Have we thrown the baby out with the bathwater...

[Stat Brother]

Well said. He had to go. Also, I estimate our squad is mid-table, but turned into relegation candidates by Sami. However, mid-table is not top 6, so Burke clearly has a significant proportion of the blame for our predicament, just not as much as the clueless Sami.

That may well be the case.

But because we don't know the what constraints DB was working under, I don't understand how you can be so definite about it.

If Tony wheeled £15m into Burke's office this summer, and said "get us promoted", then DB is an abject failure at recruitment.

But Tony could also have wheeled in £4m and said "it's all I got, don't get us relegated", then DB could easily say he did well and the team was badly managed.


It would seem there was a perfect storm of issues circling around the club:-
- Money.
- Manager.
- Recruitment.
- Signings.
- Contracts.
- PR.
and probably plenty more.

Many have been bubbling under for a while, but winning covered them up.

It'll be interesting how hindsight will view this very specific point in Albion history, I just don't understand how it can appear so black and white, to those of us who are not privy to the whole situation.

 

[Stat Brother]

FFS. How many more times!? Tony has publicly stated that this season we had the most expensive squad in our entire history. I presume this means in terms of wages. Are you calling Tony a liar? If not, stop making incorrect assumptions to backup Burke, who has correctly been shown the exit door. Tony's only mistake was not sacking him sooner.

I'm not backing Burke, christ I'm not that big an idiot (just).

The 'most expensive squad' line clearly isn't a lie, and I'm not calling Tony a liar, but I wouldn't be entirely surprised if there wasn't a degree of 'political speak' in there.

I wonder how many of the 92 chairman are currently saying:-

'Our squad is now 10% cheaper than 5 years ago'.

 

[Hugo Rune]

We didn't sign the players Sami needed. Simple. That has to be Burke's fault. Without the correct players, Sami could not cut it. Hughton & Jones are taking a pragmatic approach and fitting the style to the players we have, Sami could never do this and he needs to learn how if he is to become a manager again. To me, Burke was over concerned with getting bargains rather than the correct players. Look at Boro, although they've failed FFP, they already built a good team so the transfer ban has little effect. Each of their forwards (Martinez, Vossen, Bamford, Tomlin) are better than anything we have, we should have been in for all those (and I add Clayton to the list) but failed. Next summer, I really hope Hughton leads on recruitment and is actually given the players he wants. He'll know exactly who he wants; the club will just need to respond.

 

[Billy the Fish]

I think there's still too much misunderstanding as to what the relationship between the Manager and Director of Football was, and who was picking the players we signed. It's clear that a 'one size fits all' system doesn't work because different managers have different levels of experience with scouting and signing players. It seems that Gus, Ocsar and Sami were all totally different in this area. None of them managed to work with Burke successfully.

We've been constantly told that the manager always has the final say over signings, but the evidence doesn't support that theory.

I think the big thing here is that the Manager and the person in charge of the budget and scouting need to work together in a symbiotic relationship otherwise you end up with players the manager doesn't want, as has happened under two managers now.
Whatever system they implement next needs to support this.

 

[ants4t]

I think there's still too much misunderstanding as to what the relationship between the Manager and Director of Football was, and who was picking the players we signed. It's clear that a 'one size fits all' system doesn't work because different managers have different levels of experience with scouting and signing players. It seems that Gus, Ocsar and Sami were all totally different in this area. None of them managed to work with Burke successfully.

We've been constantly told that the manager always has the final say over signings, but the evidence doesn't support that theory.

I think the big thing here is that the Manager and the person in charge of the budget and scouting need to work together in a symbiotic relationship otherwise you end up with players the manager doesn't want, as has happened under two managers now.
Whatever system they implement next needs to support this.

What evidence? I can think of Bergkamp being the one Gus pointed out but he was for the development squad.

 

[Blue Valkyrie]

Also [MENTION=12595]Acker79[/MENTION] post is bang on the money. As soon as anyone leaves the whispering starts. If Oscar sat around all day identifying luxury Spanish players and delegating to Jones why did TB initially try to keep him when he resigned?

Indeed, Tony made a big thing about trying to keep Oscar, and once he couldn't be persuaded to stay then the criticism of Garcia from the club started. Could this criticism have been based on Burke covering himself with Tony, and shifting blame to a departed employee ?

 

[GT49er]

Have we thrown the baby out with the bathwater...

In a word, No.

 

[Hampster Gull]

No. We haven't been world beaters the last two game and the standard of player is significantly lower. We could easily have lost to Fulham and by lots to Brentford. But the team is ok and will drift upwards for sure as Hughton gets a grip on the basics. One caveat is the budget he had to work with from Tony, which is not transparent. But Tiny thought it was a poor enough performance to sack him and i will go with that.

 

[Billy the Fish]

What evidence? I can think of Bergkamp being the one Gus pointed out but he was for the development squad.

Toko signed when we didn't have a manager. Ward negotiations started before we had a manager. There were probably others in the pipeline.

 

[spring hall convert]

No we haven't, unless there was a massive cut in wages spend, then Burke failed. But just because we have changed things doesn't automatically mean we'll get it right. There's every chance we'll give Hughton the money and he'll bring in shite.

The Van Wolfwinkel and Hooper deals look bloody awful to me.