Massive job on.
Good on him hope he keeps to his word, because so of the players at Witton are not commited anymore, some of the excuses I was hearing yesterday about confidence, psychological problems etc are just pathetic, these are grown men who are playing football for gods sake GET A GRIP!!
Seems a bold and logical move. Too many people blame the management in these circumstances and that’s unfair. He hasn’t had much time, he inherited a team in the doldrums and he’s had to re-jig a squad for peanuts as NONE of the “big money signings” were doing it consistently. Once the players are on the pitch it is fundamentally their responsibility to perform and yesterday was totally inept and, maybe worse, had no real entertainment value for those kids who are the future crowd. So, we move on, get rid of more dead wood and keep turning up, with hope and little else, to be fair. But it’s not too late to turn things round…yet.
If he wants to be bold and have a clear out then I wish he would do it rather than talk about it it just leaves a cloud around the club/team ! best way would be to bring in the 2 or 3 we need and then let the ones you don’t want leave, at this stage of the season it will not be easy to find better players than we have no one we have are rubbish just off form and lacking confidence or heads are not on it. Just hope he can turn the tide.
Sully is right in saying things do need to change, names that have been apart of the club for a number of years now aren’t performing. We all know they can perform in this league as they’ve done it in the past but something has obviously changed.
I really can’t see things changing anytime soon, as Sully said in his interview psot match on saturday - there’s been 3 managers this year now, maybe it is time to start questioning the players.
It’s going to be hard for the manager to bring in new players and throw them in straight away, let’s face it we could do with a good 7-8 players at the moment, near enough a full team and we’re doing this before Novemeber for goodness sake!
Sully is going to be here for the long haul, the next couple of months will test our patience on/off the field and we need to stay behind Sully and stand by the team.
Totally agree, i have been very impressed by Sully and feel that given time he will lead this club to success, some of the players need to either put more effort in or leave, we cannot afford to carry passengers anymore we need players who will throw their bodies onto the line and give 100%
Sully has said the dressing rooms poison right now which to me suggests one or 2 players dont have the best interest of the club at heart so they must go whoever they are and allow the Manager to bring in a few grafters who wont accept the type of performance like many we have seen this season
Scott Bakkor transfer listed according to Simmo.
Breaches of terms of contract.
Amazing how fast they go from being the answer to our prayers to useless and ill disciplined.
WHS.
WHS I actually agree with you.
Are we expected to believe that players who played so well for the last 10 weeks of last season and by all accounts marvellously well and gelled in an excellent pre-season are suddenly not good enough.
I’ve said it before and nothing I’ve seen or heard since will make me change my mind - the rot set in at Runcorn, absolutely diabolical mis management from the top of the club. Leaks, rumours call em what you will were everywhere BEFORE the game about this player or that leaving.
After the game it was even reported on social media that ‘the whole squad was on the transfer list’
Forget cash, morale is just as big a motivator in football and from the horses mouths, from feeling they could be part of a club which was on the up and going places to be then told that we’ve mismanaged/overspent/not got enough revenue coming in so if we lose today a few of you are going…and the proof of the pudding is now that proven players at this level have left/been released, also the squad we are talking about was put together by Brian Pritchard, does anyone really believe that Pritch’s judgement and knowledge of players was that flawed?
Fast forward to an open forum 2 weeks ago and an after the match interview and we’ve got another PUBLIC statement of intent that the players are this that and the other.
If this was a unionised company we’d be in big trouble - Wake up THEY’VE BEEN DEMOTIVATED, THEIR JOBS HAVE BEEN PUT UNDER THREAT AND THEIR EMPLOYERS ARE PUBLICALLY CRITICISING THEM, and then quelle surprise their confidence is fragile and they no longer want to run through walls for the club.
I think Andy has got it spot on in his last post and the mis management starts at the top of the club sort it out!
Andy chad has hit the nail bang on the head the way the players have been demoralised by the club statements regarding wages being put on transfer list and other rumours it would have an affect in any other job so isn’t it time we gave the players some support instead of slating them because as it has been said if this happened to anyone in any other job they would sue there employers
But now it’s down to the manager to sort the dressing room out, get them organised and if need be bring in players who can do a job at this level, I still don’t think we need that much ! In fact 2 strikers who could score over the past 6 games would see us out of the relegation zone IMO of course we are hoping for more than that so 3 maybe 4 are at least needed. We need to stop having a go and pull together or we are going to slide further not improve which is surely what we all want.
Couldn’t agree more with Chad. What happened before the Runcorn game (never before have I arrived at a game and found that the ONLY topic of conversation is budget rather than football), has seen the club go into a downward spiral that we just haven’t recovered from.
However, it does not need to be terminal.
In the short-term it is vital that those responsible hold their hands up and realise they have made extremely damaging mistakes. Mistakes which can not and MUST NOT be repeated (although there is already evidence that we still haven’t learned anything from this experience).
In the longer-term…the time to truly sit down and analyse ‘Runcorn-gate’ is probably in the summer. IF we go down (and right now I honestly think we are relegated), then fingers will quite rightly be pointed, and blame will be dished out – and quite rightly. You take a position of responsibility, then you have to expect criticism when you make serious errors.
I’m sure none of those players wanted to go out and get humiliated by a team 2 leagues lower than us – and with it missing out on an FA Cup win bonus. They clearly were not in the right frame of mind.
We can’t however let one game define our season – and with it the immediate future of the football club. At some point we HAVE to move on from Runcorn.
There has to be unity within the club if we want to move forward. For the last 2 seasons there has been an “us and them” mentality WITHIN the club (a lot of us are guilty of it). We don’t stick together anymore. Is there any wonder we’re going backwards?
We need to generate an Us and Them mentality towards the outside world. We have to create a feeling of togetherness…as difficult as it currently is, we have to let the players know that we are with them in this.
In my mind, there a few things that can be done to try and reverse this downward trend:
- We have to remove some of the players’ excuses for the recent form.
a) Financial issues – ok, no more talk of budget cuts and players being released being leaked. Lets try and get some additional monies into the kitty – it was great to see the battle Of The DJs so well supported, that’s a great start. Also, can we pull in some cash that is currently being used in other areas – for example, is putting money into the pitch fund currently having a huge benefit to us (merely speculating here before the gorundstaff shout at me!), we’re all very proud of having such a fantastic pitch, but surely we would rather have an average Premier Division pitch than the best pitch in Division 1 North?
b) Support Issues – I’m sure for a club in our perilous position, the support the players are receiving is second-to-none. However, could we make more noise? Probably. Would it help the players? More than likely. Might be worth trying to get the supporters concentrated in one area behind the goal and making some noise – it surely can’t hurt?
c) Public criticism needs to stop. Do the players deserve the criticism? You betcha. Has the criticism resulted in improved performances? Not on your nelly. Are the players likely to use the criticism as an excuse to drop performance levels by 10 or 20%? I would expect so. If I was getting moaned at by my boss or colleagues on a daily basis, it certainly wouldn’t result in me giving 100% every day. On the flip side, i wouldn’t expect 300 people to pay to sit and watch me work either!
I’m certainly not saying that what we as supporters are currently doing is wrong, I’m just throwing some ideas around. In my mind, the more excuses that we take away then the more responsibility the players then have to address their own shortcomings.
The players at Witton are well looked after, well supported, they have a great pitch and great facilities, get paid on time and in full (where possible). But the more things we can do to wrestle an extra 10% out of them then hopefully the sooner we can start seeing results improve.
I don’t want Witton to go down, and if we do then I don’t want to look back and think there was perhaps more that I could have done to stop it. If we all pull together then maybe it isn’t just down to the players to stop the rot…
In the summer we can call people out, make public who we feel is to blame, etc etc etc. Right now I just want to see my team win some games.
Or maybe I’m just talking rubbish….i don’t know.
Well said Robbo. If Robbo and I can agree then there must be hope for us yet. A win at Sheffield will do everyone a power of good, so come on players, give us tgat victory to build on.
WHS.
It’s hard not to agree with Robbo, but I don’t know how we actually do change things that make a difference, maybe after the volunteers meeting tonight our future might be mapped out a bit better, but ignoring that do we need to get everyone together to thrash out events, issues and try to galvanise ourselves behind the manager, the chairman and the club as a whole, maybe then we could move on and hopefully results and finances may improve ?
Most consecutive losses:
18, Darwen, 1899–1900
17, Rochdale, 1931–32 (Division 3 North)
17, Sunderland, 2002-2003 (15 in top tier)
Come on the Albs let’s not go there, GET A POINT!! (Please!)!
I think we should take some consolation and hope from the fact that we have mainly been playing teams well up in the league lately and only losing by the odd goal. All we need is for that “Odd Goal” to be in our favour and I do believe these players can get us out of this mess, at least I certainly hope so.
WHS.