[Archived] The Dawn Of A New Era

[thenodrog]

I'm trying not to get involved in this very sad 'billy biggest ######' thread, but....

Just because I wanted Allardyce out, that had no bearing WHATSOEVER on him leaving the club, its just a lazy arguement. Unfortunately my influence doesnt stretch that far, if it did I can tell you Kean would have gone long ago, with my foot up his arse

Quite right Gav. Despite promises to the contrary Sam Allardyce who had saved our bacon just a year or two earlier was indeed a dead man walking as soon as the Slumdogs and the Fat Controller turned up.

However what it does prove is that your judgement is invalid that you and your anti allardyce buddies really do know sweet FA about football and football matters.

[Pedro]

Your opinions are easily disproved by the attendance figures gumboots.

Also Souness and Hughes enjoyed much more financial support than Allardyce received. The lack of such support only manifested itself on Hughes in the last season causing him to seek pastures new.

Gumboots describes pretty much how I and many of my friends felt. I didn't enjoy supporting Rovers under Big Sam, the football was dreary, for whatever reason the victories didn't give me the sense of joy that they should/did under previous managers. Saint Sam spent quite a bit in his short time at Rovers on Kalanic, Givet and the many similar foreign players he brought in who weren't up to task but still needed paying. We can add to that the money wasted via the appointment of Ince, both in terms of the wasted money on Grella, Andrews etc. then the hefty pay off he would've received - all in the space of five months or so...so I wouldn't say that the investment wasn't there, just it was largely wasted during that period.

I can't argue that things have never been as bad as under this knob and his crazy set-up, but things certainly started to go back downhill the moment Mark Hughes left the club.

[Salgado Is A Hero]

Your opinions are easily disproved by the attendance figures gumboots.

Also Souness and Hughes enjoyed much more financial support than Allardyce received. The lack of such support only manifested itself on Hughes in the last season causing him to seek pastures new.

Your opinions are easily disproved by the transfer fee figures thenodrog.

Allardyce spent £15 million in one and a half seasons or £10 million a year.

Hughes spent £23 million in three and a half seasons or £6.5 million a year.

Souness spent £50 million in 4 seasons or £12.5 million a year.

Evidently, Souness and Hughes didn't enjoy much more financial support than Allardyce. And all three had to sell players including some of their best.

And didn't season ticket prices drop or something during the Allardyce era?

[thenodrog]

He had a greatly negative transfer budget. Fact.

BTW, still waiting for you or Topman to say whether you would still sack a manager who had us in the top half of the PL?

If ever we ever do recover from the mistake of sacking Allardyce - that you wanted, would you argue for it again?

I guess that you would.

There is something of a myth about Allardyces tactics and abilities. Negative tactics were not all down to him. We all know (from JW I think) that his brief from the Trust was simply to keep BRFC in the Premier League at all costs whilst the club was up for sale. He followed this to the letter of the law and once 40 points was reached and safety achieved he let the dogs loose and employed more adventurous tactics and we saw some excellent performances and excellent results which propelled us rapidly up the table in the final weeks of 2009-2010. Any negative safety first tactics were not all down to him as so many seem to think.

[Pedro]

However what it does prove is that your judgement is invalid that you and your anti allardyce buddies really do know sweet FA about football and football matters.

So anyone who disagrees is an "anti-Allardyce buddy, who knows nothing about football"? Someone's definitely on the sauce tonight.

From my point of view there are many managers - more so in this current era - that prove you to be way out of touch with football today. The only recipe for survival doesn't have to be Big Sam style football, look at Norwich, Wigan and Swansea, they haven't gone ballistic with the chequebook - yet they play good football and survived with relative ease. Newcastle too, a "trading club" who spent far less than they brought in, play good football and have progressed massively under the new man in charge...it doesn't have to be hit and hope football played by a load of 6ft 2" (plus) lumpers.

[thenodrog]

Anti-football has no need for prolific strikers.

Yes it has. Didier Drogba is proof of that.

Bolton probably did, but they had players who could.

The last time I was impressed by a Rovers team passing the ball was back when Hughes was still manager. Most of my memories of our team attempting any type of flowing pass & move since then are accompanied by the sound of bitter laughter.

Allardyce knew how to get the best out of a technically poor team - have said that for a long time. Whether he would have bought players to increase the technical side of our game we'll never know - I imagine that was the next step. He'd managed to mould us into a team of grafters with a dogged, generally winning ethic... next step was to get a modern day Jay Jay or Djorkaeff to move things forward. A huge shame he never got the chance to do that, but then even if Venky's hadn't arrived there was no guarantee the Trust would have released the funds necessary to move beyond what he'd already built.

Didn't he see Guti and Raul as the players to do this in the summer of 2010? Thwarted financially by the board I seem to rem.

[thenodrog]

£5m per season sounded a reasonable, believable investment; like everyone else I thought the CL talk embarrassingly naive though. Obviously time has shown us that they weren't all they seemed; nonetheless they deserved a chance and to not be written off immediately and condemned as 'slumdog millionaires' by our resident xenophobe from day one.

So which part of me saying I'd rather have kept Sam if Kean was the answer is "not getting it" then cock? Again, for the hard of learning like yourself, sacking Sam wasn't a bad decision in isolation - replacing him with, and stubbornly sticking with a no-mark coach, and removing the existing board without replacement are what killed us.

What a long post just to say that time has proved that I was right and you were wrong.

[patrickvalery]

What a long post just to say that time has proved that I was right and you were wrong.

Theno, you've never really struck me as the sort who seeks such gratification.

[Pedro]

What a long post just to say that time has proved that I was right and you were wrong.

You aren't doing a very good job of disproving anyone's valid arguements to be fair, just blindly sticking to your guns in an unstable ivory tower.

I think Mark is correct in saying there were many reasons why Sam could've been sacked...to be simply replaced by a backstabbing weasel with no experience and too much influence shouldn't have been one of them.

[Silencio]

I think Mark is correct in saying there were many reasons why Sam could've been sacked...

Many? There was no good reason to sack him. Results were good, young players were coming through. Attendances were up.

List the reasons against...

[patrickvalery]

Many? There was no good reason to sack him. Results were good, young players were coming through. Attendances were up.

List the reasons...

1. We didn't have strong links with any football agents

2. The average age of the squad was too high - too much bloody experience

3. We didn't have the new Chris Smalling on our books

4. We hadn't explored the South American market enough

5. We were spending far too little on agents fees

6. We had gained a reputation as being a well run club with core family values - boring

I could go on but i think you've probably seen the error of your ways bish.

[Neil Weaver]

Many? There was no good reason to sack him. Results were good, young players were coming through. Attendances were up.

List the reasons...

One reason. He wouldn't toe the Venky line. End of bickering, close the bloody thread.

[jim mk2]

One reason. He wouldn't toe the Venky line. End of bickering, close the bloody thread.

Aw, come on, closing it would stop the entertaining spectacle of the anti-Allardyce mob digging themselves into a deeper hole and making more U-turns to justify their stance than David Cameron.

It's astonishing that anyone was willing to give Venky's the benefit of the doubt when they arrived when it was patently obvious with their ludicrous statements that they were taking the rise out of the club and the fans. I've no doubt that Sam's detractors also invested in Icelandic banks and believed the Tory manifesto in the last election. I guess some folk are just plain stupid.

[Salgado Is A Hero]

Aw, come on, closing it would stop the entertaining spectacle of the anti-Allardyce mob digging themselves into a deeper hole and making more U-turns to justify their stance than David Cameron.

It's astonishing that anyone was willing to give Venky's the benefit of the doubt when they arrived when it was patently obvious with their ludicrous statements that they were taking the rise out of the club and the fans. I've no doubt that Sam's detractors also invested in Icelandic banks and believed the Tory manifesto in the last election. I guess some folk are just plain stupid.

Well I'm sure most thought it would be a better idea to judge them on their actions rather than their words. What their actions turned out to be is another matter altho not relevant to this discussion. So a bunch of people who knew nothing about football started making bold statements and that was more than enough to want rid of them instantly without seeing what they would do? Almost every point you and a couple others make is 99% arrogance in which you look to be desperately seeking gratification.... I'm surprised you don't end each of your ridiculously up-yourself messages with "I told you so".

Most of you select few, all point back to Allardyce vs Kean in which you're all then automatically proved right due to the incompetence of Kean while not really being as relevant to what others are saying. And also don't seem to acknowledge any Allardyce wrong-doings (eg defending Kalinic with - "A GAMBLE THAT FAILED BROUGHT ON THROUGH NECESSITY AND KALINIC WAS NOT ONE OF ALLARDYCES PRIMARY TARGETS AT THAT TIME" oh well I guess that's alrite then) and promote the fact he rarely spent any money even tho he did and spent less on average than Hughes.....as well as being pretty hypocritical sometimes.....all while accusing others of being just that and never accepting that perhaps other people have other views or opinions on what they want from watching football....well they do acknowledge it but it's wrong as it's different to theirs.

As well as highlighting the fact that some posters apparently won't admit when they're wrong while Tom M summed it up nicely - "All this is now serving is stroking some egos, ironically some of those have made even worse errors of judgement but would rather ignore that".....like I've said previously fans didn't want Sam at first and we got Ince instead and I'm sure some of them were pro-Sam so why weren't they then?

Yes results can be seen as the most important thing but why did people start watching football in the 1st place? Is it because they think it's one of, or the most entertaining sport? If results were the absolute only thing that mattered to everyone you would get a lot more glory seekers. Why not just support a team in every sport so you can watch your team get results?

I forgot another one of my main issues with Allardyce as well.....the fact that what felt like half the goals we conceded were after our centre backs were out of position after being sent forward for a Robinson free kick or Pedersen throw in, that I remember working all the time.....apart from against Fulham I think when Diouf barged their keeper......I don't think football fans base their opinions on a manager on what they think of him personally.....Kean is an absolute ###### and yet it is less than 1% of why I want rid of him........I don't feel in any recent season we had a squad that should be battling relegation (compared to the teams that were) so surely thinking we should achieving higher than just that isn't wrong.

[Silencio]

like I've said previously fans didn't want Sam at first and we got Ince.

Well they should have learnt their lesson after the first time. Ince set us back about 5 years and cost the club a fortune and that was largely thanks to the facebook "campaign" against Sam. Yet 2 and half years later the same bunch were cheering when Sam got fired after rescuing us from a situation they had helped create.

I can't believe people are still coming out with the line that sacking Sam would have been the "right thing to do" if we "had got someone better". There are better managers out there than SA but very few who would manage our resources better than he did. The players he inherited from Ince had been on the skids from January 2008 and that was why Hughes walked.

Anyway, sacking a manager mid-season over the style of football must be pretty much ALWAYS the wrong thing to do if the results are good.

[Salgado Is A Hero]

Well they should have learnt their lesson after the first time. Ince set us back about 5 years and cost the club a fortune and that was largely thanks to the facebook "campaign" against Sam. Yet 2 and half years later the same bunch were cheering when Sam got fired after rescuing us.

I can't believe people are still coming out with the line that sacking Sam would have been the "right thing to do" if we "had got someone better". There are better managers out there than SA but very few who would manage our resources better than he did. The player he inherited from Ince had been on the skids from January 2008 and that was why Hughes walked.

Anyway, sacking a manager mid-season over the style of football must be pretty much ALWAYS the wrong thing to do.

Was it just the facebook campaign? I'm sure I remember reading/hearing that supporters groups got involved. It can't of just been that. And surely the board were the main culprits for hiring Ince, not the fans. I mean I love John Williams etc but it's not like they could do no wrong. I thought John Williams didn't want Michael Laurdrup because he wanted a clause in his contract stating that he must be allowed to talk to a top 3 La Liga team if they came in for him. I know Hughes had just left and it would be better to hire a manager for the relatively long term but he would have to have done a good enough job for likely Real Madrid, Barca or Valencia to want him and we would of received compensation.

"very few who would manage our resources better than he did" - statements like this are subjective and impossible to prove. Like the argument against. Or why it was that Hughes walked. Our team definitely wasn't as strong as other seasons in Hughes' reign but it's not like anywhere near the majority of managers would of seen us languishing near the bottom of the table. Ince and Kean are easily 2 of the worst managers to have been in the premier league, especially the latter.

Allardyce might of had a negative transfer budget after selling Santa Cruz and Warnock but if we are going to lambast Ince for spending £5.3 million on Grella and Andrews (or £8.8 with Robinson as some fans might think), then surely we have to do the same with Sam after £9 million on Kalinic and Chimbonda. There were good points with Allardyce but for me there were quite a few significant negatives and just cos he was substantially better than Ince and Kean, it doesn't make him anywhere near perfect.

But yea of course to sack him at that point of the season was stupid even Topman would agree.

[Mattyblue]

It's very simple.

Clubs with limited resources do not sack managers doing a good job.

JW knew this and the anti- 'oofball brigade would have had to lump it.

Stability is what you should cherish at a club, unfortunately too many Rovers fans thought that their wish 'to see football played the right way' was more important than a stable club.

[gumboots]

It's very simple.

Clubs with limited resources do not sack managers doing a good job.

JW knew this and the anti- 'oofball brigade would have had to lump it.

Stability is what you should cherish at a club, unfortunately too many Rovers fans thought that their wish 'to see football played the right way' was more important than a stable club.

To be quite honest, I don't think even those who didn't like allardyce, his style of play, his apparent arrogance in interviews etc actually thought that sacking him when it happened was a good idea. However, most were prepared to see who came in and thought that the sacking might be a good thing if the appointment was right. As then happened the appointment was so far wrong it defied logic and the continuation of that employment is up there with the Marie Celeste and other unfathomable mysteries.

At no point did i say i didn't like the winning under Allardyce but as someone else said there was none of that euphoric joy you ought to feel occasionally with the manner of the win. We all know there are times to win ugly - Hughes's first season for example. We're not spoilt babies who always expect entertainment, but we do feel that as paying customers we have the right to get some excitement in a performance as well as winning. Attendances may have been up but how much was that due to the drop in season ticket prices? Would the fan base have held if Allardyce ahd stayed? We'll never know because he was sacked.

I didn't want allardyce in the first place but accepted that he was probably the right man at the right time for us. Even though i disliked him and everything about him I wasn't calling for him to go. I think that says volumes about the way the club has been going downhill, not just under the current mob, but for several years before that. I wasn't fooled by Venkys - I wasn't here to hear them and laughed at their pronouncements from abroad, but I did want to see whether what they did was better than what they said. It wasn't in any way - it was so much worse.

[MarkBRFC71]

Theno, you've never really struck me as the sort who seeks such gratification.

Ha ha ha.... you're joking, right?

To look at it from another angle then. If you were to ask Jim, Theno etc "why did we get relegated? ", their sole reason would be "because we sacked Sam".

Clearly not the only factor. The main reasons we were relegated are because we appointed an inexperienced no-mark, stuck with him despite results, got rid of or sidelined our most experienced players, and removed Williams. Sam might have had a better chance of keeping us up, but his sacking at best was a secondary contributory factor that could have been mitigated with the right appointment.

Allardyce would more likely than Kean have kept us up, but it's a fallacy to say that we couldn't also have been relegated with him at the helm; equally he wasn't the only person on earth capable of keeping us up as some of the numbskulls on here would have people believe.

[Fife Rover]

Because he was replaced by a chimp.

Chimps are intelligent so that can't be right........a worm?

[dave birch]

It amazes me that some on here are more concerned with point scoring.

If those points helped us stay up, fair enough, but.....

Put your energy behind getting rid of the disease that is currently afflicting the Rovers, rather than trying to belittle other fans.

[davulsukur]

It's very simple.

Clubs with limited resources do not sack managers doing a good job.

JW knew this and the anti- 'oofball brigade would have had to lump it.

Stability is what you should cherish at a club, unfortunately too many Rovers fans thought that their wish 'to see football played the right way' was more important than a stable club.

Williams knew how important it was for a club like ours to remain on the premier league gravy train. Keeping the club competetive, while keeping ticket prices down, paying decent wages to players and appeasing Mr Banker was a remarkable achievement. Allardyce ticked all the boxes for continuing the good work.

It's often said (which i agree with) that the fans are the victims in this situation we currently find ourselves in. However, we should also spare a thought for the likes of John Willaims, Tom Finn and all their staff that worked at Rovers that have been cut by Venkys. If i was a member of the previous regime that had worked so hard for years in making Rovers all that it once was, only to see my work completley destroyed in such a short space of time, i think i would have been in tears when Alcaraz nodded home for Wigan.

[Majiball]

True. Allardyce wanted him in January 2009 but we were short of funds...

Perhaps he should have signed lewdonowski (sp)

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

The 'Dawn of Doom' for this club.

[Silencio]

Perhaps he should have signed lewdonowski (sp)

Not Sam's fault that one. He had him here watching games at the end of 2009/10 and was ready to sign him. He told the board they needed to act fast but they dithered over paying 4 million. He's now one of the best centre forwards in Europe.