being young. Hopefully they will be able to learn from their mistakes unlike some of their older team mates. Part of this will be down to maintaining morale, which as fans we can help by not panicking and getting on their backs.

 

Buying experience doesn't exclude the team from the potential to ****-up.

I agree. My concern is that our current situation has arisen because of Lowe's apparent obsession with almost exclusively playing youngsters from the academy instead of bringing them through gradually into the first team in small dribbles.

[puff the magic dragon]

I agree. My concern is that our current situation has arisen because of Lowe's apparent obsession with almost exclusively playing youngsters from the academy instead of bringing them through gradually into the first team in small dribbles.

 

Rupert Lowe in knowing naff all about football shocker.