Best Of
Re: Match Day Thread: Bristol Rovers
I love this club.
And no sign of the manager having lost the dressing room there.
Re: Match Day Thread: Bristol Rovers
Hi guys, new here
Anyone else think Vokes played really well today?
Re: Match Day Thread: Exter
Tbh, I would absolutely love Gareth back. He knows and is respected by most of the squad and had them playing fantastic football less than a year ago. He's proven his managerial ability throughout 11 wonderful years in charge. He lives locally. He's unlikely to get a job higher in the EFL after his stint at QPR. It's a no-brainer for me. I'd have him back in a heartbeat
Re: Match Day Thread: Leyton Orient
@ReturnToSenda who are you rallying against here? I'm not sure I'm seeing anyone on this thread arguing that Bloomfield's job is secure? Or that the situation right now is acceptable?
I'd say that the mood on here is a gradual acceptance that this isn't working and that a change needs to be made. But in a way that is respectful of the fact that MB has been an utter legend for WW, has devoted 20 years of his life to our cause, and ultimately, watching him fail is torture for all parties. If you're disappointed that we're not all more rabid in our anger, then I'd argue that Wycombe fans are generally more classy than you clearly expect us to be.
Re: Match Day Thread: Exter
Comparing the start of Ainsworth’s reign with Bloomfield’s, in an effort to justify excessive patience for MB, is totally unfair on Gareth.
Gaz inherited an awful squad, not even L2 standard, with morale in the toilet, at the foot of the football league, with several lazy players and bad apples, and had no money to sort it out.
Not surprising he nearly got relegated.
Bloomfield inherited one of the finest squad’s in our club’s history, absolutely flying form-wise, and was given significant resource to replace outgoings in the summer.
Re: Match Day Thread: Exter
What are people seeing in Blooms that make them think he can turn this around? He's got 39 points from 37 games (equating to less than 50 points over the course of a season i.e. relegation). He took over a team a couple of points outside the playoffs that had won 5 in a row and was playing brilliantly - the best performances I saw under GA in all of his 11 years. Those games v Oxford, Port Vale, Derby, Accrington, and Bolton feel a long time ago now.
In truth, we've seen absolutely rubbish for 10 months. Last season ended appallingly from that first loss at Shrewsbury. Remember that we were humiliated by Lincoln and Cheltenham at home to end the season. We lost pitifully to a relegated Morecambe and a poor Burton. We could have conceded about 10 at Ipswich if they were more clinical that day. We couldn't even beat soon-to-be-relegated MK. And all 4 of his actual wins that season (against Fleetwood, Forest Green, Bristol Rovers, and Cambridge) came from performances that could at best be described as "uninspiring", and all came against very poor opposition.
This season started with those horrendous 3-0 losses to Exeter and Lincoln. The latter game in particular was one of the worst I've ever seen us play. Aimless, hopeless, clueless. No discernable plan. Essentially, I think he's trying to play a more tippy-tappy on-the-floor style of football than Gareth did, which goes completely against the strengths of our players (other than Potts). The passing nearly always goes nowhere, and we finally inevitably end up hoofing it long to Vokes or Hanlan when under moderate pressure from the opposition. However, unlike under GA, the team isn't set up to play that way any more. Vokes/Hanlan are rarely in the right place, the long ball is typically rushed and imprecise, and even if the strikers do (very occasionally) win it in the air, no-one else is in position to win any 50-50s, knock-downs, or second balls. We never seem to win any of them any more. We create pitifully few chances. There's no intensity. And to cap it all off, the defence has never really looked solid at all under Blooms with his insistence on 5 at the back, either from set pieces or open play. We aren't conceding massive amounts, but we never look particularly confident and we are always prone to a mistake (as Stryjek has exemplified this season despite being near flawless under Gaz).
Even before this 11-match winless run we weren't playing well. We had two good wins against Blackpool and Fleetwood (the latter admittedly an outstanding performance). But the wins against Northampton and Bristol Rovers in particular were extremely lucky, as were the wins v Orient and Carlisle to a lesser extent (both had 10 men for most of the game but still regularly threatened us). And if you wanted some respite from our League form in the Cups, we've managed to lose at home to League Two strugglers Sutton and Morecambe in similarly depressing circumstances.
To summarise, he's had 40 matches, and we've probably deserved to win about 5 at best (Charlton away is perhaps the only loss I've thought we were unlucky in). In more than ten months, we've beaten only Fleetwood, Bristol Rovers, FGR, Cambridge, Orient, Northampton, Carlisle, and Blackpool. Apart from the latter, all are bottom-half/relegation battling teams. Which means it's one win against a top half team in almost a year. It's a million miles from good enough and - other than that one performance against an abject Fleetwood - I've seen absolutely nothing to think he can turn it around. Plus, the football is about as dull and uninspiring as can possibly be imagined. We rarely have more than 3 or 4 shots on target. At least GA teams always had intensity, total commitment, and an attacking edge.
All of this takes nothing away from the fact that Blooms is clearly an amazing human being who has given 20 years of his life to the club we all love. He will always be a Wycombe icon and legend and I have nothing but respect and admiration for the man as a person and a player. He shouldn't receive any abuse and he will always be applauded/cheered for by me in the stands. But he simply isn't a good enough manager at this point, and he has to go
Jon Carpenter RIP
For anyone who new or remembers my best friend and brother Jon Carpenter from Stokenchurch, who sadly passed away two days before Christmas aged 67.
We both started watching Wycombe in the early seventies, the season before the big cup game against Middlesborough, i was still at school and he had just started work. At Loakes Park We used to pay the extra 10p to sit in the enclosure on the wooden ledge in front of the stand.
Tuesday night games always ended in a mad rush down between the gasworks to get the last bus home from the station, which was due to leave about the same time as the final whistle went. I cant remember there being too much injury time in those days luckily. At Adams Park we stood on the terrace, either end (or side) as it was in those early years. Wycombe gave us both so many happy memories meeting the regulars and travelling all over the country, the most enjoyable had to be the Martin O'Neill years. The last couple of seasons Jon was unable to be there in person but we still watched every minute of every game from our weekend residence in Vipienne! Sleep tight Jon, im going to miss you loads.
Re: Derek Adams at it again!
Just theoretically, how much of a hypocrite would you have to be to call people snowflakes when you are so thin-skinned that you would threaten to sue someone who says something about you that you don’t like?
Re: Q&A with RC
I am thankful to Rob for dedicating his effort, time and money to saving our club at a perilous time, and bringing us some truly memorable seasons, but I do agree with most of what you said.
However, you neglect one big thing about the Couhigs which makes me feel a bit less sorry for them.
So many owners from America (and other countries) have tried buying an English football club before him. He had hundreds of case studies to look at. Up and down the pyramid every year, foreign owners come in, with plans and ambitions, ranging from grandiose to moderate.
They all come in with their outsider perspective, from other industries, countries and cultures. Most of them think that they can apply the usual business rules and experience they know to running their shiny new club.
Most of them think they can fairly quickly make it profitable, improve the match day experience, increase the crowds, and bring on-field success, despite hundreds and hundreds of other foreign owners trying the same thing over the last few decades, and failing.
It's pure hubris. Rob really thought he'd cracked the formula, sat in an office with Pete in Louisiana, when all those other owners hadn't. Even with his more limited funds and Wycombe's fairly lowly status, he thought he'd smash it.
Due to some pandemic induced luck and Ainsworth's marvellous management that year, he genuinely believed he'd cracked the code , but it turns out its just as difficult for him as any other incoming owner.
You can't get thousands of people to change clubs, and go to a 0-0 draw in the pissing rain against Morecambe on a Tuesday because you lay on nicer burgers, toilets and wifi. Football supporters are deeply weird people to be honest, they don't follow the usual rules of consumers.
For Rob to not just think he was going to outsmart 99 in a 100 other owners, but also make Wycombe THE best match-day experience in the country was just utterly deluded. The rational conclusion anyone should make about lower league ownership is that its nearly impossible to rapidly grow fanbases and club stature.
FL clubs are a money pit. I'd wager one in a hundred owners makes a decent return on their investment. Most haemorrhage cash and sell up for break-even or less than they bought the club, with little to no major success. The usual rules of finance, business and customer service simply don't apply. You have to treat it as an expensive hobby, not a business in my opinion, until the entire structure is changed through legislation.
The Couhig's era, if it is coming to a close, will have ended better than most ownership eras do; some glorious success, not too much money burned, and their relationship with the supporters still broadly in-tact.
But WWFC are back to almost exactly where they were at the start of his ownership - largely the same league position, the same ropey finances, the same debt, the same quality of squad. It's not been the money-spinner he thought it would be, and I think the only person surprised about it is him.
Re: Match Day Thread: Morecambe (FA CUP)
That was absolutely atrocious and I am so annoyed about it. I don't usually get like this either.
I can accept that we will lose games but where was the gung ho effort or throwing caution to the wind as it became clear we were heading out of the cup? At least give us the feeling as we walk back to our cars that we at least gave it a go.
I never feel like this after games but they deserved to be booed off today and I'm afraid that the management is every bit as culpable as the team.
I don't give a shit about Tuesday night but they owe us a performance next Saturday. It's Bloomfield's job to send out a team that plays with heart and intensity next Saturday. We might win, we might not, I can accept that. But I do not want to walk away from the ground next week feeling, as I did today, that we had just not given it a go. It feels like a crucial crossroads for Matt Bloomfield. If he sends out a team that gives us a performance with the necessary hunger and desire then it shows he is able to address what happened today.
Another performance like today and then I don't think there's a way back