Same points as this time last year

[Guest BillyRay Valentine]

no worries, always good to actually have a decent discussion rather than get all personal about shit and go straight for the jugular!

 

possibly, but my point of view is it still comes down to our ability to attract these well respected coaches and right now our mojo just isn't hot enough - we need roeder to steady the ship, get some defensive nous running through the side, clear out some of the tat and bring in young, talented but most importantly hungry players to the club. he seems to be doing this fairly effectively, but i think his biggest plus is the lack of expectation. for the first time in a long time we have a manager who has a bit of breathing space and as long as he keeps up this panic-free process of gradual improvement, i have a feeling by the end of next season we may well be knocking on the door of the top 6 again.

[Guest Jangles]

When Roeder took over the majority of us were looking fearfully over our shoulder at the relegation zone. We’d quite often lost games before they even started and some of the tactical decisions were insane (bellers right wing, shola left anyone?) and packing the midfield and hoping to fluke a goal led to some dull dull football.

 

We weren’t an attractive proposition at the time – sitting just above the relegation zone, a top heavy squad, no money to spend, an idiot of a chairman. No wonder the applications weren’t flocking in. Not only did Roeder guide us away from the bottom we qualified for the intertoto cup and European football returned to St James’.

 

I’m still pretty sure that there was bugger all money to spend. And despite that Roeders squad rebuilding is a bit more extensive than I thought:

· 7 players out (for a combined fee of £7.5m) and I think most folk would agree that Viana, Bowyer, Shearer, Chops, Elliot, Faye and Boumsong weren’t right for the club for various reasons (age, lack of ability, attitude, style of play, etc). By my estimation this has probably wiped £11m off the annual wage bill

· 4 players in + 1 loan (for a combined fee of £15m) and I think most folk agree that 3 of these players are good additions. (Id guess at a combined wage of £5m).

 

And the early seasons performances show just how much we'd have struggled if we had spent the majority of our cash on a goalscorer at the expense of strengthening the defence.

 

That said performances this season have been a mixed bag but as has been pointed out it’s a transitional period and we’ve been severely limited by injuries i.e. quite often having no left footed players, no defenders, etc. And despite this we’re in the top half of the table with quite a few respected/desirable managers below us in the table (Jol, O’Niell, Pearce, Jewell, etc).

 

Roeder undoubtedly has his faults such as his tendency to stick players like Carr and Bramble straight back into the team but its all too easy to knacker a decent young player by overplay them or by ruining their confidence so I think he’s erring on the side of caution.

 

I think Roeder is making a decent fist of a poor hand and deserves more backing to get us into the top 6