[Archived] Bolton vs Rovers

[den]

I challenge you to find a single post where I call for him to be sacked, I called for better football, but not once did I say that. He can do it we saw it ourselves. Sam wouldn't come back here and work for Venky's.

Den - If Sam was loved and adored by all, no-one would have booed, it hardly shows support for him either. Yes people were turning up we had 22,000 odd regulars before Sam even stepped foot at Ewood. Not liking the manager or style isn't enough to stop going as we know it takes much much more as we saw under Kean. You'll have to enlighten me to your obvious point. I remember people calling for his head after that poor run and posts on here were always split over him. Sam gets results, I've never said otherwise, but he's like marmite. Cheapest way to watch live premier league football in the country and I'm sure that played a small part in things. I'd like to see how attendances compared between Sam's era and hughes as under both results were decent but ticket prices rather different. Even under Kean last season after everything attendances were still strong for the most part. I just don't feel you can use attendances to say there was no ill feeling towards Sam, there must have been otherwise JW would have got him the second Hughes left, but even he feared the back-lash.

At no point did I say everyone loved Sam Maj. My reply is to your point that he "split the fan base". The booing the team got for not going gung ho when 3-0 up, could only come from the same fans who had made their minds up about him before he signed his contract.

[Mike E]

Indeed so. But unfortunately it was not a choice we had. We could not stop Hughes leaving (or maybe we could with better management) whereas sacking Allardyce was just suicide and seen as much by many at the time. Credit to darrenrover for admitting the errors of his judgement. More than a few should take a leaf out of his book.

Not that we really knew it at the time, but ALLEGEDLY if we'd spent 3m on (Lassana or Mamahdou?) Diarra from Portsmouth that Jan, he'd have stayed. His departure was supposedly down to a lack of faith shown in him (because the Walker Trust didn't care) despite his previous excellent spending record.

Then again, maybe the money of Citeh would've tempted him regardless? The fact is we had one of the best managers in the country at that time (maybe he just 'suited' us, looking at his record at future clubs) and we've fallen badly. JW appointing Sam stopped that fall and Venkys allowed the fall to continue. They've put an oval peg in a circle hole for now, and we're all hoping that last bit of planing will pay off.

[thenodrog]

Not that we really knew it at the time, but ALLEGEDLY if we'd spent 3m on (Lassana or Mamahdou?) Diarra from Portsmouth that Jan, he'd have stayed. His departure was supposedly down to a lack of faith shown in him (because the Walker Trust didn't care) despite his previous excellent spending record.

Then again, maybe the money of Citeh would've tempted him regardless? The fact is we had one of the best managers in the country at that time (maybe he just 'suited' us, looking at his record at future clubs) and we've fallen badly. JW appointing Sam stopped that fall and Venkys allowed the fall to continue. They've put an oval peg in a circle hole for now, and we're all hoping that last bit of planing will pay off.

In my recollection Diarra was at Arseanl and Portsmouth who were the Prem leagues 'new money' were splashing the cash at the time and outbid us. It's a moot point but within a few months he'd been sold to Real Madrid for 3x as much. Whether Arsenal had a kick back I don't know. The lack of faith was shown cos earlier in the season Hughes asked to be allowed to apply for the NUFC job.