hector wrote:
It is one thing to have realistic expectations, but it is quite another to have NONE at all.
No one here have NO expectations. What the realistic among us have are expectations of finishing half way up the bottom half of the table, which, given a reasonable view of the club, the off field investment, the squad, the manager and everything else is perfectly acceptable. We're there or there abouts and we've got games against those around us coming up.
hector wrote: For anyone to feel that where we are is understandable given the relative newness of manager and players is excusing the most shocking incompetence.
Not at all. Where do you think we should be? Top? We're within 4 points of where we should finish (18th, for the record). Given that we play the teams in 18th, 19th and 24th place in the next calendar month, points are likely to come our way and those points will propel us to 18th or just above. Speculation, of course, we might lose all three matches, but that seems extremely unlikely.
hector wrote: Had the club advertised for a new manager and gone through a thorough recruitment process, rather than give the job to Knill simply because he was already in the building and a bandwagon, powered mainly by relief that we didn't go down, cheerleadered for him to get it, then maybe, if Knill was the best bet, I would agree with you. But they didn't. They took the easy option, even though, there may have been better options available.
You trot this out constantly and constantly you're asked either to prove it or stop taking nonsense. You do neither. The club did not appoint our manager on the basis that he got a big cheer from the Pop side. It is a trait of someone with massive psychological issues to believe that they, as a fan, might have that sort of influence. Whether we like it or not, we are not an attractive prospect to managers or players. There are all manner of Conference clubs who would be able to poach employees from us. The list of people willing to work here, under our conditions, would be extremely short and would comprise those already out of work. Out of work managers are in that state for a reason. Knill has a good record (if short) of doing well at teams in a similar position to ours. Making him an offer was a perfectly decent thing to do. He accepted that offer. Last year, Thea sacked Ling and the Board were slated for it, for being mean to a sick man, for being heartless and showing no loyalty. Imagine if we'd have simply let Knill walk out of the door after he saved us from almost certain relegation, there would have been anarchy.
hector wrote: You say that if someone else came in he would want to dump half the players. Isn't this what Knill himself is doing? He resigned Yeoman, Benyon and already he sent Callum Ball back.
Hold the front page, we've sent a player out on loan, another one on the bench and we've sent back a loanee who looked nothing like as good as he needs to be. Christ, can you hear yourself? Yeoman has spent 99% of his Torquay career out on loan. As good as he looked for a couple of games at the end of last year, he's been here for, what, six years now and he's made half a dozen appearances. That MUST tell even you that there is something missing from his game. If we were stubbornly refusing to play a decent player, someone else would have taken him off our hands. They haven't, so there's a problem with him which we, as supporters, are not party to.
hector wrote: We had five recently signed players in our team yesterday in O'Connor, McCourt, McCallum, Azeez and Mozika to go with the others he has signed. One cannot imagine he has ended there and more will come and go, so if a new manager came in and did the same, then what difference does it make?
O'Connor - Cover for the Injured Downes
McCourt - Cover for the injured Harding
McCallum - Big man up front and considerably better than anything we have in the building.
Azeez - Caprble of playing on the wing or down the middle. Pace to burn, good in the air and miles above our level. What about this makes you upset?
Mozika - Been here for months, just not fit. Clearly our best midfielder and will be snapped up by someone somewhere for a fat fee. Again, I an't believe you're complaining about this. We should be thanking our lucky stars we aren't stuck with Ryan Gilligan instead.
hector wrote: Just maybe, a new manager will inspire the players to be more of a team unit
Oooh, maybe eh? **** ing maybe? You're willing to have almost £100,000 based on a "maybe". **** me, I hope you're not an accountant.
hector wrote: He just does not seem to be able to inspire the fight or passion from players.
You weren't there yesterday then?
hector wrote: Knill's record just does not inspire you to hope for anything other than mediocrity at best.
Fine, so we're a mediocre side. That's fine. To be honest, in a division featuring the likes of Plymouth and Portsmouth, I think we are mediocre. Knill's record has been explained to you time and again in here and this is something else you choose to ignore. We're all seeing a pattern among our more daft posters. They make points, get corrected, then ignore the correction and just keep on ploughing on regardless. It's transparent, it's boring and it's meaningless.
hector wrote: So changing the manager might not work
Oh **** it, it doesn't matter, we'll just blow a six figure sum for something which "might not work". It's a bloody good job we've got so much money that we can afford to do that sort of thing on a whim.
hector wrote: I cannot see it being much worse than the way things are currently going.
For God's sake, I'm almost boring myself now. We're in October, what were you expecting? We've had an inauspicious start, but there is so far to go that "the way things are currently going" is as meaningless as the rest of this tripe.
hector wrote: The game against Bury is against a team, that if we are decent we should beat - although one would have hoped for that against York, Newport, Mansfield etc - so if we cannot and we slip into the bottom two, then the club have a choice to make.
Newport and Mansfield, two clubs widely tipped for promotion. What are you on about? I'm not convinced even you know at this stage. We were better than those two. Mansfield came for a point and got one and Newport took advantage of us have no fit central defenders. With Downes and Pearce fully fit for that match, we win it comfortably.
hector wrote: Do they keep throwing good money after bad and backing Knill with attacking loan signings and risk slipping into non-league and the financial oblivion that ensures for TUFC? Or do they give themselves a fighting chance by acting early?
This really takes the biscuit. Absolutely clueless about the realities of running a football club. How much are these loanees costing us, Hector?
Sacking Knill will cost us (for the third time) a hundred grand or there abouts. How do you think we'll fund that? I'll tell you, we'll have to sell players, because we sure as hell haven't got a hope of getting it from anywhere else. Will we raise the required cash? No, certainly not. Our whole squad isn't worth that kind of money, let alone the one of two players we might be able to afford to sell. So, we'd go into administration for not being able to pay what we owe. That would cost us 10 points. we'd presently be bottom with 1 point and 10 from safety. We'd have no manager, because no one will come to us in the circumstances, which means that Andy Candy would be picking the XI every week. We'd be able to attract no players, either perm or loan, so the minute we got an injury or suspension, we'd be calling up the youth teamers.
So, tell me again about how sacking Knill will save us from relegation...
hector wrote: For those asking who? Whilst I am not a big fan of Martin Allen, I would take him like a shot. Whether he would come here is another thing but I don't think he is too out of our league. I just think he would have that galvanising edge that would propel, not a dreadful squad, to better performances than than the relegation team they are doing an impression of.
So would Alex Ferguson, what's your point?
All in, a post up to your recent standard. Looks lovely, but stands up to absolutely no scrutiny whatsoever.
Matt.