Not the intensity of the pro- and anti-Ronnie furore but emotions running high on another Millers MB and the inevitable question is being asked; "Who is to blame."
For what it's worth I don't think anyone is. I anticipated relegation long before a ball was kicked. The truth is (I think) that the new stadium, the two promotions and TS's frankly silly remarks about bringing Premiership football to NYS blinded us to football reality. We are a mid-table L1 club with the resources and fan base to support that position. In a good season we can make the play-offs or even automatic promotion to the Championship but once there will struggle to survive. In a bad season we might get relegated to L2 although this ought to be an infrequent risk.
What we can achieve though is to develop a more sensible recruitment policy and aim at playing progressive and entertaining football.
The voice of reason RK! We went too far too soon with the short term Evans methodology. He left after blowing this years budget on poor players, failing to win any of our winnable early fixtures and just before the toughest run of fixtures we will have all season. Some now laud him as a lost hero. I loathe him, but he delivered what was asked of him so to some extent its not his fault. It was never sustainable though. We now need to settle down a bit and start rebuilding. We may go down. We may not. Either way there is work to do and we all need to calm down. We are, by the way, still only one win from being out of the bottom three. We played well against Burnley and Reading. We only have a modest chance of staying up but at least we now have a future. Chasing an unrealistic dream too soon would have ruined us.
According to out Tone, our playing budget is the 15th highest in the championship. That doesn't put us as a mid table league 1 side.
An interesting point although I'd like to know both his basis of comparison and what he means by "playing budget". I wasn't being disparaging but I can't see a budget of 15th in the Championship being sustainable in the longer term without an increase in capacity and crowds.
Depends how you measure budget. Also it doesn't help when you spend what you have on quantity over quality and blow it. Which of Evans close season signings would anyone label as good signings? White? Halford? Buxton? Roos? Collins? Maguire? Mattock? A lot of money blown there by our standards and no doubt some signing on fees as well as wages. So good are they that within weeks we needed a new keeper and had to look to Norwich for loan players to bail us out. None of that is Redfearns fault. He has had to try and pick from what he has at his disposal to compete against Reading, Wednesday, Derby and next Boro.
Depends how you measure budget. Also it doesn't help when you spend what you have on quantity over quality and blow it. Which of Evans close season signings would anyone label as good signings? White? Halford? Buxton? Roos? Collins? Maguire? Mattock? A lot of money blown there by our standards and no doubt some signing on fees as well as wages. So good are they that within weeks we needed a new keeper and had to look to Norwich for loan players to bail us out. None of that is Redfearns fault. He has had to try and pick from what he has at his disposal to compete against Reading, Wednesday, Derby and next Boro.
None of this will matter as a developing mythology grips many fans - "The spirit of Evans."
Every Wednesday fan I have spoken to actually rated Buxton, Mattock and Maguire. Buxton & Mattock are certainly good enough. I do think that Maguire is good enough but he certainly hasn't shown that yet.
Collins is okay. Ledesma was a strange signing as we knew he was garbage from last season. White, Halford and Roos were certainly bad signings. Four mediocre signings doesn't constitute blowing the budget.
The knives are out because of the daft formations, the lack of spirit and passion, strange substitutions like leaving Ward on the pitch for 90 mins against Wednesday when he never had a kick. Playing Clubfoot in front of Thorpe.
The knives are out because Redfearn is coming across as clueless. He needs to prove me wrong and quickly or our Tone will be sharpening his knife.
Every Wednesday fan I have spoken to actually rated Buxton, Mattock and Maguire. Buxton & Mattock are certainly good enough. I do think that Maguire is good enough but he certainly hasn't shown that yet.
Collins is okay. Ledesma was a strange signing as we knew he was garbage from last season. White, Halford and Roos were certainly bad signings. Four mediocre signings doesn't constitute blowing the budget.
The knives are out because of the daft formations, the lack of spirit and passion, strange substitutions like leaving Ward on the pitch for 90 mins against Wednesday when he never had a kick. Playing Clubfoot in front of Thorpe.
The knives are out because Redfearn is coming across as clueless. He needs to prove me wrong and quickly or our Tone will be sharpening his knife.
Fair points. My reference to "knives are out" was not for Redfearn but rather a reference to the recriminations appearing on MM between fans.
i think we need to separate genuine opinions and observations about a performance (good or bad) from knives being out. I thought we were awful yesterday, a lot of players just didn't seem to care, the one that showed real passion was young grant ward, banging the ground after the 2nd goal, shouting at other players. The manager stated in his pre-game interview that they had worked on closing down spaces, pressing high up the pitch, well the team didn't do that the Derby players were having 5 to 7 seconds to play every ball. So yes the team deserve to be criticised for that performance. I also think the team selection was poor and that is a worry for me because it has been in 2 out of the 4 games. However that doesn't mean I am against the manager, the club or the chairman they are observations about things we can control, that aren't affected by budgets. We are a league 1 club and that is where we are going if we keep playing like this, for me if we are adrift at xmas, we need to accept our fate and build a league 1 team with our own players as much as we can in January, send back the loan players, sign up players that are out of contract next summer that we want to keep. That way we are more likely to have a good start next season because the team will have played together for a few months. Whatever happens we will renew our season tickets and wear the shirt with pride
i think we need to separate genuine opinions and observations about a performance (good or bad) from knives being out. I thought we were awful yesterday, a lot of players just didn't seem to care, the one that showed real passion was young grant ward, banging the ground after the 2nd goal, shouting at other players. The manager stated in his pre-game interview that they had worked on closing down spaces, pressing high up the pitch, well the team didn't do that the Derby players were having 5 to 7 seconds to play every ball. So yes the team deserve to be criticised for that performance. I also think the team selection was poor and that is a worry for me because it has been in 2 out of the 4 games. However that doesn't mean I am against the manager, the club or the chairman they are observations about things we can control, that aren't affected by budgets. We are a league 1 club and that is where we are going if we keep playing like this, for me if we are adrift at xmas, we need to accept our fate and build a league 1 team with our own players as much as we can in January, send back the loan players, sign up players that are out of contract next summer that we want to keep. That way we are more likely to have a good start next season because the team will have played together for a few months. Whatever happens we will renew our season tickets and wear the shirt with pride
I dont always agree with you Derby, but I think you have hit the nail on the head. A realistic and sensible proposal
Derby, I repeat that the reference was nothing to do with opinions regarding Redfearn. It was inspired by posts on MM where a couple of people were being slagged for supposedly "never accepting Evans as manager" etc, etc.
All about opinions Oneaday. I don't rate Buxton. I think he is slow and offers nothing going forwards. Mattock - maybe but he has a sick note history. Maguire - never been a regular in any team he's been at and I am just not sure. Collins - not good enough. In my opinion if you sign a dozen players and add them to the dozen you retained, then a few weeks later say you need two or three new signings, you've blundered. I saw no Evans Spirit against Mk Dons, Forest or Fulham. I imagine that Redfearn looks around him at what he's been left and hears people saying Evans was the man and screams inside. Evans is the cause of the problem, not the solution. But....he was asked to take us up to the Championship and was allowed to do it his way. So job done, price paid, and on we go.
