Alex Neil - Complete Punt

[yellow_belly 226]

Okay okay, shoot me down…

When it was announced that we had appointed AN, it was a shock. Poor footballer, leads small club to top division in Scotland via play-offs. Just.

Since his arrival;

Bournemouth - set up my MP and GH. They should get the credit here.

Cardiff. Same team as Bornemouth. Brilliant in first half (continuation from Millwall and Huddersfield at home), second half. Useless. Awful subs at the wrong time. Out of his depth.

Brentford. What can I say. The worse set up (even with missing players), tactics. Kick it into the corners, and hope someone gets there. etc etc. If this is the new messiah then I am… well I will let you choose the words.

In a nutshell, this punt looks awful. 10th at best this season. AN gone within a season. McNally gone at same time.

This was the time for good management from the board to appoint the right team. Messed up big style.

And yes, I do go to the games. Been going every week since 1982. So I know a little about us.

Sad to see this happen. But it has.

[Herman 9,711]

3 fucking games he has had. FFS!!! I couldn''t give a toss how many games you go to, but if you are willing to write someone off so soon then shame on you.

[yellow_belly 226]

go back to listening to the game on the radio Herman or reading about it on here. you fool

[Tetteys Jig 830]

3 games, 2 wins. Can''t complain!

I do feel the Brentford result cancels out the Bournemouth result though.

[mrs miggins 0]

The Birmingham game will tell us more about the manager and our team. How will they respond? How will he respond? It will be interesting to see.

[Herman 9,711]

You said ''shoot you down'' so I shot you down. It was easy as your op is nonsense.

[Nicko 0]

Who writes a manager off after 3 games? Pathetic. I don''t care how long you''ve been supporting the club, why does that make you any different from anyone else? ANSWER: It doesn''t.

[Indy 3,283]

With you on that Mrs Miggins.....the players response at Brum will tell a big tale.

Trouble now is it''s a must win.....another loss could see us 7 points from top 6!

Thats a big gap to make up in 18 games.

[Indy 3,283]

To be honedt I wrote him off before he even started! Thats my opinion and I hope he proves me wrong, but I find it hard to agree that a 33 year old with less than 18 months experience with little high level football both playing or managing.

I form opinion from my thoughts reading whats realeased in the press and from his media interviews.

In time he might be the next Mike Walker but I have my doubts.

[Indy 3,283]

That said he''s our manager and I will back him as I have every appointment while I''m at Carrow Road for each game.

[Herman 9,711]

[quote user="Indy"]To be honedt I wrote him off before he even started! Thats my opinion and I hope he proves me wrong, but I find it hard to agree that a 33 year old with less than 18 months experience with little high level football both playing or managing.

I form opinion from my thoughts reading whats realeased in the press and from his media interviews.

In time he might be the next Mike Walker but I have my doubts.[/quote]How on earth does that help the club? If people have an agenda against him from the get go then he is running through treacle. Every win will get a begrudging well done, every loss will get an ''I told you so'' or worse. It''s no wonder i''ve heard the City job is a poisoned chalice. Some fans make the job impossible from the start.

[Indy 3,283]

No Herman, you can still support the manager even if you don''t rate him........does anyone really rate him given his history? Everyone has doubts but that doesn''t mean we can''t support him and hope he brings succesd! Does it?

[BroadstairsR 2,138]

I''m not in the remotest sense going to write Alex off yet.BUT. What kind of thinking went behind this absolutely weird appointment.FACTS:  A 33 years old average player. A bit of success with the Accies in SCOTLAND. Suddenly some brain in the corridoors of Carrow Road decide he is the man to lead our Club to the Premier League once again.I am dumfounded, but at the same time we have to give AM a  chance. Also at the same time we can , sorry have to come to the conclusion that instant promtion is a pipedream.I blame McN. That''s my current stance.Dare I say it, but we would have had abetter chance of an instant return under the Hoots. At least he knew what he was doing    good or bad.#ATM We are the most mis-magaed club in the division.Bizarre to the point of extreme.

[Yellow Wal 314]

Like Indy, I will back and support the manager until I see something to make me change my mind.

Unfortunately I will now be looking at him a little closer as the style of play on Saturday and the team selection left me confused.

If, as has been said in the past, we need continuity then a new manager coming in with, what appears to be, a completely different style of play, something that the players gave the impression of not being too enthralled by, it can cause nothing but problems.

I hope AN gets the team playing the way he wants it to and that it is successful, but if it is then I feel we will need quite a few different players to make it work.

[when monday comes 0]

Every managerial appointment is a punt look at Moyes at man united had a proven track record at Everton and still flopped.

All i hope is this appointment was done with both the gut and the head and ill back the man yes he made a mistake playing Whitaker in midfield but one mistake does not make a bad manager i would far rather he do it his away and fail than and try and do it the with defensive managers we have looked weak at the back for far to long now and their seems to be a fair bit of dead wood and rot to address post haste lets give him a chance by the stats we still created chances and had Johnson chance been lower would we all be arguing with each other now we arnt the manager and for most of us no matter how much we would desire to be we never will be. However as a crowd we can be the twelth man and if we want playoffs or fairyland but automatic promotion then we have to get behind them give him a chance and see if in 6 games time we arnt their then make your decisions as to boo and hiss but we all can give him a chance and no im not saying happy clapping.

[CJ 0]

I was shocked when we appointed Neil Adams I was despondent when Alex Neil was appointed, I am sorry McNally still is living in his dream appointment Lambert days, yes they do happen but very rarely that is a relative novice comes good.

Lennon or Phelan were the obvious choices experience solid managers and we do not give either a chance.

I was hopeful Alex would prove me wrong but his tactics and subs recently prove Neil Adams wasnt so bad after all.

The one thing most fans know is without a leader on the pitch we are going nowhere , we have struggled ever since Holt left and until we find someone else who gives a damn when the chips are down we are going nowhere.

There are too many fat cats on the pitch who think the game owes them a living and Alex neeeds to ship them out and get some younger hungry players in who care!

[mrs miggins 0]

CJ wrote the following post at 26/01/2015 11:45 AM:

Lennon or Phelan were the obvious choices experience solid managers and we do not give either a chance.

---------------------------

You can''t just make stuff up to suit your argument, well you can try I suppose

[Herman 9,711]

[quote user="Indy"]No Herman, you can still support the manager even if you don''t rate him........does anyone really rate him given his history? Everyone has doubts but that doesn''t mean we can''t support him and hope he brings succesd! Does it?[/quote]I neither rated him or unrated (?) him, as I, and I suspect the vast majority of us knew absolutely nothing about him. He is/was a risky choice but his record is good for someone so young. I simply don''t think it''s right to have a preformed opinion.

[when monday comes 0]

Only thing i wonder about the whole Lennon situation is were we geographically in the wrong part of the country for him?

[Indy 3,283]

It''s hard not to really Herman....but you are right, in time we will have more to go on.

[......and Smith must score. 1,332]

[quote user="mrs miggins"]CJ wrote the following post at 26/01/2015 11:45 AM:

Lennon or Phelan were the obvious choices experience solid managers and we do not give either a chance.

---------------------------

You can''t just make stuff up to suit your argument, well you can try I suppose[/quote]

Exactly. Unless Phelan''s precisely zero experience as a football manager makes him '' solid ''.

[HELVEG26 0]

Give him a chance. You cannot judge a manager after 3 games. He has taken 6 points from a possible 9 which is a good start.

You need to lose a game sometimes to learn how to improve the squad. There is a lot he can correct quickly from the Brentford match like the lack of communication in defence. You cannot always spot these things on the training ground I''m sure.

If he is a good Manager then I would expect a huge response/improvement in the next game against Birmingham!!

One thing I noticed which reminded me of the Lambert era was that when we attacked we committed alot of players forward into the box. We used to score loads this way!!

[Feedthewolf 4,844]

[quote user="Herman "][quote user="Indy"]No Herman, you can still support the manager even if you don''t rate him........does anyone really rate him given his history? Everyone has doubts but that doesn''t mean we can''t support him and hope he brings succesd! Does it?[/quote]I neither rated him or unrated (?) him, as I, and I suspect the vast majority of us knew absolutely nothing about him. He is/was a risky choice but his record is good for someone so young. I simply don''t think it''s right to have a preformed opinion.[/quote]I didn''t have a preformed opinion, but after watching Saturday''s game I think my patience (and that of our fanbase in general) will wear pretty thin pretty quickly if he persists in playing that style of football. This appointment has forced a vastly experienced coach out of the club, and Frankie McAvoy doesn''t even have a Wikipedia page so I can''t imagine his career has amounted to much so far. This could all go horribly, horribly wrong.

[rondy 7]

X

Edited April 7 by rondy

[mrs miggins 0]

It could also go very very right! Let''s look forward to the next game.

[Syteanric 1]

[quote user="BroadstairsR"]I''m not in the remotest sense going to write Alex off yet.BUT. What kind of thinking went behind this absolutely weird appointment.FACTS:  A 33 years old average player. A bit of success with the Accies in SCOTLAND. Suddenly some brain in the corridoors of Carrow Road decide he is the man to lead our Club to the Premier League once again.I am dumfounded, but at the same time we have to give AM a  chance. Also at the same time we can , sorry have to come to the conclusion that instant promtion is a pipedream.I blame McN. That''s my current stance.Dare I say it, but we would have had abetter chance of an instant return under the Hoots. At least he knew what he was doing    good or bad.#ATM We are the most mis-magaed club in the division.Bizarre to the point of extreme.[/quote]

in 2001 a 38 year old unknown took his team into the primera division in Portugal, despite having a poor track record as an amateur player.

This manager took a small club with barely any finances to 3rd in the division a point behind the "big boys" of Porto...

similarities with AN already

what ever happened to Jose Mourinho?

[yellow_belly 226]

Jas… for every Jose, there are thousands of oner managers that have failed, disappeared and names forgotten.

But yes, AN may be the next Mourinho. Care to have a £10 bet that he doesn''t win the Champions League with Norwich or any other team in the next ten years (as the manager), with me.

I thought not.

In all seriousness. My point is;

I want AN to succeed. Like everyone else, I am a supporter (not a fanatic) and I turn up to cheer them on. Not boo.

But, at an important period in our season/history we needed to get it right. To get a manager that inspires the players, and supporters. A leader that we want to follow. A manager that knows the league, our players, what we need, how to get us up, and a man that players want to join (from elsewhere). This is not AN.

In all honestly, if, and it is a BIG IF, we go up this year. Is AN a premier league manager? I do not thinks so. But again I may be wrong.

regarding timing. If we appointed NA or AN in year 4 of Championship football. Looking to build a team for the future etc. Then either would have been great. But we are not at this point. Yet. Get it wrong and we will be.

And for this talk about how Hamilton bet Celtic. Have you seen the game? I have. Celtic completely outplayed Hamilton and should have won 10-1. But just could not score. Hamiliton played like we did on Saturday. Hoof it. Run quickly. hopefully get something. A bit like saturday league schoolboy football. But I do not pay a small fortune to watch that, so do not want it here.

Now for the point about supporting for a long time, again read the word supporting,… well my point here is that I, like many on here, have seen the good, the bad and the ugly. And we know our stuff (a bit) and Saturday was UGLY.

Yes Whits is rather useless. But in fairness he was chosen by AN to play in the position and asked to hoof the ball up to the wings. He did that. But when it was obvious that this was not working then a manager, whether young or old, experienced or not, good or bad, should have acted to stop the rot. AN didn''t. Hence my frustration.

So there. Haha

[Feedthewolf 4,844]

[quote user="jas the barclay king"][quote user="BroadstairsR"]I''m not in the remotest sense going to write Alex off yet.BUT. What kind of thinking went behind this absolutely weird appointment.FACTS:  A 33 years old average player. A bit of success with the Accies in SCOTLAND. Suddenly some brain in the corridoors of Carrow Road decide he is the man to lead our Club to the Premier League once again.I am dumfounded, but at the same time we have to give AM a  chance. Also at the same time we can , sorry have to come to the conclusion that instant promtion is a pipedream.I blame McN. That''s my current stance.Dare I say it, but we would have had abetter chance of an instant return under the Hoots. At least he knew what he was doing    good or bad.#ATM We are the most mis-magaed club in the division.Bizarre to the point of extreme.[/quote]

in 2001 a 38 year old unknown took his team into the primera division in Portugal, despite having a poor track record as an amateur player.

This manager took a small club with barely any finances to 3rd in the division a point behind the "big boys" of Porto...

similarities with AN already

what ever happened to Jose Mourinho?[/quote]Mourinho also spent years studying sports science, began coaching at an early age and learnt his trade from the likes of Sir Bobby Robson and Louis van Gaal. The odds of him being remotely as successful as Mourinho are infinitessimally small. The board have taken a colossal gamble at a time where we were crying out for a bit of stability and experience. Obviously it''s very early days, but under Adams we never saw a tactical performance as stridently ugly and direct as Saturday''s.

[yellow_belly 226]

Well put Feed The Wolf

[Hoola Han Solo 448]

Where are you lot when we''re winning and the manager is performing well?