Mark McGhee

[The Large One]

i also agree with NMH. the team are not performing and something needs to be done. good job NSC doesnt speak for the majority of fans.

(oops sorry i forgot they do!)

Nonsense. The team IS performing. Not in every game, but we are playing MUCH better than last year, and sometimes it has been a pleasure, and like a breath of fresh air, to watch.

People only look at the results, not the manner of the performance. Yes, the results are disappointing, but it's not as though the players aren't trying. We ARE good enough.

To say that the answer is get new blood in/get a new manager, they must have had a pretty comprehensive attack of amnesia. Before 28 October, we were a club absolutely flat broke, no disposable income playing in a stadium catering for a quarter/third/half (delete as appropriate) of our potential crowd, completely uncovered with embarrassingly bad facilities, and no guaranteed future.

The only thing which changed on October 28 is the bit about a guaranteed future - nothing else has. We are still a club deep in the shit.

We have turned in some cracking performances this season, and not been given our due reward. I've said it before and I'll say it again, our fundamental problem is that we are not scoring enough. We are creating the chances (we should have battered Wolves), but not putting them away. If Hammond, Knight, Robinson et al had tucked their sitters away this season, we would be mid-table, confidence would be high, and we would be laughing.

But rather than support the team on, we choose to massacre the manager and the players for not being good enough. I am at a loss to think why he is getting such treacherous disloyalty. This is the team and the manager we have got, and while it is everyone's right to moan about things, what does it achieve? McGhee is going nowhere, and Dick Knight is not going to sack him. Deal with it.

Of course, if anyone doesn't like it, there's always Chelsea. Or Man U. Or Arsenal. Or Wigan Athletic.

 

[The Large One]

We do need balls.

We dont seem to have the balls to take games by the scruff of the neck. Palace away being the exception when we did.

There have been other times, but basically, I agree.

 

[caz99]

Nonsense. The team IS performing. Not in every game, but we are playing MUCH better than last year, and sometimes it has been a pleasure, and like a breath of fresh air, to watch.

People only look at the results, not the manner of the performance. Yes, the results are disappointing, but it's not as though the players aren't trying. We ARE good enough.

To say that the answer is get new blood in/get a new manager, they must have had a pretty comprehensive attack of amnesia. Before 28 October, we were a club absolutely flat broke, no disposable income playing in a stadium catering for a quarter/third/half (delete as appropriate) of our potential crowd, completely uncovered with embarrassingly bad facilities, and no guaranteed future.

The only thing which changed on October 28 is the bit about a guaranteed future - nothing else has. We are still a club deep in the shit.

We have turned in some cracking performances this season, and not been given our due reward. I've said it before and I'll say it again, our fundamental problem is that we are not scoring enough. We are creating the chances (we should have battered Wolves), but not putting them away. If Hammond, Knight, Robinson et al had tucked their sitters away this season, we would be mid-table, confidence would be high, and we would be laughing.

But rather than support the team on, we choose to massacre the manager and the players for not being good enough. I am at a loss to think why he is getting such treacherous disloyalty. This is the team and the manager we have got, and while it is everyone's right to moan about things, what does it achieve? McGhee is going nowhere, and Dick Knight is not going to sack him. Deal with it.

Of course, if anyone doesn't like it, there's always Chelsea. Or Man U. Or Arsenal. Or Wigan Athletic.

The team is not performing if we are not getting wins which we need. we fell apart in the second half at stoke, thats not performing. as i pay to watch my team play like anyone esle i am entitled to my opinions just like everyone esle.

80% of the team i am loyal and fiercly protective of BHA. however i am entitled to become pissed off when we are throwing away points and the manager is my decisions i dont feel are good imo. its human nature. i am not going to be a sheep following everyone esle when i jsut dont agree

 

[tedebear]

But rather than support the team on, we choose to massacre the manager and the players for not being good enough. I am at a loss to think why he is getting such treacherous disloyalty. This is the team and the manager we have got, and while it is everyone's right to moan about things, what does it achieve? McGhee is going nowhere, and Dick Knight is not going to sack him. Deal with it.

Spot on that man - I can't stand the moaning, whining and whingeing.....it seems its all some people can do rather than constructive criticism....

My two pence worth is that the team are a darn sight better than previous seasons but need to shift up a few gears to maintain the standard of the league....we are performing but is it enough? only time and points will tell....

 

[The Large One]

The team is not performing if we are not getting wins which we need. we fell apart in the second half at stoke, thats not performing. as i pay to watch my team play like anyone esle i am entitled to my opinions just like everyone esle.

80% of the team i am loyal and fiercly protective of BHA. however i am entitled to become pissed off when we are throwing away points and the manager is my decisions i dont feel are good imo. its human nature. i am not going to be a sheep following everyone esle when i jsut dont agree

Nothing to do with sheep, and you are entitled to your opnion.

But the team performing and the team not getting results are not mutually exclusive. You cite one example, but for every one you can give me of a poor performance, I reckon I can give you two back where we played quite well this season. Of course we are not going to give every team a hiding this season, but we ARE competing.

The fact is we are drawing too many games that we should be winning. Which is still a damn site better situation to be in than we have been in since we have returned to this division.

 

[Ex Shelton Seagull]

Let's face it, there are people who have never had much time for McGhee since the day he took over and have never warmed to him. All the success that he has led us too has been celebrated through gritted teeth and now we've had a bad performance the knives have been gleefully unleashed. Whether this was down to his acrimonious departures from Reading & Leicester, or his (deserved in my eyes) reputation for making strange team selections, I don't know.

3 wins out of 30 ain't good, that's for damm sure, but neither is say 5 wins out of 30. Yet if we had turned 2 draws this season (Leeds and Leicester away for example) or we win 2 games over the next 4 weeks, we would have 20 points and currently be 16th in the table. Would there be so much "McGhee OUT" stuff then? What is an acceptable win/draw/lose ratio for a small club like ours in this division? What standards had people set for us at this stage of the season?

I think there's also a fair amount of NSP-style "let's wind up the geeks and nerds on NSC" japery behind the current upsurge in anti Mark McGhee stuff on here of late. There certainly wasn't this amount of stuff after we put in two shit performances vs Norwich and Cardiff at home. I don't really see how a standard shit Stoke performance can be viewed as a camel breaking straw. People know that they can wind up the more "excitable" members of this board by slagging off McGhee, who's often held in awe by certain posters as an untouchable subject, beyond reproach. By dropping these grenades you can gain a lot of amusing OTT reactions.

McGhee is not some a genius nor is he the worst manager we've ever had. He's a competent football manager who led us to promotion and maintained that improved standing last season. For me personally, his credit is good. I think that the team is more creative than it was last season and that we create more opportunities than we did last season. This change was something that was begun last year with the purchase of Darren Currie and has only come back with the acquisition of Carole and Frutos. Now we need to work on taking those opportunities up. This can be done by trying to encourage the front players to get into the opposition penalty box more, rather than drift out wide as Knight and CKR do. Either our current players do this, or we get someone in on loan or in the transfer window who can. It's not an impossible task. I don't know if Turienzo (or Richards for that matter) will come good but I do think that dismissing both of them after about 3 months of the season is a little premature in my opinion.

He does make strange tactical choices. Some of them don't work (Mayo in midfield anyone?" but some of them do. One of the strangest tactical moves i've ever seen watching the Albion was putting a right back/central defender who couldn't distribute the ball well up front. What a success that was though. He was turned into our top scorer and we got 1.5 million quid for him in one of the biggest transfer coups we've ever had. I say that we miss Virgo's physical strength up front and we currently only MacCammon could perform that role, though it remains to be seen if Turienzo could do that role.

I don't think he properly replaced Dan Harding this summer. It's my opinion that Harding would have made a big difference this season if he had stayed. He's starting to fit in up at Leeds and I do think that he was improving with every game at the back end of last season. That said, we probably needed the money from his and Virgo's sale this summer more than we needed the players. That's another indication of the restrictions that McGhee, or any potential replacement, would have to operate under.

I would not call the stick that McGhee is currently getting "treacherous disloyalty" TLO. To some extent I believe that some of the critics are expressing genuine concerns that need to be dealt with. Where I, and some others, deviate from the critics is that I believe that McGhee will sort out some of these weaknesses. Some people don't think that he will, well that's fine by me. This internet message board exisists to give a voice to ALL fans, there's always going to be people posting stuff that you think is bullshit but I wouldn't say that it's "treacherous". I think Goring Gull is a piss-poor rip off of Ernest (who's not exactly side-splittingly hilarious to begin with, but he went to Sunderland in the 80's so you can't have a pop at him on here) but I wouldn't try and call him a traitor or get him banned or anything.

I hope that this bickering and the gradual replacement of decent discussions over team matters with insults on here isn't replicated in the real world. Sadly, if reports from Stoke are correct, it appears that they are. Getting right up into someones face and "offering them out" just because they have a different opinion on team selection ain't on. There's a bloke who sits behind me at Withdean who always slags off Oatway, but I wouldn't dream of threatening him because I don't share that opinion. If someone wants to shout something out about McGhee, f*** it let 'em.

Let it go is what I say, i'm sure McGhee and the players are big enough and ugly enough to shrug it off. They've probably heard similar stuff everywhere they've been. It happens at every club that's in our position. Coventry fans slag off Mickey Adams, Hull fans are none too pleased with Peter Taylor, Phil Brown at Derby doesn't have much support. Christ, look at Nigel Worthington at Norwich. Last year he was the hero, hell he still was in September, yet now there's Norwich fans calling for his head. It's all part of a natural process, these things come and go. If we win a couple of games out of the next 4 this will all die down until the next bad defeat and then off we go again. All part of that, you know, circle of something isn't it?

My position is, I as I said before, that McGhee's credit with me is still good and it would take a really bad run of defeats to erode that. Some people have exhausted the amount of credit they're prepared to give him, fine that's their decision. One thing is for sure: We are all Albion fans together, Managers come and go but the biggest win we've ever had was on the 28th of October. I don't care who's in the dugout for that first game in 2008, I just want to be in that stadium (unless it's Graham Rix or Terry Fenwick!). I think that's something we all agree on surely?

Peace and chicken grease folks.

 

[tedebear]

Thanks ESS do you have an abridged version?

 

[Easy 10]

Fuckinell Shelts, thats an ESSAY

Your stuffs always worth reading though, so I'll wait till I get home and read it whilest having my tea

 

[hitony]

Sorry why are we suddenly starting threads about the better managers than Mark McGhee and who should replace him.

Mark McGhee has worked wonders with the limited resources he has. Nobody thought he would keep us up last year but he did. Why don't we trust him as he is doing a great job and anybody who thinks otherwise is living on another planet. Our squad has cost far less than any other in the league so even if we do go down, Mark McGhee should not be sacked.

Lets be honest, if we beat Palace again in two weeks he will be a hero again and everybody will be on about giving him a fifty year contract.

Stop being so fickle!!!

well said that man