The difference though is between trying to sack and buy your way out of trouble, a type of slash'n'burn policy, and building for the future.
a) we apparently don't have the cash to start sacking everyone and we certainly don't have the cash to replace the catalogue of players many label "duds" with what the same people would call "stars"
b) Even if we do have some money available it certainly wouldn't run to replacing even 10% of the squad with "stars"
c) Buying 2 or 3 "stars" doesn't work, never has, never will, if the backbone of your squad isn't doing the business.
d) Whatever only-to-be-expected fighting talk emerged from our camp pre-season, we all knew (well, those who understand that time had finally caught up with our team which had served so well for so long, and we were always going to be in transition) we were never going to challenge for the title this year or next.
Sacking the coach often has a short-term benefit, presumably with fresh ideas plus the sudden desire to impress, but ATEOTD you've still got all the same players. But we are not in that much trouble, in that there's no relegation, and IF we can turn the results around in the second half, then attendances should stabilise.
My main source of unhappiness is the way certain players have performed some of the time, and this has been made much worse by the frank admissions that some have not been giving it 100%. I agree very much with those who are of the view that as long as the team we put out tries its bollox off, to a man, they deserve support. Lord knows, I've had enough years experience of that in the past, and still went home happy enough after many, many losses. But on some occasions this year that's been far from the case.
Getting to be arguably the top team used to be a simple matter of cash, but now it's not possible to buy your way to the top table (though cash naturally helps). Putting together a top-of-the-table squad is a long game, is achieved infrequently, actually never by most clubs, and is as much luck and accident as money, planning, coaching and all the other factors. The jury remains very much out as to whether there's even any prospect of our doing this any time soon.
a) we apparently don't have the cash to start sacking everyone and we certainly don't have the cash to replace the catalogue of players many label "duds" with what the same people would call "stars"
b) Even if we do have some money available it certainly wouldn't run to replacing even 10% of the squad with "stars"
c) Buying 2 or 3 "stars" doesn't work, never has, never will, if the backbone of your squad isn't doing the business.
d) Whatever only-to-be-expected fighting talk emerged from our camp pre-season, we all knew (well, those who understand that time had finally caught up with our team which had served so well for so long, and we were always going to be in transition) we were never going to challenge for the title this year or next.
Sacking the coach often has a short-term benefit, presumably with fresh ideas plus the sudden desire to impress, but ATEOTD you've still got all the same players. But we are not in that much trouble, in that there's no relegation, and IF we can turn the results around in the second half, then attendances should stabilise.
My main source of unhappiness is the way certain players have performed some of the time, and this has been made much worse by the frank admissions that some have not been giving it 100%. I agree very much with those who are of the view that as long as the team we put out tries its bollox off, to a man, they deserve support. Lord knows, I've had enough years experience of that in the past, and still went home happy enough after many, many losses. But on some occasions this year that's been far from the case.
Getting to be arguably the top team used to be a simple matter of cash, but now it's not possible to buy your way to the top table (though cash naturally helps). Putting together a top-of-the-table squad is a long game, is achieved infrequently, actually never by most clubs, and is as much luck and accident as money, planning, coaching and all the other factors. The jury remains very much out as to whether there's even any prospect of our doing this any time soon.
Whenever he is confronted with an irrefutable argument (as is often the case) he just tries to switch the discussion to a different argument, doesn't he? I guess we can live in hope that he'll still find time to respond to the original point.
