Reaching Europe

[LeazesMag 0]

I would say he's done a great job since he's come in tbh.  To take a squad of players with no morale in 14th or 15th place to the brink of being a top 6 side again in 3 months is pretty impressive.  On current form we're a top 4 side, and it doesn't matter who we've played or whether they've had a dip in form or not.

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I agree with what you say. However somebody, somewhere ... on here is going to say that while Fred was to blame for the first half of the season, Roeder gets the credit for the 2nd half.....

[Guest alex]

I would say he's done a great job since he's come in tbh.  To take a squad of players with no morale in 14th or 15th place to the brink of being a top 6 side again in 3 months is pretty impressive.  On current form we're a top 4 side, and it doesn't matter who we've played or whether they've had a dip in form or not.

124579[/snapback]

 

I agree with what you say. However somebody, somewhere ... on here is going to say that while Fred was to blame for the first half of the season, Roeder gets the credit for the 2nd half.....

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Like Glenn Close in 'Fatal Attraction'.

[Isegrim 8908]

I would say he's done a great job since he's come in tbh.  To take a squad of players with no morale in 14th or 15th place to the brink of being a top 6 side again in 3 months is pretty impressive.  On current form we're a top 4 side, and it doesn't matter who we've played or whether they've had a dip in form or not.

124579[/snapback]

 

I agree with what you say. However somebody, somewhere ... on here is going to say that while Fred was to blame for the first half of the season, Roeder gets the credit for the 2nd half.....

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While others say that solely Souness is to blame for the first half and Fred should be praised for the entire season.....

[Renton 17907]

Got to say, it was a masterstroke of Shepherd to appoint Roeder when he did. He really deserves his millions for his extensive research.

 

Ahem. I suggested giving Roeder the job as early as January and I was not alone. It was an obvious solution and it is good luck it worked out - but hardly inspired.

[Guest alex]

Is there any point in discussing this matter with the Leazes though? I've given up.

[Guest alex]

It's a long one, wonder what it will say.

[LeazesMag 0]

I would say he's done a great job since he's come in tbh.  To take a squad of players with no morale in 14th or 15th place to the brink of being a top 6 side again in 3 months is pretty impressive.  On current form we're a top 4 side, and it doesn't matter who we've played or whether they've had a dip in form or not.

124579[/snapback]

 

I agree with what you say. However somebody, somewhere ... on here is going to say that while Fred was to blame for the first half of the season, Roeder gets the credit for the 2nd half.....

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While others say that solely Souness is to blame for the first half and Fred should be praised for the entire season.....

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You show me ANYWHERE where I say the chairman is directly responsible for the teams results rather than the team manager ?

 

I will leave daft assumptions like that, and theories that running the 5th most successful club in the country is failure, to people like Gol, Dan etc who STILL hasn't answered my question "what would you do if the directors decided not to buy big players and run with 25,000 crowds and sell our best players instead"

 

And if it is so wrong to sack managers after the season is so bad, how come Ferguson and Wenger have done so well.

 

And were you happy with the timing of Gullit being replaced by Robson. Dan has said he thinks it was wrong, meaning he thinks we should have stuck with Gullitt....oh dear

 

And that finance is important when timing the sacking of manager, as this is the real world not Championship Manager.

 

To mention a few .....

 

Truth is, Keegan bandwagon jumpers, and those who expect the club to spend money because they know nothing else, are nothing if not naive and stupid in the extreme thinking we have a divine right to be trophy winners, and the board have a divine responsibility to spend money. They don't.

 

Dan, your post on NO was the best laugh I've had in ages

[Guest alex]

Fairly predictable then

[luckyluke 1]

Is there any point in discussing this matter with the Leazes though? I've given up.

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I don't know why anyone bothers tbh.

[Meenzer 14117]

Truth is, Keegan bandwagon jumpers, and those who expect the club to spend money because they know nothing else, are nothing if not naive and stupid in the extreme thinking we have a divine right to be trophy winners, and the board have a divine responsibility to spend money. They don't.

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The logical extension being that our natural state is "deciding not to buy big players and running with 25,000 crowds and selling our best players instead" - i.e. we should be eternally grateful for anything above and beyond mere mediocrity, as that's all we can reasonably expect from a prudent chairman in this day and age.

 

But is precedent really completely irrelevant here? The "Keegan bandwagon" you so readily deride stretches back throughout the entire Sky era, after all, a period which has imposed a radically different financial framework on the game. So should Manchester United fans, say, be happy with treading water given their recent history? Should they be listening to supporters with longer memories who say "it's not that long since we were in the old second division, so you ought to be grateful for what you've got", or should they be expecting their clubs to build on the foundations that have been put in place in the meantime and continue to speculate - prudently - to accumulate?

 

Thing is, given how much you praise Shepherd for doing precisely the latter, I just don't understand why anyone who suggests that the goalposts have moved since the bad old days immediately comes under fire. What's wrong with having higher expectations and no longer being content to sit back and accept mediocrity?

[Craig 6321]

People have dismissed Shearer's contribution to the dressing room too. With him gone next year, will there be a negative effect? Can Roeder do it alone? I'm not so sure.

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Who's been the greater influence? The man who was there all season even when we were shit or the man whom, when he became present in the dressing room, we started to perform?

 

I'm not knocking Shearer at all, but I think it's easy to see that Roeder has been the difference. I'm agreeing with Gemmill, Roeder's done a superb job and, O'Neill aside, I think he has to be a strong contender to get the job!

[Renton 17907]

People have dismissed Shearer's contribution to the dressing room too. With him gone next year, will there be a negative effect? Can Roeder do it alone? I'm not so sure.

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Who's been the greater influence? The man who was there all season even when we were shit or the man whom, when he became present in the dressing room, we started to perform?

 

I'm not knocking Shearer at all, but I think it's easy to see that Roeder has been the difference. I'm agreeing with Gemmill, Roeder's done a superb job and, O'Neill aside, I think he has to be a strong contender to get the job!

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Just a cautionary note, that's all. Shearer of course was not Souness's assistant, so it's unfair to dismiss him because he has been a constant in all this.

 

Anyway, I agree. I want O'Neill, but failing that, I'd prefer Roeder over many other candidates.

[Craig 6321]

Another HTT-style typing-fest from LM coming up! (he'll disappear off the online users list at this rate)

[LeazesMag 0]

Truth is, Keegan bandwagon jumpers, and those who expect the club to spend money because they know nothing else, are nothing if not naive and stupid in the extreme thinking we have a divine right to be trophy winners, and the board have a divine responsibility to spend money. They don't.

124597[/snapback]

The logical extension being that our natural state is "deciding not to buy big players and running with 25,000 crowds and selling our best players instead" - i.e. we should be eternally grateful for anything above and beyond mere mediocrity, as that's all we can reasonably expect from a prudent chairman in this day and age.

 

But is precedent really completely irrelevant here? The "Keegan bandwagon" you so readily deride stretches back throughout the entire Sky era, after all, a period which has imposed a radically different financial framework on the game. So should Manchester United fans, say, be happy with treading water given their recent history? Should they be listening to supporters with longer memories who say "it's not that long since we were in the old second division, so you ought to be grateful for what you've got", or should they be expecting their clubs to build on the foundations that have been put in place in the meantime and continue to speculate - prudently - to accumulate?

 

Thing is, given how much you praise Shepherd for doing precisely the latter, I just don't understand why anyone who suggests that the goalposts have moved since the bad old days immediately comes under fire. What's wrong with having higher expectations and no longer being content to sit back and accept mediocrity?

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Grateful for being above mediocrity ? Definitely not. Having pointed out the reality of a simple fact that NO ONE has an answer to. Which is, the fact that not just in our own past but in the modern game very few chairman have actually equalled us or bettered our performance, yet numpties STILL insist it is "failure", "shit" whatever, and asking a simple question WHO is on the outside prepared to show enough care for the club and conviction they would and could do better, show more ambition and show more courage in the money they gamble in the transfer market on the clubs future, to do better ? Answer = NO ONE.

 

Irrefutable.

 

Everything I have posted about what we have done in the last decade, is FACT. It's also not mediocre....errr....for decades before Shepherd and Halls we were mediocre and at times worse. Again, only Keegan bandwagon jumpers and those who don't know the meaning of "mediocre" would say the last decade has been "mediocre".

 

At the end of the day, the club must be giving you, and 52,000 others, something worth watching or you wouldn't go. As happened in the past, and as is happening now at the vast majority of other big city clubs, who are therefore not run so well as us but were before the Halls and Shepherd.

 

I am totally at ease pointing this out and feel it's totally relevent BTW. This club could decide to run at having 25,000 crowds and selling our best players, like we did for decades, and other big city clubs still do, to still get their dividend, and run the club on a shoestring. The fact that they CHOOSE to attempt to operate higher up the scale is totally lost on you all, or most of you. Keegan bandwagon jumpers would mostly be incapable of recognising this.

 

I see you don't point me to where I EVER said the chairman of the football club is more directly responsible for results than the manager, as I asked. Apology accepted if you know you can't. And I said this because I think its fantastically funny, as well as stupid, that whenever we lose a game every numpty calls for Shepherds head yet despite this recent run and getting the finance together to get rid of Souness, no one has congratulated Fred...irony of the highest degree.

[luckypierre 0]

 

answer MY questions Leazes!

[Craig 6321]

Yep - thought as much....

 

The problem boils down to the fact that you talk about Hall and Shepherd as they're one in the same person.

 

Shepherd doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Sir John Hall IMHO. Hall took this club forward in massive leaps. This club has definitely not moved forward since SJH stepped down, some would argue that we've actually gone backwards.

[Guest alex]

Took a long time to press CTRL C and CTRL V like.

[Meenzer 14117]

So you're still claiming that it's unreasonable for people's expectations to be higher when the chairman does a good job over a ten-year period, and that our benchmark as fans should still be the bad days of a bygone era regardless of what the board choose as their own benchmark. Glad we're clear on that.

 

I see you don't point me to where I EVER said the chairman of the football club is more directly responsible for results than the manager, as I asked.

 

No, because it wasn't directed at me in the first place and it's got absolutely fuck-all do to with what I said!

Edited April 20, 2006 by Meenzer

[Meenzer 14117]

The problem boils down to the fact that you talk about Hall and Shepherd as they're one in the same person.

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He talks about everyone else on this forum as if they're one and the same person too. Strange method of attack really - "person X said this, so I'll accuse person Y of not answering the question I asked of person Z".

[Gemmill 35070]

Who was it who had the avatar of that cartoon bloke typing til all he had left were bloody stumps. That's exactly how I picture Leazes when he's on a Shepherd rant. Someone post it up if they've got it.

[Isegrim 8908]

Yep - thought as much....

 

The problem boils down to the fact that you talk about Hall and Shepherd as they're one in the same person.

 

Shepherd doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Sir John Hall IMHO. Hall took this club forward in massive leaps. This club has definitely not moved forward since SJH stepped down, some would argue that we've actually gone backwards.

124648[/snapback]

 

Exactly. It is irrelevant to compare what crap chairmen in the 60s, 70s or 80s have done. It is about now and here. Shepherd didn't take over a struggling club with no fans coming to the club. He took over from the foundations Sir John Hall laid for him. He took over a club with all us Keegan-bandwagon-jumpers (yes, and I am definitely one).

 

So the only thing Shepherd should be judged by are what he has done with the possibilities he has. So should we just be grateful he didn't drag the club down to the state pre-1992? The aim has to be to take the club forward, not just to prevent him going backwards. Though, as Craig has rightly said, it is disputable if the club hasn't in fact gone backwards since 1997.

 

I'm the last one who expects the chairman just to give the manager money to spend it championship manager-style. In fact I would be more than happy if the club was spending far less on transfer fees and wages, but spending the money more wiseley.

 

Ultimately the chairman has to be judged by his decisions and how he runs the club. And with his decisions he has a direct effect on the results. So he deserves somewhat of praise when things are going well, but also has to take the flak when things are going not well.

 

Businesswise Shepherd could of course have done much worse. But some of his decisions are still questionable. Especially the joint venture with NTL was nothing else but a disaster and the only good decision was to press the emergency button. The other things is the spending on players for inflated prices, especially when some deals are considered to be rather decisions from the chairman than the manager (see Luque, Albert). I also heard that everything that is published ind the balance sheets as they are published by the help of KPMG isn't just black and white, but closer investigations would expose a lot of grey (area).

 

Shepherd also has to take the flak for the fiasco that was the appointment of Souness. And doesn't get any credit from me for sticking with him and even backing him until the point of no return (i.e. relegation) was looming.

 

And last but not least the chairman also has representation duties. And instead of lerning from mistakes and keeping a low profile Shepherd keeps on making a fool out of himself with his public appearences.

 

Yes, there could be worse chairman, but there could be also far better. IMHO.

[LeazesMag 0]

Yep - thought as much....

 

The problem boils down to the fact that you talk about Hall and Shepherd as they're one in the same person.

 

Shepherd doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Sir John Hall IMHO. Hall took this club forward in massive leaps. This club has definitely not moved forward since SJH stepped down, some would argue that we've actually gone backwards.

124648[/snapback]

 

Exactly. It is irrelevant to compare what crap chairmen in the 60s, 70s or 80s have done. It is about now and here. Shepherd didn't take over a struggling club with no fans coming to the club. He took over from the foundations Sir John Hall laid for him. He took over a club with all us Keegan-bandwagon-jumpers (yes, and I am definitely one).

 

So the only thing Shepherd should be judged by are what he has done with the possibilities he has. So should we just be grateful he didn't drag the club down to the state pre-1992? The aim has to be to take the club forward, not just to prevent him going backwards. Though, as Craig has rightly said, it is disputable if the club hasn't in fact gone backwards since 1997.

 

I'm the last one who expects the chairman just to give the manager money to spend it championship manager-style. In fact I would be more than happy if the club was spending far less on transfer fees and wages, but spending the money more wiseley.

 

Ultimately the chairman has to be judged by his decisions and how he runs the club. And with his decisions he has a direct effect on the results. So he deserves somewhat of praise when things are going well, but also has to take the flak when things are going not well.

 

Businesswise Shepherd could of course have done much worse. But some of his decisions are still questionable. Especially the joint venture with NTL was nothing else but a disaster and the only good decision was to press the emergency button. The other things is the spending on players for inflated prices, especially when some deals are considered to be rather decisions from the chairman than the manager (see Luque, Albert). I also heard that everything that is published ind the balance sheets as they are published by the help of KPMG isn't just black and white, but closer investigations would expose a lot of grey (area).

 

Shepherd also has to take the flak for the fiasco that was the appointment of Souness. And doesn't get any credit from me for sticking with him and even backing him until the point of no return (i.e. relegation) was looming.

 

And last but not least the chairman also has representation duties. And instead of lerning from mistakes and keeping a low profile Shepherd keeps on making a fool out of himself with his public appearences.

 

Yes, there could be worse chairman, but there could be also far better. IMHO.

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YOu and your mates STILL don't get the point.

 

The board COULD run the club on a shoestring if they wanted, the old board proved that. They also COULD run the club on a shoestring, like other major big city clubs do now. But they don't.

 

Comparing the progress under John Hall and the Shepherd is stupid. Its like saying Bobby Robson was a shit manager on the basis he didn't match Keegan.

 

NOW. At this point in time, or under Shepherds time as chairman, we have been the 5th most successful and best run club on and off the field. This is not failure, and once again, only those who have not experienced true failure or mediocrity would be dumb enough to say that it is.

 

You must also be pretty dumb if you think it is as easy to rise from a downtrodden club to challenging at the upper end of the premiership, as it is to actually go further once you have reached a high level.

 

Once again also, NO ONE HAS YET SAID WHO THE PERSON IS WHO CARES MORE ABOUT THE CLUB TO PUT THEIR MONEY DOWN AND GUARANTEE MORE AMBITION.

The answer being quite simply that there is no one, and there isn't likely to be either.

 

Shepherd saying this in the press to talk the club up is as irrelevant to what happens on the pitch as Bellamy saying Souness is a cunt and a liar. Both are correct and justified. And the sad thing is, those of you who are too completely blind and clueless that backed Souness rather than Bellamy, will realise too late how good Shepherd is too whatever his faults, too late, just like when Bellamy went.

 

NO ONE also has pointed out where I said the chairman is directly more responsible for results than the team manager.

 

NO ONE among those stupid enough to blame Fred for every game lost has yet taken up my suggestion to offer congratulations for the excellent win on Monday, nor the good run since Roeder took over.

 

Clueless.

[Wor Al 0]

Who was it who had the avatar of that cartoon bloke typing til all he had left were bloody stumps.  That's exactly how I picture Leazes when he's on a Shepherd rant.  Someone post it up if they've got it.

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I picture him as an Abu-Hamza type figure. Full of rage and hatred against cockneys, Souness, Luque etc.

Edited April 20, 2006 by Omar

[peasepud 59]

......

Comparing the progress under John Hall and the Shepherd is stupid. Its like saying Bobby Robson was a shit manager on the basis he didn't match Keegan.

 

NOW. At this point in time, or under Shepherds time as chairman, we have been the 5th most successful and best run club on and off the field. This is not failure, and once again, only those who have not experienced true failure or mediocrity would be dumb enough to say that it is.

 

yet you are more than happy to compare Shepherd to the pre Hall days? How does that work exactly?

 

 

 

Once again also, NO ONE HAS YET SAID WHO THE PERSON IS WHO CARES MORE ABOUT THE CLUB TO PUT THEIR MONEY DOWN AND GUARANTEE MORE AMBITION.

The answer being quite simply that there is no one, and there isn't likely to be either.

 

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And exactly how much of this money Shepherd has put down was his own? Shepherd spends the clubs money, thats what buys players its not out of his own pocket.

[Dr Gloom 19925]

stop it leazesmag. you're murdering me