Beardsley and Beresford talk-in - Kingston Park

[fredbob]

Thing is though, we WERE struggling that season in comparison to where we should have been. Yes, we only signed Bowyer, but do you think if say Arsenal or Liverpool don't buy anybody this season, then they'll struggle to finish 5th? Course they won't. I don't care what anybody says, we had the 4th best set of players that season. It was only the fact that clubs just below us like Charlton, Fulham, Villa & Bolton were so poor, and that Liverpool stuttered badly for so long that even kept us in the top 4 hunt for so long that season. That was still a terrible season no matter what anyone tries telling us.

 

We only needed to turn draws in to wins to have made that a very good season and we almost did finish 4th.  Only bringing in Bowyer shouldn't be under-estimated, especially after the CL disappointment.

 

As for that terrible season, I'd swap it with any we've had since.

 

Precisely, we played poorly pretty much throughout the entire season and struggled with turning draws into wins, and we only just lost out on 4th places in something like the 35th/36th game at Southampton? Imagine if SBR was given the finance to put in some fresh impetus and some competition for places for the likes of Bellamy or Dyer, would we still of been complaining about discipline if those 2 especially werent our only option?

 

The sad thing, is that our eyes got too big for our stomachs and we we didnt realise that in actual fact we would prbably have started the next season as one of the favourites for the UEFA cup....how times have changed.

 

Too old...... 

it scares me that some can't see the difference in how we palyed that season and the season before.

 

It scares me that some people still see a 5th place finish as reasonable justification for a sacking. Yet happily accept that if Allardyce achieved the same feat with even worse football he'd be very well recieved. Theres a bit of a contradiction there somewhere....

 

No one is saying the football was good, but its a measure of how good we were as a team that our football was so poor yet we still comfortably achieved a top 5 finish, Manu U, Liverpool even Arsenal have had poor seasons, Liverpool especially who have been perennial underachievers for a good part of a decade yet have only had 2 mangers in the same time we've had 6. If Villa or Everton or Porstmouth had a season the same standard as our do you think they'd have 5th place comfortably tied up like we did?

 

Agree to disagree i suppose...

 

IIRC, it was only a 93rd minute equaliser in the 37th game of the season that got us 5th spot that season...so I'd hardly say we had it comfortably tied up would you?

 

Fair enough, we got to 5th place on goal difference, but we were fighting with Liverpool only for 4th place for a long time, and had to scrape 5th off the back of some poor performances, but that still doesnt exactly help your argument much.

 

We had a very poor season, does that mean he deserved to go, nope, not in my opinion, he should of been given one more chance, if we fell back more then maybe it was time to start looking, but what if he succeeded and got us back in CL? What if he was given more that £0 to improve on his previous finish, imagine what he could of done with £50m sitting in his pocket??

 

Are you still actually telling me it was the correct decision to get rid of him because he was old and we had one poor season?

[Guest]

I don't think he should have gone because of his age, no. But when you look at how Chelsea brought in Mourinho, Liverpool got Benitez, Spurs got Santini but more importantly Jol, we definitely missed a trick by not replacing him at the end of that season. And we weren't competing with Liverpool for 4th spot alone at all. I'm sure Fulham were 4th as late as March that season, and Charlton were always hovering. Bolton & Villa in all honestly should have pipped us in the end as well.

[fredbob]

I don't think he should have gone because of his age, no. But when you look at how Chelsea brought in Mourinho, Liverpool got Benitez, Spurs got Santini but more importantly Jol, we definitely missed a trick by not replacing him at the end of that season. And we weren't competing with Liverpool for 4th spot alone at all. I'm sure Fulham were 4th as late as March that season, and Charlton were always hovering. Bolton & Villa in all honestly should have pipped us in the end as well.

 

So you are saying SBR wouldnt of been able to compete with the other teams in hindsight and we should of taken the initative and appointed a manager who would be able to compete with those, the sad thing with that with hindsight is that shepherd never looked abroad, FULL STOP. Even after SBR sacking he was courting names such as Bruce, Allardyce even O'Leary was bandied around.

 

The point for me, is that SBR didnt need replacing not yet anyway, not for footballing reason, he hadnt given us any major footballing reason to sck him, he had one season where we struggled and  we still finsihed 5th , that is the bottom line irrespective of how much we struggled, how many points we got, how many times we had to come from behnd, at the end of the day if we end the season in 'x' position thats the position we deserve, theres no if's or buts about it. Personally i think if he was given the finances that were withdrawn from him he would quite easily of competed with Benitez, Jol etc.

 

If you agree with that, i see no other argument, the only bit i agree with you is that maybe just maybe we should of been looking ahead, however our chairman might not of had the initative to of gone abroad where the managerial talent is streaks ahead. All his appointments would suggest this.

 

My point, therefore is that SBR needed a footballing reason to be sacked and he didnt get one, as far as im concerend if he was in good health and approaching 100 yet still was producing the goods for us i  still would of been non plussed if he was around.