Gibson keeps the club alive
- Thread starter MoggasDog
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atypical_boro
Well-known member
We had a plan with Woodgate Col, thats why he gave him a three year contract. The problem is, football is far too short-termist and plans that don't pay dividends immediately (or hit the rocks in the first few months like this one) aren't acceptable to the stakeholders. It really isn't just about 'having a plan'.
There's still a chance that if we stick with Woodgate for 15 years, he'll take us down, back up, and into the Premier League and Champions League as his authority and respect at the club builds and his footballing management skills grow, but that's no use to us and no use to any football clubs frankly, which is why long term plans in football are simply chasing a rainbow. The risk of sticking to the plan and the plan continuing to go awry is far too great. He is probably much more likely to lead us to liquidation.
I think what you're suggesting is, not that we simply have a plan, but that we adopt *your* plan. And again, the question of 'how on earth do you keep us all happy?' remains. Because not absolutely everybody wants to adopt your plan.
That said, I think if he wants to maintain his popularity at the club as chairman, he is perhaps reaching the stage where he needs a full clear out of staff, and to go after lots of new talent behind the scenes without Bausor/Gill etc's names still being mud. Of course, it might have almost zero impact if our revenue remains the same and he can't pick out any miracle workers, but from a PR perspective I think its all he can do now before he eventually sells up.
Michael_Vronsky
Well-known member
Woodgate will never make a manager. He lacks the intelligence, to start with. Motivational skills are none existent, his tactics, bizarre, his in game management, non existent and his transfers, woeful. 'The league table tells lies'!!! Come on now...
atypical_boro
Well-known member
I don't disagree, but the point I'm making is that its not just about having a plan, its about having a particular plan that will definitely work, this one is quite quickly F***ing up in Gibson's face and its irrelevant how good it could be long term (not saying it would be). But every club is trying to do the same thing.
nowthen
Well-known member
Totally agree with this! One of the things a don’t mind about the Geordies, is, there’s no way, they’d have sat back and accepted this crap.
atypical_boro
Well-known member
Why what would they have done that we're not? More boycuotts and banners and stuff?
coluka
Well-known member
Far from it atypical, I was ok with the plan that we were told at the outset. Which was totally different to the 2017 plan, the 2016 plan.
What was the latest one again? Ah yes......
All teams through the academy, u/23’s and first team adopting the same style like an Ajax lite
A golden thread running through all aspects of the club (Business Performance Frameworks, American Psychobabble)
High press attacking football
In reality we have barely played a high press, usually its a retreat to the 18 yard line crowd the box and give the opposition the width to put as many crosses in as they want so we can clear out to nobody, rinse and repeat.
We have utilised just about every formation 5-3-2, 4-3-2-1, 4-3-3, 4-4-1-1, 4-2-4, 4-4-2 etc we have had sq pegs in round holes. We have poor creativity, little pace.
Two of the three outfield player signings that Woodgate assured us were players he quoted as wanting in his presentation to the panel (as if
) are back at the clubs they played for last year at a lower level and were frankly embarrassing when they did play. The plan, if there ever was one was ripped up, and tossed in the skip without it happening because nobody thought to question were the squad able to adapt and were the new buys of sufficient quality. If it was any other club, we would all be taking the proverbial out of them big style.
The plan I want is any plan that has legs based on where we are and a passage we can navigate through over time. Every plan seems to get binned very quickly we seem rudderless at best.
Although my plan back in 2015 was acknowledged by Gibson pretty much after relegation. Shame he never adopted his 2017 plan. He just used a scattergun approach to recruitment it seems to me.
atypical_boro
Well-known member
This is the problem lots of clubs have though. Adopt a plan, but fail to implement it, tear it up and start again.
So my point is, that it cannot simply be about 'having a plan'. We had one. Its the failure to implement which has let us down.
The next managerial appointment will involve 'having a plan', but the fans won't care about that either if it hits stormy waters early on.
I think lots of clubs are chasing rainbows with this obsession with long term planning, usually driven by fans.
Brendan Rogers is the tenth longest serving manager in the PL - he hasn't even been in charge a whole year!
Nero
Well-known member
One of the biggest faults at MFC is Gibson's strange belief that the club is somehow unique. He made the I'll judged Southgate appointment based on that. Only to repeat the mistake with Woodgate.
Boro are no more unique than any other club around and are guaranteed nothing.
Boro are no more unique than any other club around and are guaranteed nothing.
Michael_Vronsky
Well-known member
Jedi boro
Well-known member
The key word there is spirit, can you imagine britt under Brucey.
coluka
Well-known member
I agree, it is pointless having a plan if you don’t broadly follow it. It is ok to revisit and keep tweaking as you go along though. Nothing needs to be black and white as you know. Abandoning it or to zig-zag all the time suggests a poor command of the plan or direction your heading, hence my rudderless comment. Not having a plan is idiocy
I keep going back to Woodgates unveiling. Adrian Bevington starred as ‘The Man With The Golden Thread’ he was ‘let go’ sharpish. Woodgates powerpoint presentation with his top 3 targets, 2 gone in the same period, all the fancy talk was just more smoke and mirrors to quieten the fans indifference to the new gaffer. We love a bit of false hope, fans dine on it, some posters (the snipers, generally still on the old board for now) love to use it as a chance to pop on their ra-ra skirts and make hay. Recruitment is the key. We buy players with certain skills when we need skills they do not possess. We needed pace and creativity. We bought CM’s when we needed wingers and/or a no10. McNair was barely used, Saville was tried as a holding M/F, a LWB, LB when he is a box to box M/F (his strengths). My point is especially in the M/F and forward areas we do not by specialists with the attributes we need, we buy generics who can do a job in a few areas and hope it works out. Recruitment has not brought the skillsets to be able to work toward this or any other plan in the last 5 years. I could go back much further. It has been just like a scattergun approach imho. Its ok X will do a job. A team is also about those around you having the skillsets to feed off or supply one another. If you look at it as being like a jigsaw, we have bought say a corner piece from one jigsaw hoping it will fit well in say the centre of a different jigsaw, and they wonder why it doesn’t fit properly.
I appreciate many other teams have similar issues as you rightly say. Look at the teams that had plans and have not lurched around on different plans, Sheff Utd and Burnley are fair examples of teams that had a style and an effective one at that. They recruited reasonably well on a budget, to compliment their style, they bought horses for courses largely and it serves them well. The strategy has to be effective affordable and deliverable. If I went rogue with any agreed strategy I would have been sacked. I really do feel Woodgate is merely Mr Punch, while being the front man, he is however operated by the man behind the scenes telling him ‘thats the way to do it’
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Funky_Chicken
Well-known member
It’s about all he is doing
Nero
Well-known member
Recruitment is absolutely vital of course. Boro have been pretty awful at it for the last few years. I was surprised when Mowbray was critical of the club's approach when he replaced Strachan. He pretty much said there wasn't any strategy.
At a higher level compare the two Manchester clubs. Both have spent massively but United badly. It's one of the reasons they are so far behind.
At a higher level compare the two Manchester clubs. Both have spent massively but United badly. It's one of the reasons they are so far behind.
atypical_boro
Well-known member
Maybe he just finances it and doesn't do anything else. Maybe Bausor makes literally all the decisions, and thats why we hear so little from him. In which case we're halfway to what people want, they just want a well-known ex-player or ex-manager making the decisions, not an unknown businessman.
HolgateCorner
Well-known member
He does finance the club and overall he has been a good custodian.
On a general point though just because the likes of Gibson has done well in business and got himself a pile of money doesn’t necessarily mean he knows what he is doing. You see examples of this all over in our society where the people who somehow get themselves in charge of things are often not very good.
atypical_boro
Well-known member
He did do pretty well for at least 12-14 years though, as owner/chairman.