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What if we had beaten Blackburn on Saturday?


Gemmill
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And the fans hadn't chanted Sack the Board, and there'd been no protest outside the ground. Do you think there would ever have been an emergency board meeting and a subsequent resignation?

 

Just thinking about it there before, and I'm not sure. Frightening. :D

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It's interesting like....

 

Last season there was a protest after the home game with Blackburn which resulted in the manager losing his job before the next home game (albeit a couple of away games in between).

 

I seem to remember there was a protest after the Sheffield United game earlier this season but nothing came of it. Then Blackburn return to SJP, beat us again and another protest followed by another change in management.

 

Coincidence or does Fred compare our progression to that of Blackburn, especially since the appointment of Souness 3 years back.

 

Another interesting statistic someone point out to to me the other day was this:

 

John Hall became chairman in January 1992. Within a month he'd sacked the manager and appointed Keegan and got it right 1st time. Keegan left his post at the same time SJH handed over the reins to Shepherd five years later.

 

When the next appointment is made, Shepherd will be appointing his sixth manager in 10 years and with perhaps the exception of SBR (who was the man John Hall wanted to replace KK), he's got it wrong every single time.

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It's all a question of competence tbh. It's taken Niall Quinn 5 minutes in his first ever job in charge of a football club to identify someone who he thought could do a job, pursue them, and appoint them. It's taken Shepherd 10 years to drag us down from potential champions to also-rans by paying nothing like the attention to detail that's required in his managerial appointments.

 

It's another "what if", but it's terrifying if you think about where we would be if Bobby Robson hadn't fallen into our laps and spent 5 years here - imagine how many sub-standard managers we could have worked our way through in that time. And Robson was a no-brainer appointment that just came along at the right time, which I give Shepherd no credit for. But for that appointment Christ knows where we would be.

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It's all a question of competence tbh. It's taken Niall Quinn 5 minutes in his first ever job in charge of a football club to identify someone who he thought could do a job, pursue them, and appoint them. It's taken Shepherd 10 years to drag us down from potential champions to also-rans by paying nothing like the attention to detail that's required in his managerial appointments.

 

It's another "what if", but it's terrifying if you think about where we would be if Bobby Robson hadn't fallen into our laps and spent 5 years here - imagine how many sub-standard managers we could have worked our way through in that time. And Robson was a no-brainer appointment that just came along at the right time, which I give Shepherd no credit for. But for that appointment Christ knows where we would be.

 

Wasn't Shepherd completely unaware of Bobby until he came out in the press and stated his interest in the job?

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This is why I think it's ok to hope we lose a match in the interests of the bigger picture. :D

 

Do you mean losing the odd few matches every two years so we get rid of the latest useless manager, or a full on shit season so we get relegated and are really able to attract the top class candidates?

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This is why I think it's ok to hope we lose a match in the interests of the bigger picture. :(

 

Do you mean losing the odd few matches every two years so we get rid of the latest useless manager, or a full on shit season so we get relegated and are really able to attract the top class candidates?

<_<:D

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It's all a question of competence tbh. It's taken Niall Quinn 5 minutes in his first ever job in charge of a football club to identify someone who he thought could do a job, pursue them, and appoint them. It's taken Shepherd 10 years to drag us down from potential champions to also-rans by paying nothing like the attention to detail that's required in his managerial appointments.

 

It's another "what if", but it's terrifying if you think about where we would be if Bobby Robson hadn't fallen into our laps and spent 5 years here - imagine how many sub-standard managers we could have worked our way through in that time. And Robson was a no-brainer appointment that just came along at the right time, which I give Shepherd no credit for. But for that appointment Christ knows where we would be.

 

Wasn't Shepherd completely unaware of Bobby until he came out in the press and stated his interest in the job?

 

Very true - I'd forgotten about that too. :D

 

Something I do remember was when we were trying to replace Keegan. SJH wanted Bobby and made no secret of the fact when it was quite clear that Fred & Doug wanted Dalglish and they got their way.

 

How different would it have been had it been down to Sir John?

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Yeah I think you're right - he was committed to Barcelona at the time but then we didn't really test the water, did we?

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Guest alex

Yeah I think you're right - he was committed to Barcelona at the time but then we didn't really test the water, did we?

I thought we had, not sure though. I remember seeing Robson interviewed about it at the time and while he was diplomatic as ever, you could sense he was in two minds about things.

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ironically he was already in the process of being replaced at Barcelona at the time and if we'd stuck to our guns and gone for the man we needed rather than the man that "would do" then who knows what we could have acheived..

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it wasn't so much a "I Always said Dalglish was a bad manager" gloat... and more a wistfull "What if" kind of thing. :D

 

imagine Bobby Robson inheriting Keegans team, with a couple of million to spend and some of the young defenders that would have been coming through at that time...

 

I feel an ultra happy ending coming up waynes_world_1.jpg

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Guest alex

it wasn't so much a "I Always said Dalglish was a bad manager" gloat... and more a wistfull "What if" kind of thing. :D

 

imagine Bobby Robson inheriting Keegans team, with a couple of million to spend and some of the young defenders that would have been coming through at that time...

 

Yeah I know mate. I've said 'If only...' a few times with regard to Robson taking over when KK left. I have no doubt at all he'd have won things.

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Easy with hindsight, most people (myself included) thought Dalglish would do a good job.

People do criticize Shepherd for his appointments, but I only think that he really got it totally wrong with the last two. Dalglish was a logical choice back then, Gullit looked like an inspired one in the hope he would repeat the Keegan times, Robson was a no-brainer.

 

Souness was just baffling, although even then going for a hardman might at least be understandable from a simpleton's point of view. Roeder was foremost a missed opportunity to appoint a manager at the right time, but then was the softest option on the back of a view good results.

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Easy with hindsight, most people (myself included) thought Dalglish would do a good job.

People do criticize Shepherd for his appointments, but I only think that he really got it totally wrong with the last two. Dalglish was a logical choice back then, Gullit looked like an inspired one in the hope he would repeat the Keegan times, Robson was a no-brainer.

 

Souness was just baffling, although even then going for a hardman might at least be understandable from a simpleton's point of view. Roeder was foremost a missed opportunity to appoint a manager at the right time, but then was the softest option on the back of a view good results.

I can see why some people would think Dalglish was a good manager, but was he "the right man for the job?" I saw the man who inherited Keegans side as someone who should share similar values and a similar style of play. Dalglish was Keegans opposite.

 

again this could be easily swept under the carpet of hindsight, but surely there are chairmen out there with foresight? That could have forseen the troubles that would come with employing a man who's team was not the cavalier attacking thrill seekers that we were used to, but patient slow and steady bohemoths. It was a stark contrast. I refuse to believe that with proper research and consideration these problems could have escaped the forsight that good chairmen should posess.

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At the time, I thought Dalglish would be the best option. He'd won it all with Liverpool, took a cash-backed Blackburn to title glory so most of us presumed he'd do the same at Newcastle. In hindsight, the main difference was that unlike at Blackburn, he was inheriting a great side and of course set about ripping it apart so he could start again and do it his way.

 

There's no doubt that his success was hampered by 3 events.

 

1. The board's decision to sell Ferdinand

2. Shearer's injury

3. The ludicrous decision to cash in on Asprilla (I think the board is probably to blame on that one too).

 

Had he had those three for the 97/98 season, who knows what might have happened.

 

As for Gullit, again I thought it was a good choice, but in retrospect he didn't appreciate the size of the job. Because he instantly brought success to Chelsea, I think he was complacent in thinking that it would happen with us.

 

Robson, as Alex said was a no brainer. Although I think we did need to look to replace him before we actually did.

 

Souness - I can see the logic behind the decision to appoint a hard man, particularly as it was widely regarded that there was little control of the dressing room at that time but even so, he was the wrong man at the wrong time (he would have been the wrong man at ANY time!)

 

Roeder - biggest fuck up of the lot IMO. Fred appointed him on the back of the last 15 league games of the season. Trouble is, he went into this season without the man who was controlling the dressing room (Shearer) and the man who was providing the coaching (Craig) and failed because of it. Had those two been working with him, it might have worked.

 

Who knows though?

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