How Long Will BM Last at this rate?????

[AirRaidSiren]

Let's hope he handles the new signings right, the new team structure and keeping us up. I hope he will keep the new format but more attacking.

No more talking. I wish you the best, Brian!

[Ian Royal]

Right, he's started playing the right formation. He's started playing Pearce and Guthrie. He's made us difficult to beat. He's got improved performances and results. It's about a month and a half too late, but it's what I was looking for him to do, so he's got my support for the season now. Even if it goes straight back to shit, by the time that's clear it'll be too late to really make a change of manager worthwhile. Transfer window will be closed and we'll be totally doomed pointswise.

Good luck Brian, keep up the sort of work from the last week please.

[Victor Meldrew]

Having kept his job till the transfer window I can see no way that he will lose it now.
For better or worse that is it for the season.

[Royalclapper]

If we do continue with the 4-5-1 which has looked more solid, the only glitch might be if we go a goal down. Presumably Brian would then push them slightly forward and chuck on another striker before the game was lost.

[Royal Lady]

He told Tim Dellor that when he leaves he wants to leave the club in good shape - not like Portsmouth - or words to that effect.....

He was also very jolly indeed on Saturday night, drinking champagne with his family down the local boozer.

From RL your roving reporter/stalker

[Maguire]

Just lol at people suggesting a former scout doesn't do his homework. Do you people actually read back your posts? You get more ridiculous by the week. As for him doing what you've ''been calling for for weeks'' you all screamed blue murder earlier in the season
when he played 451 and called for 442 as it was ''what we're good at''. Listen to you? I bloody well hope not.

100% truth.

Ironic that sandman suggests we should read back our posts, and then makes an inaccurate generalisation about 'all of us'.

Many on here have been advocating for most of the season approaching games with a few strategies in mind, including where it might be beneficial to us, adopting a 451.

Actual ROFL at this non-speak.

You're all football geniuses in hindsight, aren't you? I've had the misfortune of reading this forum all season and people only started clamouring for 4-5-1 when we began losing games playing 4-4-2. That's how it works on here.

As I said with the Guthrie thing - he's the messiah until he gets back in the side then people realise he's not actually Pele and so the wheel gets turned once more.

[melonhead]

Right, he's started playing the right formation. He's started playing Pearce and Guthrie. He's made us difficult to beat. He's got improved performances and results. It's about a month and a half too late, but it's what I was looking for him to do, so he's got my support for the season now. Even if it goes straight back to shit, by the time that's clear it'll be too late to really make a change of manager worthwhile. Transfer window will be closed and we'll be totally doomed pointswise.

Good luck Brian, keep up the sort of work from the last week please.

is that the month and a half where we got alot of injuries and didnt have the players left to change formation

[Hoop Blah]

Actual ROFL at this non-speak.

You're all football geniuses in hindsight, aren't you? I've had the misfortune of reading this forum all season and people only started clamouring for 4-5-1 when we began losing games playing 4-4-2. That's how it works on here.

As I said with the Guthrie thing - he's the messiah until he gets back in the side then people realise he's not actually Pele and so the wheel gets turned once more.

It's not surprising people weren't calling for change for the first month of the season as we were a) bedding into the new league and integrating new players, b) being a bit more flexible tactically and playing 4-5-1 at times and c) playing a bit better than after McDermott ditched the flexibility and reverted back to 4-4-2 and a more direct style of play which also saw the continued run of poor form and bad results.

There's always a number of people that don't see 4-5-1 as an attacking formation too though, so it's not the most popular to play at home without there being a degree of criticism.

Personally, going into the season, I thought McDermotts work in the transfer window was going to see us be a bit more flexible and play a more passing game (why else bring in Guthrie and Pogrebnyak) which was more suited to the league than our whack it and hope Championship style that gave the ball away far too often (I'm sure I moaned enough about this last season for it to in the archives somewhere!).

As we only played 5 league games before October I don't think it's too surprising that posters weren't jumping on the anti 4-4-2 bandwagon too vociferously.

[RedRum]

Right, he's started playing the right formation. He's started playing Pearce and Guthrie. He's made us difficult to beat. He's got improved performances and results. It's about a month and a half too late, but it's what I was looking for him to do, so he's got my support for the season now. Even if it goes straight back to shit, by the time that's clear it'll be too late to really make a change of manager worthwhile. Transfer window will be closed and we'll be totally doomed pointswise.

Good luck Brian, keep up the sort of work from the last week please.

is that the month and a half where we got alot of injuries and didnt have the players left to change formation

+1. The only midfielders we had available were Ledge and Tabb. IMO he only had 1 option, to play 4-4-2.. and basically just hope we score more than the opposition.

[cmonurz]

Actual ROFL at this non-speak.

You're all football geniuses in hindsight, aren't you? I've had the misfortune of reading this forum all season and people only started clamouring for 4-5-1 when we began losing games playing 4-4-2. That's how it works on here.

As I said with the Guthrie thing - he's the messiah until he gets back in the side then people realise he's not actually Pele and so the wheel gets turned once more.

It's not surprising people weren't calling for change for the first month of the season as we were a) bedding into the new league and integrating new players, b) being a bit more flexible tactically and playing 4-5-1 at times and c) playing a bit better than after McDermott ditched the flexibility and reverted back to 4-4-2 and a more direct style of play which also saw the continued run of poor form and bad results.

There's always a number of people that don't see 4-5-1 as an attacking formation too though, so it's not the most popular to play at home without there being a degree of criticism.

Personally, going into the season, I thought McDermotts work in the transfer window was going to see us be a bit more flexible and play a more passing game (why else bring in Guthrie and Pogrebnyak) which was more suited to the league than our whack it and hope Championship style that gave the ball away far too often (I'm sure I moaned enough about this last season for it to in the archives somewhere!).

As we only played 5 league games before October I don't think it's too surprising that posters weren't jumping on the anti 4-4-2 bandwagon too vociferously.

Absolutely.

Don't expect Mags to absorb all that though, he'll just come back to offer another non-opinion in a few days.

[Hoop Blah]

is that the month and a half where we got alot of injuries and didnt have the players left to change formation

+1. The only midfielders we had available were Ledge and Tabb. IMO he only had 1 option, to play 4-4-2.. and basically just hope we score more than the opposition.

Possibly. We'll probably never know the full story about Guthrie though, who was already frozen out of the team before his 'injury' by the way so we did have options at that point, and if we didn't then perhaps that just shows a weakness in the squad that wasn't addressed.

Obviously we could also have used the likes of McLeary, Hunt, Robson-Kanu and Kebe (when fit) on the wings and moved McAnuff into the middle with Tabb and Legiertwood instead of just moving him there alongside one of them late in the game.

[Maguire]

Actual ROFL at this non-speak.

You're all football geniuses in hindsight, aren't you? I've had the misfortune of reading this forum all season and people only started clamouring for 4-5-1 when we began losing games playing 4-4-2. That's how it works on here.

As I said with the Guthrie thing - he's the messiah until he gets back in the side then people realise he's not actually Pele and so the wheel gets turned once more.

It's not surprising people weren't calling for change for the first month of the season as we were a) bedding into the new league and integrating new players, b) being a bit more flexible tactically and playing 4-5-1 at times and c) playing a bit better than after McDermott ditched the flexibility and reverted back to 4-4-2 and a more direct style of play which also saw the continued run of poor form and bad results.

There's always a number of people that don't see 4-5-1 as an attacking formation too though, so it's not the most popular to play at home without there being a degree of criticism.

Personally, going into the season, I thought McDermotts work in the transfer window was going to see us be a bit more flexible and play a more passing game (why else bring in Guthrie and Pogrebnyak) which was more suited to the league than our whack it and hope Championship style that gave the ball away far too often (I'm sure I moaned enough about this last season for it to in the archives somewhere!).

As we only played 5 league games before October I don't think it's too surprising that posters weren't jumping on the anti 4-4-2 bandwagon too vociferously.

Absolutely.

Don't expect Mags to absorb all that though, he'll just come back to offer another non-opinion in a few days.

What's "non-opinion" about my opinion that this board is full of revisionist bullshit?

It simply isn't the case that everyone on here has been clamouring for 451 all season and that McDermott somehow twigged weeks after the collective wisdom of HNA. None of you have been doing that (including me).

All this board does is think the solution lies with whatever we're not doing or with whoever isn't playing.

[melonhead]

is that the month and a half where we got alot of injuries and didnt have the players left to change formation

+1. The only midfielders we had available were Ledge and Tabb. IMO he only had 1 option, to play 4-4-2.. and basically just hope we score more than the opposition.

Possibly. We'll probably never know the full story about Guthrie though, who was already frozen out of the team before his 'injury' by the way so we did have options at that point, and if we didn't then perhaps that just shows a weakness in the squad that wasn't addressed.

Obviously we could also have used the likes of McLeary, Hunt, Robson-Kanu and Kebe (when fit) on the wings and moved McAnuff into the middle with Tabb and Legiertwood instead of just moving him there alongside one of them late in the game.

dont see any justified criticism of brian for the way he handled guthrie.
rightfully fined and dropped for speaking negatively and publicly about his manager/tactics
would have come back even sooner from his injury period, if he hadnt flounced out of the match day squad.
sorted now, and seems to be putting in a much bigger shift in games, and seems to be part of a unified dressing room, to me

i agree, those were other stop gap options, but i can see why brian acted like he did, to the way he saw the squad with karacan and guthire both out.
probably disagree with it, and would have gone with jobi or hrk in the middle. but i can see why he went that way

[Hoop Blah]

I'd suggest that the mis-management of Guthrie started with his signing and then asking him to play differently to the way he has all along.

If you want a midfielder to just hassle and harry then knock it long at the earliest opportunity don't go and buy one who likes to pass the ball short. Bringing him in and no doubt selling him the idea that he'll be getting more first team football by joining us, then dropping him after a few games is probably a bit demotivating.

Once Guthrie stepped out of line I'd agree that McDermott had to take action. I think the mistakes were made before it got that far.

[cmonurz]

What's "non-opinion" about my opinion that this board is full of revisionist bullshit?

It simply isn't the case that everyone on here has been clamouring for 451 all season and that McDermott somehow twigged weeks after the collective wisdom of HNA. None of you have been doing that (including me).

All this board does is think the solution lies with whatever we're not doing or with whoever isn't playing.

I think you're guilty of revisionism (is this a word?) too. There were plenty on here posting at some length particularly on the Guthrie thread about us having a plan B, another system, using the whole squad, being able to change formation and so on.

Is that 'the solution lies in what we're not doing'? To the extent that the main criticism of McDermott this season has been his rigidity in his team selection and playing style, yes, but that was a valid criticism.

[Royalclapper]

Find it hard to believe that it was only Guthrie who had questioned the tactics and manager. The only ones who wouldn't question the sh*tness of those below par performances are the ones who know they're not good enough and would be benched by someone else.

[Ian Royal]

Right, he's started playing the right formation. He's started playing Pearce and Guthrie. He's made us difficult to beat. He's got improved performances and results. It's about a month and a half too late, but it's what I was looking for him to do, so he's got my support for the season now. Even if it goes straight back to shit, by the time that's clear it'll be too late to really make a change of manager worthwhile. Transfer window will be closed and we'll be totally doomed pointswise.

Good luck Brian, keep up the sort of work from the last week please.

is that the month and a half where we got alot of injuries and didnt have the players left to change formation

Not entirely, and it also depends on how much you want to take as gospel blindly from the club. We had options, they weren't necessarily the best or great options. But they were there as an alternative to trying to outscore better teams in a "you attack, we attack" off.

Edit: Sorry, Hoop already covered it.

[bcubed]

It's not surprising people weren't calling for change for the first month of the season as we were a) bedding into the new league and integrating new players, b) being a bit more flexible tactically and playing 4-5-1 at times and c) playing a bit better than after McDermott ditched the flexibility and reverted back to 4-4-2 and a more direct style of play which also saw the continued run of poor form and bad results.

There's always a number of people that don't see 4-5-1 as an attacking formation too though, so it's not the most popular to play at home without there being a degree of criticism.

Personally, going into the season, I thought McDermotts work in the transfer window was going to see us be a bit more flexible and play a more passing game (why else bring in Guthrie and Pogrebnyak) which was more suited to the league than our whack it and hope Championship style that gave the ball away far too often (I'm sure I moaned enough about this last season for it to in the archives somewhere!).

As we only played 5 league games before October I don't think it's too surprising that posters weren't jumping on the anti 4-4-2 bandwagon too vociferously.

Absolutely.

Don't expect Mags to absorb all that though, he'll just come back to offer another non-opinion in a few days.

What's "non-opinion" about my opinion that this board is full of revisionist bullshit?

It simply isn't the case that everyone on here has been clamouring for 451 all season and that McDermott somehow twigged weeks after the collective wisdom of HNA. None of you have been doing that (including me).

All this board does is think the solution lies with whatever we're not doing or with whoever isn't playing.

More likely that he listened to Gary Neville analysing our tactics before and after the Arsenal game

[USA_Loyal_Royal]

I'd suggest that the mis-management of Guthrie started with his signing and then asking him to play differently to the way he has all along.

If you want a midfielder to just hassle and harry then knock it long at the earliest opportunity don't go and buy one who likes to pass the ball short. Bringing him in and no doubt selling him the idea that he'll be getting more first team football by joining us, then dropping him after a few games is probably a bit demotivating.

Once Guthrie stepped out of line I'd agree that McDermott had to take action. I think the mistakes were made before it got that far.

basically this^ i was hoping that we were going to be a more passing oriented team with the new signings that were coming in. i was fairly disappointed when we still played the same long ball style that we played in the championship. guthrie had every right to be a little irked, but the way guthrie handled it was out of line.

[SPARTA]

Interesting question posed to Ady Williams this evening - We would all, mostly, rather lose tomorrow and win against WBA, but what happens if we lose both?