[Archived] Shebby Singh

[RibbleValleyRover]

Who was to know at the time that Venky's was going to appoint a pub league level manager in Steve Kean? I don't think anyone expected that when Venky's came in with promises to spend to take the club to the next level and with several big name managers interested in the job. In hindsight of course it was a bad decision that was made but he wasn't the only manager out there that could have done the job and be pretty successful.

Would he have kept us in the league? Probably but there was no guarantee, the transfer model at the club of not putting money into the club and relying on player sales to reinvest (which was the policy under the trust) is always a dangerous one. What happens if you search the bargain bin and don't find enough players to add to the team? I think it was a combination of decent management and scouting plus a good slice of luck that saw us use this model for so long and made it work. I can think of several clubs which tried similar and failed spectacularly.

I really don't see how looking back is going to achieve much. We all know where it went wrong and how it continues to this day, there's simply not a lot we can do about it.

[Jimmy612]

Nope, although people do like to pigeonhole me in that camp since I don't worship him and or subscribe to his anti-football philosophy. I said that Sam's sacking was badly timed in mid-season and that they better have a decent replacement lined up.

Actually, Saxo's argument was that Laudrup wouldn't "do well" with Sam's resources. Define "do well" for a club of Rovers' size. I'm fairly confident we could have achieved at least the same mid-table obscurity with Laudrup that we did with Allardyce.

Disagree. It was their unwavering support for Kean that saw the club ultimately lose its PL status. They had plenty of time between Sam's dismissal and then to right their wrongs. They stubbornly chose not to.

To which you implied that he had received similar resources at Swansea, when in actually fact he has about 28.5 million extra resources. Who knows how Laudrup would have done, he seems like a decent manager and has added quality to an already decent Swansea side - albeit as discussed above, with a fairly considerable transfer budget.

Did you have any suggestions at the time of who might have been a good replacement? oh and before you mention him - It would seem that Laudrup does demand financial support - recognised at the start of the summer when rumours of a bust up between him and chairman (name???) were quite prominent.

[RoverInverness]

I should know better than to jump into this debate, and I certainly should know better than to agree with Thenodrog about anything, but Allardyce is the ONLY manager who can GUARANTEE a small club premier league survival.

Yes there are other good managers who will doubtless put a couple more bums on seats in the stadium for a year or two, but none of them can cement a low spending club with gates under 30 000 firmly into the middle of the big boys league. We all know the downsides of his tactics, but I am convinced that it will be a long, long, long, long time before he ever takes a club down. There is no other manager who provides that assurance. Even had Venkys replaced him with Laudrup or Atkins or whoever we could have never felt so safe at the start of season that we wouldn't end up in the bottom three - ONLY Allardyce provides that financial dependability.

[Jimmy612]

I should know better than to jump into this debate, and I certainly should know better than to agree with Thenodrog about anything, but Allardyce is the ONLY manager who can GUARANTEE a small club premier league survival.

Yes there are other good managers who will doubtless put a couple more bums on seats in the stadium for a year or two, but none of them can cement a low spending club with gates under 30 000 firmly into the middle of the big boys league. We all know the downsides of his tactics, but I am convinced that it will be a long, long, long, long time before he ever takes a club down. There is no other manager who provides that assurance. Even had Venkys replaced him with Laudrup or Atkins or whoever we could have never felt so safe at the start of season that we wouldn't end up in the bottom three - ONLY Allardyce provides that financial dependability.

Good post but just to quickly clear this up - do you refer to Nigel Adkins or Mark Atkins here? Feel it's important that we are completely on the same wavelength here

[McClarky]

I wouldn't. Not that the subsequent bunch of losers have been any better, but for me Allardyce marks the point when Rovers went from being a reasonably entertaining side to watch to being thoroughly boring.

Allardyce's hateful brand of anti-football brings you stable, stagnant mediocrity. There are better options, but unfortunately Shebby and Venkys were unable to see them.

I can understand this view. I thought we should have been looking round for someone who we could bring in to replace BFS over the next couple of years who could take the club forward. The problem was though that this wasn't done and we just ended up getting rid of him and anyone who could have managed a transition properly, hence the steep downaward spiral.

[RoverInverness]

Good post but just to quickly clear this up - do you refer to Nigel Adkins or Mark Atkins here? Feel it's important that we are completely on the same wavelength here

Sorry, Adkins - thanks for the correction!

[Sparky Marky]

I can understand this view. I thought we should have been looking round for someone who we could bring in to replace BFS over the next couple of years who could take the club forward. The problem was though that this wasn't done and we just ended up getting rid of him and anyone who could have managed a transition properly, hence the steep downaward spiral.

Who would have been a good replacement for BS at the time then? Getting rid of him was the major error..., or listening to JA was the major error...Sam wouldn't have put up with his shyte and JA knew this....We've been raped and pillaged by the lot of them....

[davulsukur]

Did you have any suggestions at the time of who might have been a good replacement? oh and before you mention him - It would seem that Laudrup does demand financial support - recognised at the start of the summer when rumours of a bust up between him and chairman (name???) were quite prominent.

Not quite sure you why he isn't allowed to be mentioned considering Kean must have spent near £20million on utter dross.

He wasn't exactly working to a tight budget. And we were handing out wages as if it was monopoly money.

[Steve Kean's Hypnotoad]

I can understand this view. I thought we should have been looking round for someone who we could bring in to replace BFS over the next couple of years who could take the club forward. The problem was though that this wasn't done and we just ended up getting rid of him and anyone who could have managed a transition properly, hence the steep downaward spiral.

Which way were we going under Allardyce? A miraculous escape from relegation in his first season, given we were marooned 5 points behind 18th when took over at Christmas. 10th in his second season. Ok at the time of his sacking 13th in his third season but this was being done on the biggest negative spending budget of any Rovers manager that I can recall. Allardyce was in charge during a period where the trust was trying to sell the club and was frantically clawing back money in terms of player sales. I doubt any other manager in football would have been able to do what Allardyce did at Rovers in an environment of having to sell Friedel, Bentley, Warnock and Santa Cruz between 2008-09 to raise £40m for the Walker Trust. Souness operated on concrete, Hughes on wood, Allardyce on quicksand.

So because he wasn't propelling us forward through that quicksand at 100mph in his third season (his previous 1.5 yielding huge improvement), that's a credible reason to replace him? Allardyce's West Ham side caught up to Laudrup's Swansea in their first season in the top flight. The guy can match the very best small club managers in the short term, and convincingly outstrip them in the long term. And the funny thing now is because he's managing a London club, the press have stopped their ridiculous exaggerations about his style of football. Leaving a lot of his critics at Rovers as sheep following a shepherd who's changed his mind.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Which way were we going under Allardyce? A miraculous escape from relegation in his first season, given we were marooned 5 points behind 18th when took over at Christmas. 10th in his second season. Ok at the time of his sacking 13th in his third season but this was being done on the biggest negative spending budget of any Rovers manager that I can recall. Allardyce was in charge during a period where the trust was trying to sell the club and was frantically clawing back money in terms of player sales. I doubt any other manager in football would have been able to do what Allardyce did at Rovers in an environment of having to sell Friedel, Bentley, Warnock and Santa Cruz between 2008-09 to raise £40m for the Walker Trust. Souness operated on concrete, Hughes on wood, Allardyce on quicksand.

So because he wasn't propelling us forward through that quicksand at 100mph in his third season (his previous 1.5 yielding huge improvement), that's a credible reason to replace him? Allardyce's West Ham side caught up to Laudrup's Swansea in their first season in the top flight. The guy can match the very best small club managers in the short term, and convincingly outstrip them in the long term. And the funny thing now is because he's managing a London club, the press have stopped their ridiculous exaggerations about his style of football. Leaving a lot of his critics at Rovers as sheep following a shepherd who's changed his mind.

Agreed.

[McClarky]

Who would have been a good replacement for BS at the time then? Getting rid of him was the major error..., or listening to JA was the major error...Sam wouldn't have put up with his shyte and JA knew this....We've been raped and pillaged by the lot of them....

I didn't say we should have got shot at the time but that we should have been looking for potential longer term cabndidates. Sacking him was a disaster and getting rid of John Williams was an even bigger disaster as he was the person who could have managed the transition when the time was right. Easy with hindsight though eh. No doubt that the whole fiasco has destroyed our club.

[yoda]

I thought this was the shabby ming thread!

[Mike E]

Which way were we going under Allardyce? A miraculous escape from relegation in his first season, given we were marooned 5 points behind 18th when took over at Christmas. 10th in his second season. Ok at the time of his sacking 13th in his third season but this was being done on the biggest negative spending budget of any Rovers manager that I can recall. Allardyce was in charge during a period where the trust was trying to sell the club and was frantically clawing back money in terms of player sales. I doubt any other manager in football would have been able to do what Allardyce did at Rovers in an environment of having to sell Friedel, Bentley, Warnock and Santa Cruz between 2008-09 to raise £40m for the Walker Trust. Souness operated on concrete, Hughes on wood, Allardyce on quicksand.

So because he wasn't propelling us forward through that quicksand at 100mph in his third season (his previous 1.5 yielding huge improvement), that's a credible reason to replace him? Allardyce's West Ham side caught up to Laudrup's Swansea in their first season in the top flight. The guy can match the very best small club managers in the short term, and convincingly outstrip them in the long term. And the funny thing now is because he's managing a London club, the press have stopped their ridiculous exaggerations about his style of football. Leaving a lot of his critics at Rovers as sheep following a shepherd who's changed his mind.

Absolutely agree but will just point out that Ince sold Friedel, not Sam.

[davulsukur]

Absolutely agree but will just point out that Ince sold Friedel, not Sam.

And Ince sold Bentley

[darrenrover]

Which way were we going under Allardyce? A miraculous escape from relegation in his first season, given we were marooned 5 points behind 18th when took over at Christmas. 10th in his second season. Ok at the time of his sacking 13th in his third season but this was being done on the biggest negative spending budget of any Rovers manager that I can recall. Allardyce was in charge during a period where the trust was trying to sell the club and was frantically clawing back money in terms of player sales. I doubt any other manager in football would have been able to do what Allardyce did at Rovers in an environment of having to sell Friedel, Bentley, Warnock and Santa Cruz between 2008-09 to raise £40m for the Walker Trust. Souness operated on concrete, Hughes on wood, Allardyce on quicksand.

So because he wasn't propelling us forward through that quicksand at 100mph in his third season (his previous 1.5 yielding huge improvement), that's a credible reason to replace him? Allardyce's West Ham side caught up to Laudrup's Swansea in their first season in the top flight. The guy can match the very best small club managers in the short term, and convincingly outstrip them in the long term. And the funny thing now is because he's managing a London club, the press have stopped their ridiculous exaggerations about his style of football. Leaving a lot of his critics at Rovers as sheep following a shepherd who's changed his mind.

Wholeheartedly agree but detested the fair on the pitch (or in the air) every Saturday afternoon during the Allardyce years. I used to feel like we'd lost when we'd won 1-0.

[yoda]

Wholeheartedly agree but detested the fair on the pitch (or in the air) every Saturday afternoon during the Allardyce years. I used to feel like we'd lost when we'd won 1-0.

Maybe you took some comfort from the league table to keep you going

[thenodrog]

Removing Allardyce was pivotal - exacerbated by the appointment of the utterly incompetent Scottish baldy - in the downfall of the club.

To suggest otherwise is convenient to the Big Sam-bashers.

I think a study of the scottish baldy's finances might reveal that he was far from utterly incompetent. Unless I am very much mistaken he'll have been left as rich as Croesus from his double dealing and treachery to his employers and the club that employed him.

Nope, although people do like to pigeonhole me in that camp since I don't worship him and or subscribe to his anti-football philosophy. I said that Sam's sacking was badly timed in mid-season and that they better have a decent replacement lined up.

A popular cop out.

[1864roverite]

Lest we forget, Steve KEAN is a KEANING KEAN end of.

[Amo]

To which you implied that he had received similar resources at Swansea, when in actually fact he has about 28.5 million extra resources. Who knows how Laudrup would have done, he seems like a decent manager and has added quality to an already decent Swansea side - albeit as discussed above, with a fairly considerable transfer budget.

Don't get ahead of yourself. Fact of the matter is that last season Laudrup had a negative budget and managed to take Swansea into the Top 10 AND win a domestic trophy. What he spends after that is irrelevant to the point. Will he turn out to be a one-hit wonder? Maybe. I doubt Swansea fans care too much about that at the moment. They're busy looking forward to the season ahead.

Also, I daresay at the time, Laudrup would've done any worse than Ince. What on earth was JW smoking?

Did you have any suggestions at the time of who might have been a good replacement? oh and before you mention him - It would seem that Laudrup does demand financial support - recognised at the start of the summer when rumours of a bust up between him and chairman (name???) were quite prominent.

Martin Jol, Dick Advocaat, Martin O'Neill, were all managers available at the time, who in my opinion, could've come in and done the job without breaking the bank and without resorting to spoiling tactics. Do any of them have the same track record as Allardyce in the PL? Nope. Do I care? Nooooope.

[thenodrog]

Who was to know at the time that Venky's was going to appoint a pub league level manager in Steve Kean? I don't think anyone expected that when Venky's came in with promises to spend to take the club to the next level and with several big name managers interested in the job. In hindsight of course it was a bad decision that was made but he wasn't the only manager out there that could have done the job and be pretty successful.

Would he have kept us in the league? Probably but there was no guarantee, the transfer model at the club of not putting money into the club and relying on player sales to reinvest (which was the policy under the trust) is always a dangerous one. What happens if you search the bargain bin and don't find enough players to add to the team? I think it was a combination of decent management and scouting plus a good slice of luck that saw us use this model for so long and made it work. I can think of several clubs which tried similar and failed spectacularly.

I really don't see how looking back is going to achieve much. We all know where it went wrong and how it continues to this day, there's simply not a lot we can do about it.

Well I certainly suspected it and said so. Fancy that coke head Maradona did you?

Anyway never mind that stupid Indian lot. There had been a strong anti-Allardyce movement since before he even came from our very own footballing intelligentsia. I posted frequently asking who we could hope to attract to replace him with but without any success. I rem quite a few thought MoN, Roy Kean, Curbs and Jol would have crawled a mile over broken glass for the job. MoN and Kean having since been found out to be unfit to lace Allardyces boots of course. Curbishly is spectacularly uninterested in managing anybody and Jol would always demand more than BRFc could offer and is no improvement on Big Sam anyway. A few put on the spot suggested and ludicrously proposed Tugay whilst one or two would have had Holloway and even Coyle. Laudrup and Henk Ten Cate (who) sound OK but both had never managed in this country and as such represented a massive and completely unecessary gamble when it has to be said that Allardyce already had us in an annual position of over achievement.

Truth is the only manager who I deem capable of replacing Allardyce here and at managing a Prem club on a shoestring has just joined Man Utd..... so that was never going to happen was it?

Is it too hard for you lot to admit that you keaned up and that the judgement of myself and a good number of others was completely sound and accurate from the start?

btw No good looking back? Never heard of "Learning from ones mistakes" have you RVR?

[Amo]

Is it too hard for you lot to admit that you keaned up and that the judgement of myself and a good number of others was completely sound and accurate from the start?

Again, the presence of Kean outweighed the absence of Allardyce.

[thenodrog]

I should know better than to jump into this debate, and I certainly should know better than to agree with Thenodrog about anything, but Allardyce is the ONLY manager who can GUARANTEE a small club premier league survival.

You should do so more often, I'm usually proven right.

[thenodrog]

I can understand this view. I thought we should have been looking round for someone who we could bring in to replace BFS over the next couple of years who could take the club forward. The problem was though that this wasn't done and we just ended up getting rid of him and anyone who could have managed a transition properly, hence the steep downaward spiral.

As I and more than a few others on here quite correctly predicted. It appears that you still cannot bring yourself around to seeing the wood for the trees.

I too did not find Allardyces style with us particularly attractive but that was down to finance and necessity. The Walker Trust had neither intention nor desire to fund the likes of Djorkaeff, Okocha or Campo so we and Allardyce had to 'make do' with what we had been handed on by Ince.

Here's someone who appreciates his qualities..... http://www.espn.co.uk/football/sport/story/225885.html

[jim mk2]

Bloody hell, Sam Allardyce. We can only dream of hiring a manager of his quality now.

[thenodrog]

Wholeheartedly agree but detested the fair on the pitch (or in the air) every Saturday afternoon during the Allardyce years. I used to feel like we'd lost when we'd won 1-0.

Complete @#/?.......... based on how I felt at 5.00 pm on Sat when we HAD lost 1-0.

Martin Jol, Dick Advocaat, Martin O'Neill, were all managers available at the time, who in my opinion, could've come in and done the job without breaking the bank and without resorting to spoiling tactics. Do any of them have the same track record as Allardyce in the PL? Nope. Do I care? Nooooope.

You've got exactly what you deserve then. Congratulations. I hope you are very happy with yourself for the next half century at least.