Hold Your Hands Up - Roeder Related Again

[Delima]

Ok lads, it seems like it is all doom and gloom again in our toon. So what's your thuoght when FFS appointed Roeder? Hold your hands up, how many of you welcome Roeder's appointment? And how many of you were against him?

 

Vote now and share with me your thoughts on Roeder. By no means the current premiership table will translate into end of season table but it is an indication. It would certainly make an interesting read on how people here in N-O perceive our current situation when the season ends.

 

Fire away, I'll start first.

 

I was vehemently against the appointment of Glenn Roeder, and thought Freddy Shpeherd makes the club a huge fool again by meddling with the rules with specious excuses, by promising us a world class manager, by touting the job as one of the 8 most wanted footballing job in the world bli bli bla bla only to appoint Glenn Roeder as our manager.

 

However, I thought Roeder would make a decent mid table manager, stabilise and consolidate the club. I lent him my support once Shepherd made his decision since I could do nothing to change it, and since I still like him as a coach.

 

But with Newcastle flirting with relegation zone after 10 whopping games, and with some of his bizzare decisions which I couldn't comprehend, I started to doubt my trust on him earlier on. I still have faith with Roeder and don't think we will be relegated, after all we still play some decent football at times and call it excuses or not, we lost quite a few points down to ridiculous personal mistakes, or simply bad ulck in front of the goal.

 

Still, the current situation is extremely worrying. And my confidence in Roeder is being eroded game by game. Am I wrong to believe in him?

 

What's your thought?

[Martin Lol]

I was delighted with Roeder's appointment but it had nothing to do with how good he would be managing the team!

[Colos Short and Curlies]

Totally against.

 

The last chance we will have in the next 5 years at least to appoint a world class manager.

 

We will have to get lucky (ala Jol at Spurs) to move forward now

[Raconteur]

I'll stick my hand up - at the time I was pleased with Roeder's appointment.

 

At first I hoped we would sign a world class manager - all hope of that was knocked on the head with Shepherd's "betting scam" reaction to the Hitzfeld proposal. I saw that as the moment the promised "world class appointment, quality candidates lining up" was a sham.

 

At that point, I was impressed by Roeder's caretaker stewardship - in my defence after the shambles of Souness it was probably an overreation to seeing us charging up the table after the doom and gloom of the previous administration. I saw Roeder as a cool wise head and a steadying influence. I underestimated the infulence of Craig and Shearer. I chose to believe that his previous experiences management had extenuating circumstances, and even believed that his health issues would have made him a stronger character.

 

Even well into the summer I defended Roeder's transfer strategy (as I saw it) as prudent, conservative and designed to make sure he got the right players. It wasn't until the last week of the window I started to lose faith - I finally came to realise that whenever he opened his mouth about targets he was trying to placate the fans by offering them empty promises.

 

This continued into the season - just about every press release was either spin of a complete distortion of the facts. Think about the statements he has made - Luque has trained well and will be part of the squad, Carr is in the form of his life, Bramble has the ability etc. All rubbish.

 

So now I have turned 180 degrees - from wearing a Roeder ass-kisser badge over summer to now accepting he is simply not good enough. If that makes me fickle in the eyes of some - I'd prefer to think of it as accepting I made a poor judgement and adjusting my opinion accordingly

 

[BlufPurdi]

Dead set against it.  At the time I was on too much of a high with him doing so well during his caretaker period to think he could possibly relegate us, but even then, I knew he wouldn't do much good for us.  The games against Man U and Liverpool (let's not mention Charlton away) were all the evidence I needed then to realise he would not take us where we want to be.  All he did after Souness was play players in the proper position, attack teams, and beat the teams we should be beating at home. 

 

Sadly, it should never have even got to the position where he was being offered the job.  Not only did he rule himself out initially, but we should have been aiming so, so much higher.  Now people can draw whatever conclusion they want from that last sentence, "you just wanted Hitzfeld" etc.  Yes, I did, but I'd also have preferred someone that was actually successful at at least ONE of his previous clubs.

 

It's ashame, cause he's totally pissed on his great acheivement in not only just saving us from the Souness effect, but getting us into Europe.

 

What gets me though, is those that were supportive of him and his appointment, are now by and large wanting Shepherd out, despite the fact you agreed with and supported the bloody choice.

 

All in all, a terrible choice and should've been seen as such by a mile away.

[Delima]

I was delighted with Roeder's appointment but it had nothing to do with how good he would be managing the team!

 

Martin Jol I usually enjoy reading your posts, and am always grateful to you for sharing rumours or insider knowledge. But I am dissapointed how you dare not admit your initial opinion, especially after you just critisise Premiership authority as spineless.

 

Here I quote you

You're talking out of your *rse mate, Roeder has got everything needed to make him a top manager (apart from the final badge, so I'm not taking the rumour as gospel yet).

 

Here's what I first said over a month ago, I stick by it and I still reckon you've got yourself a winner this time around.

 

"Although I have met GR, it's never been close enough of long enough to honestly form an opinion of the guy although 'sour incompetent and no leader of men', sour yes, the other two no.

 

I've met him on 3 occasions, once to talk to for about 5/10 minutes, plus a couple of fleeting 'hello, well played'.  Also overheard him when he was the West Ham youth coach in matches against the Spurs kids.  He struck me as very ambitious, very positive and very perceptive, going on to the spanners kids about shortcomings in the Spurs kids that I hadn't really been aware of but when he said it, you could see what he meant.  Always seemed to be a great motivator, getting more out of some than was really there, it was easy to see why man management is thought to be one of his strengths. 

 

Most of what I knew about him came from Glenn Hoddle, who I know well.  Hoddle wanted Roeder on the coaching staff when he went to Spurs in addition to Hughton, and it was Hoddle that appointed him to the England coaching setup when he was manager, at that time Roeder was still the West Ham youth coach. Hoddle will talk to anyone for hours on end about tactics and training methods and was obviously well impressed with Roeder's thinking. The fact that Roeder held a low profile job wouldn't have made any difference, Hoddle appointed Peter Taylor to be the u21 coach when Taylor was manager of Dover Athletic.

 

Hoddle told me that Roeder was one of the strongest minded and ambitious people he knew in football, maybe that surprised me a bit because he doesn't strike me as having that sort of mentality, very knowledgeable and perceptive undoubtedly, but not strongminded, not in the Fergie style anyway.  When you remember that Hoddle is really thick with Wenger, his comments about Roeder are a big compliment.  Reading between the lines, I think Hoddle rates Roeder higher than Taylor from the coaching perspective, even though Taylor got the higher profile job, I may be wrong, but I don't think so.  There's no doubt he was unlucky at West Ham having both Di Canio and Kanoute out for 6 months, losing your 2 best strikers and not being given money to replace them would hurt any team.  Terry Brown, the spanners chairman, is tighter with his money than Doug Ellis and when they got hit with injuries, and no money to get replacments in, they went down.  I never saw that as relegation brought on by Roeder, simply self inflicted by Brown.

 

The one area of management he's never really been tested on in signing new players, but I would guess with his ability to identify strengths and weaknesses in players, I don't think that would be a problem. "

 

[Geordie Boot Boy]

I was against it.  The most important man at a football club is the manager.  Get that appointment right and the rest will follow with time.  Roeder was never the man to pin your hopes on in the long term.

[Martin Lol]

I'll stick my hand up - at the time I was pleased with Roeder's appointment.

 

At first I hoped we would sign a world class manager - all hope of that was knocked on the head with Shepherd's "betting scam" reaction to the Hitzfeld proposal. I saw that as the moment the promised "world class appointment, quality candidates lining up" was a sham.

 

At that point, I was impressed by Roeder's caretaker stewardship - in my defence after the shambles of Souness it was probably an overreation to seeing us charging up the table after the doom and gloom of the previous administration. I saw Roeder as a cool wise head and a steadying influence. I underestimated the infulence of Craig and Shearer. I chose to believe that his previous experiences management had extenuating circumstances, and even believed that his health issues would have made him a stronger character.

 

Even well into the summer I defended Roeder's transfer strategy (as I saw it) as prudent, conservative and designed to make sure he got the right players. It wasn't until the last week of the window I started to lose faith - I finally came to realise that whenever he opened his mouth about targets he was trying to placate the fans by offering them empty promises.

 

This continued into the season - just about every press release was either spin of a complete distortion of the facts. Think about the statements he has made - Luque has trained well and will be part of the squad, Carr is in the form of his life, Bramble has the ability etc. All rubbish.

 

So now I have turned 180 degrees - from wearing a Roeder ass-kisser badge over summer to now accepting he is simply not good enough. If that makes me fickle in the eyes of some - I'd prefer to think of it as accepting I made a poor judgement and adjusting my opinion accordingly

 

 

TBH, I thought Roeder would have ade a better fist of the job than he has.  If there was precious little money about (and £15m wasn't a lot for the surgery needed), it would have been more logical to pick up promising players e.g. Freddy Eastwood for £1.5m rising to...., cheap foreigners a la Allardyce or Bosmans.  Some would have come good and those that failed could have been shipped out at the next window as Spurs did with Pamarot, Davis, Atouba etc.  The point with the failures was that they were sold on without incurring a loss on the transfer fee.

[Tachikoma]

Well, I didn't want him to be appointed but didn't really mind it if he did get the job - what should I vote for?

[Martin Lol]

I was delighted with Roeder's appointment but it had nothing to do with how good he would be managing the team!

 

Martin Jol I usually enjoy reading your posts, and am always grateful to you for sharing rumours or insider knowledge. But I am dissapointed how you dare not admit your initial opinion, especially after you just critisise Premiership authority as spineless.

 

Here I quote you

You're talking out of your *rse mate, Roeder has got everything needed to make him a top manager (apart from the final badge, so I'm not taking the rumour as gospel yet).

 

Here's what I first said over a month ago, I stick by it and I still reckon you've got yourself a winner this time around.

 

"Although I have met GR, it's never been close enough of long enough to honestly form an opinion of the guy although 'sour incompetent and no leader of men', sour yes, the other two no.

 

I've met him on 3 occasions, once to talk to for about 5/10 minutes, plus a couple of fleeting 'hello, well played'.  Also overheard him when he was the West Ham youth coach in matches against the Spurs kids.  He struck me as very ambitious, very positive and very perceptive, going on to the spanners kids about shortcomings in the Spurs kids that I hadn't really been aware of but when he said it, you could see what he meant.  Always seemed to be a great motivator, getting more out of some than was really there, it was easy to see why man management is thought to be one of his strengths. 

 

Most of what I knew about him came from Glenn Hoddle, who I know well.  Hoddle wanted Roeder on the coaching staff when he went to Spurs in addition to Hughton, and it was Hoddle that appointed him to the England coaching setup when he was manager, at that time Roeder was still the West Ham youth coach. Hoddle will talk to anyone for hours on end about tactics and training methods and was obviously well impressed with Roeder's thinking. The fact that Roeder held a low profile job wouldn't have made any difference, Hoddle appointed Peter Taylor to be the u21 coach when Taylor was manager of Dover Athletic.

 

Hoddle told me that Roeder was one of the strongest minded and ambitious people he knew in football, maybe that surprised me a bit because he doesn't strike me as having that sort of mentality, very knowledgeable and perceptive undoubtedly, but not strongminded, not in the Fergie style anyway.  When you remember that Hoddle is really thick with Wenger, his comments about Roeder are a big compliment.  Reading between the lines, I think Hoddle rates Roeder higher than Taylor from the coaching perspective, even though Taylor got the higher profile job, I may be wrong, but I don't think so.  There's no doubt he was unlucky at West Ham having both Di Canio and Kanoute out for 6 months, losing your 2 best strikers and not being given money to replace them would hurt any team.  Terry Brown, the spanners chairman, is tighter with his money than Doug Ellis and when they got hit with injuries, and no money to get replacments in, they went down.  I never saw that as relegation brought on by Roeder, simply self inflicted by Brown.

 

The one area of management he's never really been tested on in signing new players, but I would guess with his ability to identify strengths and weaknesses in players, I don't think that would be a problem. "

 

 

My second post in this thread went into more detail than just going to Mauritius.    Thought he would do better, yep, said he was basically untested on signings, yep.  What we didn't know how long it would take him to determine strengths and weaknesses before making a signing.  Maybe the most disappointing aspect of his actual managerial regime is his reluctance to attend to the defensive deficiencies in general and his failure to sign scumball on a bosman in particular.  As I've said before, Newcastle was his preferred destination.

[CaliMag]

This seems to be another thread to find out who was right and who was wrong.. unfortunately IIRC most posters were ambivilent and wanted MON or Hitzfield with most settling on Roeder after it was clear the Fat one was not going to do his job.

 

This is not the same as the Souness appointment as far as how it divided the fans and I can't help but think that many anti-Roeder folks on here are using this opportunity to clear their name after foolishly backing Souness.

 

 

[Martin Lol]

This seems to be another thread to find out who was right and who was wrong.. unfortunately IIRC most posters were ambivilent and wanted MON or Hitzfield with most settling on Roeder after it was clear the Fat one was not going to do his job.

 

This is not the same as the Souness appointment as far as how it divided the fans and I can't help but think that many anti-Roeder folks on here are using this opportunity to clear their name after foolishly backing Souness.

 

 

 

I don't think this is a 'haha I'm right, yaahboo you're wrong' thread tbh.  I don't think anyone who thought Roeder was a poor choice is getting any satisfaction from saying 'told you so'.  People will be happier when the team starts going up the league table, irrespective of whether Roeder is still in charge or not.

[Pokerprince2004]

I was in favour of getting Allardyce as i thought he was the best man we could get. I had MON 2nd on my prefered options and if we could not get him then i would have been happy with Roeder because of the job he had done to get us into europe (not counting Hitzfeld and the other dutch bloke whose name escapes me as they were never really an option)

 

So if we were turned down by SA and MON then Roeder was my choice as well but i reckon with more effort the fat man could have gotten one of the 2 i mentioned

[Alberto2005]

He wasn't my first choice by a long shot but i admit i was satisfied with the appointment, he seemed to understand the fact we needed strengthning in the defence and also attack but yet again a manager hasn't dealt with the problem and we're feeling the concequences. We're poor in attack and defence not a good mix.

[Toon_Crazy]

He wasn'y my first choice but it seemed like no one else wanted the job, so I though maybe keep him rather than change it all again.

[Delima]

This seems to be another thread to find out who was right and who was wrong.. unfortunately IIRC most posters were ambivilent and wanted MON or Hitzfield with most settling on Roeder after it was clear the Fat one was not going to do his job.

 

This is not the same as the Souness appointment as far as how it divided the fans and I can't help but think that many anti-Roeder folks on here are using this opportunity to clear their name after foolishly backing Souness.

 

For your information, I didn't even know anything about N-O when Souness was appointed.

 

And actually, the Roeder issue was quite divisive amongst the newcastle fan, if this N-O poll could be linearly scaled up to represent the general view of Toon supporters.

 

http://www.newcastle-online.com/nufcforum/index.php/topic,19145.40.html

 

Yes - 51%

No - 49%

[lQmmel]

I was against it when he first took over as caretaker given his record with previous clubs. But given the results he got in the short time as caretaker and us finishing 7th when we were about to go into a relegation fight, I thought he deserved the job as fulltime manager. Though i would still have prefered a manager with a better record (Hitzfeld ;-))

 

I do however think that he wasnt backed by Shepherd in the summer. Im sure he could see that we needed defenders and a goalscoring striker. Shepherd wanted trophiesignings... IMO

[CaliMag]

I don't think anyone who thought Roeder was a poor choice is getting any satisfaction from saying 'told you so'.

 

Go talk to Phil K and then get back to me on that one...

 

[Delima]

 

My second post in this thread went into more detail than just going to Mauritius.    Thought he would do better, yep, said he was basically untested on signings, yep.  What we didn't know how long it would take him to determine strengths and weaknesses before making a signing.  Maybe the most disappointing aspect of his actual managerial regime is his reluctance to attend to the defensive deficiencies in general and his failure to sign scumball on a bosman in particular.  As I've said before, Newcastle was his preferred destination.

 

To be honest I was siding with Roeder for being confident at Bramble to rectify his deficiencies. After all he did well towards the end of last season under the stewardship of Roeder himself. What I'm dissapointed is his failure to capture any decent fullbacks, and his waste of money on Duff.

 

So to summarise,

 

Martins' signing - Yes

Duff's signing - No

Sibierki's signing - No

Rossi's signing -Yes

Bernard's signing - No (wanted someone better, or more established)

[Toon_Crazy]

If Roeder bought new full backs and had got a centre half, and had got 2 cheap strikers then we would have been fine this year I think.

[Guest TurkishToon]

was totally against it.

 

Roeders appointment was a short term fix...and i dont attiribute the teams good run towards the end of the last season completely to him...his tactics and strategy was not so different than Souness'... maybe it was Big Al's motivation or the players' themselves...

 

Roeder is currently in charge and i still want him to do well but i dont expect a radical change in the way we play under Roeder...he might be good decent person, an average manager but imo he lacks the vision, motivation and the drive, the agression that is necessary to get the best out of the players...

 

i support the team rain or sun...but if there is something obviously wrong with the way we are being managed or playing id like to see some changes with the long term in mind...not a 3 month crowd pleaser decision...

 

it is not i was right you were wrong agree to that...it is the mentality of the fans and the club managers...who think of NU as a big club but doesnt have the guts to demand and make big decisions...always something short term, always someting near sighted...always until the next match...

[Delima]

Also could you allow me to say that, I am very interested in undertanding people's initial reactions and contrast it to their current one. In no way I am trying to gloat, as you see though I was staunchly against Roeder's appointemnt, I still had faith in him. I should be the first to be laughed at, if I want to laugh at anyone.

 

All I want to know and read is people's reactions, people's views, people's thought. Genuine Toon fans' opinions, not Oliver's "my exclusive source tells me that all Geordies love Shepherd" etc.

[gray]

i was fully against, but my reasoning was that he wouldnt attract the players we need.

 

little did I know he was an utter failure as a tactician, a liar/exaggerator to the fans, and not much better at man management.

[Dunedin]

He was never my choice. I knew that he lacked the tactical ability, was too lightweight when it came to signing players and was at the very best a mediocre unproven manager with a very dodgy track record. Albeit he seems a nice bloke but that never won anything. If the club persists with him we will be relegated as he has not got the nous to get us out of a tight situation and hasn't the balls to face a real dogfight. This has been one missed opportunity after another. Firstly the chance to get a real quality ,proven manager, secondly to sign Sol Campbell for nothing and an inability to spot potential in the players in the Championship. All in all a total f****ing mess

[Martin Lol]

 

My second post in this thread went into more detail than just going to Mauritius.    Thought he would do better, yep, said he was basically untested on signings, yep.  What we didn't know how long it would take him to determine strengths and weaknesses before making a signing.  Maybe the most disappointing aspect of his actual managerial regime is his reluctance to attend to the defensive deficiencies in general and his failure to sign scumball on a bosman in particular.  As I've said before, Newcastle was his preferred destination.

 

To be honest I was siding with Roeder for being confident at Bramble to rectify his deficiencies. After all he did well towards the end of last season under the stewardship of Roeder himself. What I'm dissapointed is his failure to capture any decent fullbacks, and his waste of money on Duff.

 

So to summarise,

 

Martins' signing - Yes

Duff's signing - No

Sibierki's signing - No

Rossi's signing -Yes

Bernard's signing - No (wanted someone better, or more established)

 

Rather ironic that I should agree with everything you say until the summary when I disagreed with just about everything!

 

Martins - Not at £10m, trophy signing tbh.

Duff - unnecessary

Sibierski - If a freebie, yes.  Could have done a job for Newcastle for a season whilst awaiting Owen's return.

Rossi - No, point of principle that I wouldn't want Spurs or Newcastle giving any other club's youngsters experience.  Leave that route to Charlton or Fulham.

Bernard - No, simply blind panic setting in.

 

For strikers, I wouldn't have argued with Jason Roberts, Leroy Lita or Freddy Eastwood.  All 3 could have been signed for less than £6m, those that failed to meet the standard could have been sold at a later window.  I would have been happy for any of those to have gone to Spurs prior to signing Mido permanently.  Add to those a more experienced striker like Benni McCarthy for another couple of mill and the lack of striking options would have been addressed with  6 strikers (including Sibierski and Ameobi) with Owen waiting to return.  Apply a similar strategy with the defence and the £15m transfer fund would have put together an adequate squad numerically and far more balanced in overall strength.