Does anyone really believe it's the manager to blame

[WindygrOWLer]

1 hour ago, Salmonbones said:

 

Absolute bobbar.

 

it is SOLELY Monks fault.   These players have proved on many occasion they are capable of competing with the best in the division, and indeed on occasion against far better players.

 

Only an idiot would say the opposite it true, to be honest.

 

Looks like you just stepped up to be that said idiot!

 

 

How ironic, you have my sympathy.

[big_al1985]

1 hour ago, Salmonbones said:

 

Absolute bobbar.

 

it is SOLELY Monks fault.   These players have proved on many occasion they are capable of competing with the best in the division, and indeed on occasion against far better players.

 

Only an idiot would say the opposite it true, to be honest.

 

Looks like you just stepped up to be that said idiot!

 

 

So after 4 years and 4 managers the players take no blame at all? It's the current manager who has been here 6 months fault? Not the core squad who have been here 4 years?  The core squad who have repeatedly failed. Repeatedly let us down. Repeatedly bottled it. Repeatedly taken massive wages. Repeatedly downed tools?

 

Not them? No?

 

Ok.

 

 

[smhouston]

Yes Monk is to be blamed too (among others) and I must admit I find it pretty hard to understand why people don't 

 

The decision to tell 2 senior pro's in the middle of the season they are surplus to requirements is justification alone to raise concerns! I wonder who else he has told won't be having their contracts renewed?

 

We keep hearing it's all the squads fault, yet Bruce managed to work with near enough the same squad, and you could see his tactics / style. Ever since Monk has took over, I'm yet to see what style we have, and that was even through our decent period too.

 

I've said many a times I didn't want Monk, and he's starting to show why. There is a reason he has had so many clubs at his age, or was they all dodgy squads too?

[scilly owl]

43 minutes ago, DJMortimer said:

 

Be honest; like the rest of us you have no idea who has done or said what and therefore cannot possibly judge what is right or wrong about it. 

 

I wonder if you would apply these same principles to your own workplace?

As you say, none of us know who’s said what to whom but what is clear is that we have better options who are not being considered for selection and those options would undoubtedly give us more of a chance of winning games and collecting points.

 

[DJMortimer]

10 minutes ago, smhouston said:

The decision to tell 2 senior pro's in the middle of the season they are surplus to requirements is justification alone to raise concerns! I wonder who else he has told won't be having their contracts renewed?

 

It isn't necessary to tell anyone. Dawson and Fox have had offers, Fletcher it seems is lobbying for one and might be in preliminary discussion about one. But those out of contract who have not would have drawn the obvious conclusion whatever was said to them. But it's difficult to believe that Monk has the final decision on those things anyway.

 

[Freshfish]

Yes. Because he’s the ‘manager’. When, every week, he tells us the players are doing the good things in training then presumably he’s delivering the set up and sessions and tactics and formations that then transfer into the pitch. 
 

He’s the man that decides the formations in respect of the opposition, home or away and players available and frankly his choices have constantly been either weird, wrong and occasionally worked. He manages the squad, decides the starting 11, formation and works on  the set pieces and how the team actually work as a team. 
 

100% he’s to blame. 

[sweetsheri]

Monk has made some strange and unpopular decisions BUT once the 11 walk out there is absolutely no excuse for not trying. To££ers of the highest order 

[Tommo_]

4 hours ago, Kanye West said:

The people blaming Monk for the mess we are in at the minute are completely delusional. 
 

Any manager here is destined to fail with the state the club is in. Monk is not a bad manager. 

 

He's not a good one either, he's poo. Stood on the touchline with his hands in his pockets looking like he's waiting for his mum to pick him up from school. 

 

Bruce didn't have a problem getting results from this squad. 

[Mr. Tom]

It’s two separate issues: short-term coping with the bad hand we’re now left holding, and longer-term problems.

 

On the short-term for a second: yes, I do agree GM’s not getting performances out of a disillusioned and demotivated squad that should be capable of much, much better. Yes, that *is* a valid here-and-now concern with him. However, I don’t think anybody else would get much better out of them either right now tbh.

 

Long-term, no, I don’t blame the manager at all for the broader situation we are in. I generally subscribe to this longer-term view, and suspect it’s far bigger than GM. (This is what he’s alluding to in interviews, IMO.)

 

We’ve no info, so let’s speculate like crazy for a sec. What follows is *obviously* a work of purest fiction. (I am going to say ‘what if’ a lot, because you’re going to have to imagine some very obviously non-fact stuff. It’s a fantasy exercise! Wildest imaginations only please! Haha you guys are crazy! Etc! )

Jackanory begins...now!

 

What if if the roots of the many current problems lay way back. Not even with DC per se, who clearly had several shortcomings as an active sole owner, but who in fact as the distant backer/banker he should’ve been would have done fine. Great, even.

 

What if the rot we were now starting to see bloom started in earnest early on, shortly after DC arrived and had to find his feet. During the Carlos era, when money and players poured in, things were going well on the pitch, and we didn’t really notice or think too hard about much else.

 

What if it was somehow rooted in the fact that DC didn’t have, doesn’t have, and had never really been allowed to have any proper ‘football people’ around him. What if the various ‘football people’ who’ve left in the past five years didn’t exactly do so entirely voluntarily. What if it had been easy for certain figures who remained to sow a seed among the fanbase that this was all down to the ‘quirks’ of a foreign owner with a mediocre grasp of language nuance, who conveniently was often absent for other business & family reasons.

 

What if, in fact, all the above was more closely related to a certain agency group and a certain weirdly persistent figure in the background at the club, and whoever else the silent beneficiaries of our whole impenetrable relationship with that group may one day prove to be.

 

What if it was obvious that yes DC had been naive, and probably a touch proud/vain early on to admit any problems or errors of judgment, but what if he’d somehow got himself railroaded down some very dodgy contractual/partnership culs-de-sac in those early free-spending days, which were now proving incredibly difficult to back out of. What if those arrangements and pressures were a big part of the reason he was present less and less now, rather than any general lack of interest. (Especially having never really previously showed any fundamental lack of interest when things got difficult - he was *mostly* here during the Jos horrorshow, right?)

 

What if ill-advised dealings with certain groups and individuals had in fact proved far more problematic long-term than anyone involved on our side could reasonably have foreseen at the time. What if those arrangements were still binding, and likely to remain so until there was no more money in Sheffield Wednesday. What if at that point we were all very unsurprised to suddenly and miraculously be released from them overnight. (Hooray! But booo, League 2!)

 

What if DC was actually being effectively blocked from bringing in other outsiders who were better positioned to help dig into and sort the mess out.
 

What if we as a club were not in fact genuinely in full control of whom we buy/sell, or when, and hadn’t been all along, even while speculation on that very topic was rife and fans had been at each other’s throats over it. What if, once again, soooooo much didn’t add up there - eg:

 

- apparent ‘refusal’ to move players on for easy profits we’d clearly need if we had any hope of balancing FFP, notably to interested clubs who already had their own agency links (even though DC knew all about FFP and how it worked, isn’t naive when it comes to numbers, and is if nothing else a successful business trader)

- utter silence around loads of mad things like the Abdi situation/various other wtf moments

- countless mystery long-term injuries that almost never happened on the pitch, consistently received wildly unrealistic recovery period predictions from highly qualified medical professionals, and routinely seemed to involve players being sent miles away to work with some random specialist in oooh I dunno, Portugal say

- recurring weirdness like the Hutch & Westy debacle, what if they were right in both insisting it wasn’t about a fallout with the boss per se, and in fact there’s been one other common factor present at the club when it happened under two very different managers

- URBY FFS, what the absolute f*** was that ££££

- ad infinitum, insert your own here, etc etc etc

 

What if it was all just murky as hell, no info anywhere, and we couldn’t really think of another single club in the whole EFL where even one of the above has happened quite so weirdly, never mind ALL of those Agatha Christie-level mysteries in the space of five short years.

What if similar things *had*, however, happened at a handful of clubs in other Euro leagues though, and what if they all had a certain link in common. Haha, ok way too far fetched, I know!

 

In fact, enough! Stop! This is silly! Stop imagining ‘what if’, you crazy fantasists! Get real! Lolz! Etc!

 

Still, IMO laying full blame for the current trainwreck squarely at the feet of either DC or Monk is like blaming whoever installed the kitchen taps when - I mean what if! - your house starts falling down.

 

Yeah, I’m cross.

 

Neg to high heaven if it’s definitely all down to the bloke who’s been here about 20-odd weeks, though.

 

 

Edited March 7, 2020 by Mr. Tom

[DJMortimer]

@Mr. Tom

 

Something like that purely mythical tale of yours is the concern I've been alluding to for a while. I was actually curious very early on when all those attacking players were arriving for a very considerable outlay and I found myself wondering how we could afford it and what the ultimate outcome might be.

 

What a horror story.

[BrotherOwlExile]

6 hours ago, big_al1985 said:

Agree totally. 

 

He's been here what, 6 months? The core of the squad and chansiri have been here roughly 4 years. We've gone backwards and are now skint via 4 managers.... how can he be the main cause of our issues?? 

 

He's not the answer but he is certainly not the problem

Not the answer and not the problem is definitely the point here.

[Jaybeeowl]

2 hours ago, Tommo_ said:

 

 

 

Bruce didn't have a problem getting results from this squad. 

 

[Jaybeeowl]

Briefly. I'm guessing he would have fallen out with Westwood and Hutch sooner or later. 

[Mr. Tom]

44 minutes ago, DJMortimer said:

@Mr. Tom

 

Something like that purely mythical tale of yours is the concern I've been alluding to for a while. I was actually curious very early on when all those attacking players were arriving for a very considerable outlay and I found myself wondering how we could afford it and what the ultimate outcome might be.

 

What a horror story.

Proper Stephen King stuff innit? Glad it’s clearly not true.

[kingsidney]

8 hours ago, immediate67 said:

I've been supporting The Wednesday since 76, had a season ticket for 35 years. Sacking yet another scapegoat really the answer 

He’s definitely A problem. 
 

It’s all sticking plasters though until Chansiri and his stuffing Mate move on. 

[83owl]

10 hours ago, ReadingOwl said:

I don’t see why that fact undermines his desire to manage his boyhood Club, eventually.

 

Presumably, when he landed the Sunderland job - it wasn’t a choice between Sunderland and Newcastle?

 

My understanding is that he did grow up supporting Newcastle.

SWFC are my boyhood club. I know it’s easy for me to say as I’m not a football manager but I don’t think I could manage Sheffield United and know that I was 100% committed to the job.

[83owl]

7 hours ago, Tommo_ said:

 

He's not a good one either, he's poo. Stood on the touchline with his hands in his pockets looking like he's waiting for his mum to pick him up from school. 

 

Bruce didn't have a problem getting results from this squad. 

Bruce took over and I think we were in 14th. We finished 12th so hardly a huge improvement if you say he got results. 
 

Bruce also didn’t have the uncertainty around the club regarding a points deduction or having players down tools as they are in the last year of their overpaid contracts and know they won’t be getting a new one.

[swfcGibbo]

The deep rooted problems don't fall at Monk's door however he CONSTANTLY keeps saying the entire team has to change in the Summer. We all agree with this but that's just not how you motivate a workforce.

Although I agree with some of his sentiments he's essentially telling everyone they won't be here. This doesn't give you the enthusiasm to work week in week out irrespective of what you earn. 

 

It might not necessarily be Monk who is the problem but he doesn't seem like the right guy to motivate and get us out of this mess.

[matthefish2002]

10 hours ago, Salmonbones said:

 

Absolute bobbar.

 

it is SOLELY Monks fault.   These players have proved on many occasion they are capable of competing with the best in the division, and indeed on occasion against far better players.

 

Only an idiot would say the opposite it true, to be honest.

 

Looks like you just stepped up to be that said idiot!

 

 

 

If the players are as good as you think it makes recent performances even worse.

They are on an average of about £1m each per season and cant be bothered. 

[kingsidney]

Why is everyone so binary. 
 

It’s not a case of it’s Chansiri’s fault, or Monks fault or the players fault. 
 

it’s all of them. They’re all doing just about the worst job you could imagine. 

The only one with the power to change it though is Chansiri & he seems to have done a disappearing act.