Can we put the pitch-forks away now?


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Hoffman, cirkin, batth, Doyle, Winchester, Evans, dajaku and Stewart.

They made up 8 of our starting 11, in the worst and most embarrassing defeat in the history of this football club. I’m not saying they are all duds, Stewart is fantastic most of the time and some of the others are good players.

That doesn’t detract from the fact that 8 out of 11 players signed by Speakman and his data model made up our most embarrassing day in almost 150 years since we became a club.

He is the director of football, so oversees a huge part of this football club. No matter which way you dress it up, in any line of work in any line of business in the world, if one of the top bosses of the origination makes fatal errors which prove this costly, the 100% deserve to be questioned and criticised. In the vast majority of businesses a day that dreadful would lead to heads rolling.

Dress it up how you want, but this is league one. The whole data and signing players who are on the cusp, who haven’t quite reached potential, or are injury prone, or who have great potential, means we lack some huge elements in what should be an easy league to get out of for a club like us.

Leadership, experience and heart is severely lacking in a squad that he’s built. If you want to give the man credit for replacing worse players with better ones, how can he not take criticism when things go wrong.

It’s not “bed wetting” these are cold hard facts. For the last 5 years anyone who dares question anything gets given the title of bed wetter. Let’s be honest here, as things stand the concern is not misplaced. The concern has proved correct and we as a club are looking at 5 season in the pits of English football.

It’s not bed wetting, it’s facing facts, and questioning what is ultimately a failing and sinking ship season after season.

Serious question, when can we question, when can we raise issues, when can we actually stand up and face facts that it isn’t rosy, it’s pathetic.
👏👏👏
 
If we had a few less injuries then they would have had their rest, and we would have had a bit more experience on the pitch in the first team too (McGeady, O’Nein)
You can’t legislate for player injuries can you? I certainly would blame a director of football for it.
Genuinely think you're on a wind up tonight mind.
 
So he can’t play as a striker?
So you're telling me Stewart and Defoe are the same strikers? So you'd be expecting JD to be challenging for a 40 yard long ball in the air, going up with a centre back? And doing all the things a tall centre forward does?
Plus he's clearly not match fit and hadn't played for ages.
You're on the wind up man.
 
I like Neil.

I don’t hate Speakman I just think he’s out of his depth in this new role he’s been handed by signing for us.

KLD I’m still on the fence on as he’s clearly hiding something for Donald and Charlie and he’s a simpleton for liking posts about Keane only for us to utterly fail to meet expectations and not get him. I do feel like Neil is the better option but it’s the way we messed around is the issue and even considering McCann or Lennon by interviewing them is criminal and a waste of resources and time.

Ultimately Donald and Charlie still need to fuck off for good and if KLD is helping them with their shit he can go too. If KLD wants rid of them too I’m fine with him.
 
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So you're telling me Stewart and Defoe are the same strikers? So you'd be expecting JD to be challenging for a 40 yard long ball in the air, going up with a centre back? And doing all the things a tall centre forward does?
Plus he's clearly not match fit and hadn't played for ages.
You're on the wind up man.
O’Brien could do all those things you mentioned, I don’t think there was a single person on this board wanted him to stay.

Broadhead didn’t do any you mention, but almost everyone was gutted when he got injured.

We can’t just clue Stewart, and if we did the clone would be pissed off at not starting every week.
 
Although by far the most important objective to us fans, he has other ones that he has been more successful in. Reducing wages, lowering age of squad, building a scouting network, setting up the data stuff, signing players with re-sale potential (We had none at one point) and probably some other stuff I've forgotten.

So I think it's reasonable to question the balance of the squad, but most were happy with it a few weeks back. Now after this run and some hindsight, all of a sudden it's a fuck up. I also thought it was worth rolling the dice sacking LJ. It didn't work out but it could have given us a boost, it hasn't but we were looking at play-offs anyway.

So the medium and long term look to be moving in the right direction, but the short term has gone a bit wrong. I think he's doing ok on the whole but obviously not getting promoted would be a black mark.

Re the Flanagan transfer. I know he's left us short, but I think it's feasible that Shrewsbury demanded an answer before we had our man tied up (kokomo or whatevever he's called.) He may have thought that we can only sign new man if Flanagan leaves so sold him. Then new man's deal falls through, he then tried to get others (Peterboro cb and others I think)

His gamble did backfire, but he obviously thought other things would happen, which would have been an upgrade. Blocking Flanagan's move would have prevented that upgrade.

That's pretty much how I see things. I'd also add that I've got a sneaking suspicion that he wasn't the one who sacked Johnson & he was blindsided by it & the subsequent apparent preference for Keane. He probably then had to spend time dealing with that which maybe could have been better spent on player recruitment. We'll probably never know what went on

I also think a lot of the problems we've had is that we keep sacking whoever is responsible for bringing players in then the new bloke comes in with a clean slate & no-one ever learns from the previous mistakes. Maybe just for a change the club could try actually learning the lessons & moving on..
 
Yes we have better individuals, but we dont have a better team.

We have 4 centre backs, when we need to play a back 3, plus the no nonsense centre half we bought can't pad water yet we try and play out from the back, we have 800 tricky skillful wingers when we need wingbacks, we have a piss weak midfield a quality player in Pritchard who doesn't fit out system, a striker in Stewart that we have no replacement for.

Brilliant recruitment from him
 
O’Brien could do all those things you mentioned, I don’t think there was a single person on this board wanted him to stay.

Broadhead didn’t do any you mention, but almost everyone was gutted when he got injured.

We can’t just clue Stewart, and if we did the clone would be pissed off at not starting every week.
See you avoided the Defoe Stewart comparison in that reply.
 
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