[Archived] WBA

[RevidgeBlue]

Just now, blueboy3333 said:

Excellent PR man was John Williams, but overrated as a football administrator. Theorizing that more wages = higher league placing and then appointing Ince to put the theory into practice was lunacy. Hughes was the opposite side of the coin, a fantastic appointment.

The Saint John stuff is nauseating.

To play devil's advocate again, the fans played a large part in picking Hughes, there was a poll in the LT I think. Of course the Club didn't have to pick him at the end of the day.

[JHRover]

I seem to recall Hughes as being the obvious and perhaps only candidate to take over when Souness left. I don't remember many serious alternatives being put forward or linked to the job. Did well with Wales, keen to get into club management, knew the club as a player - ticked all the boxes. When Hughes left there was a lot of pushing for Rovers to go down the same route of appointing a young British manager and that bizarrely resulted in Paul Ince getting the job.

In short Williams appointed 3 managers - Hughes, Ince and Allardyce. Hughes was a big success, although in many ways an obvious appointment to make, Ince was a disaster with the priority seemingly being to follow the up and coming path rather than proven, whilst Allardyce was a success although again a very obvious and easy appointment to make given his record at Bolton, based locally and available.

[chaddyrovers]

Ince? What an awful appointment. 

We should have appoint Laudrup or Curbishley

[tomphil]

Ince ticked a few boxes at the time with a decent CV albeit at lower level, big name and well connected, localish based so no relocation or laying on of transport etc, prepared to come to a club with a limited budget.  Following on from the success of Hughes you can understand them thinking they might polish up another one and I don't think many expected him to be so out of his depth, although there was a few red flags like his lack of badges etc.

I'd still have had him over the con artist who appeared a season or two later though !

[blueboy3333]

25 minutes ago, tomphil said:

I'd still have had him over the con artist who appeared a season or two later though

The difference between thrush and syphilis.

[Vinjay]

6 hours ago, RevidgeBlue said:

To play devil's advocate again, the fans played a large part in picking Hughes, there was a poll in the LT I think. Of course the Club didn't have to pick him at the end of the day.

That would be correct (have referred to this poll before) and if people think that had no influence look back to 2008. Williams wanted Shearer first.

5 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

Ince? What an awful appointment. 

We should have appoint Laudrup or Curbishley

Ince has a family Chaddy!  

Williams regretted not selecting Laudrup though his record hasn't been infallible since. Granted he managed in the EPL for much longer than Ince did.

[sympatheticclaret]

7 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

Ince? What an awful appointment. 

We should have appoint Laudrup or Curbishley

I'm fairly sure there's been no positive sightings of Alan Curbishley outside the M25 since about 1987 !!!!

Sounds to me like the WBA chappie is " managing expectations " here....he should cheer up a little by 5pm on Saturday, we always play like drains at the Hawthorns !!

[blueboy3333]

14 hours ago, sympatheticclaret said:

I'm fairly sure there's been no positive sightings of Alan Curbishley outside the M25 since about 1987 !!!!

[philipl]

On 29/03/2018 at 00:45, sympatheticclaret said:

I'm fairly sure there's been no positive sightings of Alan Curbishley outside the M25 since about 1987 !!!!

Sounds to me like the WBA chappie is " managing expectations " here....he should cheer up a little by 5pm on Saturday, we always play like drains at the Hawthorns !!

Agreed that the WBA new CEO is taking a blatant professional dive.

Mind boggling that he finds a professional football club without an overdraft "in terrible financial condition".

Clarets will win today on the basis that you always lose to the club you never lose to in your relegation season.

Baggies are also without Simon Garner 

 

[sympatheticclaret]

2 hours ago, philipl said:

Clarets will win today on the basis that you always lose to the club you never lose to in your relegation season.

Baggies are also without Simon Garner 

 

Fair comment, I remember going down to the Hawthorns in 1993, and muttering to myself when my fellow Clarets were giving Garner a dog's abuse during the warm up....

Sure enough, three minutes in, the " toothless wonder " scored right in front of us and wheeled away waving at us with the biggest grin on his face and wishing us a pleasant  journey home presumably !!  

[chaddyrovers]

Looks like they are doomed. 

Still surprise Pardew is manager there

[1864roverite]

I think pardew is as well chaddy

[DE.]

Looks like he'll be there until the bitter end. 

[Exiled in Toronto]

8 hours ago, philipl said:

Agreed that the WBA new CEO is taking a blatant professional dive.

Mind boggling that he finds a professional football club without an overdraft "in terrible financial condition".

Clarets will win today on the basis that you always lose to the club you never lose to in your relegation season.

Baggies are also without Simon Garner 

 

Maybe so but this is a huge blot on Williams’ record. He was persisting with Souness too long till Newcastle had a brain fart, was persisting with the dreadful Ince (was his wife doing the scouting??) till the Trust actually took an interest, and persisted with Pulis too long. Souness was a great appointment, Hughes and Allardyce obvious ones, Ince and Pardew dreadful ones, so he’s not really a rainmaker when it comes to unearthing managerial gems.

Not the ‘safe pair of hands’ Baggies fans who came on here at the time were told.

[47er]

On 29/03/2018 at 02:09, JHRover said:

I seem to recall Hughes as being the obvious and perhaps only candidate to take over when Souness left. I don't remember many serious alternatives being put forward or linked to the job. Did well with Wales, keen to get into club management, knew the club as a player - ticked all the boxes. When Hughes left there was a lot of pushing for Rovers to go down the same route of appointing a young British manager and that bizarrely resulted in Paul Ince getting the job.

In short Williams appointed 3 managers - Hughes, Ince and Allardyce. Hughes was a big success, although in many ways an obvious appointment to make, Ince was a disaster with the priority seemingly being to follow the up and coming path rather than proven, whilst Allardyce was a success although again a very obvious and easy appointment to make given his record at Bolton, based locally and available.

As I recall plenty of fans reacted negatively to Hughes appointment at the time (no experience of managing in the Premiership etc) and were very critical about the way we played early on when we had to avoid relegation. 

It all come to fruition in the end though eh? We played great football under Hughes, absolutely the best manager we ever had. I do not think Kenny would have done so well with the same funding.

What a tragedy the Trust's indifference forced him out. Nothing like the later tragedy however where they topped that by some measure! 

I refer ,of course to the sale to Venkys. Never any acknowledgement or apology for what they did.

[den]

The sacking of John Williams was the single worst decision that Venkys ever made. Williams understood what was needed to keep Rovers feeding at the top table - more than most before him and definitely more than most since. He has my utmost respect, taking singular overall control after the death of Jack Walker. That was a massive task that he wasn’t prepared for and he did brilliantly in my opinion.

[RevidgeBlue]

27 minutes ago, den said:

The sacking of John Williams was the single worst decision that Venkys ever made. Williams understood what was needed to keep Rovers feeding at the top table - more than most before him and definitely more than most since. He has my utmost respect, taking singular overall control after the death of Jack Walker. That was a massive task that he wasn’t prepared for and he did brilliantly in my opinion.

Williams wasn't sacked. He walked out after negotiating a handsome compensation settlement for himself. Big Sam was the only major figure from the Walker Trust era that was sacked and that was surely a far greater mistake than the marginalisation of Williams.

[chaddyrovers]

1 hour ago, den said:

The sacking of John Williams was the single worst decision that Venkys ever made. Williams understood what was needed to keep Rovers feeding at the top table - more than most before him and definitely more than most since. He has my utmost respect, taking singular overall control after the death of Jack Walker. That was a massive task that he wasn’t prepared for and he did brilliantly in my opinion.

Didnt Williams decide to leave after January transfer window cos he wasnt involved as much as before Venkys? 

Didnt Tom Finn, Richard Matthewman and Martin Goodman all do the same?

14 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Big Sam was the only major figure from the Walker Trust era that was sacked and that was surely a far greater mistake than the marginalisation of Williams.

Some fans had enough Big Sam and his tactics in certain games and wanted change of manager. Wasnt this use to get Sam the sack? 

I wanted a change of style and play as I felt we had a squad which could have played a more attacking style. 

But realise.Big Sam would keep us up. When he was sacked I felt it was the perfect change to bring European manager like Bilic or Laudrup. Instead we didnt get this. 

[RevidgeBlue]

Just now, chaddyrovers said:

Didnt Williams decide to leave after January transfer window cos he wasnt involved as much as before Venkys? 

Didnt Tom Finn, Richard Matthewman and Martin Goodman all do the same? 

Don't think Williams was happy from the moment Allardyce was sacked behind his back. Don't  think it's any secret after that the Board felt completely marginalised either.

As far as I know Williams, Tom Finn and Goodman all left when it suited them, i.e. after having negotiated pay offs from the Club.

[philipl]

2 hours ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Don't think Williams was happy from the moment Allardyce was sacked behind his back. Don't  think it's any secret after that the Board felt completely marginalised either.

As far as I know Williams, Tom Finn and Goodman all left when it suited them, i.e. after having negotiated pay offs from the Club.

Behind his back?

Williams was forced to do he sacking himself.

The rest of this utter BS as well.

[RevidgeBlue]

1 hour ago, philipl said:

Behind his back?

Williams was forced to do he sacking himself.

The rest of this utter BS as well.

You're not doing yourself any favours with the above post.

Williams was tasked with the unpleasant job of delivering the bad news to Sam but the decision was presented to him as  a fait accompli. He had no input into the decision which is why I said it was done "behind his back."

Neither Williams, Finn nor Goodman were sacked. They were marginalised and eventually left of their own accord after negotiating suitable financial  terms for their departure.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

5 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

Didnt Williams decide to leave after January transfer window cos he wasnt involved as much as before Venkys? 

Didnt Tom Finn, Richard Matthewman and Martin Goodman all do the same?

Some fans had enough Big Sam and his tactics in certain games and wanted change of manager. Wasnt this use to get Sam the sack? 

I wanted a change of style and play as I felt we had a squad which could have played a more attacking style. 

But realise.Big Sam would keep us up. When he was sacked I felt it was the perfect change to bring European manager like Bilic or Laudrup. Instead we didnt get this. 

What you and the supporters of most clubs below the big six needed to realise is that you are only one really bad managerial appointment away from disaster.

The first thing I did when I heard Big Sam had been sacked was look at the league table to see how many points we needed to get to the magic 40 points. When they appointed Kean permanently after such a short time I knew we were doomed.

[Bigdoggsteel]

Mowbray being linked with this and the Ipswich job. Testament to the great job he is doing. Personally I hope he stays with us next season 

[dingles staying down 4ever]

3 hours ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

Mowbray being linked with this and the Ipswich job. Testament to the great job he is doing. Personally I hope he stays with us next season 

I've only seen Mowbray being linked with the Ipswich job. 

The only reason this thread is on this site is the link to Williams.

If we get promoted he'll stay it is that simple.

If he fails to lead us to promotion then I don't care what he does because he will have failed in his job. His words not mine.

[blueboy3333]

3 hours ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

What you and the supporters of most clubs below the big six needed to realise is that you are only one really bad managerial appointment away from disaster.

The first thing I did when I heard Big Sam had been sacked was look at the league table to see how many points we needed to get to the magic 40 points. When they appointed Kean permanently after such a short time I knew we were doomed.

Its also worth remembering that you don't have to play the soulless football Allardyce plays to stay in the Prem.