Is the End Nigh for Wagner (at the end of the season) ?

I have been, and remain, very critical of Wagner but even I have to agree that it would be wrong to sack him if we make the playoffs unless, of course, the job was agreed with the Arsenal lad to start at the end of this season and Wagner is fully aware of the position.

 

There are 18 teams below us that would give their right arm to switch places with Norwich.

The standard this season has been excellent with the top 4 putting together ridiculous runs .

Even IF we finish in the play offs we will be massive underdogs to get to Wembley.

Wagner has to take some credit for the opportunity we currently have in our grasp .

 

I only thought Wagner should have been sacked when we lost to Watford having been 0-2 up on the 29th November. I know lots wanted it before that, things were not looking good, but then we have turned around the team very well. This is the estimate of the wage bill at that time https://www.planetfootball.com/quic...age-bills-2023-24-leeds-leicester-southampton and it shows us 4th in terms of spend. I wasn't and am not against the thinning we did in January. I hoped it would allow 20 mins here and there for youngsters. What I do not understand is why Sydney isn't at least coming in as a sub with 20-30 mins. Maybe he isn't as good as the scouts saw?

I think Wagner isn't liked by a vocal amount of the fans. However there appears to be a togetherness and our attacking options are working nicely. At times he has taken players off and it not be understood and then that has lead to negativity. Only afterwards has it come out that they have been injured and had to come off injured. If I were to rank his season I think it would be a B- or C+ not fantastic, but not terrible and he has been dealt a lot of injuries.

 

The Hooijdonk situation is peculiar.

Even when Sargent or Barnes come off it's pretty much Fassnacht or Gibbs every time hoping to defend a lead which frustrates when we end up blowing the lead.

I'm guessing that the intense scrutiny over Wagner's position with the crowd booing substitutions when things were still pretty toxic.
Has made him so reliant on the Barnes Sargent partnership he's petrified to mess with it .

Which makes the Idah loan deal seem even more weird as he has scored 7 with 2 assists in 10 games only starting 5 for Celtic.

Van Hooijdonk has had such little game time he hasn't scored a single goal & we still haven't seen enough to gauge whether we would want him permanently next season .

I'm guessing he's a replacement for Sargent if we fail to go up & need to balance the books .

Idah has probably increased his market value & likely to bring in a few quid too .
For whatever reason it just hasn't worked with us .

 

Agree 100 % Dunc.
His biggest mistake, imo, is allowing Idah to leave with no recognised cover.
Personally I always rated Idah, and he is proving me right at Celtic.

 

Idah had plenty of chances to make the main striker's position his own , this season he covered for both Sargent & Barnes in our horrible winless run .

He wants more game time & Sargent has taken over from Pukki as our main striker .

I'm guessing he'll be off in the summer if Celtic have any money

 

Not really every championship manager wants a bigger more talented squad than they've got. Manager argues his case, decision made, accepted by manager, manager gets on with job. Where is the criticism of Knapper, I don't see it total non-story.

 

So he's OK when he plays down a couple of levels

 

This is the gist of it. Idah and our other players who went to Scotland are thriving at a big club in a weaker league. As Dunc says, Idah had ample opportunities to shine as a striker but that happened very occasionally. The same is true for his games for ROI. The SPL seems to be far more his level and there's a reason for that.

 

From the sound of it, Idah wanted to go somewhere and play. For me he was on the cusp of being a good CL player but never quite made it over the hump. The SPL looks like the right level for him. And, who knows, maybe the experience in Scotland will get him back to the CL in a couple of years. (I know I'm assuming we sell him in the summer.)

 

Well if you don’t mind me saying, you sound like a good and wise accountant.

That makes me think you are unlikely to have been a football club accountant!

Or, perhaps more accurately, if you were, you were in a rare position where the owner actually listened to you…

Look at the finances of football!

 

Maybe it would be relevant to look also at the finances of baseball, more specifically, the Milwaukee Brewers?
What I mean is, there's a whole new order of financial expertise now available to the club.

 

The injuries have been the major factor IMO. Since Sargent returned and Sainz got going 15 games ago we have taken 30 points from 15 games. That's an average of 2 points per game in spite of losing Rowe for 14 of those games. Had we managed that rate over the whole season we'd be two points behind Leeds now. Losing Sargent for 20 games and Sainz for 12 really polaxed the first half our season as we stuttered along with Idah and Hwang. Wagner has to be judged in that context.

 

Idah is a Celtic fan apparently so I’m sure he will want to try to make the move permanently

 

End is nigh for Weaver, not Wagner (yet)

 

The context in which Wagner has to be (will be) "judged", more specifically whether he stays or goes, isn't how he's done in such and such circumstances this season; it's his suitability to take the club to where it wants to go in future seasons. As 1950Canary says, it is likely that that decision has already been made.

 

The decision won't be made by Knapper, it will be made by the entire board, including Knapper. If he wants to change the head coach, he'll have to make a case for that and the expenses involved, which presumably would impact the recruitment budget. My guess is that the board will not want to change a coach who has achieved the playoffs, which is likely to happen soon. Time will tell.

 

We are talking at cross purposes here Rick. You are talking about the decision being made now but that is not what I suspect happened. If Knapper went to the Board last November along the lines of him being in the job long enough to know that all was not well. We were in the bottom half of the league, losing games and playing so badly that people were leaving at halftime. There is a highly regarded young Coach at Arsenal who will not think about getting his own club until the end of the season when he is likely to get other offers. If, however, we offer him the job starting in May 2024 he will sign up now and it will give Wagner time to enhance his reputation and plan for and get jobs elsewhere. It happens in Business all the time so why not Football?

 

If Wagner stays it shouldn't be because he got us to the playoffs. It should be because Knapper and the board see him as the man to take the club forward in the direction articulated by Knapper when the board appointed him. Does anyone honestly think Wagner has demonstrated his suitability in those terms?

 

Long term probably not the guy to take us to the next level, but then there's no point upgrading to stay in the Championship.
EPL...we'd need to stay for a couple of seasons at least and/or show we have £€£€ to spend to get an eventual Potter-esqe / Iraola replacement. Short term maybe take us forward, but delivered with asterisk * which is out of his control.

All depends on, 1. Knapper's philosophy and long term aims, which I'm honest enough to say I've no idea about, assume younger players ages and higher tempo possession based gegenpressing? & 2. the financial situation post this season's outcomes.

* If we go up, will he get enough money to spend on 4-5 quality players to improve this squad: the defence with a no nonsense CB (or two), new defensively minded left-back, an anchor-man/halfback type player (Tettey's replacement, many seasons later), an upgrade on Onel and a more of an in-the-box forward.
If we don't go up, will he get any money to replace those lost with similar quality, if not I can't say it would matter whether he stays or leaves, as most would struggle to repeat this season without e.g. Sara / Nunez / Sargent etc...