Warnock........is he worth it?

[DocMartin 682]

10 minutes ago, sanddancer said:

Let’s face facts none of us can see the future so it’s all purely hypothetical. I’ll stand by what I said about the fans though as NW is not exactly winning them over and I think they have lost faith in the club and long term projects. 
The question being why would the club need a temporary manager and not accelerate there current plan, if there is one?  

Well I would suspect the manager they hope or expect to appoint is currently contracted in a job. If he isn’t, maybe he has other commitments in the media or maybe as a current player. Gibson has famously never poached a current manager when they’re in post as a manager at another club. Someone has to be manager and personally speaking, I can’t think of anyone better than Warnock that would do the job for one season only. Scott needs time to assess what we have and how best to transition on the budget set.

[sanddancer 1,967]

7 minutes ago, DocMartin said:

Well I would suspect the manager they hope or expect to appoint is currently contracted in a job. If he isn’t, maybe he has other commitments in the media or maybe as a current player. Gibson has famously never poached a current manager when they’re in post as a manager at another club. Someone has to be manager and personally speaking, I can’t think of anyone better than Warnock that would do the job for one season only. Scott needs time to assess what we have and how best to transition on the budget set.

Well explained. Thanks.. 

[Redcar Rioja 5,976]

12 hours ago, DocMartin said:

I really do not understand the anti Warnock rhetoric. He is overseeing a transitioning team. He is the manager with the best record of promotion from this league bar none. He has been trusted by our owner to oversee the transition. He seems well thought of amongst the players. Payero does not speak English has moved from Argentina and needs to settle in to new surroundings He needs time. He is being kept in and around the squad.

What has he done wrong exactly? We have no right to smash any team even Derby. It is where we are in May 2022 that matters. All the new players are getting used to one another and how they fit in. His best 2 forward players from last season were carrying injuries. 
 

I think some folk have just been waiting to jump on him as soon as they could. If we are out of the top ten by December, fair enough. If we finish above 10th he will have improved us we are never going to be top 2 with Fulham, WBA and to some extent Bournemouth and their parachute money. We are trying to compete on peanuts. I think we can and will make top 6 if Sporar, Burger Van and a LB capable of playing CB come in and can hit the ground running relatively quickly.

You all know he is leaving next May why disrupt this season by sacking him and putting in another temporary coach who will know he is offski in May, whats his buy in? Total madness to do anything but see how he pans out, madness

I have probably been one of Warnock's greatest supporters and have debated and argued with many on here since his arrival supporting him. What I am witnessing however is that since the turn of the year when the team he was forced to work with started to be altered with his January incomings his trajectory and ours as a Club has slipped. He saved us from certain relegation after the Woodgate car crash folly and started off reasonably well with what he had to work with. Full marks for all of that but since January I have been somewhat circumspect on what he is doing. 

The players he brought in last January didn't improve us despite what on paper at least should have yielded better. we went through periods of him moaning and whining to deflect issues but dropping points to Blackburn, Rotherham and Birmingham severely dented our aspirations and we struggled to get thing back on course with confidence seemingly in short supply. Dressing Rooms, Akpom, Referees, Referees again or their Assistants always to blame when the problem source to me seemed far closer to home had he looked in the mirror. I consigned last season as one of those typical Boro ones towards the end but that final day capitulation at home to Wycombe told me that fundamentally things had drifted badly and there is only man responsible for that malaise and indifference.

Our opening day away at Fulham was a desperate rearguard event and not unreasonably so considering the quality of the Fulham squad until it all turned when Jones came on either through managerial brilliance or a stroke of luck but fair play the last fifteen minutes or so had us looking a totally different side. Up next came Blackpool and I'm happy to just write that one off, hardly the thoughts of someone with an "anti-Warnock" agenda".

Along came Bristol who seem to be a bit of a basket case at the minute under our old boy with their fate this season likely to go either way. It was a hard fought game but a well deserved win again with young Jones standing out. Ikpeazu (who many had berated on here and who I had supported the signing of at the time as being more than just a big lumbering Striker) and Crooks all looked pretty good so fair play to Warnock, maybe he was winning me back a little despite huge misgivings over his man marking strategy in defence which looked outdated and easily corrupted.

Then came QPR and his defence was all at sea, his midfield was porous and confused yet we somehow took the lead early on through a genuine Penalty. QPR are a good side with a Manager I would be happy to see up here in the Home dug out and we all know what ensued against ten men. That happens in football sometimes, it shouldn't but it does, they pack the defence and cling on for dear life except they didn't. They came at us sensing that our midfield and defence where in disarray and actually went on to score the winner. Against ten men we should have twisted the knife but wily Warnock pouts on a player he has berated and demoralised for months and effectively evened up the man advantage. To lose was a real sickener but deep down I wasn't surprised after watching and sensing the frailties of Warnock's methods since January. Those eccentric decisions, weaknesses in tactics and selections have migrated into this season.

The perfect hangover cure came up next, Derby away who have little love for Boro and even less for Warnock's idol Steve Gibson. If ever there was an opportunity to get something out of your system, this was it. Forget QPR and man marking and Jonny "marmite" Howson. Get stuck in and get things back on track. Words fail me at how underwhelmed, indifferent and downright ill prepared, dysfunctional and awful we were on Saturday. How can any Manager send players out onto a pitch with no coherent shape or tactical formation or at least one that the Players themselves understood? It was as bad as that home game against Wycombe just a few short weeks back. To have a side so demotivated comes down to one thing, Neil Warnock, not any handy deflection antics just the man in his own mirror and for me it hasn't been a one off. 

Citing his promotions with Scarborough but claiming that it is only 4 games into this season doesn't sit with me. He is a very experienced Manager but clearly only within a certain level that on paper should have us up there but for the last 8 months it feels to me like driving with the handbrake on. That chaotic Derby farce finished me with him.

The Club looks at long last to be developing a strategy for the greater long term good and getting someone in now would probably do more damage than Warnock remaining to drag and drain this season out. I am resigned to him swearing and screaming every time things go wrong because he has screwed up again. I am resigned to him instructing players to roll over every time a waft of air breezes past them and I am consigned to him frustrating the heck out of me by setting his teams up in a way that confounds common sense let alone modern football methodology. 

Next season we will hopefully have an entirely new ethos set in place and a fresh new era to get behind. For the time being I hope that Warnock settles down to retire gracefully and just keeps things ticking over. If he continues with the same monotonous mouthy expletives to deflect attention from his own inadequacies while putting out dysfunctional teams then the atmosphere around the Riverside will become more and more unpleasant just as it has on this board over the weekend. He may of course pull his Y fronts up and prove everyone wrong and that he has one last campaign still in him. I hope so but personally I'm far from convinced and have resigned myself to more nonsense with the odd blips of misplaced optimistic hope sprinkled here and there until he goes, one way or the other, sooner or later. Meanwhile the sticking plaster will no doubt have to remain on until someone rips it off.

 

[AnglianRed 6,320]

14 hours ago, DocMartin said:

I really do not understand the anti Warnock rhetoric. He is overseeing a transitioning team. He is the manager with the best record of promotion from this league bar none. He has been trusted by our owner to oversee the transition. He seems well thought of amongst the players. Payero does not speak English has moved from Argentina and needs to settle in to new surroundings He needs time. He is being kept in and around the squad.

What has he done wrong exactly? We have no right to smash any team even Derby. It is where we are in May 2022 that matters. All the new players are getting used to one another and how they fit in. His best 2 forward players from last season were carrying injuries. 
 

I think some folk have just been waiting to jump on him as soon as they could. If we are out of the top ten by December, fair enough. If we finish above 10th he will have improved us we are never going to be top 2 with Fulham, WBA and to some extent Bournemouth and their parachute money. We are trying to compete on peanuts. I think we can and will make top 6 if Sporar, Burger Van and a LB capable of playing CB come in and can hit the ground running relatively quickly.

You all know he is leaving next May why disrupt this season by sacking him and putting in another temporary coach who will know he is offski in May, whats his buy in? Total madness to do anything but see how he pans out, madness

I think you're forgetting some fans didn't want him in the first place, with his Pulis-lite reputation.

Some have never liked him being in charge. Others, who had hopes of us challenging for promotion under Warnock's reign may have become disillusioned with him.

For those of us who simply saw him as a safe pair of hands until we could find a "decent" manager, he's still managed to frustrate and annoy us with some of his team selections and tactics (and the resultant shambolic performances), over his time here.

Personally, I agree it makes no sense to get rid of him mid-season. The handover needs to be done sensibly, so that we can both appoint a suitable manager and give them the necessary breathing room to assess the squad and work with Scott to plan for next season.

 

But to say you can't understand the anti-Warnock rhetoric leads me to ask: have you actually been watching Boro over the last year or so?

Yes, he's fulfilled his remit...sort of. But bloody hell its been hard going at times.

 

[sanddancer 1,967]

I don’t think the QPR or Derby game has done anything but ask more questions and his berating officials betrays frustration and deflection. What is concerning is his apparent distancing from the club with comments, nowt to do with me, among others. I don’t think the club is in a happy place which makes it harder to attract the right players.  
 

I don’t know of anyone who can work out his selection, formations or tactics or for that matter his substitution and timing. Watching professional grown men run around chasing opponent players like a game of tag is bewildering. 
 

One thing for sure is it creates a lot of discussions.. 

[DocMartin 682]

6 hours ago, AnglianRed said:

I think you're forgetting some fans didn't want him in the first place, with his Pulis-lite reputation.

Some have never liked him being in charge. Others, who had hopes of us challenging for promotion under Warnock's reign may have become disillusioned with him.

For those of us who simply saw him as a safe pair of hands until we could find a "decent" manager, he's still managed to frustrate and annoy us with some of his team selections and tactics (and the resultant shambolic performances), over his time here.

Personally, I agree it makes no sense to get rid of him mid-season. The handover needs to be done sensibly, so that we can both appoint a suitable manager and give them the necessary breathing room to assess the squad and work with Scott to plan for next season.

 

But to say you can't understand the anti-Warnock rhetoric leads me to ask: have you actually been watching Boro over the last year or so?

Yes, he's fulfilled his remit...sort of. But bloody hell its been hard going at times.

 

Yes I am an SC holder and watched all the games since his arrival. He is a genuine guy in real life i can assure you on that too and i am certain he is working his socks off to deliver as best he can with the hand dealt him. He is a marmite manager, he knows that, but a lovely fella and he has my full backing while he is here. He inherited a bigger pickle than Branston could make, lest we forget 👍

[Foogle 2,104]

Well Warnock has lost 25m+ worth of players this summer and spent a couple million replacing them. So I'm not sure how our team is supposed to improve results when our major expenditure is a player that Warnock clearly didn't want.

For me this is always a transition season, after seismic changes at the top of the club we need to avoid large-scale upheaval elsewhere. 

[wilsoncgp 9,283]

1 minute ago, Foogle said:

Well Warnock has lost 25m+ worth of players this summer and spent a couple million replacing them. So I'm not sure how our team is supposed to improve results when our major expenditure is a player that Warnock clearly didn't want.

For me this is always a transition season, after seismic changes at the top of the club we need to avoid large-scale upheaval elsewhere. 

Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I hope you're not making that statement based on what we paid for them. 😅

[sanddancer 1,967]

6 hours ago, sanddancer said:

I don’t think the QPR or Derby game has done anything but ask more questions and his berating officials betrays frustration and deflection. What is concerning is his apparent distancing from the club with comments, nowt to do with me, among others. I don’t think the club is in a happy place which makes it harder to attract the right players.  
 

I don’t know of anyone who can work out his selection, formations or tactics or for that matter his substitution and timing. Watching professional grown men run around chasing opponent players like a game of tag is bewildering. 
 

One thing for sure is it creates a lot of discussions.. 

Daveybongeye are you actually capable of commenting or just posting emoji and one liners? 

[Foogle 2,104]

Just now, wilsoncgp said:

Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I hope you're not making that statement based on what we paid for them. 😅

Of course, no one in their right mind would pay what we did... 😵

It's probably what bought the stark mismanagement and need for a director of football to Gibson. He's plumped 25 million that's been lost on these players and we probably don't even look that much worse after dropping a couple million on new players.

[Redcar Rioja 5,976]

20 minutes ago, Foogle said:

Of course, no one in their right mind would pay what we did... 😵

It's probably what bought the stark mismanagement and need for a director of football to Gibson. He's plumped 25 million that's been lost on these players and we probably don't even look that much worse after dropping a couple million on new players.

I'd say we look better which is another cause for frustration. Ikpeazu has shown more than Britt (for whatever reason/s) in just a few games, Crooks looks to be more like the Saville we hoped we had signed and both were far more sensibly priced as oppose to paying well over the odds. Throw in Jones and I would argue that on paper it looks better than last season despite the difference in cost prices. It's a bit like buying your ingredients from M&S or from Lidl and baking a cake, the cost of the ingredients may have been cheaper from one retailer but the end product will be just as good, depending on the Cook of course and that no doubt is where the debate starts.

[DocMartin 682]

1 hour ago, Redcar Rioja said:

I'd say we look better which is another cause for frustration. Ikpeazu has shown more than Britt (for whatever reason/s) in just a few games, Crooks looks to be more like the Saville we hoped we had signed and both were far more sensibly priced as oppose to paying well over the odds. Throw in Jones and I would argue that on paper it looks better than last season despite the difference in cost prices. It's a bit like buying your ingredients from M&S or from Lidl and baking a cake, the cost of the ingredients may have been cheaper from one retailer but the end product will be just as good, depending on the Cook of course and that no doubt is where the debate starts.

Not just the cook, but the equipment they have to hand to mix the ingredients together. I will be amazed if we do not finish in or around the top 6 as the season progresses, providing the guys doing the shopping can deliver the missing ingredients for the chef, i.e a striker, winger and LB capable of filling in as a left footed CB when needed.
 

I can just see a Boro week on Masterchef, Warnock demanding the best beef Lidl can provide with his £30 budget, Bausor procuring his Wagyu beef from the reduced isle at Waitrose having stalked the assistant with the pricing gun for hours on end and Gibbo ordering his beef direct from Laverstock Farms organic biodiversity range, raised from the finest organic grasslands, suitably cured and matured and personally delivered by helicopter to the Masterchef building for him to await his delegated chef of the day to cook on his behalf a favoured beef wellington in a style becoming of Michel Roux Jnr (lite), when in walks Stewy Downing with a slightly stained masterchef apron purchased from eBay, a box of oxo, and a 500g packet of frozen puff pastry previously purchased from Asda South Bank en route as Gregg Wallace quietly whispers, no stewy, he said en croute!

[sanddancer 1,967]

3 hours ago, DocMartin said:

Not just the cook, but the equipment they have to hand to mix the ingredients together. I will be amazed if we do not finish in or around the top 6 as the season progresses, providing the guys doing the shopping can deliver the missing ingredients for the chef, i.e a striker, winger and LB capable of filling in as a left footed CB when needed.
 

I can just see a Boro week on Masterchef, Warnock demanding the best beef Lidl can provide with his £30 budget, Bausor procuring his Wagyu beef from the reduced isle at Waitrose having stalked the assistant with the pricing gun for hours on end and Gibbo ordering his beef direct from Laverstock Farms organic biodiversity range, raised from the finest organic grasslands, suitably cured and matured and personally delivered by helicopter to the Masterchef building for him to await his delegated chef of the day to cook on his behalf a favoured beef wellington in a style becoming of Michel Roux Jnr (lite), when in walks Stewy Downing with a slightly stained masterchef apron purchased from eBay, a box of oxo, and a 500g packet of frozen puff pastry previously purchased from Asda South Bank en route as Gregg Wallace quietly whispers, no stewy, he said en croute!

The art of literature, bravo, enjoyable read

[atypical_boro 154]

On 8/22/2021 at 7:28 PM, DocMartin said:

Then the fans that do hound him deserve the credit for derailing this season. Warnock is off in May 2022 for goodness sake, a new temporarymanager will need to be in post knowing he wont get the job with Scott planning for next summer and the new manager and transfers. I repeat putting a temporary manager in between now and May achieves nothing, it would upset some of the players signed this window and be far more disruptive than letting Warnock do his thing and hope he can get us into the play offs. The words foot and shooting and yourself spring to mind.

Gibson clearly has a plan let him get on with it his way, be patient, for the good of the team and club.

Excellent post - someone gets it! For all Gibson is chastised for not having a long term plan, when he finally has one and its plain as day to see, a significant cohort of fans suddenly want to abandon it and roll the dice in the hope of short-term success!

[atypical_boro 154]

On 8/22/2021 at 8:50 PM, sanddancer said:

Let’s face facts none of us can see the future so it’s all purely hypothetical. I’ll stand by what I said about the fans though as NW is not exactly winning them over and I think they have lost faith in the club and long term projects. 
The question being why would the club need a temporary manager and not accelerate there current plan, if there is one?  

So we finally have a long term plan but the fans can't wait 7 months to see it take shape? This is why he hasn't bothered with one up until now, most fans simply don't have the patience.