At least the Huddersfield games were against a team at the top of the league in good form. Huddersfield were either promoted or in the playoffs in both of those seasons.
This was against bottom-of-the-table Fleetwood, with 1 win in 14, onto their third manager of the season, and who we beat 4-1 just a few months ago. Context is important.
Context is indeed important and we are a team with zero confidence at the moment. The slightly surprising thing for me yesterday was just how poor we were defensively as generally (well up to 90 minutes) we haven’t been that bad at the back. But I wouldn’t have had any complaints if we went in 4-0 down at half time (well I would but it wouldn’t have been unfair).
I also thought prior to yesterday that we had improved from the way we played in November / December (we really were clueless) but I can’t see an easy way out of our current rut and I don’t now think MB has the skillset or character to get the players ready to run through walls for either him, the team or the supporters.
Some clutching at straws though…
Scowen might be back in time
On the 2nd half showing Vokes and Kone MIGHT be able to be an effective partnership.
Scowen coming back hopefully soon will no doubt be a boost. When Potts was out the chorus was ‘when Potts is back we will be ok’. An injury to Dale Taylor might result in the same wait and see optimism I guess.
League 1 managers saying something interesting or honest is rarer than a Blueword post that makes sense. Gaz used to say exactly the same four or five things after every game - I rarely bothered watching them as they were entirely interchangeable. I don’t watch Blooms’ post match interviews either, but I could almost certainly tell you what he said.
This is the frustrating thing for me. Blooms was supposed to be a succession plan but he's ripped up and thrown away a decent squad after ruining their form, replaced with a few good players but mainly mediocrity.
The wrong appointment, based on sentimentality. A manager down the wrong end of League 2, hired on the basis of a single manager of the month award.
I don’t believe it was ‘sentimentality’ I see it as a succession plan put in place without thought to whom else might be a better appointment, it was the easy option which suited employers who were unfamiliar with the market in which they were operating, which some may see as a dereliction of duty.
We were a club chasing promotion to the Championship; we should not have appointed a manager just starting out and doing a reasonable but unspectacular job at the bottom end of the division below. The decision smacked of a lack of ambition, and I do believe it was taken as the easy option. I'd love to know to what extent Andrew Howard advised the Couhigs (not that they'd have been under any obligation to listen to him).
A couple of wins fewer and be stuck in the relegation zone maybe.
We've been lucky we've been floating around 16/17th for a bit as that sounds safe. But at one point yesterday we were 20th and a mere 3 points off Reading. It got really real at that point.
At least we're still a minimum of 2 games away from being in the bottom 4.
It really is very similar to Lampard going to Chelsea. Club legend spends a bit of time managing a team in a lower division before coming back and it doesn't go well.
Having said that, Lampard's record at Chelsea is stellar compared to MB.
I don’t have a problem with the whole succession plan thing, after all, that is exactly how we ended up with Gaz as a manager in the first place. Waddock’s words on signing Gaz: “We’ve just signed your next manager”.
But there's a big difference in the trajectory of the club then and when Gaz left. Blooms was a high-risk option at a time when we had it all to lose. And yes, someone else could have failed just as badly as he has, but we should have gone for someone more established. That's not hindsight talking - I said it at the time (although I did see some logic in going for Blooms, not that I agreed) and I wasn't alone.
Appointing ‘someone more established’ is an interesting choice of words.
That basically means going and poaching a successful manager at another club elsewhere who had been in post long enough to be “established”. Given the average time span of managers at clubs it’s not a word that can generally be easily applied.
So more likely alternatives were the more journeymen (always men) managers who come in and do a job for a season or so and move or are pushed on.
Bringing in someone from within (pretty much albeit not technically) allows for continuity and, if successful is more likely that they are in post for longer.
At the time the thinking behind the appointment was sound. Unfortunately it hasn’t really worked as envisaged.
But we’ve done the ‘let’s replace a long-standing and successful manager with an established name’ before.
I just see why they chose MB at the time and there is plenty of good rationale as to why it seemed the best choice.
Even proven managers don’t always work, especially replacing a legendary manager (has it ever worked anyone know?) so we could be discussing the same thing with another manager entirely.
The manager stats are pretty frightening if you do a results prediction based on our current form. We are scraping safety with very little room for error. We need wins against clubs around us and a cup final result against one of the bigger teams. Matt's not looking over his shoulder statement is extremely worrying as he needs to wake up to where we are.
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At least the Huddersfield games were against a team at the top of the league in good form. Huddersfield were either promoted or in the playoffs in both of those seasons.
This was against bottom-of-the-table Fleetwood, with 1 win in 14, onto their third manager of the season, and who we beat 4-1 just a few months ago. Context is important.
But just think you'll be able to look back in another 13 years and realise that this was as low as it got, 😬
Home losses v near bottom of tier 4 Sutton, Morecambe in the FA cup, Bottom of league Reading at home and yesterday.
That'd be a debate for worst of the season.
Morecambe at home a few years back, we lost 4-2 but were 3-0 down at half time. 2018 I think. Morecambe were near the bottom of the table.
Im sure there are loads of others. We’ve had some truly shocking performances down the years. Mostly in the cups - Walsall at home.
I think our worst ever performance is still reserved for the 0-0 vs Boston at home on a Tuesday night about 15-20 years ago
I really hope so
Context is indeed important and we are a team with zero confidence at the moment. The slightly surprising thing for me yesterday was just how poor we were defensively as generally (well up to 90 minutes) we haven’t been that bad at the back. But I wouldn’t have had any complaints if we went in 4-0 down at half time (well I would but it wouldn’t have been unfair).
I also thought prior to yesterday that we had improved from the way we played in November / December (we really were clueless) but I can’t see an easy way out of our current rut and I don’t now think MB has the skillset or character to get the players ready to run through walls for either him, the team or the supporters.
Some clutching at straws though…
Scowen might be back in time
On the 2nd half showing Vokes and Kone MIGHT be able to be an effective partnership.
Scowen coming back hopefully soon will no doubt be a boost. When Potts was out the chorus was ‘when Potts is back we will be ok’. An injury to Dale Taylor might result in the same wait and see optimism I guess.
League 1 managers saying something interesting or honest is rarer than a Blueword post that makes sense. Gaz used to say exactly the same four or five things after every game - I rarely bothered watching them as they were entirely interchangeable. I don’t watch Blooms’ post match interviews either, but I could almost certainly tell you what he said.
Almost certainly so
This is the frustrating thing for me. Blooms was supposed to be a succession plan but he's ripped up and thrown away a decent squad after ruining their form, replaced with a few good players but mainly mediocrity.
The wrong appointment, based on sentimentality. A manager down the wrong end of League 2, hired on the basis of a single manager of the month award.
I don’t believe it was ‘sentimentality’ I see it as a succession plan put in place without thought to whom else might be a better appointment, it was the easy option which suited employers who were unfamiliar with the market in which they were operating, which some may see as a dereliction of duty.
But I think that was inevitably influenced by sentimentality
He'd made a decent start at Col Utd.
He knew the place inside out.
Simple as that really.
Unfortunately life and football don't go perfectly a lot of the time.
We were a club chasing promotion to the Championship; we should not have appointed a manager just starting out and doing a reasonable but unspectacular job at the bottom end of the division below. The decision smacked of a lack of ambition, and I do believe it was taken as the easy option. I'd love to know to what extent Andrew Howard advised the Couhigs (not that they'd have been under any obligation to listen to him).
In hindsight it could hardly have gone worse.
A couple of wins fewer and be stuck in the relegation zone maybe.
We've been lucky we've been floating around 16/17th for a bit as that sounds safe. But at one point yesterday we were 20th and a mere 3 points off Reading. It got really real at that point.
At least we're still a minimum of 2 games away from being in the bottom 4.
It really is very similar to Lampard going to Chelsea. Club legend spends a bit of time managing a team in a lower division before coming back and it doesn't go well.
Having said that, Lampard's record at Chelsea is stellar compared to MB.
I don’t have a problem with the whole succession plan thing, after all, that is exactly how we ended up with Gaz as a manager in the first place. Waddock’s words on signing Gaz: “We’ve just signed your next manager”.
It’s not worked out quite so well this time, yet.
But there's a big difference in the trajectory of the club then and when Gaz left. Blooms was a high-risk option at a time when we had it all to lose. And yes, someone else could have failed just as badly as he has, but we should have gone for someone more established. That's not hindsight talking - I said it at the time (although I did see some logic in going for Blooms, not that I agreed) and I wasn't alone.
Appointing ‘someone more established’ is an interesting choice of words.
That basically means going and poaching a successful manager at another club elsewhere who had been in post long enough to be “established”. Given the average time span of managers at clubs it’s not a word that can generally be easily applied.
So more likely alternatives were the more journeymen (always men) managers who come in and do a job for a season or so and move or are pushed on.
Bringing in someone from within (pretty much albeit not technically) allows for continuity and, if successful is more likely that they are in post for longer.
At the time the thinking behind the appointment was sound. Unfortunately it hasn’t really worked as envisaged.
But we’ve done the ‘let’s replace a long-standing and successful manager with an established name’ before.
That still brings me out in cold sweats.
I mean established in management I general - proven maybe a better adjective.
I wasn’t being too serious!!! Sorry
I just see why they chose MB at the time and there is plenty of good rationale as to why it seemed the best choice.
Even proven managers don’t always work, especially replacing a legendary manager (has it ever worked anyone know?) so we could be discussing the same thing with another manager entirely.
Shankly-Paisley-Fagan-Dalglish is probably the greatest run of managers in the UK.
Here's another stat: we've recorded back-to-back league wins once under Bloomfield. That one took a little while to sink in.
Both were extremely fortunate wins at Bristol Rovers and Northampton
The manager stats are pretty frightening if you do a results prediction based on our current form. We are scraping safety with very little room for error. We need wins against clubs around us and a cup final result against one of the bigger teams. Matt's not looking over his shoulder statement is extremely worrying as he needs to wake up to where we are.
Ah yeah, they were both away. So we've not recorded successive home wins since Gaz. Wow.
Is Andrew Howard someone with a lot of football knowledge? I doubt it very much as he has said himself that football isn’t his sport.
That long spell without a win on a Saturday was a mad early one too.
He's a Leeds fan.
That would make him qualified to advise on a new manager then.