HOW LONG DO WE GIVE HIM ?

Just thought this thread needed a bump now we officially have a new manager

 

I’d say a few more matches at least

 

Given that we were in fifth place when Dean Smith left - and Wagner has contrived to drag us down to thirteenth, could it be time to resurrect this (often contentious) topic?

 

Wagner deserves a chance to recruit the players he needs and a full preseason to prepare. The decimation of the squad through injuries (eg. Hanley, Gibson, McLean, Rowe, Dowell) was at the heart of our decline. If things haven't dramatically improved by Christmas, then a decision needs to be made.

 

The “we were fifth when Dean Smith left” is a bit false, I think we were a game ahead of most teams when he left and when the game week was complete we were 10th or thereabouts. Still above where we finished with Wagner.
I agree with RER, give him a full preseason with his own squad and see where we are at Christmas

 

Nowhere near as false as the notion that we are better under Wagner. Under Smith we only got a point against teams we should have beaten - under Wagner we lost. Under Smith we didn't score enough goals - under Wagner we don't score at all. Need I go on!! Neither Farke, Smith or Wagner - all capable Coaches - could get a performance out of this squad so what does that tell us about where the fault lays?

 

Has anyone actually made this argument?

The biggest issue has been recruitment. I think there's a case to be made for muddled thinking in terms of abandoning Farkeball, and now trying to return to something more akin to it, but fundamentally the player trading simply hasn't been good enough.


Michael Bailey had an interesting Athletic article the other day (might have been discussed here, I'm not around as much these days), where he classified players bought (and money spent) under Webber as a success, failure, or too soon to tell. Obviously Mr Bailey's isn't the only opinion that matters, but it was an interesting exercise. The summary (excluding loan players) was:

£19.5m spent on 16 successes. (The successes still contracted for next season are Hernandez, Gunn, Hanley, Sara, McLean, Krul, Mumba)
£28.6m on 18 failures (Rashica, Giannoulis the only ones remaining)
£37.4m on 7 players for whom the jury is still out (McCallum, Gibson, Sorensen, Nunez, Sargent, Placheta, Tzolis remain)

It's pretty damning that of £85.5m spent, just £19.5m went on clear success stories, and that's probably a generous assessment given the wages/loan fees (and agreed fees) for failed loans like Normann, Kabak, Gilmour, Fahrmann, Amadou, Hayden, Duda, Roberts, Ramsey, Marquinhos, Edwards aren't included and far outweigh the successful loanees like Rhodes, Skipp, Reed and Quintilla.

In terms of player trading, I think Buendia* is the only player of 58 signed under Webber to have been sold at a profit (obviously excludes Maddison, Godfrey, Murphy's, Jamal Lewis). That's horrendous business given the club espouse a philosophy of developing players. And you look at the current squad, and it's not like there's a strong crop there the club are just waiting to harvest for significant profit. We haven't used the loan market well, I don't think a single loanee signed after 2020 counts as a clear success.




*An argument could be made for Cantwell, who broke through under Webber and was sold for a small fee, and Marley Watkins, who was a free transfer signing and left for around £1m, but I hardly think either of those could be seriously called a success.

 

I can see now why Robbie declined to name Bailey's 'successful' players because they include Hanley and McLean. I'd generally agree with most of Bailey's assessments and they don't show Webber in a very good light.

 

Great post.

 

Not only a cheap comment, but completely false. My reason was exactly what I said -- to avoid the thread descending into arguments about whether player A and Player B should be in this group or that, based on each poster's predilections. As I said, I kept to MB's assignments on the assumption that we'd all agree that his is an experienced, knowledgable and independent voice. As I also said, I myself didn't agree with all of them.
As for Hanley and McLean, I have no disagreement about including them among the Hits. Nor have I ever disputed their ability at Championship level. All I have consistently argued is that neither has the quality to be a regular starter in a team aiming to survive at the top level. So please stop attributing views to me that I do not hold, and have never held.

 

The notion I was referring to in my earlier post was the title of this thread which indicates that the answer to poor performance is to always just sack the Manager. Many people thought that Dean Smith was the problem and sacking him was the answer but clearly that was wrong as results have got worse since he left. Three very competent coaches have now failed with this squad which means that either the squad is not good enough or there are other internal issues within the squad that are dragging down performances. It is easy, and possibly correct, to blame Webber but perhaps we have to accept that if you buy everything at car boot sales you end up with more crap than bargains.

 

You get what you pay for in this life.

 

Seeing as we have several £10m signings on the books not performing, it doesn't appear to be lack of spending

 

I agree. Webber's best signings have been those who came in at reasonable outlays like Pukki and Buendia. Because of that, I could accept the first PL failure as we didn't have the money then, but the failure in 21-22 happened in spite of big money being spent to little effect.

 

I agree generally, but disagree with the idea that clearly it was wrong (or at least that was partly wrong) and that results have got worse. It’s too nuanced for that. I think even Smith would admit that we got to the end of the road with him and the squad, and luck just wasn’t there for us.

 

Speculation, I know, but I believe Smith wanted out in the end and that is why he started dissing the fans. As for results, they fell off a cliff at the end of the season, but overall I don't think Wagner did any worse than Smith (statistically slightly worse apparently), and Smith didn't have to cope with three of his most experienced players all getting injured at the same time in a side that was otherwise mainly youngsters. Personally I am much less convinced by Wagner than I was after his first batch of games, particularly his substitutions in games, but IMO he deserves the start of next season, assuming Webber is still here (which I do).

 

Bump.

Not my personal opinion, given how poor the entire squad is, but natives and fan groups are getting restless.
His substitutions in recent weeks have been confusing, let alone today being 2-0 up at home and losing 3 goals in 20 odd minutes shouldn't be happening.
Our defending is back to comical at times and let's not speak about our forwards with Sargent out.

We've a tough match against Boro on Tuesday, another poor result will see louder questions being asked imo.

 

Good afternoon everyone,

Haven't posted on here for many many months so with our poor run of form I thought that I'd pop on to this board to see if my (this) thread had been given a 'bump' and I wasn't disappointed

I reckon DW will be gone by Christmas but we all know that the real problem lies in the Boardroom

 

Hi KIO welcome back. I fear this thread may get a work out over the coming weeks.