by Ian Royal »
30 Nov 2013 12:31
facaldaqui Elm Park Kid Not sticking with Guthrie and playing Jay Tabb instead was McDermott's biggest mistake last season IMHO. I'm not sure it would have made a big difference to our final position, and it wasn't a cause to fire him, but I do accept the criticism.
I don't know. Tabb did well in those games, arguably better than Guthrie would have done if he was sulking and being uncooperative.
Should have played them both.
No one says what guthrie did was right. But this season he's showing he's one of our best players when used correctly. He also showed the same in january when mcdermott briefly used him correctly. This just highlights what utter mismanagement it was to buy him to play him in a roll that he wasn't suited for. And then drop him and make him sit on the bench watching inferior players performiing badly and losing games. There were several games just before sunderland that cried out for guthrie and a tactical change and he never made it on the pitch.
He made the wrong call, but it's entirely understandable that he may not have felt any use to travel and sit on the bench under the circumstances. He's certainly made up for it since with his commitment and performances. He should have talked to mcdermott about it rather than ruling himself out. But its pretty obvious the relationship was broken sk that probably wasn't much of an option.