Serious question, I have tried to keep faith in the current board and even parkinson this season even though i wanted him replaced in the summer. However after our past few games and yesterday it has confirmed to me that it aint working.
Lots of posts saying to keep faith in him and board but seriously what would it take for you if you are one of them defending the current regime to change your opinion and want a change of personnel at management and possibly board level?
Not getting promoted this season
Not getting promoted next?
What?
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I don't think those with faith are stating their allegience blindly in fact, most of them, say that the situation isn't ideal, parky isn't great, but we don't have a lot of choice.
we can argue about how much we like or dislike them until the cows come home, but no one can name who we think could come in to do a better job, so we may as well perhaps just get behind them and show them that we don't like whats going on, but encourage them to turn it around.
oh, and by the way, i'm not in either camp - i've lost interest entirely in the whole thing and would like the question that airman brown asked yesterday to be answered because until that situation is sorted, the whole club is a mess imo. I'm too unbothered to shout and scream about it. I go to the matches, but only cos i don't have much else to do, although cafc certainly isn't very high on my priority list these days.
By us sitting here impotetnly and accepting it makes us guilty in some respect for sitting by and thinking "Yep its shit, but shit happends and what can we do"
If we are going down the toilet as we quite clearly are then aat least i want to look back one day and say i voiced my displeasure and wanted to change things rather than just hoping that somehow things will work out.
The board as nice guys and as much as they have done for us and im eternally grateful for are struggling and want out and as nice a guy parkinson is he cant do it.
We need a change and yes it is a risk but at least its positive action and not just hoping that doing nothing that things will sort themselves out.
I think there are ways to show displeasure which are currently happening and some are constructive:
low crowds (people voting with their feet and wallets)
reduced merchandise spend perhaps (credit crunch or not!)
more booing (simple way of letting them know you have the hump whether they listen or not)
setting up of the trust (set up when things were looking good for this season - all gone quiet but i'm sure after yesterday will resurface)
high interest in Q&A sessions that are coming up (a chance for fans to ask those in the know what they really want to know)
He got lucky due to the uncertainty regarding the ownership of the club. He then got lucky again when none of Bailey, Shelvey, Rcaon or Semedo left.
I know that those midfielders have not been playing well lately but they are still a cut above what we are up against in this division so questions must be asked of the manager's tactics, selection and motivation.
BUT, having said all that, I don't have any realistic suggestions for alternative managers and unless somebody can come up with some good ones, I think we should probably stick with Parkinson till Xmas at least
The board have probably had enough and i cant blame them as they more than anyone are probably gutted about how pear shaped things have gone to undo all of their previous good work.
Unfortunately the havent appeared since curb's departure (or perhaps lack of keeping him...easy to say in hindsight i admit) capable.
Manager is not capable and i dont think by Christmas we will be in the top two unless parkinson radically reforms his tactics by starting two up front (not including mcleod as first choice) and i cant see him doing that.
Ok, replace Parky but with who?
And what will you give the incoming manager by way of a transfer budget?
As there is no money to buy players which of our major playing assets will you sell?
When you look at what Parky has had to go through - getting rid of Ambrose, ZZ, Husdon, Fortune, Holland, Weaver (only one of whom left for money) and that he had no money to spend in the transfer market himself and that he had to rebuild a defence and morale then I consider that he's done a pretty good job to date, ok for the perectionists out there who watch prem football on Sky and then trek to the Valley we are lacking. But we need some perspective and a reality check. We are in Tier Three and have the smallest squad I can ever remember and no money to spend. That means making thin resources stretch even further.
I accept and I think we all know that Parky was lucky to stay in the job when Pardew was sacked and lucky not to leave in the summer. But he hasn't done too badly in the league this season - two defeats and we are still second and still the team to beat and I'd have taken that as a start to the season and I'm pretty sure that most level headed fans would as well. I'm not saying that he's perfect or never makes mistakes, or is the next Ferguson, but if I'd logged on here today for the first time since May I'd have thought we were nearer a relegation place than promotion.
A new manager with no history with the club may have everything to prove and instil a hunger, belief and desire into the squad we have and have the confidence to play 2 up front in a more positive fashion than the negative loan striker which involves playing high scorers like bailey last season totally out of position to accomodate his tactics.
If we win automatic promotion or even narrowly miss out but look like a force going into next season ill happily eat my words but from what ive seen this year i cant see it happening so i would be looking for replacements now not offering contract extensions and hoping things will be ok.
Christ if Andy Preece can get a bunch of part timers to beat us then there are people out there.
If we're still playing like this come the New Year then that is the time to think seriously about our options but right now people are just panicking, i would say, unecessarily.
Just for the record, our form in the last 10 games in all competitions (starting with Saints at home and excluding any of the run of wins at the start of the season) is a follows:
3 wins (all home)
4 draws (1 home 3 away)
3 defeats (all away)
Now, 2 of those games were in the cup, but one was a win and one was a defeat so neither scews the figures in either direction. Okay, it's not automatic promotion form - if we averaged that scoring rate over a whole season we'd finish on 59 or 60 pts - so if it's a blip then it could be a lot worse, especillay given our home form is still holding up well, that we've played more away than home recently and two of the away games were Leeds and Norwich plus a tricky local 'derby' at Gills.
The question is - are we in a downward blip, or was the early season form an upward blip? Imo our true form is somewhere between the two and we should be good enough to at least get into the play-offs, but really it's still too early to make a proper judgement. I understand why people are upset, angry and feel the end is nigh, but the stats just don't back that up ... yet - they may do in a few more weeks time, but it simply wouldn't be fair to sack the man right now.
Parky has done a damned good job on the resources at his disposal. Compare our defence this year to last - only on a few occasions have we conceded two goals in a match - from memory Wycombe, Colchester, Carlisle, Norwich (and their second should have been disallowed for a foul on Elliot), so we aren't leaking goals and that's with a back four consisting of three free-signings, a keeper from the reserves and a left-back in Youga that looks a different player from last season. Last year we leaked goals virtually every time we came under pressure and opponents knew that even going into the last five minutes that they could be confident of scoring.
On the debit side I'd preferred to keep Dickson and let McLeod go and we need another striker as McKenzie I doubt is going to fit enough to be a dependable regular, but that's what happens when you sign players on free transfers. Occasionally you have to take a few risks on players and those that are available on frees are usually there for a reason - too old, too inexperienced, too injury prone etc, sometimes you get lucky, othertimes they confirm the reason why they are available for nothing.
This doesn't excuse yesterday's performance or the lack of fight, desire or footballing nous against a raw but committed team, but we are in danger of over-hyping the defeat.
I think most people would agree that 3 of our best players this season have been Dailly, Sodje and Richardson - all signed by Parky for nothing - that is a sign he does know how to do it with our resources.
One off match Rodders, so not a fair guage of long term form or ability - however shocking we were on the day.
If we're still labouring our way through games at the end of December then it will be the right time to assess our options, but we'd still need to be mindful of who we can get as a replacement.
It's his first full season, I know we can't completely forget last season, but the club was in a mess then. He had to wait until the summer before the squad could be cleaned up.
If you get a new manager in how long do you give him? If Parkinson in about a year has had more than enough time, how long should a new manager get? Six months? Then get another new manager in?
Rodney, I really don't see how you can place blame with the board. If we don't get promoted, I think we need a new manager. But until he's had one full season - which he has NOT EVEN HAD YET - we can't judge him. Especially when we're currently second - what a joke it is that people are calling for his head when we are second. But for me, as long as I know the board are acting in the best interest of the club, I want them here for as long as possible. I trust them, and they have my loyalty because of how much they have achieved for this club in the past. Everything good that has happened to this club in 20 years is down to them, and we should never forget how much good stuff there actually is. They deserve our support though all of the crap.
i think the point is, that its not as simple as that?
I don't think he should go yet - i don't think he should have got a contract extension but the weird timing makes me think there was defo a reason for it - sniffing around by another club or something I dunno, some kinda clause if he wins manager of the month they have to extend it? haha.
I don't agree with a manager being sacked if there are not at least options available on who to replace them! there must be at least 1 option available if not 2 or 3 surely? There are names we can all pull out of a hat and suggest them as genunine candidates but its not as simple as that.
I think if the 'slump' continues, and parky does go, i think everyone will accept that the timing will be as right as it can be and it depends on who replaces him as to whether it was the right time or not. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
He goes when he's proven himself consistently unable to lift the squad, when he can't/won't make the necessary changes to a formation and we resultingly play too much timid football, especially at home and demonstrate that we don't have the nous to grind out wins or draws in away games. Note - a couple of poor games away don't constitute enough reason for knee-jerk reactions.
I still want to know what the naysayers would have done as manager knowing that you had to release quite a few players from last year, that you had no money to sign replacements and could only bring in free-transfers and therefore compete with a lot of other clubs for their signatures? Plus you had to restore morale which must have been rock-bottom and do all this by a tight deadline.
Again, I'm not saying that Parkinson is a brilliant manager (I think this/CCC is his level) and I think his man-management abilities are lacking with the more difficult characters such as Moo2, Dickson etc, but I wonder what others would have done and having gone through two relegations in three years how many would settle for second in L1 in mid-November? Evidently we stil have too many fans on board who only joined in the last decade or so, or watch too much prem football on Sky.
I see lots of knee-jerk "get rid" reactions, but nothing constructive...
So far we've had calls for Bailey to be stripped of the captaincy and be sold, for Sam to follow him, for Omosuzi to return to Fulham, for Llera to return and Shelvey to be dropped. In addition Parky and the Board are to go...
What I'm not seeing is any suggestion on what/who should replace them, where the money will come from to replace them and therefore I don't believe that the knee-jerk reactions will result in tangible progress.
But you're saying the six straight wins at the start of the season, plus the wins against Exeter and Huddersfield were?
Still a huge gap at left midfield, other wide positions our cover is provided by young pros with little experience. They do ok but that's not always enough.
Up front we're terrible, just like we have been for years apart, from the odd player. Burton needs an alternative to be rotated with, McLeod needs to be replaced and after that we have McKenzie with injury problems, Mooney on a short term loan and a young player in Tuna. Don't include Dickson and Fleetwood in that, if they were that good they'd have been more involved and stayed here. To be promoted we need to score goals, our strikers aren't going to get enough.
Central midfield we have plenty of good players, but we're forced to play 4 of them at once to keep them here and to cover the positions we're weak in.
Good enough players yes in most areas, squad still needs improving though. Other clubs like Millwall don't have money either, but they don't have big expectations and have built squads to fight for the playoffs over the last few years. We've come down and still have big gaps to fill.
When we were promoted in 1998 and 2000, did we have a squad as unbalanced as this one? We had more money, played in a higher division, but we had built a decent all round squad over time and were able to use players in their best positions. We can fit 4 central midfielders into one team, but when it goes wrong we can only change it by putting Wagstaff and McLeod. That's not good enough.
And the seven wins we started the season off were what?
And there was me thinking but for a late equaliser we'd have won at Gillingham. We conceded two long range goals vsCarlisle and the other was the softest pen I've ever seen. Colchester I grant you was a poor performance, but we then went to league leaders Leeds a few days later and took a draw off them and were the better of the two teams.
If you want to focus on the negatives then fine, but you are in danger of missing the bigger picture.
- Get Dickson back as he has proven goalscoring record in this league and with right management could be a great player.
- Play 4-4-2. Positive formation. 4-5-1 seems negative even if it's not intended to be and sends out wrong signals to players and opposition.
- Play players like bailey in their proper positions to get most out of them eg centre mid. Ok shelvey may be sacrificed but the lad is 17 and im sure playing in a winning side coming on at the end of games will do more for his confidence and development than being relied on so much by playing a system designed purely to accomodate him. He is a great talent and will hopefully work wonders for us but we cant rely on him.
- Drop McCLeod in favour of McKenzie.
- Play Charlton playerslike randolph instead of effectively signalling the end their Charlton career at the club by getting in loanees and sticking them straight in ahead of them.
Just a few suggestions that anyone with the same resources could do.
Hope im proved wrong but as long as things are as they are we are treading water at best and on the verge of another slide down the table.
Aplogies for not accepting that and refusing to play the wait and see how it pans out game.
well there is one to discuss.
Wycombe hartlepool and tranmere are 3 of the worst teams in the league. Orient we were awesome.
Wallsall were dire and brentford werent up to much. Wasnt at Exeter so dont know.
Point is we dont just want to hold our own in this league, surely we want to get straight back out of it which requires more than wins against the teams you mention but capablity against the likes of Norwich, Colchester, Leeds, Gillingham etc.
As I say i hope he proves me wrong but i just dont think he will and well be stuck in this league next year with even less resources and wishing wed acted sooner.
Plenty of managers out there at other clubs would love a chance at our place who do well with even less resources than us and could do a job. I cant name names as im not involved in football but surely the board have the ability and necessity to go out and find them.
Why are (maybe some, I don't know) their fans calling him lazy, saying he has a poor touch etc? He could be a great player? Based on what? Decent League One goalscorer yes, great player no.
Hasn't been possible yet due to McKenzie's injuries. If he was fit I think we'd have seen him start by now.
If we have two fit strikers, not including McLeod, fair enough play 4-4-2, but that's not been possible yet. Perhaps Mooney should have started, but then he's not a Charlton player. Throwing Tuna in wouldn't have been the right thing to do either.