[Albion] Fab out?

[Jim in the West]

Motd highlights the commentator said it was harsh when we went 2 down and he was right. 3 down and Welbz crossbar hit bouncing not quite over the line was unlucky. It was the last half hour that we totally disintegrated which I suppose does happen occasionally. Players heads drop and things go from bad to worse! The response is how things will be judged from now I think. If Chelsea hammer us in cup and league (which they are capable of), and we capitulate again then it will turn toxic at the Amex.

I agree, if we get wallopped a couple of times by Chelsea it'll be shit. But I think the solution is pretty obvious - banish Lamptey from full back (he may well be off in a day or so anyway). Jack is a much safer bet at left back (even though, funnily enough, he was given the run about in last season's Forest match, after he came on as a sub for Lamptey!). And get Baleba and Ayari back in centre mid. Maybe even add Gomez to the midfield and bench Mitoma or JP.

 

[Hamilton]

7-0!

Seven.

I’m not sure he can come back from this.

 

[Justice]

Not sure which thread to use but this will do. Yesterday I was angry, annoyed and slightly depressed for a while. Eventually it morphed into one of those trips where everything goes wrong and I fell into gallows humour. Self deprecating songs and chatting to other teams’ fans.

This morning I’ve taken the dog for a long walk to clear my head and concluded that I’m mostly disappointed. Disappointed that our club would treat its loyalist fans to that shitshow. Disappointed that we’ve gone backwards. Trust the process? I no longer know what it is.

Forest last season is one of my favourite aways ever. This season probably my worst. Worse than anything in the gory years when we didn’t expect to compete. And the difference was last season we had a tactical and charismatic coach and players prepared to fight for the shirt till they expired. As opposed to that tactically clueless rubbish conducted by an absentee schoolboy and acted out by a squad seemingly at war. Last season we ended with 10 men but it looked like we had 12. Yesterday we played as if we had about 8.

The problem is, of course, that if we did shift Fab out we’d just get another experimental yes man and start the whole thing over again.

He is nothing like RDZ. Never mention the 2 in the same breath. De Zerbi had the players and the supporters on side until the end, and having met him twice, was a lovely bloke who had time for people.

It will be along time before it gets better than DeZerbi, Villa got their man in Emery and keep him happy que champions league football.
All he seemed to want was a January squad bolster to keep the season alive.

 

[Springal]

It will be along time before it gets better than DeZerbi, Villa got their man in Emery and keep him happy que champions league football.
All he seemed to want was a January squad bolster to keep the season alive.

But he wasn’t happy with Barco, and a deal was being agreed for KDH and he was less than enthusiastic when he spoke to the player apparently…

 

[Terry Butcher Tribute Act]

Having slept on it, is it Fabs fault that apart from Minteh we haven't signed any pace. That Dunk is finished. That we don't have a fit left back. That our new signings are mainly injured. That we didn't sign a defender until this week.

I don't like him much but he's taking a lot of blame for bad recruitment strategy

 

[GrizzlingGammon]

He is nothing like RDZ. Never mention the 2 in the same breath. De Zerbi had the players and the supporters on side until the end, and having met him twice, was a lovely bloke who had time for people.

Unfortunately RDZ wasn't committed to the very end.

 

[UnhingedSeagull94]

It will be along time before it gets better than DeZerbi, Villa got their man in Emery and keep him happy que champions league football.
All he seemed to want was a January squad bolster to keep the season alive.

4 bad windows in my opinion.
2023 Summer: Didn’t strengthen where needed of bring in any real quality ahead of our first European season. Playing in 5 comps. Also sold 2 of Europes best midfielders.
2024 January: mounting injuries but still in the cup and facing a big tie in the EL. Didn’t back the manager.
2024 May: World class manager allowed to leave due to fallout.

Club didn’t spend big on the world class a manger as they expected him to get an extra 10% out of a fairly average squad.
Club then spend big on the unknown commodity in the hope that the players will be good enough to keep his head above water, and us in the league.

 

[UnhingedSeagull94]

Having slept on it, is it Fabs fault that apart from Minteh we haven't signed any pace. That Dunk is finished. That we don't have a fit left back. That our new signings are mainly injured. That we didn't sign a defender until this week.

I don't like him much but he's taking a lot of blame for bad recruitment strategy

He doesn’t make the signings. The club do. He just coaches the players that the club bring in. Shit show on all levels since the summer of 2023!

 

[Guinness Boy]

But he wasn’t happy with Barco, and a deal was being agreed for KDH and he was less than enthusiastic when he spoke to the player apparently…

Barco who’s been frozen out by both Fab and Sevilla and KDH who’s in Chelsea’s bomb squad?

 

[Springal]

Barco who’s been frozen out by both Fab and Sevilla and KDH who’s in Chelsea’s bomb squad?

Maybe we should have signed another Dahoud & Igor for him then

 

[oldboyroy]

I think I am off the fence and more Fab out now.

I feel sorry for him a bit as actually, I think we have a really poor squad. Far too many kids that need too much work, too many sick notes, overly stacked on attacking players, and not enough defensive options. We didn’t address the issues at fullback. Yes these are players for the future but we need to also buy players for now, not ones that need 5 months to settle into a new league etc. It’s not that surprising that Rutter looks the best of the bunch given his experience from Leeds.

That said even the basics don’t look there sometimes and that’s completely down to coaching. Sometimes players don’t look like they know their jobs, who is marking who etc, if Fab has a system we probably should be seeing it more clearly by now. His in-game management is questionable at times.

I think for me he’s more a victim of circumstance, the wrong guy at the wrong time for where we are just now. We just have far too much in the way of young, inexperienced people and have to rectify that. You can have a young coach, or you can have a lot of young players, to me you can’t have both. Someone has to have experience there somewhere and a couple of old head players isn’t enough. The best way to rectify it is by getting in a more experienced manager.

That's where I'm at. I really do feel sympathy for Fab. The Premier league is unforgiving for a manager that had no experience (compared to previous roles) but right now, he is learning and time will tell on how he deals with this scrutiny he is under. My reactions like many others after a humiliation is purely down to I hate us losing. I can take us losing to say, a brilliant Liverpool who'll win the league and are simply too good for us but can't take a 7 nil thrashing (even against Liverpool) when we have a quality squad of players that should be doing better! Using Liverpool as an example, we played our best 45 of the season up there by far and could've been out of sight by half time. Since then, we have seen some good 30/45 min spells but nothing more than that.

 

[Justice]

4 bad windows in my opinion.
2023 Summer: Didn’t strengthen where needed of bring in any real quality ahead of our first European season. Playing in 5 comps. Also sold 2 of Europes best midfielders.
2024 January: mounting injuries but still in the cup and facing a big tie in the EL. Didn’t back the manager.
2024 May: World class manager allowed to leave due to fallout.

Club didn’t spend big on the world class a manger as they expected him to get an extra 10% out of a fairly average squad.
Club then spend big on the unknown commodity in the hope that the players will be good enough to keep his head above water, and us in the league.

Spot on, the conversation about a £200m summer spend with RDZ never happened IMO.

 

[UnhingedSeagull94]

Spot on, the conversation about a £200m summer spend RDZ never happened IMO.

Nope. I still find it mental that he achieved so much with a strong squad. We then sell AMA and Caicedo and never replace them ahead of a Europa League campaign. Since then we’ve lost: Lallana, Gross, Gilmour and replaced them with 2 kids. I like Ayari and Baleba but we have no experience in the middle of the park. Wieffer and O’Riley have been a waste of time so far. It’s so lacklustre.

 

[Deadly Danson]

Can I just say that this place was almost unanimously in favour of appointing FH in the summer. He was by far the most popular choice and almost everyone was excited at our modern and forward thinking appointment. If it isn’t going to work out - and I hope it still does - then it happens. Sometimes, as PB often says, they get it wrong and if PB and TB got it wrong then so did most of us.

I can really do without the pile on and, worse still, the glee with which some so called fans are enjoying all this. We even had one fan hoping we'd lose to Chelsea yesterday so it would hasten FHs departure - I mean WTF. If he's the wrong man for the job TB will act and we try again and the world will carry on turning, if he thinks he'll come good then we should support him. Keep the faith.

 

[Home and Away]

David Moyes would look like an improvement at the moment.

 

[Justice]

Can I just say that this place was almost unanimously in favour of appointing FH in the summer. He was by far the most popular choice and almost everyone was excited at our modern and forward thinking appointment. If it isn’t going to work out - and I hope it still does - then it happens. Sometimes, as PB often says, they get it wrong and if PB and TB got it wrong then so did most of us.

I can really do without the pile on and, worse still, the glee with which some so called fans are enjoying all this. We even had one fan hoping we'd lose to Chelsea yesterday so it would hasten FHs departure - I mean WTF. If he's the wrong man for the job TB will act and we try again and the world will carry on turning, if he thinks he'll come good then we should support him. Keep the faith.

he starts with one midfielder a lad who hasn’t played for months yep let’s stick with this clown.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Maybe we should have signed another Dahoud & Igor for him then

Nothing wrong with Igor. Perfectly ok back up CB who was getting even better with games. We’ve replaced Dahoud with O’Riley.

 

[Hometownglory]

He doesn’t make the signings. The club do. He just coaches the players that the club bring in. Shit show on all levels since the summer of 2023!

I'd say recruitment has been average to poor since Cashworth left and the mass exodus to Chelsea.

 

[Jim in the West]

Can I just say that this place was almost unanimously in favour of appointing FH in the summer. He was by far the most popular choice and almost everyone was excited at our modern and forward thinking appointment. If it isn’t going to work out - and I hope it still does - then it happens. Sometimes, as PB often says, they get it wrong and if PB and TB got it wrong then so did most of us.

I can really do without the pile on and, worse still, the glee with which some so called fans are enjoying all this. We even had one fan hoping we'd lose to Chelsea yesterday so it would hasten FHs departure - I mean WTF. If he's the wrong man for the job TB will act and we try again and the world will carry on turning, if he thinks he'll come good then we should support him. Keep the faith.

At last! The voice of reason. We really are sounding like a bunch of entitled idiots. We are TENTH in the Premier League FFS. It's embarrassing losing 7-0, but there were loads of factors at play. We as fans will focus on the here and now, but luckily guys like Bloom and Barber are focussing on the next 5 years (or longer). Sometimes when you take long term decisions the short term isn't great. If Fab doesn't pull through, then I have absolute confidence that the Board will make the right decisions in the long term interests of the club.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

4 bad windows in my opinion.
2023 Summer: Didn’t strengthen where needed of bring in any real quality ahead of our first European season. Playing in 5 comps. Also sold 2 of Europes best midfielders.
2024 January: mounting injuries but still in the cup and facing a big tie in the EL. Didn’t back the manager.
2024 May: World class manager allowed to leave due to fallout.

Club didn’t spend big on the world class a manger as they expected him to get an extra 10% out of a fairly average squad.
Club then spend big on the unknown commodity in the hope that the players will be good enough to keep his head above water, and us in the league.

You must be a Geiger counter, the amount of fallout you have discovered in the last year.

I am marvelling at the new trope that we are the worst run club in the EPL with embarrassing recruitment.

This is the sort of social phenomenon that explains how an electorate can vote in melts like Johnson and Trump.

I'm minded to Go Large on a Farage landslide in 4 years.

Anyway, where was I?
Oh yes....

Sack the board, sack the board, sack the board

Bloom is bloomin' useless!
Barber is a twat
The manager is clueless
Do I not like that!