I think the board have some culpability with Herman. If you sign a player who several relegations under his belt, why give him a clause that allows him to go on a free, and thus get a whole stack of cash as a reward for notching up another. That said, plenty people are irritated by Parker, but at least he got us a lot of money in with his "betrayal". Herman just slipped off on a free while under contract.
[cite]Posted By: Mortimerician[/cite]I think the board have some culpability with Herman. If you sign a player who several relegations under his belt, why give him a clause that allows him to go on a free, and thus get a whole stack of cash as a reward for notching up another. That said, plenty people are irritated by Parker, but at least he got us a lot of money in with his "betrayal". Herman just slipped off on a free while under contract.
To be fair other players might have had the same or similar clauses, but we wouldn't notice if they were out of contract anyway.
[cite]Posted By: Ledge[/cite]Herman was indeed a 100%er but he was and is AWFUL as a centre half. Never a centre half in a million years.
Couldn't agree more. We were always going to be relegated with El Karkouri and Hermann at centre back for most of the season. To think Dowie thought they were both better than Chris Perry says a lot about his judgement of a centre back.
Dowie did try and bring in some big and/or strong players, Traore, Faye, Hasselbaink, wouldn't be surprised if he didn't think Perry could cope physically at his age. Perry never did play in the Prem again but HH has been there for three years, some of it at centre back. Not that I don't agree, he was good as left back but seemed to lose a bit of pace, and with the players we had ended up playing in the middle. Was never really impressed with him there as a Premier League player.
[cite]Posted By: Scoham[/cite]Dowie did try and bring in some big and/or strong players, Traore, Faye, Hasselbaink, wouldn't be surprised if he didn't think Perry could cope physically at his age. Perry never did play in the Prem again but HH has been there for three years, some of it at centre back. Not that I don't agree, he was good as left back but seemed to lose a bit of pace, and with the players we had ended up playing in the middle. Was never really impressed with him there as a Premier League player.
Perry is only a year older than Hermann, and Perry never relied on physicality to combat opposition strikers. I prefer to consider it as more evidence that Dowie is a terrible manager
With Dowie banging on about touch tight, you'd think he might notice that Perry was the best English 'touch tight' defender for about ten years in the prem. Kenny Cunningham was simply superb for Brum into his twilight, Perry was and could have been for us for a good few seasons. Perry's performance against Lita in 2008 proved that beyond doubt, as Lita was coruscating that day but Perry somehow buggered his angles and got toes in disrupting him whilst lightweight Soton left Perry to it.
If you exclude the top four's part in all results, HH and Perry were the best cd partnership in the prem in 2005-2006. I know that was majorly down to Perry organising HH. You only had to see how loose HH and Crap Kak were and slow to the ball in the area they became, to understand what we missed.
[quote][cite]Posted By: Stu of HU5[/cite][quote][cite]Posted By: Kap10[/cite]Its the ones that build relegation releases in thier contracts that i don't like[/quote]
I don't think he snuck it in whilst nobody was looking fella.[/quote]
I always thought that Chris Perry was an exceptional centre half. I immediately thought it was a real mistake letting both him and Bothroyd go (particularly for nothing). I know Bothroyd was not a PL starter, but he was good as a back up and a better bet than all (apart from Benty) the others that we had that season.
Dowie tried to improve too much too quickly and thought he could massively improve on players like Perry and Bothroyd. The ridiculous thing with Bothroyd is we only had two Bents, JFH and an injury prone Lisbie as our strikers.
Herman was a much better left back than centre-half, however, you also have to remember that once Parker left we quite literally had a centre-midfield with all the steel of a Wayne Sleep/Graham Norton combination. We were so soft it was frightening.
As a result, whoever we played at centre-half were repeatedly exposed because the likes of Holland, Hughes, Kishishev, Murphy and the rest could not provide any semblance of cover for the back four on a regular basis.
Curbs' decision not to buy a midfield enforcer once Parker left - instead spunking the dough on Rommedahl, Murphy and Jeffers - was his biggest mistake and proved fatal in the end.
He did bring smertin in and he did very well for us until something went wrong, many didn't see it at the time but curbs set the team out do be able to handle some of our defence deficiancys. Bartlett was key in defending set peices etc etc. Herman always put in 100% and was a man mountain in some games the year we went down villa at home sticks out
[cite]Posted By: Ormiston Addick[/cite]Herman was a much better left back than centre-half, however, you also have to remember that once Parker left we quite literally had a centre-midfield with all the steel of a Wayne Sleep/Graham Norton combination. We were so soft it was frightening.
As a result, whoever we played at centre-half were repeatedly exposed because the likes of Holland, Hughes, Kishishev, Murphy and the rest could not provide any semblance of cover for the back four on a regular basis.
Curbs' decision not to buy a midfield enforcer once Parker left - instead spunking the dough on Rommedahl, Murphy and Jeffers - was his biggest mistake and proved fatal in the end.
Very true. Think he might not been sure who to buy to replace him, Curbs doesn't know players outside of this country well, and any decent young English player is usually overpriced, and anyone from the lower leagues is a gamble. He went with Kishishev in the end who did a job, tried his best, but was never going to be the player Parker was.
[cite]Posted By: Scoham[/cite]Dowie tried to improve too much too quickly and thought he could massively improve on players like Perry and Bothroyd. The ridiculous thing with Bothroyd is we only had two Bents, JFH and an injury prone Lisbie as our strikers.
Was going to say something like that. Weren't all of our strikers injured for large parts of the season, apart from JFH? And weren't M.Bent and Lisbie injured from the start? Also two of our new defenders Sorondo and Gibbs had a recent history of injury so the bad decision to release Perry came back to haunt us.
I know it is very easy to be wise after the event, but in this case, at the time it jsut seemed so wrong.
Totally agree Cordoban, although playing devil's avocado the types of player that the top prem teams are bringing in do tend to be in the "exceptional talent" bucket while a mid-table team tends to be looking at lesser lights. It's probably more that the rule is wrong; if you're an exceptional talent (as recognized by the FA) you're probably setting your sights on a big club and a big paycheck.
Players like Sidwell were available... Steve Brown recomended him to Curbs and we missed out or perhaps declined..
... if you forget all the rumours the main issue with Dowie was that he started wth 5 new players in the starting XI for the first game .... as if we'd just been promoted and not spent 7 years up there !!!
... releasing Perry was simply stupid... with him in the team we would not have been losing to West Ham and Fulham away...not to mention that useless draw at home to Watford... if Dowie had got those results he might not have been sacked for whatever happened behind the scenes
[cite]Posted By: McLovin[/cite]Totally agree Cordoban, although playing devil's avocado the types of player that the top prem teams are bringing in do tend to be in the "exceptional talent" bucket while a mid-table team tends to be looking at lesser lights. It's probably more that the rule is wrong; if you're an exceptional talent (as recognized by the FA) you're probably setting your sights on a big club and a big paycheck.
That is true, he was never going to be a star big, but I wonder if he'd have been any worse than Rommedahl, Thomas and Ambrose?
Isn't the criteria for clearance based on international appearances over the previous 2 or 3 years? With some allowance made for age (youth) or injury? I think on this basis he was at least as eligible as a number of players that were passed for other clubs. (OK i have no evidence other than the certainty it is true).
Comments
Couldn't agree more. We were always going to be relegated with El Karkouri and Hermann at centre back for most of the season. To think Dowie thought they were both better than Chris Perry says a lot about his judgement of a centre back.
Perry is only a year older than Hermann, and Perry never relied on physicality to combat opposition strikers. I prefer to consider it as more evidence that Dowie is a terrible manager
If you exclude the top four's part in all results, HH and Perry were the best cd partnership in the prem in 2005-2006. I know that was majorly down to Perry organising HH. You only had to see how loose HH and Crap Kak were and slow to the ball in the area they became, to understand what we missed.
I don't think he snuck it in whilst nobody was looking fella.[/quote]
Do you think not? You surprise me.
As a result, whoever we played at centre-half were repeatedly exposed because the likes of Holland, Hughes, Kishishev, Murphy and the rest could not provide any semblance of cover for the back four on a regular basis.
Curbs' decision not to buy a midfield enforcer once Parker left - instead spunking the dough on Rommedahl, Murphy and Jeffers - was his biggest mistake and proved fatal in the end.
Was going to say something like that. Weren't all of our strikers injured for large parts of the season, apart from JFH? And weren't M.Bent and Lisbie injured from the start? Also two of our new defenders Sorondo and Gibbs had a recent history of injury so the bad decision to release Perry came back to haunt us.
I know it is very easy to be wise after the event, but in this case, at the time it jsut seemed so wrong.
... if you forget all the rumours the main issue with Dowie was that he started wth 5 new players in the starting XI for the first game .... as if we'd just been promoted and not spent 7 years up there !!!
... releasing Perry was simply stupid... with him in the team we would not have been losing to West Ham and Fulham away...not to mention that useless draw at home to Watford... if Dowie had got those results he might not have been sacked for whatever happened behind the scenes