Allardyce!

[johnnypd]

i'd hardly say his signings were 'epic failures'. fucking hell, i remember half this board at the time saying that was our 'best summer ever'  . he brought in some much needed defensive cover - having the likes of Faye, Enrique and Beye where we'd been seeing Carr, Huntington and Bramble was a huge step up.

 

Rozehnal was poor but we made no financial loss on him and the 'revisionism' started after he left with everyone saying he was shit, yet when ohmelads was saying it earlier that season he was panned for it.

 

everyone raved about Cacapa for the first few months until the pompey game, but it is true that he's been a failure. same with Barton, but not because of his footballing ability. we all knew that was a gamble and it didnt pay off, though it still might in the coming years. Viduka is a very good player and one of our most important in terms of keeping us up last season, though he's struggled with fitness. certainly wouldnt term him a 'failure'. Geremi has been decent, 7 league assists last season, our most creative this season despite not playing much and the best delivery at the club. a decent signing who has been underused.

 

Smith is the one signing that has been god-awful. Allardyce's biggest mistake isnt so much in who he signed, but in who he didn't sign. We lost pace and creativity in dyer and solano and never replaced them. it should also be pointed out that allardyce said he missed out on targets because of the new regimes naivety/failure to understand the transfer market, something keegan and kinnear have also said. and also that he spent very little in net terms, something like £3m, yet still managed to improve the squad as a whole.

 

in reality, his summer wasnt too different to the one just gone. Colo & Guthrie - Jury still out. Jonas and Bassong - looking good. Xisco and Gonzalez - Failures. one third in each category. i'd say Faye and Beye were clear successes, Smith, Cacapa and Rozehnal in the xisco/gonzalez category, with barton, viduka, enrique, geremi somewhere in the middle.

 

Allardyce was poor in his time here, no doubt about it, but i think with the kind of manager he is, and the kind of club we were, that having a period of adjustment was inevitable. he likes to put big backroom changes in place and overhaul the playing staff, to fashion the image of the club in his likeness, to make the club adapt to him rather than make himself adapt to the club. all those gadgets, heart monitors, pro-zone stats and so on are his crutches, without them he's very exposed but surrounded by them he's a half-decent, yet too dogmatic, premiership manager. after managing to exercise total control over bolton he quit with 3 games of the season left, and at that time bolton were in 5th place. yet when he arrived here we had one senior scout working for us, holes in the squad, players not suited to his game, and years of behind the scenes under-investment.

 

my criticism is that the short-term hit is not worth the projected gains - he'd have turned us into a cynical, boring top 7 team in a couple of years, much like bolton were. having to go through years of painful 'transition' to reach such unguaranteed, modest returns was imo probably not worth it. yet funnily enough when me and a few other posters were saying this while he was still in charge we were criticised for it. since then everyone that backed him has changed their minds and is going OTT in saying how bad he was. that to me is the 'revisionist history shit'. a poor manager for us, but not as bad as the two that preceeded him, and one who would've slowly improved over time. personally i dislike him because he's a bit of a prick, not because of what he did or didnt do for us.

[oldtype]

Mort said something to the effect of "we weren't happy about how s*** went down in the summer so we brought in some new people."

 

Again, can't be bothered to find it.

 

 

Exactly. So, logically...

If... she... weighs... the same as a duck,... she's made of wood.

And therefore?

A witch!

Then I dub you 'Sir Bedevere, Knight of the Round Table'.

 

Attempting to be patronizing fails so badly when you're not smart enough to do it.

 

Smart enough for you

 

Yes, your poor attempt at a Monty Python reference was the epitome of pithy cultural commentary.

 

Now fuck off unless you want to have an actual discussion. Thanks.

[Skeletor]

He's a prick. You know they're going to beat us and he's gonna be really smug about it though.

[dilligaf]

I tried to have a discussion you were the one who couldnt be arsed to prove what you said was a fact

[Syrette]

fucking hell, i remember half this board at the time saying that was our 'best summer ever'

 

since then everyone that backed him has changed their minds and is going OTT in saying how bad he was. that to me is the 'revisionist history shit'.

 

It's called hindsight.

[oldtype]

f***ing hell, i remember half this board at the time saying that was our 'best summer ever'

 

since then everyone that backed him has changed their minds and is going OTT in saying how bad he was. that to me is the 'revisionist history s***'.

 

It's called hindsight.

 

The fact that we were excited about it at the time certainly doesn't exempt it from being a failure.

 

Especially considering that our excitement was mostly predicated on the assumptions that Joey Barton wouldn't go to prison and that Alan Smith was a footballer.

[johnnypd]

fucking hell, i remember half this board at the time saying that was our 'best summer ever'

 

since then everyone that backed him has changed their minds and is going OTT in saying how bad he was. that to me is the 'revisionist history shit'.

 

It's called hindsight.

 

great post, i expect nothing less from you these days.

[Skeletor]

I don't remember many people being excited by Alan Smith's signing.

[Dave]

i'd hardly say his signings were 'epic failures'. fucking hell, i remember half this board at the time saying that was our 'best summer ever'  . he brought in some much needed defensive cover - having the likes of Faye, Enrique and Beye where we'd been seeing Carr, Huntington and Bramble was a huge step up.

 

Rozehnal was poor but we made no financial loss on him and the 'revisionism' started after he left with everyone saying he was shit, yet when ohmelads was saying it earlier that season he was panned for it.

 

everyone raved about Cacapa for the first few months until the pompey game, but it is true that he's been a failure. same with Barton, but not because of his footballing ability. we all knew that was a gamble and it didnt pay off, though it still might in the coming years. Viduka is a very good player and one of our most important in terms of keeping us up last season, though he's struggled with fitness. certainly wouldnt term him a 'failure'. Geremi has been decent, 7 league assists last season, our most creative this season despite not playing much and the best delivery at the club. a decent signing who has been underused.

 

Smith is the one signing that has been god-awful. Allardyce's biggest mistake isnt so much in who he signed, but in who he didn't sign. We lost pace and creativity in dyer and solano and never replaced them. it should also be pointed out that allardyce said he missed out on targets because of the new regimes naivety/failure to understand the transfer market, something keegan and kinnear have also said. and also that he spent very little in net terms, something like £3m, yet still managed to improve the squad as a whole.

 

in reality, his summer wasnt too different to the one just gone. Colo & Guthrie - Jury still out. Jonas and Bassong - looking good. Xisco and Gonzalez - Failures. one third in each category. i'd say Faye and Beye were clear successes, Smith, Cacapa and Rozehnal in the xisco/gonzalez category, with barton, viduka, enrique, geremi somewhere in the middle.

 

Allardyce was poor in his time here, no doubt about it, but i think with the kind of manager he is, and the kind of club we were, that having a period of adjustment was inevitable. he likes to put big backroom changes in place and overhaul the playing staff, to fashion the image of the club in his likeness, to make the club adapt to him rather than make himself adapt to the club. all those gadgets, heart monitors, pro-zone stats and so on are his crutches, without them he's very exposed but surrounded by them he's a half-decent, yet too dogmatic, premiership manager. after managing to exercise total control over bolton he quit with 3 games of the season left, and at that time bolton were in 5th place. yet when he arrived here we had one senior scout working for us, holes in the squad, players not suited to his game, and years of behind the scenes under-investment.

 

my criticism is that the short-term hit is not worth the projected gains - he'd have turned us into a cynical, boring top 7 team in a couple of years, much like bolton were. having to go through years of painful 'transition' to reach such unguaranteed, modest returns was imo probably not worth it. yet funnily enough when me and a few other posters were saying this while he was still in charge we were criticised for it. since then everyone that backed him has changed their minds and is going OTT in saying how bad he was. that to me is the 'revisionist history shit'. a poor manager for us, but not as bad as the two that preceeded him, and one who would've slowly improved over time. personally i dislike him because he's a bit of a prick, not because of what he did or didnt do for us.

 

Good post.

[Guest dover]

I don't remember many people being excited by Alan Smith's signing.

 

Mike was..got it on his shirt an everythin...

[Consortium of one]

That youtube video of Allardyce yelling into a bullhorn during a practice, choreographing the players movements was enough for me.  

[fredbob]

f***ing hell, i remember half this board at the time saying that was our 'best summer ever'

 

since then everyone that backed him has changed their minds and is going OTT in saying how bad he was. that to me is the 'revisionist history s***'.

 

It's called hindsight.

 

The fact that we were excited about it at the time certainly doesn't exempt it from being a failure.

 

Especially considering that our excitement was mostly predicated on the assumptions that Joey Barton wouldn't go to prison and that Alan Smith was a footballer.

 

whats your measurement for failure?

 

I mean if we'd signed Henry, Lampard and ronaldihno that window and they all failed, would that make the window a failure in your eyes?

[tgarve]

i'd hardly say his signings were 'epic failures'. f***ing hell, i remember half this board at the time saying that was our 'best summer ever'  . he brought in some much needed defensive cover - having the likes of Faye, Enrique and Beye where we'd been seeing Carr, Huntington and Bramble was a huge step up.

 

Rozehnal was poor but we made no financial loss on him and the 'revisionism' started after he left with everyone saying he was s***, yet when ohmelads was saying it earlier that season he was panned for it.

 

everyone raved about Cacapa for the first few months until the pompey game, but it is true that he's been a failure. same with Barton, but not because of his footballing ability. we all knew that was a gamble and it didnt pay off, though it still might in the coming years. Viduka is a very good player and one of our most important in terms of keeping us up last season, though he's struggled with fitness. certainly wouldnt term him a 'failure'. Geremi has been decent, 7 league assists last season, our most creative this season despite not playing much and the best delivery at the club. a decent signing who has been underused.

 

Smith is the one signing that has been god-awful. Allardyce's biggest mistake isnt so much in who he signed, but in who he didn't sign. We lost pace and creativity in dyer and solano and never replaced them. it should also be pointed out that allardyce said he missed out on targets because of the new regimes naivety/failure to understand the transfer market, something keegan and kinnear have also said. and also that he spent very little in net terms, something like £3m, yet still managed to improve the squad as a whole.

 

in reality, his summer wasnt too different to the one just gone. Colo & Guthrie - Jury still out. Jonas and Bassong - looking good. Xisco and Gonzalez - Failures. one third in each category. i'd say Faye and Beye were clear successes, Smith, Cacapa and Rozehnal in the xisco/gonzalez category, with barton, viduka, enrique, geremi somewhere in the middle.

 

Allardyce was poor in his time here, no doubt about it, but i think with the kind of manager he is, and the kind of club we were, that having a period of adjustment was inevitable. he likes to put big backroom changes in place and overhaul the playing staff, to fashion the image of the club in his likeness, to make the club adapt to him rather than make himself adapt to the club. all those gadgets, heart monitors, pro-zone stats and so on are his crutches, without them he's very exposed but surrounded by them he's a half-decent, yet too dogmatic, premiership manager. after managing to exercise total control over bolton he quit with 3 games of the season left, and at that time bolton were in 5th place. yet when he arrived here we had one senior scout working for us, holes in the squad, players not suited to his game, and years of behind the scenes under-investment.

 

my criticism is that the short-term hit is not worth the projected gains - he'd have turned us into a cynical, boring top 7 team in a couple of years, much like bolton were. having to go through years of painful 'transition' to reach such unguaranteed, modest returns was imo probably not worth it. yet funnily enough when me and a few other posters were saying this while he was still in charge we were criticised for it. since then everyone that backed him has changed their minds and is going OTT in saying how bad he was. that to me is the 'revisionist history s***'. a poor manager for us, but not as bad as the two that preceeded him, and one who would've slowly improved over time. personally i dislike him because he's a bit of a prick, not because of what he did or didnt do for us.

 

Good post.

 

Very good post but i disagree about guthrie, i think for what we paid and expected of him he has exceeded what we thought of him and he looks a very good, capable player. Definitely one to keep for the next 5 years, if not for a first team spot when we have brought in more players, a definite squad payer.

[lovejoy]

dont see much wrong woth what he said tbh.

[oldtype]

f***ing hell, i remember half this board at the time saying that was our 'best summer ever'

 

since then everyone that backed him has changed their minds and is going OTT in saying how bad he was. that to me is the 'revisionist history s***'.

 

It's called hindsight.

 

The fact that we were excited about it at the time certainly doesn't exempt it from being a failure.

 

Especially considering that our excitement was mostly predicated on the assumptions that Joey Barton wouldn't go to prison and that Alan Smith was a footballer.

 

whats your measurement for failure?

 

I mean if we'd signed Henry, Lampard and ronaldihno that window and they all failed, would that make the window a failure in your eyes?

 

Umm.... Yes?

[fredbob]

f***ing hell, i remember half this board at the time saying that was our 'best summer ever'

 

since then everyone that backed him has changed their minds and is going OTT in saying how bad he was. that to me is the 'revisionist history s***'.

 

It's called hindsight.

 

The fact that we were excited about it at the time certainly doesn't exempt it from being a failure.

 

Especially considering that our excitement was mostly predicated on the assumptions that Joey Barton wouldn't go to prison and that Alan Smith was a footballer.

 

whats your measurement for failure?

 

I mean if we'd signed Henry, Lampard and ronaldihno that window and they all failed, would that make the window a failure in your eyes?

 

Umm.... Yes?

 

So a windows success or failure is based entirely on the completely unpredicatable nature of footballers?

 

Surely there has to be some objective measure of a windows succes?

 

Its a bit like saying appointing Wenger is only good appointment if he suceeds completely ignoring the merit of the appointment.

 

The way i see it is that appointing Wenger will be a good appointment, full stop. 

[Mike]

http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/8058/400r184170683530zk4.jpg

 

 

[oldtype]

f***ing hell, i remember half this board at the time saying that was our 'best summer ever'

 

since then everyone that backed him has changed their minds and is going OTT in saying how bad he was. that to me is the 'revisionist history s***'.

 

It's called hindsight.

 

The fact that we were excited about it at the time certainly doesn't exempt it from being a failure.

 

Especially considering that our excitement was mostly predicated on the assumptions that Joey Barton wouldn't go to prison and that Alan Smith was a footballer.

 

whats your measurement for failure?

 

I mean if we'd signed Henry, Lampard and ronaldihno that window and they all failed, would that make the window a failure in your eyes?

 

Umm.... Yes?

 

So a windows success or failure is based entirely on the completely unpredicatable nature of footballers?

 

Surely there has to be some objective measure of a windows succes?

 

Its a bit like saying appointing Wenger is only good appointment if he suceeds completely ignoring the merit of the appointment.

 

The way i see it is that appointing Wenger will be a good appointment, full stop. 

 

By that line of reasoning there is no accountability for transfers, full stop. Because no one can predict whether a player can succeed or not.

 

In reality, you expect the club to be able to make some sort of reasonable projection on a potential signings chance for success.

 

The warning signs were clear for our signings that summer.

 

Barton was facing a potential prison sentence. We payed City 5m.

 

Alan Smith was coming of what was nearly a career-ending injury and had not been preforming consistently in the Premiership for nearly three years. We payed Man United 6m.

 

David Rozhenal's physicality was always going to be an issue in the Prem. We payed PSG 3.5m.

 

The fact that the worst case scenarios happened for all of those moves is irrelevant, as the manager's risk assessment itself was quite clearly flawed for all of them.

 

To pick up on your analogy, would appointing Arsene Wenger be a good appointment? Probably, but not certainly. It's up to the board to assess the prevalent risk factors. Can Wenger succeed without the resources he has at Arsenal? Can he succeed within the system in place at the club? Would he be able to adapt to a move to Northeast England?

 

Should Wenger come here and actually fail, it is fair for fans to assume that the board was probably negligent in their assessment of one or more risk factors. That would make that appointment a failure.

[oldtype]

On a completely unrelated note, Allardyce tried to buy Cho Jae-Jin, and that tells me all I need to know about his eye for a player.

[quayside]

The combination of Allardyce and Blackburn is a match made in heaven. I suggest we get used to the idea of Blackburn becoming an extremely competitive outfit and learn to deal with it.

[fredbob]

f***ing hell, i remember half this board at the time saying that was our 'best summer ever'

 

since then everyone that backed him has changed their minds and is going OTT in saying how bad he was. that to me is the 'revisionist history s***'.

 

It's called hindsight.

 

The fact that we were excited about it at the time certainly doesn't exempt it from being a failure.

 

Especially considering that our excitement was mostly predicated on the assumptions that Joey Barton wouldn't go to prison and that Alan Smith was a footballer.

 

whats your measurement for failure?

 

I mean if we'd signed Henry, Lampard and ronaldihno that window and they all failed, would that make the window a failure in your eyes?

 

Umm.... Yes?

 

So a windows success or failure is based entirely on the completely unpredicatable nature of footballers?

 

Surely there has to be some objective measure of a windows succes?

 

Its a bit like saying appointing Wenger is only good appointment if he suceeds completely ignoring the merit of the appointment.

 

The way i see it is that appointing Wenger will be a good appointment, full stop. 

 

By that line of reasoning there is no accountability for transfers, full stop. Because no one can predict whether a player can succeed or not.

 

In reality, you expect the club to be able to make some sort of reasonable projection on a potential signings chance for success.

 

The warning signs were clear for our signings that summer.

 

Barton was facing a potential prison sentence. We payed City 5m.

 

Alan Smith was coming of what was nearly a career-ending injury and had not been preforming consistently in the Premiership for nearly three years. We payed Man United 6m.

 

David Rozhenal's physicality was always going to be an issue in the Prem. We payed PSG 3.5m.

 

The fact that the worst case scenarios happened for all of those moves is irrelevant, as the manager's risk assessment itself was quite clearly flawed for all of them.

 

To pick up on your analogy, would appointing Arsene Wenger be a good appointment? Probably, but not certainly. It's up to the board to assess the prevalent risk factors. Can Wenger succeed without the resources he has at Arsenal? Can he succeed within the system in place at the club? Would he be able to adapt to a move to Northeast England?

 

Should Wenger come here and actually fail, it is fair for fans to assume that the board was probably negligent in their assessment of one or more risk factors. That would make that appointment a failure.

 

The problem is is that you're expecting the club to judge something which has no predictable elements to it. My accountabilty starts and ends and at the clubs efforts to buy whats required for the club. If we need a striker and the club buys a good striker then thats all i can ask of the club anything after that is entirely the responsiblity of the manager who's picked him to be signed.

 

If only the club had the same hindsight that you have. I cant make my point any more simpler than that.

 

Theres no "probably" about it, Wenger would be a fantastic appointment, full stop. thats where accountabilty stops for the decision to sign him, just like a football transfer.

 

By your logic, you could easily make a case that having Kinnear here now is a better appointment than having Mourhino, becasue he fits in with your "risk assessment", which quite frankly is ridiculous.