How impressed are you with BMcD's return to the club?

[Winston Smith]

Still very much behind Bri Bri but 4 wins in 21 has been awful.

Woeful from him ..

Woeful from the players, woeful from Clarke before him, woeful from Adkins before him too

[TBM]

Still very much behind Bri Bri but 4 wins in 21 has been awful.

Woeful from him ..

Woeful from the players, woeful from Clarke before him, woeful from Adkins before him too

At least Adkins got us to within touching distance of the play offs

[Hoop Blah]

I'm largely behind McDermott and giving him the time he needs to really make his mark on the squad but days like today, when it seems there is no rhyme or reason to some of his decisions really do test the patience.

It doesn't matter how much his hands are tied by any potential issues behind the scenes when he's then all scatter gun in his decision making.

Fingers crossed the summer brings some direction and positivity.

[Longhorn1970]

Still very much behind Bri Bri but 4 wins in 21 has been awful.

Woeful from him ..

Woeful from the players, woeful from Clarke before him, woeful from Adkins before him too

Selective memory ...

[Longhorn1970]

I'm largely behind McDermott and giving him the time he needs to really make his mark on the squad but days like today, when it seems there is no rhyme or reason to some of his decisions really do test the patience.

It doesn't matter how much his hands are tied by any potential issues behind the scenes when he's then all scatter gun in his decision making.

Fingers crossed the summer brings some direction and positivity.

Pathetic, did Warnock and Lee Johnson need time ...

[Winston Smith]

Woeful from him ..

Woeful from the players, woeful from Clarke before him, woeful from Adkins before him too

Selective memory ...

I know what I saw m8!

[Ian Royal]

Adkins and Clarke were given more time.

McDermott has got the same number of points in his first 24 matches that Clarke got in his first 25. He was doing considerably better than Clarke's start until this total arse of a slump, of which at least half the games have seen decent performances and unfortunate results. Compared to Clarke's end to the season where we just looked abject a lot of the time.

If, with support, Clarke can turn his toss around (albeit very temporarily) after losing some quality long serving players, I don't see why McDermott can't significantly improve on where we're at, after losing a bunch of loan failures.

Comparisons don't really help BM right now, the start and finish of our season are like night and day ! Precisely how long do you give the chosen one to turn things around ? Or at what stage will the powers that be say enuff 's enuff !

I give him until the end of next season as long as we're above 20th from about game 15 onwards .

[sandman]

Woeful from him ..

Woeful from the players, woeful from Clarke before him, woeful from Adkins before him too

At least Adkins got us to within touching distance of the play offs

Not good enough with the squad he had.

[Dixeyroyal]

Get rid now before he really oxf*rd us up, the bloke is useless and out of his depth. He has no relationship with the players, his tactics are laughable and his team selection baffling, DO ONE MCDERMOTT

[RoyallyFcuked]

Brian is fcuking clueless. Say what you want about Clarke but had he stayed I guarentee we would have finished higher than 17th, and would have done better than 4 wins in 21 games. Absolutely shocking

It was a mistake to even sack Clarke when all we had lined up to replace him was a bus driver with non league level tactics. We are a joke and the sad thing is McD will be probably be given at least the full summer and the start of next season to screw the club up further.

If the board had any sense they'd say thanks but no thanks within the next month and give someone else a chance from the summer onwards. On average it works a lot better than bringing someone in mid season

[Ian Royal]

Brian is fcuking clueless. Say what you want about Clarke but had he stayed I guarentee we would have finished higher than 17th, and would have done better than 4 wins in 21 games. Absolutely shocking.

It was a mistake to even sack Clarke when all we had lined up to replace him was a bus driver with non league level tactics. We are a joke and the sad thing is the donut will be probably be given at least the full summer and the start of next season to screw the club up further.

If the board had any sense they'd say thanks but no thanks within the next month and give someone else a chance from the summer onwards. On average it works a lot better than bringing someone in mid season

Oh, well if you personally guarantee we'd have been higher than 17th under Clarke, it must be true.

[RoyallyFcuked]

Oh, well if you personally guarantee we'd have been higher than 17th under Clarke, it must be true.

You honestly think we would have done worse? Don't kid yourself Ian. We may have gone on a bad run but Clarke had miles more chance of turning it round seeing as it was mostly a squad that he'd built and the players had been playing for him. They have not been playing for McD at all and his appointment has seen the bad run continue for the rest of the season and we haven't even looked like turning it round.

For me Clarke let all the right players go last summer, with the exception of Feds they were all deadwood. He then made some decent additions and improved the squad, the only exceptions were the goalkeepers, which were questionable. Ok not all the loans worked out, no one had heard of Hurtado or Alex but have they really had a chance? And on paper Vydra and John were very good moves. Who could have predicted Vydra would have been as poor as he's been?

I'm not saying Clarke is blameless, he certainly shot himself in the foot somewhat by speaking to Fulham but there is definitely a lot more to that story than we know, I think it was something the board did and he did it to prove a point. I'm not sure he even had any intention of going there but as our bad spell had already started it just made the situation worse as the damaged confidence and morale of the players took further harm.

But, especially in hindsight, was bringing in a new manager really the right thing to do at that point? Doesn't look like it does it? Especially not one that is tactically inferior. Clarke should have been given more time. Or, like I said at the time there were plenty of other better managers we could choose, McD would be a mistake. Also Blackman and Sa would probably still be here if Clarke had stayed, one of them at least. Sa for me is the biggest shame, a player who is miles better than any forward we currently have.

Look at some of the football we played under Clarke at the start of the season, we will never get that level of quality, confidence or consistancy under Brian. End of

[BonBoh]

Look at some of the football we played under Clarke at the start of the season, we will never get that level of quality, confidence or consistancy under Brian. End of

When were we ever consistent under Clarke's leadership? We had a good spell, went 2nd. Got a nosebleed. Faded away into obscurity.

[RoyallyFcuked]

Look at some of the football we played under Clarke at the start of the season, we will never get that level of quality, confidence or consistancy under Brian. End of

When were we ever consistent under Clarke's leadership? We had a good spell, went 2nd. Got a nosebleed. Faded away into obscurity.

In that good spell we showed consistancy, we showed we could beat anyone in the league at our best and got two wins over the sides that have gone up automatically. Had we had a bit more luck in a couple of games at the very start of the season we would have been top. Who knows what happened in the Fulham game and why but you don't just lose that abilty overnight.

We were in 9th place, 1 point off the play offs and 11 points off the top after Clarke's last game. Hardly obscurity.

Say what you want about it, it doesn't change the fact we will never play as good football under McD as we did for that period of time under Clarke and McD will never inspire that level of confidence in a team.

[BonBoh]

Look at some of the football we played under Clarke at the start of the season, we will never get that level of quality, confidence or consistancy under Brian. End of

When were we ever consistent under Clarke's leadership? We had a good spell, went 2nd. Got a nosebleed. Faded away into obscurity.

We were in 9th place, 1 point off the play offs and 11 points off the top after Clarke's last game. Hardly obscurity.

Say what you want about it, it doesn't change the fact we will never play as good football under McD as we did for that period of time under Clarke and McD will never inspire that level of confidence in a team.

Comparative obscurity considering how quickly we dropped off. T
he point I was making is that we were totally inconsistent under Clarke. The season before we finished 19th with him at the helm but got to the FA Cup semi final where we were narrowly defeated by Arsenal.
In fact, last season was not dissimilar to the way this season went. Sacked the manager half way through and then slumped in the league but had a good FA Cup run. Brian hasn't really changed our fortunes. He only got to the 1/4 final but finished 2 places higher in the league than Clarke.

[TBM]

Woeful from the players, woeful from Clarke before him, woeful from Adkins before him too

At least Adkins got us to within touching distance of the play offs

Not good enough with the squad he had.

On paper we've got a much better squad this season

[sandman]

Really? We have an unbalanced squad with some good individual players.

[Royal_jimmy]

I agree with posts about Brian taking us backwards

[blueroyals]

It's not his squad. Which is what we said with Adkins and Clarke. So you've got to give him the summer or set a new standard for managers that they've got to hit the ground running with whatever shite they end up with otherwise they're for the chop.

It's been a shit season, and I still don't think he was the best appointment (don't sack a manager until you've got a replacement lined up, but whether Nigel Howe has a clue is a different discussion), but I won't be calling for his sacking until Nov/Dec

[RoyallyFcuked]

When were we ever consistent under Clarke's leadership? We had a good spell, went 2nd. Got a nosebleed. Faded away into obscurity.

We were in 9th place, 1 point off the play offs and 11 points off the top after Clarke's last game. Hardly obscurity.

Say what you want about it, it doesn't change the fact we will never play as good football under McD as we did for that period of time under Clarke and McD will never inspire that level of confidence in a team.

Comparative obscurity considering how quickly we dropped off. The point I was making is that we were totally inconsistent under Clarke. The season before we finished 19th with him at the helm but got to the FA Cup semi final where we were narrowly defeated by Arsenal.
In fact, last season was not dissimilar to the way this season went. Sacked the manager half way through and then slumped in the league but had a good FA Cup run. Brian hasn't really changed our fortunes. He only got to the 1/4 final but finished 2 places higher in the league than Clarke.

I agree that on the basis that Clarke took over an out of form side on a downward slump, you can certainly argue that Brian did as well and both after taking over were inconsistent in the league with a good cup run. The difference was Clarke inherited a much bigger mess that was in 16th place, Brian inherited a far better squad that was in 9th place.