What is the main issue poll

[The Bunny 305]

6 hours ago, Mullet said:

Despite the enthusiasm around the new signings they have not been good enough. You can't sack the players though and surely Webber didn't rely on youtube clips to recruit them so sack the scouts that thought they were good enough.

Ignoring the fact that Webber thought it was a good idea to sell our best player upon getting promoted, and ultimately made the decision to purchase these players as replacements.

Yeah, not Webber's fault at all... 

[Herman 9,717]

Automatic block for anyone still whining about the sale of Buendia FFS!! There's a right to be angry at the moment but no right to be pig ignorant.

[Jim Smith 2,314]

9 hours ago, ricardo said:

Everyone has that choice.

If you can't  get through the rough times you need to pick a club that doesnt have any or do something else. What we are going through now is the downswing, its happened before, many times and it will happen again after the next upswing.

This is our lot as a medium size football club. Its what we are. Wishing things were different is not going to change that fact.

To be honest I’m struggling to think of a period as wretched as this and the last ten games last time we were in the premier.

I know we’ve had worse teams and been a lot sh*tter many times in our history but the high public profile of the premier league, the media attention being given to how cr*p we are and the  fact it’s happened right at the outset of the season meaning we are almost relegated by a November make this particularly humiliating and hard to watch. So I don’t blame any fan for thinking they can’t face watching it at present if that’s how they feel. 

[Yellow Fever 3,749]

13 hours ago, Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man said:

I'd say the biggest issue is the mindset and the lack of experience to pull ourselves out of it. Whereas Brentford came into the season fresh, full of hunger and riding the crest of a wave having not played in the top flight for 70 years, we just took one look at the fixture list (both players and fans), saw Liverpool and Man City as the first two games and just thought 'oh Christ, here we go again'. We took two hidings and it was like we were right back to July last year.

That and the fact that the nine new players this summer, aside from Gunn who is unlikely to play much, if at all, anyway, were all either under 21 or had no Premier League experience (or in some cases, both). The lack of experience shows, as we don't know what to do when the chips are down.

I genuinely believe the players are good enough as individuals to stay up, or at least put up a fight. But between them, they lack experience and they're all in a deep hole mentally that's tough to get out of.

Would a new coach change this? Slightly, but not enough for us to stay up. I'd certainly give Farke Brentford, and to be honest I'd be tempted to give him the season as he has a proven track record of succeeding in the Championship, which is where we're going to be next season regardless of whether we sack him or not.

 

I'd agree with this plus a total lack of belief / confidence.

We had a rotten start but not enough experience & wisdom in the squad to put it behind us and kick on. This lack of confidence and belief now shows itself in being 1 step too slow in thinking and touch - we aren't ruthless in front of goal.

Sadly a new manager may now be needed to shock the system out of its lethargy - and sacrifice a few holy cows. Pukki and McLean shouldn't be automatic starters etc.

As to Cantwell - who knows what's going on there but I'm beginning to feel like its an open sore that needs exorcising. 

 

[Cowboy 197]

2 hours ago, Jim Smith said:

... the media attention being given to how cr*p we are and the  fact it’s happened right at the outset of the season meaning we are almost relegated by a November make this particularly humiliating and hard to watch. So I don’t blame any fan for thinking they can’t face watching it at present if that’s how they feel. 

We are where we are. Of course it stings the ego to be regarded in that way, but we need to rise above that and keep battling on. Sing loudly and get a bit of luck and we've got a chance of getting back into contention in the avoiding relegation mini-league. That's all that matters, not what the rest of the world thinks of us.

[Petriix 2,834]

As far as I'm concerned, the problem is the way we signed so many new players and attempted to build a new system around them. What I think we should have done is focussed on retaining our style and momentum from the previous season. Our starting 11 for the Liverpool game should have been as close as possible to that which played our final Championship game, with just our Skipp and Buendia replacements.

And before you retort with '4-2-3-1 doesn't work in the Premier League' or whatever, please note that whatever we've tried since abandoning it has been so abjectly poor that it really couldn't have been worse!

We should have concentrated our transfer budget on those two positions while also bringing in cover in the areas where we had moved players on. 4 signings at around £15m each to really upgrade the first team, plus a couple of loans. The new players would have time to learn their roles in those opening games. We would have come out fighting, and probably still been hammered a couple of times but we would have retained the continuity and a clear vision of how to win football matches; we'd have probably scored a couple of goals and been easy on the eye too.

Then, come the Leicester and Arsenal games, we'd have a clear plan and the confidence to execute it. We could easily have won one or both of those. That would have given a totally different perspective to the Watford match which we could still have lost without such a feeling of despair. We could have 'done a Brentford' at Burnley and still have three times our current points tally.

As it stands, we have no idea what our best team is, what formation to play, or how to create goals. Confidence is shot, we have no identity, a squad full of players with no experience, no 'chemistry' on the pitch. Even if they might turn out to be individually good enough, we have abandoned something that was bigger than the sum of its parts.

The blame for this situation does not lie in one particular place. Richer owners would have meant more expensive signings, but we can't just go out and sign a new owner. More belief in our philosophy would have given us a fighting chance, but it was widely agreed that we needed to change some things in order to be competitive.

I think you can probably blame Webber for the poor signings and Farke for the poor tactics, but I don't think you can expect anything to change if you replaced one or both of them at this stage. You just have to hope that they can restore a semblance of credibility to the club before our inevitable relegation. Then we can dust ourselves down and give it another go. 

Edited November 1, 2021 by Petriix

[Danke bitte 965]

7 minutes ago, Petriix said:

Then we can dust ourselves down and give it another go. 

Great post as usual. But this last point… under Farke with Webber I don’t see it being as easy as that. Should Farke stay, being the ire of most fans, then most will have lost complete faith. Webber’s reputation will also be questioned as the man who kept a failing manager in charge. As it stands, as you rightly pointed to above, Webber dropped the ball with his transfer approach. 

Stick with Farke, finish dismally, and all confidence will be shot. They’ll be a mass exodus of players too. And with a team bereft of confidence and identity how do you tackle the Championship then? 

For me, sacking Farke now might not improve results immediately or at all but it will provide the new chief with a basis to hit the ground running in the Champ next season. That might be my wishful thinking but this better the devil you know approach right now might not guarantee an instant return. 

(P.s. we won’t mention the change of ownership topic right now…)

[Ken Hairy 3,760]

The problem we have now is the longer it's left the less chance we have of anyone wanting the job. 

[benchwarmer 624]

19 hours ago, ricardo said:

Everyone has that choice.

If you can't  get through the rough times you need to pick a club that doesnt have any or do something else. What we are going through now is the downswing, its happened before, many times and it will happen again after the next upswing.

This is our lot as a medium size football club. Its what we are. Wishing things were different is not going to change that fact.

It just isn't that simple.  Loyalty has to be a two way process or else it becomes exploitation.  This club does not respect its fans.  They think they can get away with anything.  They are acting in bad faith imo.  Last season they had to drop the new shirt sponsor.  Why?  Because the fans took action.

Edited November 1, 2021 by benchwarmer

[benchwarmer 624]

18 hours ago, ricardo said:

We are the 11th highest spenders in Europe this season so I doubt there is much wallowing going on.

It's not how much you spend but what you get for it that matters. Everyone in football knows that we're only in the PL for the parachute payments.  That's why we have to pay over the odds for a bunch of players who don't really want to be here.

[nutty nigel 7,513]

9 hours ago, Jim Smith said:

To be honest I’m struggling to think of a period as wretched as this and the last ten games last time we were in the premier.

I know we’ve had worse teams and been a lot sh*tter many times in our history but the high public profile of the premier league, the media attention being given to how cr*p we are and the  fact it’s happened right at the outset of the season meaning we are almost relegated by a November make this particularly humiliating and hard to watch. So I don’t blame any fan for thinking they can’t face watching it at present if that’s how they feel. 

I can't ever imagine other people's opinions driving me away from supporting our team.