- This topic has 15 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 13 years, 5 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Just listened to Stuart Hall’s interview with Bob before Saturday’s game with Stoke.
He started talking about him wanting to get rid of our “stepping stone” image, which is obviously not going to change because we need to sell players to survive.
But he was still preaching about wanting to take us to the next level. Admittedly, I like many fans, have become frustrated by our tactics and our poor results this season, but after hearing him speak I want to get behind him and see if he is true to his word.
He does love the club, he does know where we’ve come from and he knows the limitations we have financially and in terms of our lack of supporters. Do we really want someone else coming in who can’t associate with our history?
Maybe this is going to take more time than we realise, but on a positive note look at the good work he has done in getting rid of the deadwood and how he has got in some exciting young British talent who are going to progress and earn us millions in future years.
I think we would all agree that we have some really good players but there are areas we need to improve on. For example, I don’t think Figgy really has the ability to play our style of football and both Caldwells are far too slow for the Premier League. And what if we manage to pick up that little pocket dynamo who is finally going to pull the strings behind the main striker instead of that pudding Gomez?
With the right tinkering we could yet be a mid-table club, it’s whether Bob gets the chance to find the magic formula.
This may just be a pipe dream but I do still wonder if one day everything will click into place and we’ll look back on this period and think some of us were all maybe a little bit too hasty in calling for his head :?
Just listened to Stuart Hall’s interview with Bob before Saturday’s game with Stoke.He started talking about him wanting to get rid of our “stepping stone” image, which is obviously not going to change because we need to sell players to survive.
But he was still preaching about wanting to take us to the next level. Admittedly, I like many fans, have become frustrated by our tactics and our poor results this season, but after hearing him speak I want to get behind him and see if he is true to his word.
He does love the club, he does know where we’ve come from and he knows the limitations we have financially and in terms of our lack of supporters. Do we really want someone else coming in who can’t associate with our history?
Maybe this is going to take more time than we realise, but on a positive note look at the good work he has done in getting rid of the deadwood and how he has got in some exciting young British talent who are going to progress and earn us millions in future years.
I think we would all agree that we have some really good players but there are areas we need to improve on. For example, I don’t think Figgy really has the ability to play our style of football and both Caldwells are far too slow for the Premier League. And what if we manage to pick up that little pocket dynamo who is finally going to pull the strings behind the main striker instead of that pudding Gomez?
With the right tinkering we could yet be a mid-table club, it’s whether Bob gets the chance to find the magic formula.
This may just be a pipe dream but I do still wonder if one day everything will click into place and we’ll look back on this period and think some of us were all maybe a little bit too hasty in calling for his head :?
One thing I do agree on is that we have some good players but that’s no good if the manager wont pick a system they can play. He has had 18 month’s and not changed tactic’s once so the tinkering your after wont happen. He is either to stupid or to pig headed.
The other thing about loyalty don’t be fooled he would go to the highest bidder ask Swansea fan’s how loyal he is.
One thing I do agree on is that we have some good players but that’s no good if the manager wont pick a system they can play. He has had 18 month’s and not changed tactic’s once so the tinkering your after wont happen. He is either to stupid or to pig headed.The other thing about loyalty don’t be fooled he would go to the highest bidder ask Swansea fan’s how loyal he is.
I agree he is maybe a bit too stubborn for his own good, but you can’t expect him to come into the best league in the world and completely change the way we play in 18 months and have us comfortably in midtable. It will take time – probably years to get it right.
I’ve read a couple of posts about the youth team being impressive and the fact they are playing the same style of football as the first team. What Bob is trying to do is change the footballing culture of the club from top to bottom. It is no different to what Spain started 20 years ago and look at them now or the blueprint that Klinnsman started with Germany which started to bring dividends at this summer’s World Cup.
The difference is, Bob is trying to do it with a poorly supported Premier League club who cannot compete with the big clubs in the division. So he is having to pick up young players or unknowns from other leagues in the hope they fit in with his footballing philosophies.
It may well be the case that we bring players in who cannot operate or adapt to our system. And if that is the case we need to keep trying so that we keep finding little gems who do, which I guess is what Bob refers to when he talks about needing a few transfer windows to get the team how he wants it.
Good players can play any system. We don’t have very good players. If our players were any good they’d be earning more money elsewhere. If our manager was any good he’d be earning more money elsewhere. And one of the main reasons we can’t afford to pay good players and managers is that our support is largely – elsewhere. Like in the pub, or behind it’s laptop
Good players can play any system. We don’t have very good players. If our players were any good they’d be earning more money elsewhere. If our manager was any good he’d be earning more money elsewhere. And one of the main reasons we can’t afford to pay good players and managers is that our support is largely – elsewhere. Like in the pub, or behind it’s laptopYou know Griff, if your weekly ticket cost 2 million quid, and you payed it. everything would be alright.
In my opinion we do have good players, but we are missing that spark to bring it all together.
I mentioned earlier on in this thread about a Gomez replacement, someone to sit in the hole, be creative and score a few goals – with a bit more pace than Gomez.
I see this morning we are being heavily linked with Javi Marquez from Espanyol and he is the type of player I am talking about
I don’t think even if we had an extra 10000 fans it would make a difference.
10000 x £20 = £200,000
£200,000 x 19 home matches = £3,800,000
That aint enough to lace the boots of a decent player these days. Handy to have a bit of extra cash, granted, not enough to make a massive difference.
I have to admit that I couldn’t help but laugh at the section in the original post which praised Bobby for getting rid of the “deadwood” & then swfitly followed it by criticism of 4 specific players – 3 of whom were signed by Bobby & were drafted in to become replacements for this deadwood!!!
What I find with Bobby is that he talks alot of sense when it comes to football & his aims. The problem he is having is transferring those ideas into something workable on the football pitch. The fact that he’s either taking so long to learn from his mistakes or is just not learning from them at all indicates to me that we’ll be waiting a hell of a long time for him to get it right (if he ever does)
As for do we want a manager in who doesn’t understand the club like Bobby does – to be honest I couldn’t care less as long as he produces a team that plays entertaining football & who has the ability to adapt his ideas as the needs arise
I’d also disagree with Griff’s statement that good players can adapt to any system & so it indicates we have poor players (brought about by our lack of fund). Some players have particular skills which enable them to play some systems better than others – Rodallega, Boselli & Di Santo may well all be able to bang in 30 goals a season playing in a 2 or 3 man forward line (or they may not!!) but stick em up front on their own & they struggle
No-one denies someone like Gary Lineker wasn’t a good striker but if you’d stuck him up front on his own he’d have struggled coz he didn’t have the attributes needed for that positioni think there’s a half-decent team struggling to come out at Latics – I just don’t think that Bobby is the man to get that out of them
I have to admit that I couldn’t help but laugh at the section in the original post which praised Bobby for getting rid of the “deadwood” & then swfitly followed it by criticism of 4 specific players – 3 of whom were signed by Bobby & were drafted in to become replacements for this deadwood!!!I take your point, but as we are not a club rolling in money, we are always going to have to take risks with unproven players. We can’t afford to sign Champions League standard players. We have to take a chance of players who we think can make the step up.
Gomez couldn’t really hack it in La Liga but was a star in the Championship. He has shown he’s not quick enough for the pace of the Premier League, but if he had adapted he could have been a good player.
Gary Caldwell was Celtic’s captain, but again he was a gamble as he was coming from a poorer standard of football in my opinion and his lack of pace has again found him out. His brother Stephen was a desperation free signing to beef up the squad.
And who was the other player? Figueroa? He hasn’t been the same player since Bruce left because he isn’t comfortable on the ball.
I think considering the turnover of players we have had and the fact that generally we have to build a new team every couple of years, two or three dud signings isn’t too bad. Look at the poor signings Wenger and Fergie have made recently.
Come on Swindon any top flight manager worth his salt should have know just by looking at them that the 2 Caldwell’s & Jordi Gomez weren’t quick enough for premier league football
Likewise if you spend the best part of 6 months to a year scouting 2 Argentinian centre forwards you should be able to tell from that whether they are capable of playing up front on his own
Its either poor scouting or poor managerial judgement
Did anyone really need to see the 31 year old scottish & lower english league journey man centre forward Jason Scotland to know that he’d struggle in the top flight??
And that’s the problem its not just 2 or 3 duff signings. His duff signings have (IMO) outweighed his good uns so to claim he’s got rid of the deadwood when in actual fact I think he’s made the squad weaker – as has been shown by our lack of options in the face of a few injury & suspension problems recently
Tyldesley, it’s always good to share opinions.
Hey, I wasn’t happy about us signing either Caldwell but I didn’t know enough about Gomez to make a judgement.
But I have to take issue with your comment about his duff signings having outweighed his good ones. This is only my opinion, but I believe it is far too early to judge Di Santo and Boselli because as I mentioned higher up this post, I think we are still missing that link between midfield and attack.
I believe if we get the right player to play behind the striker you will see a different team. At the moment we’re playing central midfielders who don’t really have that ability to play little killer balls through to the front man or two wide players. Once we have that, I think we can go places.
So you say Boselli, Di Santo, Scotland, Gomez, G Caldwell, S Caldwell are duff signings.
I say Boselli, Di Santo, Moses, Stam, Gohouri, Alcaraz, McCarthy, McArthur, Al Habsi, Diame, Thomas (was still signed by him), and Cleverley (albeit temporarily) are all excellent signings and show he has a good eye for a player.
Like you say Swindon we each have different opinions
When I said what I did about Gomez I wasn’t judging him as such but I was very wary as to whether he would be effective – although to be fair I was also very wary about us signing McCarthy, MacArthur, Gary Caldwell (as Scottish football is of such poor quality), Moses, Diame, Di Santo, Boselli, Gohouri, Amaya, Scotland, Sinclair, S Caldwell & Moreno. All in all, pretty much everyone he’s signed with the exception of Alcaraz, Stam, Al Habsi & Cleverley so me having doubts about Gomez’s ability & being proved right is mroe down to me thinking it about all our signings really than about any great footballing knowledge!!!
Going back to the good signings outweighing his duff ones – I think just going through that list re-affrims my belief as I would say that only really McCarthy & Gohouri & Diame can be classed as non-duds, although Diame has the ability to look like a superstar & a duffer in the course of the same match.
If you say you can’t pass judgement on Boselli & Di Santo as duds coz they aint been here long enough then you can’t pass judgements on the likes of MacArthur, S Caldwell, Alcaraz, Al Habsi, Stam & Cleverley one way or the other either for the same reasons
Of the remaining ones I don’t think Bobby has given Moses anywhere near enough game time for him to be classed as a success whilst G Caldwell, Amaya, Scotland, Sinclair & Moreno were all poor so I make that 5-3 in favour of the duds
Add the newbies in & it becomes IMO 7-6 to the duds & I’m undecided on Stam (looks good going forward & poor in defence)
So there you have it a very scientific study showing I’m right ;)Actually I’ve just seen you said its far to early to judge Boselli & Di Santo yet you include them both in your list of “excellent” signings. How does that work??? ;) Not sure how you can include a bloke in McArthur on there either as his run outs have involved a couple of sub appearances & some carling cup games (one of which he was taken off at half time in!!!)
I think our problems run deeper than not having that link man
That is a problem admittedly but the whole sides movement off the ball is far too slow & predictable for Bobby’s slow methodical play on the ball to be a success.
The defence needs to stop switching off & conceding some of the softest goals I’ve seen in my 20 odd years of watching Latics
The midfield (& not just one man in the hole) needs to push up much quicker in support of the front man than they do at present
The wingers need to learn to act as a second centre forward when the ball is being moved up on the opposite flank insteadd of staying out on the wing
The midfield needs to drop back in support of the defence much quicker than it does at present (considering they don’t push up in support of the attack its amazing how many times our defenders can be outnumbered by the opposition coz the midfield isn’t tracking back)
They need to mix up styles of play alot more than they do at present
None of the above would be solved simply by putting Lionel Messi “in the hole”Oh if only we had Messi “in the hole”! :lol:
Let’s just see what happens over the rest of the season and who’s winking then ;)
I think Latics will stay up by the skin of their teeth but I don’t think the club will ever improve under Bobby
He’s had long enough in the job to show he’s adaptable & able to learn from his mistakes but for me he just hasn’t done that. nor does he seem to know how to get the best out of the group of players that he does have
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
