by Cypry »
12 Mar 2013 13:07
Not quite sure what to make of this really - out on the West Coast of the USA at the moment on business so I got a bunch of texts yesterday, but little access to details until I woke up early at 4am this morning and got a chance to see what's been going on...
I do think the writing's been on the wall for a few weeks now - Brian's been talking a lot in the media about where the club us now compared to a few years back, almost in a defensive way. Whilst this might have taken a proportion of the fans by surprise, I wonder if it comes as much of a surprise to Brian himself?
There've been a lot of rumblings that things haven't been right behind the scenes all season, and since the halting of the progress we seemed to make in January, with each game the boos have become more apparent....
The club had essentially two options, to replace Brian, or back him and let him stay.
Personally, I'd have preferred him to stay, he's shown that he can manage and gain promotion at Championship level (which after all, is most likely where we'll be). I can, however, understand how there could be some rational behind the clubs decision.
Imagine if he'd stayed, we carried on losing to the end of the season, the boos getting louder with every game. What would happen next year if we lost the first game of the season, first two games, first three? It wouldn't be unusual for a freshly relegated club to be in the situation and i suspect that Brian's position would become untenable. We'd face the possibility of scraping around trying to find a new manager who'd have to cope with whatever signings Brian had made, as well as possibly making a few last minute panic buys himself.
I also wonder if Brian's long time employment by the club has eventually worked against him - perhaps he's too close to some of the players, with whom he's been working for a long time, and it's possible that it is felt that a new man, with fresh eyes, is needed to clear out some of the dead wood? Of course this is all speculation, but it could at least partially justify the actions the club has taken.
Make a tough decision now (and I don't believe that Anton made this decision lightly - Brian would've gone sooner if that was the case), and you'll give the new man a few games to assess what he has, determine what he needs to do in the Summer, and have a (slight) chance that the "new manager bounce" might mean we stay up....he'll also (in most cases, PDC perhaps being a big exception) be given a bit of slack by most fans, a honeymoon period if you will....
Time will tell whether the decision is correct - a lot will depend on who the new man is, and how much backing he's given in the Summer.