Board? Players? Management? Or all 3?

[chunkygull]

the board are on a hiding to nothing really this season, all the money spent on that grandstand and bailing the club out of the last mess, it was promised that we would never again be allowed to descend to the depths of the conference, but the present board werent around then, and they dont seem to have any grasp of how serious the situation has become since the turn of the year.

maybe they've all put all the money they can afford into the club, maybe they decided that they would settle bills and keep us solvent with the money raised from eunan etc, did we even get all the money upfront??

maybe ling was offered the money to bolster squad, maybe he decided he didnt need to, my opinion is, as a lot of others, that we do have a competent squad, some superb players, but they havent been told or allowed to play the right way. we've got one of the tightest defences luckily, and we still havent been battered by anyone this season. but the clock is ticking down, games are coming around quickly, its only this month and next and our fate will be decided. theres no may miracle to come to the rescue, i think we've got to realise that we arent gonna get any players in this week either by the looks of it? its up to our players to do it themselves, build on our flawless defence and get the midfielders to sort themselves out, they all know who can do what, do they never express their opinions to the manager, surely it cant be all one way traffic from ling/taylor/knill, they are grown men, take it upon themselves to do what needs doing on the pitch these last 11 games. its gonna take a lot of courage, as the plainmoor crowd will do very little to raise their mood if things dont click into place very quickly against oxford, there will be a lot more noise coming out of the away end this saturday than from the pop and the bench.

i still think we'll scrape thru this, but will things change for next season, no future planned until we know how ML will be , hardly any players under contract, luckily they probably wont attract much attention from elsewhere so the manager should be able to sign who he wants. gonna be a quiet summer anyway i reckon, but its all part of the frustration of being a gulls fan

good post. absolutely agree 100 % with all of it especially the highlighted bit. have said it for years if something is not working in a match a professional footballer (midfield especially) who has probably been playing since they were 6 or 7 years old should be able to think on the pitch for themselves and change the way things are going.

i have seen this happen before many times. quite often it is about how much a manager or coach trusts their players. too often these days they dont.

and yes they should listen to their players at times for ideas or to get the best out of them. this would bring a more respectful ,positive working relationship all round.

managers seem to be more worried about what the other team are going to do and are more worried about not losing than trying to go for the win.

too much of that has happened at our club. conclusion = the manager/coach does not trust the players enough.

which leads me back to the fact i agree we should be pushing the ball forward and attacking more. the best, most successful teams attack, they dont worry so much about being solid and defending. if the ball is up at the oppositions end then they have the problem and defending isnt such a worry.

teams should defend from the front.

attack is the best form of defence.

no guts, no glory.

[bixieupnorth]

seaside or the pits of yorkshire, i know where i'd choose, oh hang on, i picked the wrong one!!

[Dave]

I mostly agree with Brucie's comments! Also consider this:-
1) Much as i hated the little scrote as a man, I am convinced that Buckle would have loan-signed between 2-3 players in the last 2 weeks no trouble!!
2) Before any one questions the potential qualiity of his loan signings did he not bring in Craig Stanley; Jake Robinson; and Gavin Tomlin at the tail end of his last season and maybe other players that have slipped my mind for the moment3) Although few players would want to come to us on loan from the North of England , again Craig Stanley came from a Nortern club!!

No, those players all arrived at the club in January 2011, as we know those players came from Morecambe, Shrewsbury and Dagenham. Which does tend to make the argument about our club not being able to attract players because we pay peanuts wages and have a poor location look complete nonsense so what.

And it is what I have have been saying for while, all about timing, would Buckle have signed these players in march, probably not, as they would have already been out on loan, or just would sat tight, as said we have left it all to late, sadly.

[AustrianAndyGull]

seaside or the pits of yorkshire, i know where i'd choose, oh hang on, i picked the wrong one!!

Me too!

[hector]

You look at our team and you would hope there are enough players there to get us out of this mess. If you consider the spine - a decent keeper in Poke, a great defensive pairing in Saah and Downes, in midfield (on paper at least) an experienced player like Mansell and Howe up front.

You would think that, that is better than what e.g. Plymouth could muster. But then Mansell has not been playing well and the rest of the side is made up of players who on their day can work wonders but far too often are just ineffective. Perception is a funny thing. At the start of the season, one felt that we still had a decent squad, based on the previous season. Yet at the start of last season after Buckle ransacked the squad, I thought we were weak, so was pleasantly surprised with how last year went. But perhaps, the squad was poor after all.

The way it has been performing, the perception is that actually, these players are not good enough, they cannot win and we are doomed. You would fancy the current squad to do well in the Conference but we know that anyone half decent will be off and the replacements will be substandard.

Whose fault is this? I'm beginning to think the board has to take some blame. When Ling was not signing players, I wondered if it was him. But now that Knill isn't either, then who is the common denominator here? I think Martin Ling was running out of ideas before he was taken ill and I'm afraid, that although three games is too early to tell, Knill needed to make an immediate impact and like many of us feared, he is not that type of manager. Too many players are performing badly, so it is probably a combination of all three.