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

[Super Steve Earle]

by sacking Burke? I'm just wondering, that's all. Jones and Hughton seem to be getting performances now from some of Burke's signings. I had the impression in the couple of months up to Christmas that we were never going to win, whoever we signed or whatever team Sami put out. Was Burke actually just a victim of Sami's truly abject managerial ability? Are we now going to see that the likes of COG, Colunga, Baldock, Tex, Stockdale, Bennett, Hughes etc were actually decent signings? One of the things that has struck me in the last couple of weeks is how little time CH & NJ need to make their point pre and post match whereas Sami seemed to take an age to say so little. Perhaps Burke's player identification wasn't that bad after all?

 

[HantsSeagull]

i think it was more a case of the players he didn't sign rather than just the ones he did.

 

[Bombadier Botty]

i think it was more a case of the players he didn't sign rather than just the ones he did.

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take (Wayne Gretsky)

 

[Rugrat]

Quite apart from what I've seen with my own eyes, I'm more than happy to trust that TB has got this one right

 

[portslade seagull]

I think him going was the right decision after listening to WA

 

[Guy Fawkes]

I think him going was the right decision after listening to WA

I think WA's constant negativity has a lot to do with the gloom that surrounded the club. If he is constantly saying how bad everyone and everything is at the club during a commentary, is it any wonder fans adopt the same frame of mind. - Were his predecessors as negative towards certain players, etc. - For example, listening to the commentary for the Brentford game, COG hit the post twice and WA was very scournful of his ability, saying he should be scoring (pretty much every time he has a shot) but no striker in the world has the kind of conversion rate that WA seems to expect from an Albion player.

Some people just have a more negative outlook on life and WA is one.

 

[Sergei's Celebration]

The question really should be would we have got CH if DB was still here.

 

[Blue Valkyrie]

No we needed to get rid of Burke long before Sami arrived.

Sami clearly was very inept at tactics and player motivation so had to go anyway, but don't forget the January window before Sami arrived was very poor.

Was he the reason Garcia left

 

[Stat Brother]

I wonder how tied DB's hands were.

After all, this summer the club generated £15m ish, in sales.
As well as removing some big pay cheques from the budget.

But Burke only spent £4m ish.

Was DB expected to consistently produce diamonds from coal?
Did DB get the funds required to replace 5 Premier League players?

If the funds were there and Burke couldn't/wouldn't complete deals then so be it.

If he wasn't supported by Tony then he just became a scapegoat, which could prove costly.

None of Hewton's signings will arrive on anything less than a 2 1/2 year contract, what are the odds on Houghton still being with the Albion for the duration of his contract?


I think the model of consistency at the top works, and certainly would seem to be prudent with manager life expectancy being measured in months (or weeks), not years.
But clearly something went wrong this season and ultimately the blame for that has to lay at the feet of the man at the top, Tony.

 

[Hotchilidog]

No. Even with this current run of form, we still clearly have major holes in the squad, up front, in the middle and at full back. Despite the obvious delight at our recent revival I still do not think we are a patch on last seasons team, let alone. Poets team. Too many lightweight and ok at best players not to mention those who have failed to even play regularly.

Burke deserves a ton of credit for his role in securing top level status for the Academy, he did a great job. However I feel his talent evaluation has been way off the mark on too many occasions for him to retain his job.

 

[durrington gull]

No, they were not decent signings - football fans really do have a one game memory span sometimes.

Burke had 3 terrible transfer windows in a row.

Corlunga is decent on paper, but he's essentially a 30 year old with no Championship experience - a failed punt.

COG is simply a League One striker - £500k for him is a terrible signing, he's not good enough.

Stockdale's a decent keeper - but was paying over a million for him and letting Kusz go good business?

Hughes is an injury prone 35 year old who has just played 5 games all season. Not a bad player, I'm sure - but the best use of our wage budget?

Baldock - massive chunk of our transfer budget spent on him, again I'm sure he's a decent player, but look at Brentford and Bournemouth on how to spend a budget.

As for the loanees - Burke's biggest failure of all was his policy of filling the squad with them, rather than permanent signings.

Not even worth mentioning the monumental waste of wages in Toko, Kemy, Chicksen

Burke was bloody terrible, thank goodness he's gone!

Spot on - and because COG has made 2 decent 10min cameo sub appearances doesn't suddenly mean he's a good championship plyr!!!!

 

[Norman Baker suck my lozenge]

Thought it was widely known that a lot of agents and players will not deal with the man,

 

[Brighton TID]

I get the impression, possibly wrongly because I don't have any first hand evidence whatsoever, that when dealing with player transfers/contracts, the club (with DB as the head of this dept) has been guilty of 'fannying around'. The Ward fiasco being a prime example.

Lately, however, we seem to have a renewed focus on decisive decision making (Greg Halford) which I hope continues throughout January.

I will cut the club some slack in the hope that they learn from past mistakes and never take their eye off this area ever again.

 

[janee]

I think the fact that CH has stated that the squad is weak and needs strengthening in the window answers the OP's question

 

[penny's harmonica]

The fiasco surrounding Ward and Grabben, along with his failure to keep Barnes was reason enough to get rid.
It remains to be seen whether the summer signings come good but too little too late

 

[B.W.]

The question really should be would we have got CH if DB was still here.

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.

 

[Acker79]

Jones has shown an ability to get something from the players, as has Hughton, albeit in limited games. This would suggest the signings haven't been as bad as they had previously looked.

Does that show Burke actually made some decent signings this summer, or did he do a bad job tailoring his signings to the manager he was meant to be supporting? Was he sacked because of what he had done/failed to do, or was it more a pro-active sacking to enable the club to appeal to the manager they wanted?


There appears to be a trend emerging of the club "being professional" absolute unequivocal support for people while they're with us. The moment they're gone the whispering campaigns start.

Oscar was the man, he was working really hard with an unfair number of injuries, he is heavily involved in the transfer process, we never sign a player without his say so, he is the man to take us forward and we made every effort to keep him. When he left suddenly there were rumours, people with sources at the club who told them he never trained the players, he never got involved in transfers other than suggestion players out of our budget, he wasn't approachable, Upson was running the team.

Burke is doing a tremendous job. He has got us the academy, he has a team of scouts providing targets, yes, we've missed out on some but we're competing with teams that have premier league or parachute money, the players are driving wages up but we won't be held to ransom and will only sign players for what we think they are worth. Burke never listened to any of his scouts, he put players off signing by singing during negotiations, he drove players away.

Aspinall has been critical of Burke, and an actual name to the criticism does give it a bit more weight, but why come out and say all that, then go all coy when almost explaining why Ward ended up not signing for us? (For those unaware, on the radio, during or after the game Warren was discussing signings and almost explained why Ward didn't sign, then stopped himself and refused to explain it).

 

[B.W.]

I wonder how tied DB's hands were.

After all, this summer the club generated £15m ish, in sales.
As well as removing some big pay cheques from the budget.

But Burke only spent £4m ish.

Was DB expected to consistently produce diamonds from coal?
Did DB get the funds required to replace 5 Premier League players?

If the funds were there and Burke couldn't/wouldn't complete deals then so be it.

If he wasn't supported by Tony then he just became a scapegoat, which could prove costly.

None of Hewton's signings will arrive on anything less than a 2 1/2 year contract, what are the odds on Houghton still being with the Albion for the duration of his contract?


I think the model of consistency at the top works, and certainly would seem to be prudent with manager life expectancy being measured in months (or weeks), not years.
But clearly something went wrong this season and ultimately the blame for that has to lay at the feet of the man at the top, Tony.

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.

 

[Iggle Piggle]

Under Gus we signed players we weren't favourite to sign. CMS being the prime example. I also remember words like kidnapped being used when Bridcutt was leaving Chelsea (for Torquay I think)

Under Burke we managed to lose players right under our nose. Grabben and Ward to name 2. Footballers are egotistical beasts and it appears that we haven't pandered to them in the last 2/3 windows.

Nothing is that simple of course. Gus couldn't get Borini over the line this summer and it appears (reading between the spin) that we have been working with lesser funds which ties hands and we all blame Burke when players don't walk through the door. His successor seems to have an easier job as since the FFP vote Bent and Bennett have appeared and they won't have come cheap. Time will tell but I think the quality of signing is just about to go up.

 

[Iggle Piggle]

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?