We paid a million to shift Carlton Palmer ffks

[Screen Door Slams]

Francis did well initially with Warhurst, Bright, Bart-Williams , Waddle etc , but a whole raft of awful signings that were inferior to what we had did for him.

 

Atherton, Pearce, Nolan, Ingesson, Sinton, Coleman, Poric etc.

[@owlstalk]

54 minutes ago, Screen Door Slams said:

Francis did well initially with Warhurst, Bright, Bart-Williams , Waddle etc , but a whole raft of awful signings that were inferior to what we had did for him.

 

Atherton, Pearce, Nolan, Ingesson, Sinton, Coleman, Poric etc.

 

Defintiely 

 

But we are told repeatedly by some of our fans that a managers job is to manage the players at his disposal and man manage them to success 

[Guest mrbluesky]

On 07/04/2021 at 02:11, Utah Owl said:

Find this hard to believe

Yep, makes a good story though.

[slinger208b]

On 07/04/2021 at 03:53, Rogers said:

At least he tried to replace the great team with other great players, Waddle, Walker, etc.  Not like Pleat

Interesting how you list the only great players. Who are the “etc”…

[Nero]

On 07/04/2021 at 12:46, The Wall said:

 

Sorry, Ian Nolan was rubbish.

Klas Ingerson, top class? Do me a favour

My mate thought Ingerson used to look like Martin Clunes.

Called him 'Man Perfoming Badly' all the time.  

[@owlstalk]

3 minutes ago, Nero said:

My mate thought Ingerson used to look like Martin Clunes.

Called him 'Man Perfoming Badly' all the time.  

 

 

 

That's a good un

[Daizan10]

On 07/04/2021 at 08:33, @owlstalk said:

 

The thing about Francis was that apart from ruining our club, he couldn't actually 'manage' players

The way i remember it Pleat ruined our club and the chairman. Francis - I always loved. 

[Owlabroad2001]

4 hours ago, Howmanyowls said:

My mum used to taxi a lot of Wednesday players and the chairman at the time. She drove Dave Richards and his wife and she didn't like him. Don't know how much influence they had but I thought it was strange to let him go. He was a very intelligent player. Had a good season if my memory serves me right. 

Interesting. I was about 16 when we signed Degryse and I absolutely loved him. I was furious when we got rid of him after one season. Seemed so ridiculous at the time and even more so afterwards.

[DSandersonOWL]

11 hours ago, Dexter Morgan said:

Rubbish, he brought in Dan Petrescu who shouldnt have been sold 

brought in Ian Taylor who was a perfect replacement for Palmer and also should haven’t had been sold 

and takes full credit for everything Warhurst achieved 

I have fond memories of Francis 

I hate and despise Francis, an appalling manager of players, who initially seemed to be building on what Ron had built.

He then destroyed it through his nasty arrogance and incompetence as a coach.

He copied Ron initially and then when going it alone was a complete disaster.

I remember going to Highbury when he had already started his process of destruction of our team.

Francis's team selection, positions and tactics were a shambolic disaster. 

[@owlstalk]

 

Quite honestly if some of our fans loved Francis and what he did as manager then you could serve up sick on a plate and they'd eat it and then go round telling people it was the best meal they'd ever had.

 

I'd rather hear from people that understand reality and understand football than hear from ANY Francis fan 

That's just me though

He ruined our club

[Animis]

Francis lost it towards the end. People are horrified when fans chant for the manager to be sacked these days, should have been on the kop against Notts Forest in May 95. We finished 13th, same points as Arsenal and 3 points behind Chelsea - how times have changed.

[adelphi1867]

1 hour ago, @owlstalk said:

 

Quite honestly if some of our fans loved Francis and what he did as manager then you could serve up sick on a plate and they'd eat it and then go round telling people it was the best meal they'd ever had.

 

I'd rather hear from people that understand reality and understand football than hear from ANY Francis fan 

That's just me though

He ruined our club

I attended a coaching Session by Francis one of many I attended run by professional Coaches,  and francis's was the most boring of all, dull as dishwater.

[@owlstalk]

1 hour ago, Animis said:

Francis lost it towards the end. People are horrified when fans chant for the manager to be sacked these days, should have been on the kop against Notts Forest in May 95. We finished 13th, same points as Arsenal and 3 points behind Chelsea - how times have changed.

 

 

Our fans cheered Forest's goals as they went in - that's how bad it got

Hillsborough cheering the opposition goals

Francis did that

Single handedly

[Emerson Thome]

10 hours ago, York_Owl said:

I don’t think the 91-92 team under Francis was actually any better than the 90-91 team under Ron despite Francis spending 3 million on Woods, Warhurst and Jemson.

 

I think it was. Quite apart from the fact finishing third in Divison One is a much better achievement than finishing third in Division Two, we have an obvious 'control' as three other sides played in both these leagues:

 

90/91

Oldham - 88 pts

West Ham - 87 pts

SWFC - 82 pts

Notts County - 80 pts

 

91/92

SWFC - 75 pts

Oldham - 51 pts

Notts Counts - 40 pts

West Ham - 38 pts

 

That's a 30 point swing in performance against Oldham, 33 point swing against Notts County, and 42 point swing against West Ham, comparing how Francis & Atkinson did against the same teams.

[Elvin Parsnip]

I do remember that run in Francis second season of about 21 games with one loss and maybe two draws when we were playing in both cups and had loads of games and playing great stuff 

[Lord Snooty]

2 hours ago, Emerson Thome said:

 

I think it was. Quite apart from the fact finishing third in Divison One is a much better achievement than finishing third in Division Two, we have an obvious 'control' as three other sides played in both these leagues:

 

90/91

Oldham - 88 pts

West Ham - 87 pts

SWFC - 82 pts

Notts County - 80 pts

 

91/92

SWFC - 75 pts

Oldham - 51 pts

Notts Counts - 40 pts

West Ham - 38 pts

 

That's a 30 point swing in performance against Oldham, 33 point swing against Notts County, and 42 point swing against West Ham, comparing how Francis & Atkinson did against the same teams.

 

Of anything I think it shows the quality of the side Ron put together and the fact they were more able to cope with playing the bigger teams (Man Utd, Liverpool etc tal) than the sides that Oldham and West Ham had put together. 

 

The League Cup final run to Wembley I think put paid to our hopes of winning the division 2 title. 

 

I always remember the Leicester game at Hillsborugh after we won the cup. The lads looks mentally and physically exhausted.

[Dutch McLovin]

On 07/04/2021 at 06:31, Neal M said:

I think you are focusing on a couple of Francis’ admittedly great signings and ignoring the majority of his average/mediocre/dross signings.

 

Peter Atherton was no Nilsson.

Andy Pearce was no Pearson.

Ian Taylor was no Palmer.

Not that I’m defending Francis here but I do think as time went on the backing from upstairs didn’t.

 

Yeah his signings were poor especially the ones you mention but we went from signing the likes of Walker Waddle and Sinton (who was an excellent signing at the time) to the above shows how quickly it was going down hill. 
 

Selling Bart-Williams was a Bad move as really was Warhurst although we know his career went down hill after. Francis started well but went down hill too quickly. Then along came Pleat who just destroyed any hope of recovery while managing somehow to sign 2 of the best players we’ve ever had. Very bizarre 

[Costello 77]

52 minutes ago, Lord Snooty said:

 

Of anything I think it shows the quality of the side Ron put together and the fact they were more able to cope with playing the bigger teams (Man Utd, Liverpool etc tal) than the sides that Oldham and West Ham had put together. 

 

The League Cup final run to Wembley I think put paid to our hopes of winning the division 2 title. 

 

I always remember the Leicester game at Hillsborugh after we won the cup. The lads looks mentally and physically exhausted.

Indeed.

They'd hit their stops.

It's exactly where you'd want your team to be.

[York_Owl]

1 hour ago, Lord Snooty said:

 

Of anything I think it shows the quality of the side Ron put together and the fact they were more able to cope with playing the bigger teams (Man Utd, Liverpool etc tal) than the sides that Oldham and West Ham had put together. 

 

The League Cup final run to Wembley I think put paid to our hopes of winning the division 2 title. 

 

I always remember the Leicester game at Hillsborugh after we won the cup. The lads looks mentally and physically exhausted.

Exactly. Winning the League Cup meant we played 60 games that year!

 

We also had a few bad injuries, Nilsson especially. I particularly remember Millwall away when we went 2-0 and looking like we were going to hammer them then we had a number of players injured and ended up losing 4-2!

[Emerson Thome]

6 hours ago, York_Owl said:

Exactly. Winning the League Cup meant we played 60 games that year!

 

We also had a few bad injuries, Nilsson especially. I particularly remember Millwall away when we went 2-0 and looking like we were going to hammer them then we had a number of players injured and ended up losing 4-2!

 

I just think Big Ron wasn't great at maintaining focus over a whole league campaign. After a blistering start, we settled into 3rd in November and we pretty much 3rd the whole way through after that.

 

Don't get me wrong, he was a great cup manager. One of the best managers we've ever had. He's got the FA Cups and League Cups to prove it.

 

And yes we played a lot of games, but it was only 4 more than West Ham (who got to the FA Cup Semis that year). Maybe Francis would have won Division Two with that squad (and probably not won the League Cup).

 

Francis's achievement in getting that squad to 3rd in Division One is under-estimated. Much as a lot of those players were cult heros, look at our starting XI, for the rest of their careers the likes of Danny Wilson, Phil King, Paul Williams, heck even Pearson, Sheridan and Hirst, were not usually challenging for Division One titles. It isn't too dissimilar to the squad Ron Atkinson took down two years earlier.