Rotherham United (A)

[Hoppy]

44 minutes ago, boltonboris said:

I used to miaguidedly think we’d be alright if we went up, but when you see the quality of the attacking players and general play in the Championship and compare that with us, the difference is massive. 

We simply wouldn’t stand a chance without significant changes to the personnel. We’re not good enough, quick enough, powerful enough to get near them. Even the ‘shit’ teams score fantastic goals you couldn’t envisage us scoring 

I think it was quoted last year that if we went up we would need at least £20,000,000

[Johnnyrotten]

44 minutes ago, boltonboris said:

I used to miaguidedly think we’d be alright if we went up, but when you see the quality of the attacking players and general play in the Championship and compare that with us, the difference is massive. 

We simply wouldn’t stand a chance without significant changes to the personnel. We’re not good enough, quick enough, powerful enough to get near them. Even the ‘shit’ teams score fantastic goals you couldn’t envisage us scoring 

I've seen Plymouth score some fantastic shots to name one "shit" team, but even if they aren't amazing goals technically, lots of teams score from powerful headers too, the likes of PNE and Stoke struggle along but their goals are the type we could only dream of.  Course we'd recruit some new players to give us half a chance, but not for one minute would I trust IE with that recruitment.

[burnden]

12 minutes ago, Traf said:

Bore off Evatt, you deluded cunt.

I'm the one stood in technical area with my hands in my pockets.
I'm the one slumped on the bench when it starts going pear shaped.
I'm the one who can only make straight one for one subs
I'm the one who runs straight down the tunnel after a defeat.

I'm the one who says i take responsibility but send my assistant out to do the presser for the next game.

[boltonboris]

33 minutes ago, kent_white said:

Weirdly - I think Evatt's style would suit the championship better than league 1. Albeit with some new personnel. 

I still think one of the best performances I've seen from us under Evatt was when we played Luton at home. We still lost like! 😁

I don’t think we currently have a style. The press will be so much faster and effective a level up and we won’t be able to keep the ball out of our half. 
We play so deep. So far towards our own net, that without wholesale changes it would simply be a disaster. Southampton in the Premier League but on shit pills. 

[Traf]

40 minutes ago, boltonboris said:

I don’t think we currently have a style. The press will be so much faster and effective a level up and we won’t be able to keep the ball out of our half. 
We play so deep. So far towards our own net, that without wholesale changes it would simply be a disaster. Southampton in the Premier League but on shit pills. 

How many goals per season would we concede in the Championship with Santos & Baxter taking goal kicks to each other along the 6-yard box?

[Matt Lofthouse]

8 minutes ago, Traf said:

How many goals per season would we concede in the Championship with Santos & Baxter taking goal kicks to each other along the 6-yard box?

I’m confident that scenario will never happen mate. I’m also confident it will continue to happen in league one though.

[RONNIE PHILLIPS]

The most chilling part of that statement is "it's everyone and everything"...... From his own mouth the whole thing is fucked and it's on his watch.

[Tonge moor green jacket]

2 hours ago, Johnnyrotten said:

I enjoyed that game, but how many teams play their best games against better clubs in the FA Cup?  Its just what happens, its a different mindset, from both teams, and there's a novelty factor that often makes teams raise their game.  It just wouldn't translate to the weekly grind of run of the mill games against Millwall, Oxford and Cardiff, and that's without considering the games we'd have little chance in (those recently down from the Prem).

Generally I agree. 

With the slight exception of the Luton game though, we've hardly made a scratch against higher teams whilst Evatt has been manager.

Might help a bit if he didn't them into "gods" beforehand.

Anyway, that's a minor point.

[Steejay]

16 minutes ago, Tonge moor green jacket said:

Generally I agree. 

With the slight exception of the Luton game though, we've hardly made a scratch against higher teams whilst Evatt has been manager.

Might help a bit if he didn't them into "gods" beforehand.

Anyway, that's a minor point.

See, I generally disagree.

The regression from two/ two and a half years ago is frightening. 
 

We smashed Sunderland, who got promoted, we smashed Ipswich away, and since then, we’ve spent millions but are a ridiculously poorer team.

We weren’t disgraced against Villa in the Carabao cup either.

He’s just not been able to adjust his tactics and his inflexibility/stubbornness show his naivety.

He’s lost the plot completely.

[Johnnyrotten]

17 minutes ago, Tonge moor green jacket said:

Generally I agree. 

With the slight exception of the Luton game though, we've hardly made a scratch against higher teams whilst Evatt has been manager.

Might help a bit if he didn't them into "gods" beforehand.

Anyway, that's a minor point.

When we played Oxford (Wembley), Wigan, Derby, Pompey etc they set out a game plan to stop us play (who can blame them).  They had a "we'll just stop you playing" attitude.  Luton were just a championship (residing temporarily in the Prem) version of Reading/Peterboro - coming to play us at our own attacking game, knowing eventually they'd be too good for us unlike the teams in L1 that try it.  Rob Edwards probably gave as much thought to setting up to play us as we would when we played Barrow or Walsall (that went well).  Completely different mindset, championship teams will either be effortlessly superior to us (top 10 etc) or will just know how to stop us playing our own predictable game and formation.

[Tonge moor green jacket]

8 minutes ago, Steejay said:

See, I generally disagree.

The regression from two/ two and a half years ago is frightening. 
 

We smashed Sunderland, who got promoted, we smashed Ipswich away, and since then, we’ve spent millions but are a ridiculously poorer team.

We weren’t disgraced against Villa in the Carabao cup either.

He’s just not been able to adjust his tactics and his inflexibility/stubbornness show his naivety.

He’s lost the plot completely.

My agreement was with the comment that teams often raise their game against higher league teams in the cups. 

For me, that isn't something we've done.

Started OK against Villa, and decent against Luton, but they later went down.

The rest, about how cack we've become in the league, I don't dispute.

[Zico]

Bit for me from the interview

“I am not delusional and the minute I don’t think I can get any more out of these players then I will have that conversation with the board. They know that and I know that.”

When you look back post Wembley 

The players came out and said they don't know what happened 

We had the black cloud in the summer 

A new captain who tells us what they're being asked to do is complicated and requires really hard work

After Huddersfield the coach and performance analyst are sacked 

IE tells us players aren't putting a full shift in during training 

Honest conversations after Stockport 

Can't handle the Cambridge crowd against ten men

A recent call for players to drive higher standards 

And now coming out and saying it's on the players who are mentally weak and fragile 

(don't forget he was the one who came across full of self pity and was saying he was considering his future in the build up to his crunch game v Barnsley)

I dunno mate but it looks like you can't get anymore out of this set of players 

But the board give him £1m for another player

Maybe that was the outcome of the conversation

So maybe they're the delusional ones

In any case 

There's only one way to show us you can get more out of these players 

[SirNat80]

I think it's actually the Board who might be the ones to question not Evatt. To give him another £1.2m for another average lightweight midfield player to go with the others when we've been crying out for a no nonsense tough tackling player for 2 years is mind blowing. I noticed that the super league computer has us down to finish in 14th position !! Yep 14th in the third tier after he's wasted the best part of £5m and we were favourites with Birmingham to be promoted. I also saw the comment ' if I can't win the battle I will be the first to go and have that conversation with the Board '.

He shouldn't be the one to make that decision for God's sake he's an employee he doesn't get the right to decide when we're sinking faster that the Titanic that OK I'll take my payoff and leave the new manager with ' these lot ' all his signings. Give me strength we are an absolute basket case on and off the field.

[Mantra]

Don't think all the money is wasted but definitely been designated a bit sketchily recently.

Still have plenty of good assets in the team. Any decent manager at this level could come in and get a tune out of them.

A couple of sales and a couple of decent loans, play 442 or 433 and just let the team do something different for the second half of the season and see if we can achieve something instead of letting this situation continue to stink out the place and drive down sentiment.

[Dr. Feelgood]

2 hours ago, Zico said:

After Huddersfield the coach and performance analyst are sacked 

..

 &, y'know, call me picky but it doesn't seem like they were the issue after all.

[Zico]

24 minutes ago, Dr. Feelgood said:

..

 &, y'know, call me picky but it doesn't seem like they were the issue after all.

or the captaincy

[Zog1]

The reason we're struggling now against everyone is the same reason we did poorly against good sides last year too.

When Evatt made his change from 532 to a 5212/523 his plan A 2.0 or whatever he called it, basically doubled down on the bits which weren't working, this was across the board, yes from style and formation perspective, but also recruitment.

His talks of mental weakness etc are basically a gaslighting attempt to cover this up.

Even now if we went back to 532, sure, we'd start beating those weak teams again but ultimately, it would never get us promotion from League 1, even if we'd have done it from the start of the season.

I think the fact that he's been exposed as not being the genius he clearly thinks he is, has broken him, his ego can't handle it, and it's clear to me atleast, that he needs to go, even if it's for his own mental health.

 

 

Edited January 14 by Zog1

[Stig]

7 hours ago, SirNat80 said:

I think it's actually the Board who might be the ones to question not Evatt. To give him another £1.2m for another average lightweight midfield player to go with the others when we've been crying out for a no nonsense tough tackling player for 2 years is mind blowing. I noticed that the super league computer has us down to finish in 14th position !! Yep 14th in the third tier after he's wasted the best part of £5m and we were favourites with Birmingham to be promoted. I also saw the comment ' if I can't win the battle I will be the first to go and have that conversation with the Board '.

He shouldn't be the one to make that decision for God's sake he's an employee he doesn't get the right to decide when we're sinking faster that the Titanic that OK I'll take my payoff and leave the new manager with ' these lot ' all his signings. Give me strength we are an absolute basket case on and off the field.

Sadly I think you're right. I've been a big fan of the board but allowing this to go on makes absolutely no business sense.

In business speak, we're losing a lot of money following a strategy that almost certainly won't achieve our goals and is alienating our customer base. Only companies that want to go bust keep on the same course.

[Steejay]

FAN base.

[Stig]

22 minutes ago, Steejay said:

FAN base.

I was trying to equate it to any company, not just football 

[bwfc4ife]

The relationship that both Sharon and Ian reportedly share is where the issue lies for me.

It's a massive conflict of interest.

It's great that they get along so well however when the tide turns it becomes almost impossible to manage. From the outside, it looks a lot like employing a family member, its extremely difficult to create appropriate boundaries and makes it almost impossible to break ties due to the inevitable rift that will ensue therefore you try and prolong it as much as possible to avoid that situation (speaking from experience). 

I believe it's simply naivety at it's finest with a massive scoop of hope lumped in so that Sharon doesn't have to make that decision. Unfortunately, it's a situation that she'll learn from ultimately and a situation i presume she'll strongly avoid in future. 

The only hope i have is that he self destructs completely and leaves her no choice.

It can't be far off given some of the shite he's put out to save his own skin after some of these appalling defeats. Some of the comments he's made this season shouldn't have been allowed to slide. 

[Whitesince63]

1 hour ago, bwfc4ife said:

The relationship that both Sharon and Ian reportedly share is where the issue lies for me.

It's a massive conflict of interest.

It's great that they get along so well however when the tide turns it becomes almost impossible to manage. From the outside, it looks a lot like employing a family member, its extremely difficult to create appropriate boundaries and makes it almost impossible to break ties due to the inevitable rift that will ensue therefore you try and prolong it as much as possible to avoid that situation (speaking from experience). 

I believe it's simply naivety at it's finest with a massive scoop of hope lumped in so that Sharon doesn't have to make that decision. Unfortunately, it's a situation that she'll learn from ultimately and a situation i presume she'll strongly avoid in future. 

The only hope i have is that he self destructs completely and leaves her no choice.

It can't be far off given some of the shite he's put out to save his own skin after some of these appalling defeats. Some of the comments he's made this season shouldn't have been allowed to slide. 

I feel a bit the same way about their relationship. I’m not for a minute saying there’s anything remotely inappropriate going on but they clearly have an unusually strong bond which may appear fine when things are going well but less acceptable when things are coming off the rails. In a performance sense, Evatt has effectively failed over the previous 3 years to get us promoted and it looks very much like he will fail again this year despite the targets outlined and the money invested in his players and coaching staff. Loyalty is a commendable thing at any time and she showed that in his first year and it payed off but this isn’t a new manager getting hold of things, nor a manager struggling with a temporary blip, this is a manger throwing good money after bad and failing over an extended period and still regressing further. At what point do you accept that somethings not working and hard decisions be made? You can’t just come out and extol confidence then disappear again while things worsen. If she’s so confident in IE don’t tell us what he HAS done, tell us what you think he’s going to do and why you think that because the majority of us just don’t see anything but decline. It’s time for Sharon to drop the “Buddy” stuff and face the hard facts. It’s only likely to get worse Sharon so act now for everybody’s sake.

[Tonge moor green jacket]

Unfair to say ge has failed for three years.

Can't expect to go straight up again!

Last year we dropped off and lost a top 2 spot.

That was a failure, as was losing at Wembley. 

This season, well, it's a disaster.

[JimmyRiddle]

Sharon clearly got the measure of Keith Hill pretty quickly and lost no sleep over potting him.

He actually sounded pretty logical in his views on the team and the issues on GMR, which is saying something!

So that said, Evatt has to be in the same moomin territory now as Hill ended up, and a decision was made then?

 

[Johnnyrotten]

2 hours ago, bwfc4ife said:

The relationship that both Sharon and Ian reportedly share is where the issue lies for me.

It's a massive conflict of interest.

It's great that they get along so well however when the tide turns it becomes almost impossible to manage. From the outside, it looks a lot like employing a family member, its extremely difficult to create appropriate boundaries and makes it almost impossible to break ties due to the inevitable rift that will ensue therefore you try and prolong it as much as possible to avoid that situation (speaking from experience). 

 

Its not unlike the Harrogate situation, where the manager is the son of the chairman.  So far he's been there 15 years, IE's tenure has only just begun in comparison 😀