I know this is off-topic, but I need to know something and don't think a Dowie Reminiscences thread would go down too well. Can someone please tell me exactly what happened there? What were the reasons for his sacking just 12 or 13 league games into a three-year contract?
Lens who have Coulibaly at the moment have very deep pockets, they have a middle eastern backer who has very deep pockets and is determined to achieve promotion.
In that case wouldn't they be looking for better? Though I've not seen this guy play so he may be the dog's for all I know.
Yeah we did our share of wasting the TV millions didn't we? Marcus Bent and The Fox in the Box anyone?
(shudders and gets back to work)
Dowie made some bad judgements and wasted a good few millions.
The shit Bent and Jeffers were both Curbishley signings.
First time I've ever defended Dowie. This doesn't feel right.
Yes, I was aware they were Curbs' blunders. Wasn't Dowie's downfall caused by bad signings? How much did we pay, and for whom?
Arsene Wenger got Jeffers wrong as well, even the best make mistakes. He hardly cost us anything in the end either. As for Marcus Bent, he was well-liked at Everton. I suspect disliked more for his off-the-field "nightclubs and WAGS" image than his performances on the pitch - he wasn't great but we've had plenty worse.
In comparison, Dowie spent £4m on Djimi Traore and Amdy Faye, both of whom were a laughing stock at their previous clubs and renound for nothing except being utterly useless. Totally inexcusable.
It never ceases to amaze me how generous some people are with other people's money...
Too true. What also comes into play is that money "loses value" once it gets outside the levels within which you operate. The difference between, say, 4 million and 5 million is perceived as "not much" by most people. In fact, it is quite a lot of money.
Yeah we did our share of wasting the TV millions didn't we? Marcus Bent and The Fox in the Box anyone?
(shudders and gets back to work)
Dowie made some bad judgements and wasted a good few millions.
The shit Bent and Jeffers were both Curbishley signings.
First time I've ever defended Dowie. This doesn't feel right.
Yes, I was aware they were Curbs' blunders. Wasn't Dowie's downfall caused by bad signings? How much did we pay, and for whom?
Arsene Wenger got Jeffers wrong as well, even the best make mistakes. He hardly cost us anything in the end either. As for Marcus Bent, he was well-liked at Everton. I suspect disliked more for his off-the-field "nightclubs and WAGS" image than his performances on the pitch - he wasn't great but we've had plenty worse.
In comparison, Dowie spent £4m on Djimi Traore and Amdy Faye, both of whom were a laughing stock at their previous clubs and renound for nothing except being utterly useless. Totally inexcusable.
Jeffers had got 20 goals in 60 games for Everton when Wenger paid more than eight million. Jeffers never got near that scoring rate again. Wasn't part of his problem a slight over-indulgence in the sherbets?
Back to Dowie (sorry!) - were those disastrous signings you cite the sole cause of his very swift downfall? Nothing more to it than that? Is it an urban myth that a couple of months into his tenure someone conducted a straw-poll within the club and couldn't find anyone who liked him - even the tea-lady at Sparrows Lane gave him the thumbs-down.
Yeah we did our share of wasting the TV millions didn't we? Marcus Bent and The Fox in the Box anyone?
(shudders and gets back to work)
Dowie made some bad judgements and wasted a good few millions.
The shit Bent and Jeffers were both Curbishley signings.
First time I've ever defended Dowie. This doesn't feel right.
Yes, I was aware they were Curbs' blunders. Wasn't Dowie's downfall caused by bad signings? How much did we pay, and for whom?
Arsene Wenger got Jeffers wrong as well, even the best make mistakes. He hardly cost us anything in the end either. As for Marcus Bent, he was well-liked at Everton. I suspect disliked more for his off-the-field "nightclubs and WAGS" image than his performances on the pitch - he wasn't great but we've had plenty worse.
In comparison, Dowie spent £4m on Djimi Traore and Amdy Faye, both of whom were a laughing stock at their previous clubs and renound for nothing except being utterly useless. Totally inexcusable.
Jeffers had got 20 goals in 60 games for Everton when Wenger paid more than eight million. Jeffers never got near that scoring rate again. Wasn't part of his problem a slight over-indulgence in the sherbets?
Back to Dowie (sorry!) - were those disastrous signings you cite the sole cause of his very swift downfall? Nothing more to it than that? Is it an urban myth that a couple of months into his tenure someone conducted a straw-poll within the club and couldn't find anyone who liked him - even the tea-lady at Sparrows Lane gave him the thumbs-down.
You might be right about Jeffers. However, I think he was well worth the gamble for money we paid for him, which I believe only totalled about £500k in the end.
As for Dowie, it wasn't just the signings, he was an incompetent, arrogant moron - lots of tales on various threads on this forum about rumoured "incidents" during his tenure. I hate the bloke - there's been plenty of bad decisions made over the last few years but his disastrous 5 months in charge was, in my opinion, the most significant factor in our journey to the edge of bankruptcy.
Orange mans secret Agent dowies cover was blown and we had to sack him. Taking the team for walks around newcastle and being dropped off at a friends en route to wigan didnt help either
geting lost on a pre game run in Newcastle. Geting his brother to take training while he was contracted to Palarse. Signing two of the worst SHAME CONMEN "players" we have ever seen. I cant get my head past the point that somehow Dowies signing was as much Muzza sticking it to the Tango man as any ability that he had as a manager.
Yeah we did our share of wasting the TV millions didn't we? Marcus Bent and The Fox in the Box anyone?
(shudders and gets back to work)
Dowie made some bad judgements and wasted a good few millions.
The shit Bent and Jeffers were both Curbishley signings.
First time I've ever defended Dowie. This doesn't feel right.
Yes, I was aware they were Curbs' blunders. Wasn't Dowie's downfall caused by bad signings? How much did we pay, and for whom?
Arsene Wenger got Jeffers wrong as well, even the best make mistakes. He hardly cost us anything in the end either. As for Marcus Bent, he was well-liked at Everton. I suspect disliked more for his off-the-field "nightclubs and WAGS" image than his performances on the pitch - he wasn't great but we've had plenty worse.
In comparison, Dowie spent £4m on Djimi Traore and Amdy Faye, both of whom were a laughing stock at their previous clubs and renound for nothing except being utterly useless. Totally inexcusable.
Jeffers had got 20 goals in 60 games for Everton when Wenger paid more than eight million. Jeffers never got near that scoring rate again. Wasn't part of his problem a slight over-indulgence in the sherbets?
Back to Dowie (sorry!) - were those disastrous signings you cite the sole cause of his very swift downfall? Nothing more to it than that? Is it an urban myth that a couple of months into his tenure someone conducted a straw-poll within the club and couldn't find anyone who liked him - even the tea-lady at Sparrows Lane gave him the thumbs-down.
You might be right about Jeffers. However, I think he was well worth the gamble for money we paid for him, which I believe only totalled about £500k in the end.
As for Dowie, it wasn't just the signings, he was an incompetent, arrogant moron - lots of tales on various threads on this forum about rumoured "incidents" during his tenure. I hate the bloke - there's been plenty of bad decisions made over the last few years but his disastrous 5 months in charge was, in my opinion, the most significant factor in our journey to the edge of bankruptcy.
I know this isn't the right thread to dissect Dowie (now there's a thought) but I'd really like to know more - what are those "incidents"? Due to other commitments I didn't get to see the games of his tenure. I did recently try trawling the archives of CL without much success - it would be much better if someone could give me the bullet points of what went wrong.
But you are assuming strikers won't come in. I would imagine we are waiting on Obika and then with a limited budget, Powell is trying to find the right man. I'm sure he would have gone for a few, but you don't always get your targets when other clubs can offer more money! I would be very suprised if we don't have another striker before the season starts and another within a wek or two of it starting.
Even if we sign another striker this afternoon he will only have 10 days and two friendlies to get into the swing of things. I reckon we could have got more out of Fuller had he had a bit of a pre-season with us last year. You often hear players talking about how important a proper pre-season with their teammates is, whoever we sign now will be at a disadvantage.
But you are assuming strikers won't come in. I would imagine we are waiting on Obika and then with a limited budget, Powell is trying to find the right man. I'm sure he would have gone for a few, but you don't always get your targets when other clubs can offer more money! I would be very suprised if we don't have another striker before the season starts and another within a wek or two of it starting.
Even if we sign another striker this afternoon he will only have 10 days and two friendlies to get into the swing of things. I reckon we could have got more out of Fuller had he had a bit of a pre-season with us last year. You often hear players talking about how important a proper pre-season with their teammates is, whoever we sign now will be at a disadvantage.
Very good points. I'm certain Powell is frustrated by not having recruited players earlier. It puts us at a disadvantage.
Ideally we would have someone else in place to pay alongside Yann, I would suspect players who are available will start to lower their wage demands soon, which may give us a chance, and remember we signed Yann once the season was underway.
I suspect that Fuller will be re-signing for us. And if we can get him at a reasonable wage or pay as you play deal, then I'm all for it as on his day, he is as good as most strikers in the championship.
I suspect that Fuller will be re-signing for us. And if we can get him at a reasonable wage or pay as you play deal, then I'm all for it as on his day, he is as good as most strikers in the championship.
Genuine question - why do you think Fuller will be signing ?
But you are assuming strikers won't come in. I would imagine we are waiting on Obika and then with a limited budget, Powell is trying to find the right man. I'm sure he would have gone for a few, but you don't always get your targets when other clubs can offer more money! I would be very suprised if we don't have another striker before the season starts and another within a wek or two of it starting.
Even if we sign another striker this afternoon he will only have 10 days and two friendlies to get into the swing of things. I reckon we could have got more out of Fuller had he had a bit of a pre-season with us last year. You often hear players talking about how important a proper pre-season with their teammates is, whoever we sign now will be at a disadvantage.
It is far from ideal but hey ho - you can moan about it or make the best of it. I'm sure we can manage for a few games with what we have and even achieve positive results, but we will need a couple of striker sif we are to better last season's achievement.
But you are assuming strikers won't come in. I would imagine we are waiting on Obika and then with a limited budget, Powell is trying to find the right man. I'm sure he would have gone for a few, but you don't always get your targets when other clubs can offer more money! I would be very suprised if we don't have another striker before the season starts and another within a wek or two of it starting.
Even if we sign another striker this afternoon he will only have 10 days and two friendlies to get into the swing of things. I reckon we could have got more out of Fuller had he had a bit of a pre-season with us last year. You often hear players talking about how important a proper pre-season with their teammates is, whoever we sign now will be at a disadvantage.
It is far from ideal but hey ho - you can moan about it or make the best of it. I'm sure we can manage for a few games with what we have and even achieve positive results, but we will need a couple of striker sif we are to better last season's achievement.
I'm not moaning, I was just pointing out that whilst we can definitely (and probably will) get a striker in it seems like Haynes, Obika, Coulibaly were Powell's preferences (probably in that order) and it looks like none of those will happen. So we're now in the realms of bottom of the barrel stuff with the added disadvantage of that player having no pre-season with us.
I assume that Coulibaly had already arranged to go to France and is fulfilling his obligations. He has to impress there to get a contract for them and they need to match whatever we offer. Although they have deep pockets, that would depend on how they rate him. Unlike us, they have the money to look at other options, so all may not be lost ... on the other hand it maybe
I assume that Coulibaly had already arranged to go to France and is fulfilling his obligations. He has to impress there to get a contract for them and they need to match whatever we offer. Although they have deep pockets, that would depend on how they rate him. Unlike us, they have the money to look at other options, so all may not be lost ... on the other hand it maybe
We will have to wait and see what CP has to say after the game, pretty sure one of us will ask about him.
We'll have to wait and see how this one plays out. I agree with Kap10 that the Lens trial was probably pre-arranged, which would be consistent with our "having him for a week."
Yes of course it was pre-arranged and to be fair to powell he wanted to see coulibaly a couple of times before even thinking about approaching his agent.Obviously he knew there was a chance that Lens would offer Coulibaly a deal but thats the chance he knew he would have to take.
Yeah we did our share of wasting the TV millions didn't we? Marcus Bent and The Fox in the Box anyone?
(shudders and gets back to work)
Dowie made some bad judgements and wasted a good few millions.
The shit Bent and Jeffers were both Curbishley signings.
First time I've ever defended Dowie. This doesn't feel right.
Yes, I was aware they were Curbs' blunders. Wasn't Dowie's downfall caused by bad signings? How much did we pay, and for whom?
Arsene Wenger got Jeffers wrong as well, even the best make mistakes. He hardly cost us anything in the end either. As for Marcus Bent, he was well-liked at Everton. I suspect disliked more for his off-the-field "nightclubs and WAGS" image than his performances on the pitch - he wasn't great but we've had plenty worse.
In comparison, Dowie spent £4m on Djimi Traore and Amdy Faye, both of whom were a laughing stock at their previous clubs and renound for nothing except being utterly useless. Totally inexcusable.
Jeffers had got 20 goals in 60 games for Everton when Wenger paid more than eight million. Jeffers never got near that scoring rate again. Wasn't part of his problem a slight over-indulgence in the sherbets?
Back to Dowie (sorry!) - were those disastrous signings you cite the sole cause of his very swift downfall? Nothing more to it than that? Is it an urban myth that a couple of months into his tenure someone conducted a straw-poll within the club and couldn't find anyone who liked him - even the tea-lady at Sparrows Lane gave him the thumbs-down.
You might be right about Jeffers. However, I think he was well worth the gamble for money we paid for him, which I believe only totalled about £500k in the end.
As for Dowie, it wasn't just the signings, he was an incompetent, arrogant moron - lots of tales on various threads on this forum about rumoured "incidents" during his tenure. I hate the bloke - there's been plenty of bad decisions made over the last few years but his disastrous 5 months in charge was, in my opinion, the most significant factor in our journey to the edge of bankruptcy.
I know this isn't the right thread to dissect Dowie (now there's a thought) but I'd really like to know more - what are those "incidents"? Due to other commitments I didn't get to see the games of his tenure. I did recently try trawling the archives of CL without much success - it would be much better if someone could give me the bullet points of what went wrong.
Bear in mind that I loathe the bloke so am probably not as objective as I could be. Aside from squandering in the space of a couple of months the money that Curbs had effectively been stockpiling for us over a number of years, there were a number of stories that made it into the press that suggested a total lack of professionalism. Two of them were mentioned earlier in this thread:
- took the team on a morning walk around Newcastle the morning before our away game at St James' Park that reportedly ended up with the the team getting lost and having to negotiate there way across a motorway to get back to the team hotel.
- arranged for the team coach to stop off at his friends/relatives house on the way up to Wigan so he could pop in for a cup of tea.
- had his brother Bob Dowie giving the team talk at half time in our away match at Fulham. Bob was on Palace's payroll at the time.
- believe there was a story in the press about Dowie disappearing for the day when he was supposed to be taking training.
Appreciate that some of that might not sound too serious, but that's only the stuff that made it into the public domain. The reasons for his sacking are still a closely guarded secret so I guess we'll never find out the full story.
Some were pleased when we appointed him because it wound up Simon Jordan. Personally I was gutted that we appointed someone so closely affiliated with Palace - found it difficult to support the club as long as he was in charge. Obviously I didn't want us to lose, but I also knew that every defeat took him a bit closer to the sack. Highlight of the season was randomly checking the internet on a Monday evening in November and finding out that he'd got the boot.
Yes of course it was pre-arranged and to be fair to powell he wanted to see coulibaly a couple of times before even thinking about approaching his agent.Obviously he knew there was a chance that Lens would offer Coulibaly a deal but thats the chance he knew he would have to take.
... and don't forget there are reports in the Polish press confirming that Wisla Krakow are interested too.
Many thanks for that summary, MrLargo - informative and amusing! I must confess I welcomed his appointment; don't forget he had taken Palarse from the bottom three at Christmas to the play-offs (promotion?) in May - an astounding achievement. By his own admission Curbs had lost a measure of influence with the players, who needed to hear a different voice. I thought Dowie's military-style route-marches (even across motorways in Newcastle!) might give us a kick up the arse. And I didn't mind the fact that he had come from Palarse; in fact I thought that was a delicious twist, because the fans didn't want to lose him and Jordan was so angered by the defection that he brought a legal action.
Did any other Lifers think Dowie's sacking after just 12 or 13 league games was a trifle hasty? I'd love to know the inside dope on that one....
It was hasty. There didn't seem to be a plan post dowie. A knee jerk reaction that did more harm than good.
Wolves sacked mcarthey mid season and ended up with that doughnut who simply did have a clue. Remind me what happened to wolves?
And why did Dowie do so well at Palarse, yet fail for us? Aside from the eccentricities mentioned by MrLargo above, was it his poor judgements when buying players? And were 12 or 13 games enough to judge him? I remember the poor old sod was as shocked at getting the boot as I was surprised.
Comments
In comparison, Dowie spent £4m on Djimi Traore and Amdy Faye, both of whom were a laughing stock at their previous clubs and renound for nothing except being utterly useless. Totally inexcusable.
Back to Dowie (sorry!) - were those disastrous signings you cite the sole cause of his very swift downfall? Nothing more to it than that? Is it an urban myth that a couple of months into his tenure someone conducted a straw-poll within the club and couldn't find anyone who liked him - even the tea-lady at Sparrows Lane gave him the thumbs-down.
As for Dowie, it wasn't just the signings, he was an incompetent, arrogant moron - lots of tales on various threads on this forum about rumoured "incidents" during his tenure. I hate the bloke - there's been plenty of bad decisions made over the last few years but his disastrous 5 months in charge was, in my opinion, the most significant factor in our journey to the edge of bankruptcy.
I cant get my head past the point that somehow Dowies signing was as much Muzza sticking it to the Tango man as any ability that he had as a manager.
- took the team on a morning walk around Newcastle the morning before our away game at St James' Park that reportedly ended up with the the team getting lost and having to negotiate there way across a motorway to get back to the team hotel.
- arranged for the team coach to stop off at his friends/relatives house on the way up to Wigan so he could pop in for a cup of tea.
- had his brother Bob Dowie giving the team talk at half time in our away match at Fulham. Bob was on Palace's payroll at the time.
- believe there was a story in the press about Dowie disappearing for the day when he was supposed to be taking training.
Appreciate that some of that might not sound too serious, but that's only the stuff that made it into the public domain. The reasons for his sacking are still a closely guarded secret so I guess we'll never find out the full story.
Some were pleased when we appointed him because it wound up Simon Jordan. Personally I was gutted that we appointed someone so closely affiliated with Palace - found it difficult to support the club as long as he was in charge. Obviously I didn't want us to lose, but I also knew that every defeat took him a bit closer to the sack. Highlight of the season was randomly checking the internet on a Monday evening in November and finding out that he'd got the boot.
Six agents, four clubs, 32 years old and never heard of you mate.. Adios Adamo.
We'll use our own thank you.
Did any other Lifers think Dowie's sacking after just 12 or 13 league games was a trifle hasty? I'd love to know the inside dope on that one....
Wolves sacked mcarthey mid season and ended up with that doughnut who simply did have a clue. Remind me what happened to wolves?
I am not a dowie fan but it just went tits up completely.