[Archived] Back Or Sack?

[onlyonejackwalker]

I like Bowyer as a bloke. Standard guy, easy manner. I respect a lot of his work and ways.

But has he really done that well? I can't say he has. Personally I think he's been pretty average.

I understand the problems and issues he faced. But so did he. And he jumped at the job. He knew things could be addressed relatively easily at this standard with hard work, common sense and cash. I imagine he will be absolutely gutted we are not much higher up the league, despite his sound bites to the blue tinted and gullible. What an opportunity!

The ability to bring nineteen of his own players into the club, supplementing one of the largest squads already in place in the division, spending more than the vast majority of the competition week in week out, utilising Premier League resources and facilities available to him, with zero interference and tons of support from above, within and from the terraces. A star striker guaranteeing 20 goals staring him in the face, current and former internationals dotted about, a huge squad to withstand the 9 month rigours and the luxury of buying two new teams almost. A dream job indeed.

And let no one pretend he hasn't had good money to play with at this level. I don't remember too many tales of players turning us down of late. We have committed to new contracts costing millions on these lads. But it's tricky spending well and he has had his ups and downs.

I'm of the view a more experienced manager makes a goalkeeper and defence his priority pre-season. I'm therefore of the view we waxed around 10 points early doors panicking every time the ball went near our goal due to not having a qualified keeper. A very serious error in my book and unforgivable in some respects, damaging all our defensive players in the process. Right back? The same applies, but not quite as important as the keeper.

I could go on, but there's no real point yet as we may still make the play offs. Which should have been a doddle as Burnley have proved. The overall standard has been shocking. Don't be fooled by those saying it's been good. Any of about 15 teams could easily be swapping places and we only needed three or four more wins to be right up there. Could a different manager have extracted a bit more from the players available? Pretty obvious to me.

He knew what he was doing. He has been very well paid. Has he done well. Mmmm not really. Steady away.

[gumboots]

I have that concern as well Jimmy he may be much better in the dressing room but comes across like he has the charisma of a flannel

His job is to win games, I feel if he made the right changes we would have won that game.

I do think we will stick with him so our only hope is he improves drastically on his weak points, it's not out of the question

Interestingly Tom he comes over much better privately than in public apparently. He's also apparently quite imposing. I've not met him myself so I can't say if it's true but someone who had listened to him quite a lot told me so.

[Tom]

Interestingly Tom he comes over much better privately than in public apparently. He's also apparently quite imposing. I've not met him myself so I can't say if it's true but someone who had listened to him quite a lot told me so.

People who have met him and spoke to him through his youth team days can't speak highly enough of him so I hope that is the case

[barry_]

It seems some posters try and change the facts to paint a rosier picture of just how things have been this season.

Bowyer plays Lowe/Williamson (whenever fit)

Bowyer plays Henley (whenever fit)

I keep on banging on about just these two points because NOTHING will change next season with the same manager.

Just look at the games since Burnley. Remember how poor these teams were. How, if we'd attacked instead of played it safe (Bowyer all over) we would be in the play-off positions now. There's been some good results along the way but Bournemoth,Yeovil, Wednesday and Bolton have just not been good enough.

[thenodrog]

Because your reasoning implies that if the players in this league had been around 20 years ago they would have been plying their trade at a higher level than the players I mentioned.

I understand your logic but maybe the standard of the leagues these years is well overrated meaning that bog standard players (because that's what they are) can and do play at the higher level. I know where my money would be if the Rovers side of 1987 rocked up against the class of 2014 anyway.

Only in your opinion..... but your opinion would be wrong.

Let me make it simple enough for most to understand LD.....

Just imagine if English football kicked out all the foreigners this seasons end. The Premier League clubs would be left with a third of their squads and would be signing most of the Championship players up before June was out. The Championship would be replacing them and more from the 1st Div etc.

Pretty undeniable I think no matter who you put your money on in you imaginary fixture. Can't believe that I have to explain this.

[thenodrog]

Still stand by what I've said but and I do still think he should step down if he doesn't reach promotion. He still is a moron for how reacted after Yeovil but and yes, that was the final straw for me... However, If he does get in the playoffs then that's fair enough, he'll have earned the right to be cut some slack.

So effectively you want to sack the first decent, honest to goodness manager out of 4, who has improved the squad markedly simply cos you took a bit of girly offence from what I deemed inoffensive comments? Home truths even! Every other club sacks a manager who is worsening the clubs situation, not improving it!

It's no wonder people deem BRFC supporters as a jury rather than a crowd is it?

[thenodrog]

So the manager was unable to get the players up for the 2nd half, even with the other results going in our favour.

Nah..... he couldn't get the Yeovil players down.

[den]

We can't really speak about finances so let's just take it from the perspective of next season - the aim should be promotion regardless of any other external issues. Situation is that Venky's are still the owners of the club.

Bowyer has done enough this season to convince me he could push us into contention for promotion next season. There have been some really bad results and the performances for the most part haven't been pretty. Having been to a fair few matches lately and a little earlier in the season I can certainly testify to that. Gary also struggles with substitutions, something he will need to address next season. That being said I believe he's our best shot of going up, because if Venky's are given the chance to hire again I think we'll get somebody worse. That aside the harmony of the squad will be disrupted, we'll have to pay out more money for a new manager & staff and it's possible a lot of Bowyer's signings will be sold/released and the new man allowed to bring in another group of players costing money and time to bed in. I'd suggest there's an argument to retaining Bowyer which has a lot of merits, Black Burn did an excellent job of summarising a little further up.

Am I to understand that your view is that we could do better and therefore we should sack Bowyer and roll the dice again? I assume you don't think Bowyer is the man to get us up and think Venky's would employ somebody better, but if not then I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter.

First sentence again. Why can't we speak about finances? Many months ago we were in debt to the tune of £55m. That's a fact we can talk about now. We can speculate with a fair degree of certainty that it's way above that now.

That's why we needed to look around and bring in the best manager available, rather than just go with a youth team coach. We didn't do that and in my opinion this season was/is probably the best chance we'll have of saving the club in it's current form. You can't look at the man we appointed without looking at the circumstances surrounding it.

Well....... You can I guess - and many do.

[DE.]

First sentence again. Why can't we speak about finances? Many months ago we were in debt to the tune of £55m. That's a fact we can talk about now. We can speculate with a fair degree of certainty that it's way above that now.

That's why we needed to look around and bring in the best manager available, rather than just go with a youth team coach. We didn't do that and in my opinion this season was/is probably the best chance we'll have of saving the club in it's current form. You can't look at the man we appointed without looking at the circumstances surrounding it.

Well....... You can I guess - and many do.

That's all in the past though. Nothing we can do about it. What would you do now?

[LDRover]

Only in your opinion..... but your opinion would be wrong.

Let me make it simple enough for most to understand LD.....

Just imagine if English football kicked out all the foreigners this seasons end. The Premier League clubs would be left with a third of their squads and would be signing most of the Championship players up before June was out. The Championship would be replacing them and more from the 1st Div etc.

Pretty undeniable I think no matter who you put your money on in you imaginary fixture. Can't believe that I have to explain this.

Until you take into account the 5 extra subs now allowed on matchdays, squad rotation and the Micah Richards/James Milner effect where good English players can toss it off week in week out and get paid huge amounts for doing so.

[den]

That's all in the past though. Nothing we can do about it. What would you do now?

So you agree with me, or you still don't know whether we're deep in debt?

Stretch, this is just wasting our lives away DE!

[DE.]

So you agree with me, or you still don't know whether we're deep in debt?

Stretch, this is just wasting our lives away DE!

It's highly likely we are. So what do you think is best - to sack Bowyer or retain him?

[Proudtobeblue&white]

It's highly likely we are. So what do you think is best - to sack Bowyer or retain him?

I'd set up a new thread on that point.

[martonrover]

So effectively you want to sack the first decent, honest to goodness manager out of 4, who has improved the squad markedly simply cos you took a bit of girly offence from what I deemed inoffensive comments? Home truths even! Every other club sacks a manager who is worsening the clubs situation, not improving it!

It's no wonder people deem BRFC supporters as a jury rather than a crowd is it?

Nigel Adkins was not worsening Southampton, nor was Nigel Clough worsening Derby.

Those clubs weighed it up and took a decision that someone else was needed in order to progress.

I see the Bowyer situation in the same light having watched several games this season.

I also factor in the Club's need to return to the top flight for financial reasons.

Every credit to Bowyer for steadying the ship.

[thenodrog]

Nigel Adkins was not worsening Southampton, nor was Nigel Clough worsening Derby.

Yes he was.

However there is no guarantee a new manager will improve anything. Lots of clubs have replaced their manager and lived to regret it. None more prominant currently than Man Utd.

[47er]

Whether he should be sacked or not, the Raos will make the decision. From their perspective he's brilliant.

This is the first season since they bought us that we haven't been involved in a relegation scrap (no coincidence I'm thinking).

Secondly he can buy a striker for 300000 quid who towers above defences and scores goals and loads of other players for pennies.

Raos must think they are in Heaven! I believe he'll stay.

[phili]

First sentence again. Why can't we speak about finances? Many months ago we were in debt to the tune of £55m. That's a fact we can talk about now. We can speculate with a fair degree of certainty that it's way above that now.

That's why we needed to look around and bring in the best manager available, rather than just go with a youth team coach. We didn't do that and in my opinion this season was/is probably the best chance we'll have of saving the club in it's current form. You can't look at the man we appointed without looking at the circumstances surrounding it.

Well....... You can I guess - and many do.

It's going to be around £85-90m of debt by the end of this season. This years loss is going to be around the £30-35m mark as we have all of the contract terminations we carried out over the summer in this years accounts. It'll probably be a new club record eclipsing last years.

[Black Burn]

But we were discussing English grammar and I did define the context and the interpretation. At no stage did I say it was bad or good, you've created those issues not me. Think of it as missing the point. PS i would like to add that unless you are DE you cannot know how he interprets that word or how he means it. Even if you are right at this moment it is an assumption on your part or conjecture.

Congratulations on working in Academia, it take it you work in a social science?

I work in humanities (actually, I'm in area studies, but I specialize in history and literature). I apologize for that, but as I said, I'm not sure how to interpret your words, so I came to the erroneous conclusion that you said it was bad or good.

And I don't know what DE means, that is why I made sure I used the words "assume", "think", etc. "I assume that DE means this when he said that", that's basically what I said, because I will never know what he means exactly, I can only guess based on personal interpretations and understanding of the conversation at hand. Even if my assumption is somehow "right", I think it still leaves room for other people to be right as well.

At the end of the day, it's all semantics, and that really isn't my thing. My thing is different interpretations of texts, so that's where I'm coming from.

As for finances, I heard that the club is dealing with it, so the number shouldn't rise drastically to over 90 million. I could be wrong, though. I mean, Shaw, Bowyer and official reports aren't going to tell us, "hey, we're doomed! Our debt will rise by two times over the next year". They'll be more likely to tell us (and they did), "we're working on it, we'll reduce the debt, so don't worry and don't panic." Whether we should believe that or not, is another question altogether.

I would like to believe they are telling the truth, but at the same time I'm not that naïve to swallow 100% of what they say and just *forget* about the debt.

[thenodrog]

How can any town club in the championship deal with that amount of debt? Interest charges alone will swallow our entired income. Its either the prem or bust IMO. How long we have to attain it is down solely to our owners. I do see the thinking in going for another manager but experience tells me that that guarantees nothing.

[Black Burn]

How can any town club in the championship deal with that amount of debt? Interest charges alone will swallow our entired income. Its either the prem or bust IMO. How long we have to attain it is down solely to our owners. I do see the thinking in going for another manager but experience tells me that that guarantees nothing.

If that's the case, isn't Bolton and Queen Park Rangers dealing with much worse debt than us? If I recall, both of them are town clubs, especially Bolton (I could be wrong about QPR though). I don't see any Bolton fans panicking about their debt, though.

Then there's Leeds, who's doing well despite suffering administration a few seasons ago. Debt and financial problems are bad, but they can be managed. Or at least that's me being optimistic.

[martonrover]

Yes he was.

However there is no guarantee a new manager will improve anything. Lots of clubs have replaced their manager and lived to regret it. None more prominant currently than Man Utd.

No he wasn't, Derby had 'stability' ;-)

Of course there's no guarantee and I understand and respect the counter arguments.

[Black Burn]

No he wasn't, Derby had 'stability' ;-)

Of course there's no guarantee and I understand and respect the counter arguments.

Nigel Clough lost 3 games in a row before he was sacked, so it depends on what "worsening" is. To be fair, I agree, Derby had stability, and at that point of time I thought they were stupid to sack Clough. They did find a good replacement in Steve McClaren though, so I've to swallow my words.

However, only 1 out of 4 teams will make it to the Premiership, and only 2 of those right now are experienced managers like McClaren and Rednapp. Their promotion still isn't guaranteed, so I'm not sure if we could call that success. Yet.

[DE.]

Clough was also given 4 or so seasons before Derby dispensed of him. Bowyer hasn't even had one full season in charge yet.

[Tom]

If that's the case, isn't Bolton and Queen Park Rangers dealing with much worse debt than us? If I recall, both of them are town clubs, especially Bolton (I could be wrong about QPR though). I don't see any Bolton fans panicking about their debt, though.

Then there's Leeds, who's doing well despite suffering administration a few seasons ago. Debt and financial problems are bad, but they can be managed. Or at least that's me being optimistic.

Bolton fans are worried about it you probably aren't seeing it becuase you don't frequent Bolton forums I imagine.

And QPR are effectively 3 games away from promotion back (although I hope they fail)

[Stuart]

Clough was also given 4 or so seasons before Derby dispensed of him. Bowyer hasn't even had one full season in charge yet.

Can we afford to wait 4 or so seasons? If we can great!