MUTINY by players.Konspiracy??.... We will see

[mr t]

Can you really see some of our senior players enjoying the prospect of a new man coming in and making them work hard. Didi is on deaths door and ball has past his heyday. Dunne wants an easy life which although hes been good the last few seasons has started to rest on his laurels. Get young players in that want to be apart of this and ship out the old timers that never saw what it is to make it at the very top. Theres too many of these stories for it to not have basis and doesnt suprise me one bit with hughes demanding players in asap after clear player protest against forest.

Good post.

What we've got to remember is that none of these problem players, in the whole of their careers with the exception of Hamann, has played for a top class team and they've probably never been asked to step up to the mark like this before. Hamann is past it. He's 36 and probably can't believe that he's still playing in the Premiership - he looks unfit and the training regime is probably killing him. The others can't hack it.

As for Sven - the expectation was never as great as it has been for Hughes. We were not the worlds richest club and I think he had luck on his side. I remember being hammered by the scum at Eastlands but winning the game. I remember other jammy wins and I remember a long winless streak in the 2nd half of last season and I think the same players did not perform well under him.

And as for a manager - no manager can be everybody's best mate. Boundaries have to be drawn and expectations have to be set and everybody needs to be treated fairly and equally. People need to work as a team and this is something that Sven achieved in his first few months at Eastlands. Even though we had the same players that we have now under early Sven they had a team spirit and that won them games and allowed the momentum to carry the team forward. Again it didn't last the whole of the season and didn't seem to work away from home but it was better than Hughes has got - there seems to be very little team spirit at the moment.

As for Baconface smiling in training sessions and finding time for humour which is something that Hughes apparently dosen't do - Baconface can afford to. He is a successful top flight manager who has won everything in sight several times over and is surrounded by a team of people who perform to his expectations. Hughes is not in that position yet. Maybe he'll be able to smile in a few years but at the moment it sounds as though he's got a real job on his hands just to get players on his wavelength.

 

[Anonymous]

Maybe I'll PM you and we can finally get that pint. ;-)

I'll be back in Mancland early next week...around until 28th Jan...lets do it.

 

[OB1]

And part of the reason for that was that they saw Sven as a dead man walking and also that they didn't feel they had much to play for because for sometime they believed they would qualify for Europe via the Fair Play. The team also lost players who had been important when they were doing well (Richards and Johnson) and Elano was by his claims affected adversely by an injury.

I dont think anyone wants another Sven v Hughes debate but even if I accept the dead man walking theory, this doesnt explain the dire performances from November to March (ie before it even emerged that Sven was under serious threat)?

I wasn't expressing a theory.

 

[mackenzie]

Mack, I'm surprised you are asking that question. I presume it's in the knowledge that you know what the answer will be, but I'll press on.

The exceptional circumstances, and I don't seek to justify the Middlesbrough performance by stating them or to condemn it, were these engineered by a despotic chariman taking every opportunity post January to undermine the manager and to prolong a whispering campaign about him being sacked at the end of the season. You know that I considered this to be disgusting behaviour at the time and I still do. It gives me little pleasure (well, ok, a bit of the pathetic 'I was right' type, I suppose) to recount that I had numerous arguments at the time with people who clamied that he was doing nothing of the sort and that no decision had been made at all. In fact, it was said by some to be only code for a complete review of everything from the tea lady up.

Now it is generally accepted that Thaksin had made his decision. I contend that he was a totally inappropriate owner of our club and an awful decision maker, interested only in his own short term popularity on the other side of the world and this is what motivated his every action and statement. I accept that's just personal though.

quote]

You know what JMA? I agreed with you at the time re Thaksin. I thought the 1/8 result was indicative of the whole backroom shite at the club at the time.

But, I have to admit (LOL!) this time I was playing Devils Advocate. That in a way I was trying to make you see another point of view (one that I didn't see at that time). In that players DO have a massive influence on what happens on the pitch. It's just that this time it is not the ones in the Board Room they have a problem with, it's the one in the changing room, and on the training pitch. Why? I have no real idea (as I guess you would admit to also) but the signs coming from what people like Blue 2112 indicate is that we have inherited a legacy of certain players that do not pull their weight when the shit hits the fan.

This has been there now for some time, under two different Managers. If they don't like their little comfort zone threatened they sulk.

 

[moomba]

but the signs coming from what people like Blue 2112 indicate is that we have inherited a legacy of certain players that do not pull their weight when the shit hits the fan.

This has been there now for some time, under two different Managers. If they don't like their little comfort zone threatened they sulk.

I think this is a bit more common than we would like to think. I'd say it's typical in most clubs when things aren't going great.

To finish to 4/3/2/1 we will need players with the ability to finish top 4/3/2/1, but also the mentality to do that.

 

[Brucie Bonus]

It took some time to put that together. It was worth waiting for. Is it possible for you to write anything without self-contradiction? This business about not addressing me directly is the height of disingenousness. To whom was your Haig thread directed this morning? Anyone? No one? Your friends and confidantes? You treat this forum as though it were your own little myspace. You toss out this and that, aiming at general classes, and complain when someone has the temerity to respond. You now appeal to long-standing relationships, understanding, reasonable discourse, agreements to disagree, all in a transparent attempt to colour and isolate me as some sort of hostile (and juvenile) interloper.

I must say, you have intimidated me. That wasn't your purpose, I know. I'm not worth the effort. You wouldn't stoop.

This thread has moved far from it's origin. You and yours are to be congratulated on a superb effort, some quality heavy-lifting.

 

[Bluebeer]

thinking about it, some people pointing to dunnie's hard work and 100% effort over the last few years etc, why would he complain about training now, yet in his early years he was an over weight boozing party man who was on the edge of the plank before his last gasp effort to change his carrer around, so it isnt hard to believe that he has a lazy attitude to training

 

[mackenzie]

but the signs coming from what people like Blue 2112 indicate is that we have inherited a legacy of certain players that do not pull their weight when the shit hits the fan.

This has been there now for some time, under two different Managers. If they don't like their little comfort zone threatened they sulk.

I think this is a bit more common than we would like to think. I'd say it's typical in most clubs when things aren't going great.

To finish to 4/3/2/1 we will need players with the ability to finish top 4/3/2/1, but also the mentality to do that.

Agreed Moomba.

But it will take a Manager who is allowed to do the job from beginning to end I think. We can't keep having Managers who keep inheriting some other Managers "deadwood" (and I use that term in a very loose way) because all we keep getting is a transition.

Not saying Hughes IS the answer, but lets please get someone who can really stamp his identity on this Club?

 

[mammutly]

It took some time to put that together. It was worth waiting for. Is it possible for you to write anything without self-contradiction? This business about not addressing me directly is the height of disingenousness. To whom was your Haig thread directed this morning? Anyone? No one? Your friends and confidantes? You treat this forum as though it were your own little myspace. You toss out this and that, aiming at general classes, and complain when someone has the temerity to respond. You now appeal to long-standing relationships, understanding, reasonable discourse, agreements to disagree, all in a transparent attempt to colour and isolate me as some sort of hostile (and juvenile) interloper.

I must say, you have intimidated me. That wasn't your purpose, I know. I'm not worth the effort. You wouldn't stoop.

This thread has moved far from it's origin. You and yours are to be congratulated on a superb effort, some quality heavy-lifting.

If there was ever such a plan, it hasn't worked with me Brucie. You do post crap sometimes ( as in I disagree with you), but you're seldom boring and often interesting.

 

[Balti]