Well I Know It's Not Mathematically Over Yet...

[ncfcstar 290]

But this, in my opinion is a time for reflection, both on this season and on past events.At the beginning of the season, I won''t lie, I was confident that, although we might not see astounding success, we might just get a nice comfortable mid-table position.  I thought that Roeder had done the right thing by getting rid of deadwood and perhaps an old guard that existed at the club which may have not been needed anymore, and by getting in loans he got far better quality than what he would have got for the same money permanently.  By all accounts we performed well at Coventry, but everyone could see we desperately needed a striker.  From then on, nothing went very well, and I don''t think we''ve been in the top half of the table all season.Roeder, the right man to save us last season, soon became another flop of the Delia regime.  I believe what he tried to do was correct, but he was the wrong man to do it.  As it has been stated, the players and staff had little passion to turn up and play for Roeder, and his failure to get the players we needed and his reliance on Premier League youngsters was his ultimate downfall.  With his sacking came a distinct enthusiasm for the rest of the season, remember when he was sacked we were 6th from bottom.  It looked like with the right man we could turn our season around, and we all waited with baited breath for the announcement after the Barnsley game.  Unfortunately this led to another error by the board.  They were clearly swept up by the 4-0 result, and by the attempts by Gunny''s daughter to get him instated as manager.  At this time we clearly needed an experienced manager to do the job, and Boothroyd would probably have got us out of the mess we were in.  Gunn on the other hand, had no experience, except in dishing out prawn sandwiches as a mouthpiece of the club, in fact his scouting has not exactly been top notch either.  This appointment, along with the much touted "dream team", was a clear attempt by the board to appease the fans, and to a certain extent it did, 17,000 renewed their season tickets.Move on a couple of months, and we are 3rd from bottom, and more than likely relegated bar a miracle happening on Sunday.  Gunn is an inept manager, it is clear to see.  Last night summed him up.  Yet again he played Carney and Gow on the wrong wings, Carney looked absolutely lost and consequently was pretty terrible.  When change was needed, tactically, not just a substitution he failed to deliver.  Last night travelling back home listening Canary Call I had to laugh when he stated he didn''t bring on another striker because he felt Lee and MacDonald were playing well.  Well Mr. Gunn when you believe that,  you take off a midfielder or defender then, and put three up front.  We needed 2 goals by the time he brought, wait for it, a defender on.  His tactical ability is poor, and consequently he can not continue as manager next season.  We need to bring someone with experience in yet again, but our time has now passed to bring someone like Boothroyd in, he wont want to come to a League One club.  Gunn also, probably because his hands were tied to be fair, brought in more loan players.  This also annoys me because I now believe with the amount we have probably paid on loan fees this season, we could have brought in 2 or 3 good Championship players which would have worked out better than Omosuzi for example.It is clear that this has been coming since the beginning of the Premiership season.  The failure of the board to back Worthington in the summer, and bring in someone like Ashton then, rather than in January, ultimately led to our relegation.  Prudence clearly wasn''t working, and a certain change must have came around when Earnshaw was brought in the Championship for over £3m.  But, this did not continue.  Worthington was not sacked soon enough, his time was up, it wasn''t the fact that he had done anything wrong, it just happens in football.  The board then made the pathetic decision to hire Peter Grant as manager, and much like Gunn he didn''t really know how to manage a team.  Roeder, like I say, was the right man at the time, but the wrong man to turn our fortunes around permanently, I have no doubt that his was his last managerial job in football.  The board then had another chance to try and prove us wrong, and hire the right man to turn our fortunes around.  They didn''t, and this has led to relegation.  But it is not just poor managerial appointments in the period post-relegation.  A clear lack of investment in the team has also led to poor performances on the pitch.  How do the board account for the disappearance of transfer funds garnered from Ashton, Earnshaw and Green for example?  There are over £10m in transfer fees that the club have received in recent times, and there is no way that this has been invested back fully into the squad.  If the board think in the long term it is better to have a car park, and they can prove that, then fair enough if we are a comfortable mid-table Championship side, or consistently pushing for promotion.  Unfortunately for them, we have not been since relegation.  We needed investment into the playing squad, and did not get it, and the board''s long term goals, have led to disaster in the short term.  They have followed the Charlton model so it seems, and in fact caught up with them!It is clear that massive change is needed at the club, both a board level and managerial and playing level.  Delia needs to either invest massively into the club, or look to leave.  Gunn most definitely can not be given the job next season, and if the board want to persist with someone that has connections, it will have to go to either Boothroyd or Mark Robins.  Perhaps relegation to League One will save us, but is should never have happened, and I can only see it as massive failures by the board since our promotion to the Premier League that has caused this.  Last night was just the final little push that we have been waiting for for a long time, League One is on the horizon, and I hope Delia is sitting rather nervously in her kitchen this morning.Investment is needed before it''s too late, don''t expect an easy ride next season.

[Stephen Hawkings Football Boots 0]

Id have to agree with you on most of that. some similar things to my earlier post

http://new.pinkun.com/cs/forums/1658429/ShowPost.aspx

as for mcdonald i cant see him being that great especially in the championship as defenders will soon figure him out, he seemed to only have one trick last night though it did work most times.

[ncfcstar 290]

Bump [;)]

[Beauseant 0]

Excellent post mate. I agree wholeheartedly with all that you say. Clearly the club has to be rebuilt from the bottom up, and maybe dropping down will allow that to happen. Had we survived (and yes I know were not down technically!) I suspect it would have simply been more of the same. Gunn has to be replaced by someone with at least a modicum of managerial nous as his decision making ( or rather lack of same) has been little short of embarrassing, and the cosy little coterie of ex stars hasn''t exactly earned it''s corn either.