Sack Wilder?

[indeedido]

You are arguing the same point as me, I'm saying he is 15m in profit, or to put it another way, he hasn't been backed.

Nice edit of budget to profit, but we are in agreement on the important points. He has simply not been backed.
I don't think he ducked anything in the interview and maintain he wasn't having a go at the crowd.
He does have to look at himself too.

 

[CommanderComcast]

hmmm, not sure. He fell out with a few players, Morsy (now capt for top league one side), Spence (now a prem player), Akpom (now a vital part of our squad). We couldn't get any decent footballers through the door, because they didn't want to play long ball unintellectual football.

Fair point although I think Wilder wanted to keep Morsy. But Bola, Dijksteel, Crooks, Fry and McNair were always getting publicly backed by Warnock and being told they were the best players in the league, his favourites etc.

 

[BoroMart]

Nice edit of budget to profit, but we are in agreement on the important points. He has simply not been backed.
I don't think he ducked anything in the interview and maintain he wasn't having a go at the crowd.
He does have to look at himself too.

I didn't edit anything

 

[BoroMart]

Fair point although I think Wilder wanted to keep Morsy. But Bola, Dijksteel, Crooks, Fry and McNair were always getting publicly backed by Warnock and being told they were the best players in the league, his favourites etc.

Morsy was sold by Warnock before Wilder came along.

I have no problem with managers having favourites, every manager does. They need people they can rely on. Some of those players played well for him, and some were hit and miss.

The reality is that Bola is a league one quality player, Dijksteel is a very decent champ defender, the cracks in Crooks's ability are papered over by some vital goals. Ultimately he's a lower champ quality player. Fry is hot and cold which you don't want in a CB, and McNair has ability but is a 27 year old international that doesn't really know what his best position is yet. I think his qualities are well known, but his weaknesses are avoided in debate, he's slow, and not strong enough against decent CFs

 

[Andy_W]

Wilder has a 15m transfer profit.

I see that more like £22m in, and losing our best CM, the only CM who would improve over time also.

I don't count the £7m spent on two forwards, as this does not benefit Wilders team. If he wanted them, they would be starting. So, now these are 5th and 6th choice out of 6 in our squad up front, or 4th/5th out of 5 if we don't count McGree. We have 1 good striker and 4/5 who are not, not for where we want to be.

He didn't want McGree at 10, he thought we were signing a no 10. He probably expected McGree to be one of our backup centre mids, behind Tav, Crooks and maybe one other. I imagine he was maybe hoping for some competition with Howson too.

I'm sure he expected us to get a better CM in than Mowatt, and then also if we sold Tav, would have expected him to be replaced. He probably hoped for more than £10m too, selling a critical player for £10m, in a critical position is silly, compared to getting £12m for Spence, who probably wouldn't have even got a game on Jones last year performances.

Money needed to be spent on a LCB, but I don't think he had Clarke in mind, he's no better than McNair last year, but hopefully he will get better, and McNair has not played as well as last year, hopefully that improves too, but he's behind Dijk for me and behind Clarke and Bola for LCB.

I don't think the club will sack him, as they've already thrown him under the bus with selling Tav, and spending £7m on players he didn't need this year.

I think the club would have been hoping for high playoffs, on the proviso they brought in a few players who were needed, and good enough for top 4 sides, but we haven't done it, for one reason or another, so expectations need to be significantly lowered, until we do get those in.

I think we can still get to play-offs, and with a full first XI fit we could get some wins and build some confidence. But we need to start to play football for two halves.

We may also need to have a bit of luck and luck with injuries (not many of them), but if those continue how they started we're not going to make the playoffs or be able to compete in them at least, the backups/ continuous changes will let us down.

 

[Laughing]

Of course we shouldn't sack him. He has been here a year. Football fans are getting worse.

 

[Glover_elbow]

I see that more like £22m in, and losing our best CM, the only CM who would improve over time also.

I don't count the £7m spent on two forwards, as this does not benefit Wilders team. If he wanted them, they would be starting. So, now these are 5th and 6th choice out of 6 in our squad up front, or 4th/5th out of 5 if we don't count McGree. We have 1 good striker and 4/5 who are not, not for where we want to be.

He didn't want McGree at 10, he thought we were signing a no 10. He probably expected McGree to be one of our backup centre mids, behind Tav, Crooks and maybe one other. I imagine he was maybe hoping for some competition with Howson too.

I'm sure he expected us to get a better CM in than Mowatt, and then also if we sold Tav, would have expected him to be replaced. He probably hoped for more than £10m too, selling a critical player for £10m, in a critical position is silly, compared to getting £12m for Spence, who probably wouldn't have even got a game on Jones last year performances.

Money needed to be spent on a LCB, but I don't think he had Clarke in mind, he's no better than McNair last year, but hopefully he will get better, and McNair has not played as well as last year, hopefully that improves too, but he's behind Dijk for me and behind Clarke and Bola for LCB.

I don't think the club will sack him, as they've already thrown him under the bus with selling Tav, and spending £7m on players he didn't need this year.

I think the club would have been hoping for high playoffs, on the proviso they brought in a few players who were needed, and good enough for top 4 sides, but we haven't done it, for one reason or another, so expectations need to be significantly lowered, until we do get those in.

I think we can still get to play-offs, and with a full first XI fit we could get some wins and build some confidence. But we need to start to play football for two halves.

We may also need to have a bit of luck and luck with injuries (not many of them), but if those continue how they started we're not going to make the playoffs or be able to compete in them at least, the backups/ continuous changes will let us down.

that wilder profile image looks worse by the day ANDY_W

 

[Andy_W]

that wilder profile image looks worse by the day ANDY_W

Nah, I'm sticking with it, for the next 10 games or so.

I'd prefer he went back to picking the footballer's mind, especially with Steffen, Lenihan and surprisingly Chuba back from the dead, I think that's the best chance we have of getting the highest position. It's bad, and unexpected, that I think Chuba's probably our second-best striker, but it is what it is. Maybe some of the others will learn enough or show enough to warrant a start, but they're irrelevant if we do what we did first half last night.

Changing formation, picking supposed better defenders or going to lump ball won't get us above mid-table, lucky wins we don't deserve won't last (and maybe even up some of the bad luck from earlier in the year). But there will be occasions where those supposed better defenders still make a lot of mistakes and something like last night happens, which is the worst half I've seen for a long time.

If he keeps picking Roberts, Fry, McNair at the back, and McGree up front, with everyone back fully fit then I might change it

 

[Glover_elbow]

I suspect we cant affoard to sack wilder, what the club need to do is back his judgment in January, no developlmnt siginings and give him some money to spend.

 

[CommanderComcast]

Morsy was sold by Warnock before Wilder came along.

I have no problem with managers having favourites, every manager does. They need people they can rely on. Some of those players played well for him, and some were hit and miss.

The reality is that Bola is a league one quality player, Dijksteel is a very decent champ defender, the cracks in Crooks's ability are papered over by some vital goals. Ultimately he's a lower champ quality player. Fry is hot and cold which you don't want in a CB, and McNair has ability but is a 27 year old international that doesn't really know what his best position is yet. I think his qualities are well known, but his weaknesses are avoided in debate, he's slow, and not strong enough against decent CFs

I think my point is that Warnock seemed get those players (and I don't disagree with your summary of them) to play to their maximum for him by good man management - bigging them up, saying they were the best in the league etc. Whereas Wilder just doesn't seem to have them playing at their best. Not sure whether that is because of his tactics, man management or whatever.

 

[Willow]

I'm not convinced Wilder hasnt become a victim of his own ego. He's been bigged up as some tactical genius yet its obvious these players either don't understand what he wants them to do or aren't able to play it yet he doesn't seem able to reflect on his own role in the performances and continues to do same things while making excuses.

 

[Doncaster Smoggie]

100% needs to go. No plan B, no mutual respect with the players. Cocky fat doyle.

This is a very emotive thread, lots of interesting debates as to where the problem lies, lots of good valid points made on both sides and yet all you can do is post is a derogatory remark about the manager, how old are you? 5 ??

 

[rbmfc1985]

come on man, he inherited a team that owned Coburn, Ikpeazu and Watmore as a strikeforce

a midfield that had one very good player and a lot average one paced ones

the best out an out defender we owned was a 36 year old that we did a favour after his medical scares.

We didn't own a keeper worthy of this level either.

So much work to do. We had a poor selection of backup U23 players as well.

He had Sporar, Watmore, Hernandez, Ikpeazu and Coburn.

He had Dijksteel, McNair and Fry who are all still a main part of our current defence. Our defence was also one of the best in the league for the previous few seasons. Yes Bamba was one of the best defenders, and whilst that isn't great, Wilder kicked him out of the club despite the fact he was still putting in good performances and, really, Lenehan proving to be any better than him.

We had Tavernier and Crooks who were neither average nor one paced.

I really can't buy that we had an awful squad who weren't capable of anything (yet were around the playoffs the previous season and only just missed out (partly due to dropping players to accommodate Connolly and Balagun) last season). They struggle with Wilders style of football (although his instance on having one up front with McGree behind doesn't help) but if he was able to adapt then there's enough talent in there to compete in this division.

 

[rbmfc1985]

Sadly I'm coming round to thinking he needs to go. His comments after the match tonight have bewildered me. Some of the tactical decision are bewildering me.

The comment: "I sometimes dont understand the level of expectation [in the boro crowd] here cause you've been out of the [Premier] division for quite a while"

If he genuinely can't see why we'd expect to be at the top end of the championship then quite simply he shouldn't be here. It's a waste of his time and ours. It makes me think he maybe sees himself as too good for us.

Similarly if he genuinely can't understand the expectation, then he can't complain about not getting the players he wanted in. If he thinks this is what we are - i.e. a bottom half champo side - then we certainly shouldn't be bidding £10m on young untested strikers.

The tactical decisions:
1) leaving Dijksteel out. Jones was our best player last season. He's had his best games working with Crooks and Dijksteel. Surely anyone would keep that trio together as often as possible. Especially so after losing Tavs pace on the other side.

2) at 2-3 down tonight, with 5 minutes injury time to go, he takes Fry off and has Crooks playing as one of the sweepers. That's our top scorer from last season. We're about to get balls in the box, get him up there. Obviously.

3) we've gone from a passing team with two forwards to a long ball team with one. That doesn't make any sense. If we're just punting balls into the box get 2 forwards on and give us a chance. If we're using McGree as a 10 we should be focusing even more on quick passing moves.

4) I don't understand what he's doing with Forss and Hoppe. Okay maybe they weren't his first choice signings. But they're here now. They're our assets. If we're going to follow a Brentford style system he needs to give them opportunities.

5) the weird criticisms. He's had a go at Crooks for too many bookings. Dijksteel for not enough bookings. Fry for clearing the ball instead of playing out. Look at tonights goals against us. 1st one we need Crooks to take a booking. Second we need Howson to clear the ball. These mistakes are happening imo because players are trying to follow his complaints/instructions.

6) somebody else already said it but players don't seem to know what they're meant to be doing. The 3rd goal past us tonight, Ng goes past Clarke and rather than follow him into the box Clarke's looking around trying to figure out who's meant to be marking him.

You articulated the problems I was seeing far better than I did. This post is exactly the problem we seem to have.

 

[BoroMart]

He had Sporar, Watmore, Hernandez, Ikpeazu and Coburn.

Sporar and Hernandez were on loan and Hernandez isn't a CF, and Sporar isn't a good one.

Our defence was also one of the best in the league for the previous few seasons.

Was it? We had joint 8th best defence, bordering on average. 11th best the season before. 12th best the season before that....that was with Fry, Dijksteel, Bola and McNair in all those sides.

It's a slightly above average defence.

 

[BoroMart]

We had Tavernier and Crooks who were neither average nor one paced.

Crooks is absolutely average and one paced.

 

[rbmfc1985]

Was it? We had joint 8th best defence, bordering on average. 11th best the season before. 12th best the season before that....that was with Fry, Dijksteel, Bola and McNair in all those sides.

It's a slightly above average defence.

Yes it was. You're going only on goals conceded. And we had goalkeeper ls who made a lot of mistakes both seasons.

Last season we were 4th lowest on shots conceded and 2nd lowest on on target shots conceded. The season before we were 3rd lowest on both. The xGAfor both seasons. The expected goals against per game for last season was 1.23 (third lowest in the league) and 1.17 (second lowest in the league). The issue was the shots against to goals conceded ratio - basically, we were conceding goals we shouldn't have conceded because we didn't have a very good keeper.

Before last night's game we were 8th highest on target shots conceded. 5th lowest shots conceded and 4th lowest xGA. That will have dropped considerably after last night's game.

Maybe one of the worst was a bit harsh, but the stats 100% back up that we had one of the best defences but now we don't.

 

[BoroMart]

Yes it was. You're going only on goals conceded. And we had goalkeeper ls who made a lot of mistakes both seasons.

Last season we were 4th lowest on shots conceded and 2nd lowest on on target shots conceded. The season before we were 3rd lowest on both. The xGAfor both seasons. The expected goals against per game for last season was 1.23 (third lowest in the league) and 1.17 (second lowest in the league). The issue was the shots against to goals conceded ratio - basically, we were conceding goals we shouldn't have conceded because we didn't have a very good keeper.

Before last night's game we were 8th highest on target shots conceded. 5th lowest shots conceded and 4th lowest xGA. That will have dropped considerably after last night's game.

Maybe one of the worst was a bit harsh, but the stats 100% back up that we had one of the best defences but now we don't.

You can read that in different ways though, the fact is if we have the 4th lowest xGA then we can consider ourselves very unfortunate to have conceded so many. There are mistakes all across the back, but when you've made so many new signings, that's gonna happen.