Tom Fox

[Zatman]

4 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

I've seen that quote before, but it doesn't explain why he has the title of 'Sporting Director' if all he is is a glorified roadie. 

as was said on Sky the other day, if Almstadt was so good then why would Wenger allow him to leave

[HanoiVillan]

7 minutes ago, Zatman said:

as was said on Sky the other day, if Almstadt was so good then why would Wenger allow him to leave

Maybe they'd already got enough people blowing up footballs and ironing socks. 

[MakemineVanilla]

29 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I think Sherwood was sacked because the club believe he'd signed good players and managed them very badly.

Do subsequent results suggest they were right or wrong?

[OutByEaster?]

11 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

Do subsequent results suggest they were right or wrong?

Therein lies the question which will be answered in the coming months - but, I'd say a number of our players are performing better. The question that will also come is whether that's the result of time settling or a better manager. Personally, I think of the eleven (twelve?) players we signed in the summer, there are a good five or six hits in there, that's a pretty good ratio. Unfortunately they aren't a team; which of course brings another question, is that down to the previous manager?

Whichever, the undeniable is that Sherwood picked strange formations, made ridiculous substitutions and then criticised individuals in the press - he did more than enough to go without recruitment being a major factor.

 

[mwj]

51 minutes ago, Zatman said:

as was said on Sky the other day, if Almstadt was so good then why would Wenger allow him to leave

Plenty of people leave for a promotion in a new job regardless of what their current boss counter offers. Wenger is not a **** god.

[BigAl]

So if it is logical that Sherwood was sacked for recruiting bad players, isn't it logical that those who hired Sherwood should be sacked?

I think Sherwood was sacked because the club believe he'd signed good players and managed them very badly.

Sherwood was sacked because he washed his hands of having anything to do with the new signings,saying they weren't his buys ,saying the new players weren't good enough to the press and generally bad mouthing the club and board no manager was going to survive when doing that he had to go .

[AntrimBlack]

3 hours ago, briny_ear said:

Why? What weight are you putting on the term "technical"?

Not `in the field'. So working from stats and putting them forward to scouts in the field or making stats a consideration for others when a player is being considered.

[DCJonah]

4 hours ago, thabucks said:

I forgot he bought in the guy from the Baku games as commercial director so that's not his remit. 

The commercial side is very important, especially if we go down. Every £££ counts to make up for the loss in revenue surely you can see that? 

Kinda sounds like you are writing  him off. 

 

No, it sounds like I'm judging him on what's happened so far. Unless you want to argue that it's been good?

Any commercial improvement is irrelevant if we go down. You can't praise what he's done on the commercial side (without knowing I might add) while the club is relegated to the championship. 

 

 

[Stevo985]

I doubt very much it was as simple as that, or that Sherwood had the absolute right of veto over any player.

According to anyone involved, including Sherwood, he did.

Well, the quote discussed earlier

there was never any suggestion that we were going to get a player that our manager wasn’t supportive of.

doesn't sound like a straightforward veto to me. It sounds like slippery management-speak blah.

But it's all a question of interpretation.

There are clear quotes out there from both Sherwood and Fox that say he had the right to veto any player.

[TRO]

16 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

I'm still not convinced our transfers have been that bad.

Badly mismanaged and not integrated into the first team correctly by the incumbent. Beginning to settle and show life.

If anything the existing players have been worse.

The existing players are worse.....But that was all the more reason to bring in players who could hit the ground running.

Look, its done now and one or two of the french boys are "showing shoots of life"....Ayew possibly our best player,currently

I don't think we all know just what a poor position we found ourselves in ...... Benteke,Vlaar, Delph, Cleverley was too big a miss to have all in one go.

After that, The summer spree was always going to be difficult.

[MakemineVanilla]

1 hour ago, TRO said:

The existing players are worse.....But that was all the more reason to bring in players who could hit the ground running.

Look, its done now and one or two of the french boys are "showing shoots of life"....Ayew possibly our best player,currently

I don't think we all know just what a poor position we found ourselves in ...... Benteke,Vlaar, Delph, Cleverley was too big a miss to have all in one go.

After that, The summer spree was always going to be difficult.

I think most people understood full well but assumed those whose responsibility it was would make a much better job of recruiting replacements.

[dont_do_it_doug.]

The existing players are worse.....But that was all the more reason to bring in players who could hit the ground running.

Look, its done now and one or two of the french boys are "showing shoots of life"....Ayew possibly our best player,currently

I don't think we all know just what a poor position we found ourselves in ...... Benteke,Vlaar, Delph, Cleverley was too big a miss to have all in one go.

After that, The summer spree was always going to be difficult.

I think most people understood full well but assumed those whose responsibility it was would make a much better job of recruiting replacements.

I maintain that the problem has not been the quality of player purchased. In fact, I think they bought a decent enough blend of quality, experience and youth.

Unfortunately, they then had to hand those players over to an absolute butcher of a manager, a rocket polisher and a dinosaur, who in 3 short months managed to bury this club in a hole it is unlikely to drag itself from. Do not underestimate the effect his horrid mismanagement had. Remi Garde is still talking about fitness levels and how they're only just getting up to speed, it's **** Christmas.

Look at how Gana dropped off, he was a breath of fresh air when he arrived. Form and confidence still in the toilet, hopefully he will get there like others.

Ayew, Veretout, Amavi and Richards have been our best players. Adama has raw talent and I'm confident he'll get there. Gana has shown enough. What we have lacked is leadership and cohesion off the pitch. A plan. They were so far gone by the time Garde stepped in it has taken an age to get it back, but it's coming. Likely too late, but it's coming.

They massively failed on the Striker front I think. But to level the blame solely at the feet of the transfer team, including Sherwood in that part, is hyperbole.

[DCJonah]

I find it hard to believe that this is a decent team destroyed by a manager in 11 games. 

Especially a manager who kept us up and got us to a cup final last year. 

I've no doubt Sherwood had a negative influence this season but I think that's a massive exaggeration. 

[Dr_Pangloss]

20 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

I maintain that the problem has not been the quality of player purchased. In fact, I think they bought a decent enough blend of quality, experience and youth.

Unfortunately, they then had to hand those players over to an absolute butcher of a manager, a rocket polisher and a dinosaur, who in 3 short months managed to bury this club in a hole it is unlikely to drag itself from. Do not underestimate the effect his horrid mismanagement had. Remi Garde is still talking about fitness levels and how they're only just getting up to speed, it's **** Christmas.

Look at how Gana dropped off, he was a breath of fresh air when he arrived. Form and confidence still in the toilet, hopefully he will get there like others.

Ayew, Veretout, Amavi and Richards have been our best players. Adama has raw talent and I'm confident he'll get there. Gana has shown enough. What we have lacked is leadership and cohesion off the pitch. A plan. They were so far gone by the time Garde stepped in it has taken an age to get it back, but it's coming. Likely too late, but it's coming.

They massively failed on the Striker front I think. But to level the blame solely at the feet of the transfer team, including Sherwood in that part, is hyperbole.

I don't necessarily disagree that we signed 'quality'. I think a fair few of the signings do have technical and athletic quality. But the problem is that the 'mental' qualities are lacking in most of the new signings. It's not just about having technical ability, it's about desire, aggression, consistency and all round mental strength. These sort of 'intangibles' appear to be lacking in all of our new signings save for Ayew and maybe Richards. 

So for that reason I'd still maintain that the player recruitment was by and large very poor, there's more to signing players than just raw ability, it's about how well they fit as characters.

Edited December 24, 2015 by Dr_Pangloss

[Grasshopper]

8 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

I find it hard to believe that this is a decent team destroyed by a manager in 11 games. 

Especially a manager who kept us up and got us to a cup final last year. 

I've no doubt Sherwood had a negative influence this season but I think that's a massive exaggeration. 

Add 6-1 Soton 0-1 Burnley 4-0 Arsenal to 1 lucky win in 11 games - absolutely

[DCJonah]

18 minutes ago, Grasshopper said:

Add 6-1 Soton 0-1 Burnley 4-0 Arsenal to 1 lucky win in 11 games - absolutely

I think it's just an easy way to excuse everyone at the club and lay all the blame on a disliked manager who has left. 

My opinion of Sherwood has changed dramatically this year, but I'm not buying into the idea that he's the only reason we're struggling. 

These are players who have played at the top level possible, under different coaches since the ages of probably 7/8. And 11 games under Sherwood and they're all destroyed as professional players? Yeah right. 

I think in a few years this could be decent. I'd love to see what amavi, veretout, Adama and ayew could progress to together. But right now as a unit, this squad has not been good enough and most of the players signed in the summer and under Lambert have shown on a pretty consistent basis, that they're barely capable of playing at premier league level. 

[ermie123]

Some of the ones Lambert bought find it difficult to get on the bus let alone lick the windows.

[dont_do_it_doug.]

I maintain that the problem has not been the quality of player purchased. In fact, I think they bought a decent enough blend of quality, experience and youth.

Unfortunately, they then had to hand those players over to an absolute butcher of a manager, a rocket polisher and a dinosaur, who in 3 short months managed to bury this club in a hole it is unlikely to drag itself from. Do not underestimate the effect his horrid mismanagement had. Remi Garde is still talking about fitness levels and how they're only just getting up to speed, it's **** Christmas.

Look at how Gana dropped off, he was a breath of fresh air when he arrived. Form and confidence still in the toilet, hopefully he will get there like others.

Ayew, Veretout, Amavi and Richards have been our best players. Adama has raw talent and I'm confident he'll get there. Gana has shown enough. What we have lacked is leadership and cohesion off the pitch. A plan. They were so far gone by the time Garde stepped in it has taken an age to get it back, but it's coming. Likely too late, but it's coming.

They massively failed on the Striker front I think. But to level the blame solely at the feet of the transfer team, including Sherwood in that part, is hyperbole.

I don't necessarily disagree that we signed 'quality'. I think a fair few of the signings do have technical and athletic quality. But the problem is that the 'mental' qualities are lacking in most of the new signings. It's not just about having technical ability, it's about desire, aggression, consistency and all round mental strength. These sort of 'intangibles' appear to be lacking in all of our new signings save for Ayew and maybe Richards. 

So for that reason I'd still maintain that the player recruitment was by and large very poor, there's more to signing players than just raw ability, it's about how well they fit as characters.

I understand where you are coming from, but is it not the remit of the manager to get that from the players? It has to exist of course, but it's hard to say for sure at this stage that it does not.

Gana leaves his bollocks out there too, Amavi never once shirked his responsibility before being dropped for lord only knows what reason. Veretout? You have him down as a shirker? I'm not so sure. He struggled to settle yes, but allegedly according to the player his "manager" never said two words to him.

If you ask me the worst culprits have been Gestede, Sinclair, Grealish, Sanchez and Westwood. Sanchez in particular was a disgrace against Arsenal, I've rarely been so angry at a player. Possibly Gil too, there's something seriously wrong there. The worst performers have been those plus Hutton and Guzan.

Sherwood buried us in this hole. The man is a joke, he made me pine for Paul **** Lambert. It's up to the new guy and yes, the players to drag us out of it. But it's wrong, for me at least, to blame them for finding this task difficult. I'm intrigued to see how they react to their first win.

[DCJonah]

1 hour ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

I don't. I think you're showing signs of short term memory loss there. He blew at least 10 points on his own, he alienated certain players, left them bereft of fitness (which blows my mind in this day and age) and confidence.

Calling him a manager is doing him a credit he does not deserve. He was a cheerleader who got found out extremely quickly, just not quite quick enough.

The biggest mistake Tom Fox has made here is giving him those extra 2 games. 3-5-2...

I remember how bad he's been and he was rightly sacked, as it was a disaster of a start. Bu t I don't buy into the idea that the difference with this team being decent and the worst in the league is 11 games with Tim Sherwood.

I think there's potential in this team but its certainly not ready yet and Garde has struggled to make much difference to it.

[dont_do_it_doug.]

I don't. I think you're showing signs of short term memory loss there. He blew at least 10 points on his own, he alienated certain players, left them bereft of fitness (which blows my mind in this day and age) and confidence.

Calling him a manager is doing him a credit he does not deserve. He was a cheerleader who got found out extremely quickly, just not quite quick enough.

The biggest mistake Tom Fox has made here is giving him those extra 2 games. 3-5-2...

I remember how bad he's been and he was rightly sacked, as it was a disaster of a start. Bu t I don't buy into the idea that the difference with this team being decent and the worst in the league is 11 games with Tim Sherwood.

I think there's potential in this team but its certainly not ready yet and Garde has struggled to make much difference to it.

Define "decent"? I think the difference between this team being in the pack with your Bournemouth's, Norwich's, Newcastle's and your Chelsea's is Tim Sherwood. 100%.

It's no surprise he's struggled, to be honest. I'm disappointed but we'd lost 7 in a row. 1 point from 10 games. ONE from THIRTY. And the way we lost those games, the way he publicly threw them, the whole club in fact, under the bus whilst failing dismally to give them a platform to work from. Refusing to work with certain players, like Ayew and Veretout.

Petty, simple minded, useless tosser. Worst "manager" we've ever had. It's a complete fluke built on the performances of Benteke, Grealish, Delph and Cleverley that he kept us up last season. That he was anyone BUT Lambert was just enough.

I hate that guy.