Wilder

I don’t think there’s any doubt the bloke is a decent manager. For a while we all bought into the high press, keep possession and move the ball quickly mantra. Unfortunately, when levels dropped there wasn’t a plan B in Wilders armoury and it appeared that the pressure rattled him. Missing out on transfer targets and selling our best player on the eve of the season didn’t help though!
 
Terrific and memorable first few months then April/Burnley and we fell off a cliff.
Burnley wasn't the pivotal moment with regard to results. The points per game started to fall in February after his initial early success.
There were 5 games after Dyche left Burnley. We won 2, lost 2, drew 1.
Which was consistent with the previous 3 months or so.
So in reality, Wilder's league results were only very good for a 10 game stretch between end of Nov / mid Feb. Then average until the end of the season, then poor this season.
 
I like the on pitch dramas, and transfer deadline days etc but i have no interest in who may have fallen out with whoever. Maybe it's just me
Fair enough. I love all the background stuff as well me. There’s a big industry for podcasts and after dinner talks where footballers just spout off stories (some of which are obviously apocryphal) which very much include dressing room politics etc. I’m sure lots of people are interested in it.
 
Fair enough. I love all the background stuff as well me. There’s a big industry for podcasts and after dinner talks where footballers just spout off stories (some of which are obviously apocryphal) which very much include dressing room politics etc. I’m sure lots of people are interested in it.
Its good to chat about and have a point of view on but rarely do we actually hear the truth its generally just rumours and gossip. Theres always two sides to every story and the fact is we rarely hear from the club or the old manager so it just becomes conjecture.

I don't really understand why if the club thought Wilder was in the wrong do they need an NDA?
 
Its good to chat about and have a point of view on but rarely do we actually hear the truth its generally just rumours and gossip. Theres always two sides to every story and the fact is we rarely hear from the club or the old manager so it just becomes conjecture.

I don't really understand why if the club thought Wilder was in the wrong do they need an NDA?
fair point
 
Its good to chat about and have a point of view on but rarely do we actually hear the truth its generally just rumours and gossip. Theres always two sides to every story and the fact is we rarely hear from the club or the old manager so it just becomes conjecture.

I don't really understand why if the club thought Wilder was in the wrong do they need an NDA?
It's only speculation on here isn't it? I don't think there'll be an NDA. At least anything outside of what is standard for such contracts. There is nothing to gain for Wilder to go mouthing off about the club. It'll only hurt his future career prospects if he starts pointing fingers. Best to just keep quiet and let the dust settle. Beside what can he say that justifies the horrendous results he was responsible for since February?
 
There was so many red flags and issues that I think we all looked beyond when results were going well. I honestly over time became bored of his boring pressers, same old same old tripe and his attitude.
Here for me are the red flags.

1. Referring to Neil Warnock as 'Previous manager' Absolute disrespect towards a man who's well liked by our fan based and who many are still angry at the club for the manner of the way they went about his sacking. Right decision, wrong way of going about it.

2. Refusing to budge from 5-3-2, refusal to admit it wasn't working, his failure to admit teams had sussed them out. Sociffing at that suggestion even though it was true.

3. Constantly throwing Anfernee Dijksteel under the bus, every single mistake the lad made he was called out. Ridiculous.

4. Lea Siliki at Barnsley...what the hell was that about?

5. Bombing out Akpom and Uche in pre season. Hideous.

6 Burnley.
 
There was so many red flags and issues that I think we all looked beyond when results were going well. I honestly over time became bored of his boring pressers, same old same old tripe and his attitude.
Here for me are the red flags.

1. Referring to Neil Warnock as 'Previous manager' Absolute disrespect towards a man who's well liked by our fan based and who many are still angry at the club for the manner of the way they went about his sacking. Right decision, wrong way of going about it.

2. Refusing to budge from 5-3-2, refusal to admit it wasn't working, his failure to admit teams had sussed them out. Sociffing at that suggestion even though it was true.

3. Constantly throwing Anfernee Dijksteel under the bus, every single mistake the lad made he was called out. Ridiculous.

4. Lea Siliki at Barnsley...what the hell was that about?

5. Bombing out Akpom and Uche in pre season. Hideous.

6 Burnley.
So well capsulized👍
 
There was so many red flags and issues that I think we all looked beyond when results were going well. I honestly over time became bored of his boring pressers, same old same old tripe and his attitude.
Here for me are the red flags.

1. Referring to Neil Warnock as 'Previous manager' Absolute disrespect towards a man who's well liked by our fan based and who many are still angry at the club for the manner of the way they went about his sacking. Right decision, wrong way of going about it.

2. Refusing to budge from 5-3-2, refusal to admit it wasn't working, his failure to admit teams had sussed them out. Sociffing at that suggestion even though it was true.

3. Constantly throwing Anfernee Dijksteel under the bus, every single mistake the lad made he was called out. Ridiculous.

4. Lea Siliki at Barnsley...what the hell was that about?

5. Bombing out Akpom and Uche in pre season. Hideous.

6 Burnley.
Not sure why people see press conferences as significant. They are pointless, mundane and forced. Littered with pointless and leading questions.

If the team are doing well press conferences and interviews are never an issue. Some great managers give boring press conferences.

I would hardly say Warnock is well liked and i couldnt give a toss if the new manager doesnt like the last one. Again has no bearing on anything.
 
Not sure why people see press conferences as significant. They are pointless, mundane and forced. Littered with pointless and leading questions.

If the team are doing well press conferences and interviews are never an issue. Some great managers give boring press conferences.

I would hardly say Warnock is well liked and i couldnt give a toss if the new manager doesnt like the last one. Again has no bearing on anything.
Agree completely
 
I mean.. £11.5m is still a fair whack.

He was backed last January and should have made the playoffs..

He wrote off our whole academy and with the emergence of Hayden Hackney that is looking like a very silly thing to do indeed!
Last Jan was only about 4 weeks after he had got his foot in the door, which isn't even enough time to learn our own squad, never mind identifying what we need, and then try and find that, and then try and sign that. Obviously scouting, and recruiting is not the manager's job, and nor is it the manager's money.

I fully believe he was just "given" those Jan transfers. Then in the summer window, we sold our best player, cashed in on one we didn't need and then largely only spent money on players who were not good enough (and we had little time to develop).

It was telling that he brought back a player who was ousted by the previous manager and written off by the club, and who has now turned out to be one of our best players.

I think we pulled the rug from under his feet, and failed to deliver on the promises of replacing Tav and signing two quality strikers. We loaned Muniz who looked decent initially, but we shouldn't have been pinning hopes of promotion on a 21-year-old who has barely played for his former club.

Seems to me he thought he was coming in as the manager, and the club thought otherwise or acted otherwise, yet told him he was the manager. This seems to have been confirmed by us calling Carrick head coach, maybe we've given up on the false promises, or Carrick didn't want to be known as the manager, if he had no say off the grass.

I don't blame Wilder for not trying Hackney when under pressure because of the club's actions, and think he probably would have played him eventually, but Hackney's not had anywhere near enough games to say he could have made a difference in the earlier games. Saying that mind Mowatt did zero, and nobody knows where Luongo is, but neither of those would have been Wilders 1st choices, I'd bet my house on that.

I think Wilder might have got a bit stuck in his ways, largely out of frustration, so we ended up in a bit of a deadlock which we couldn't break. Wilder couldn't think outside the box that the club locked him in, and the club didn't want to open the door either.

Hopefully Carrick can sort it out, he seems like a decent lad with a good personality, just hope we don't shaft him.
 
Last Jan was only about 4 weeks after he had got his foot in the door, which isn't even enough time to learn our own squad, never mind identifying what we need, and then try and find that, and then try and sign that. Obviously scouting, and recruiting is not the manager's job, and nor is it the manager's money.

I fully believe he was just "given" those Jan transfers. Then in the summer window, we sold our best player, cashed in on one we didn't need and then largely only spent money on players who were not good enough (and we had little time to develop).

It was telling that he brought back a player who was ousted by the previous manager and written off by the club, and who has now turned out to be one of our best players.

I think we pulled the rug from under his feet, and failed to deliver on the promises of replacing Tav and signing two quality strikers. We loaned Muniz who looked decent initially, but we shouldn't have been pinning hopes of promotion on a 21-year-old who has barely played for his former club.

Seems to me he thought he was coming in as the manager, and the club thought otherwise or acted otherwise, yet told him he was the manager. This seems to have been confirmed by us calling Carrick head coach, maybe we've given up on the false promises, or Carrick didn't want to be known as the manager, if he had no say off the grass.

I don't blame Wilder for not trying Hackney when under pressure because of the club's actions, and think he probably would have played him eventually, but Hackney's not had anywhere near enough games to say he could have made a difference in the earlier games. Saying that mind Mowatt did zero, and nobody knows where Luongo is, but neither of those would have been Wilders 1st choices, I'd bet my house on that.

I think Wilder might have got a bit stuck in his ways, largely out of frustration, so we ended up in a bit of a deadlock which we couldn't break. Wilder couldn't think outside the box that the club locked him in, and the club didn't want to open the door either.

Hopefully Carrick can sort it out, he seems like a decent lad with a good personality, just hope we don't shaft him.
If I remember correctly, when he was appointed he fully understood the structure of the club and claimed to fully support it. He was happy to work with Scott and knew the transfer policy and the importance placed on the academy.
To claim it was all sprung on him out of the blue is incorrect I believe.
 
Burnley wasn't the pivotal moment with regard to results. The points per game started to fall in February after his initial early success.
There were 5 games after Dyche left Burnley. We won 2, lost 2, drew 1.
Which was consistent with the previous 3 months or so.
So in reality, Wilder's league results were only very good for a 10 game stretch between end of Nov / mid Feb. Then average until the end of the season, then poor this season.
This is exactly it. I remember noticing that in Wilder's last 17 games last season we gained the same number of points as Warnock's first 17. The levels of performance were similarly inconsistent. This season, our first 6 games saw some great attacking play but defensive chaos and Wilder turning into some sort of toxic sinkhole. Then we just imploded.

We'll probably never know all the ins and outs but I do get the impression that Wilder was going through some sort of psychodrama on the back of his failure at Sheffield Utd. In short, I think he was trying to use us to prove that he was right. I do also think there's enough circumstantial evidence that he wanted to join up with the Americans who had bought Burnley but the timing went wrong and I think they also hung him out to dry. From that point, I get the impression that Wilder just wanted out.

Things like playing Connolly made sense at the time. It looks like Sporar and Watmore were out with Covid then post Covid complications. Basically he only had Connolly, Balogun and Coburn to draw on. He dropped Balogun and Connolly once Sporar and Watmore got back to partial fitness but by then the damage was done.

Up until his sacking from Sheffield Utd, Wilder had significantly improved every club he had managed. Even now, Sheffield Utd are in a far better position than when he took over. We are his first complete failure and the silence about him from the rest of football is telling. It's just three years since he won LMA manager of the year and not one person in football has come out and said he should have kept the job. Not a single player has thanked him for his work or helping develop them. This implies to me that he has burnt a lot of bridges.

It's gutting because, at first, it looked like as close to a no-brainer to appoint him as possible. Some of the football we played early doors was the best I've seen from us in 15 years.
 
I fully believe he was just "given" those Jan transfers. Then in the summer window, we sold our best player, cashed in on one we didn't need and then largely only spent money on players who were not good enough (and we had little time to develop).
He was.. based on what he had identified, he’d tried to bring in Balogun at Sheff Utd
It was telling that he brought back a player who was ousted by the previous manager and written off by the club, and who has now turned out to be one of our best players.
Is this the player he told to find another club and told to stay away from pre season?
I think we pulled the rug from under his feet, and failed to deliver on the promises of replacing Tav and signing two quality strikers.
He pulled the rig from under his own.. he said Mowett was the best we could have done replacing Tavernier (who we were told was leaving last summer)

Muniz wasn’t signed as a development striker, Forss won promotion with Brentford & Hoppe had a decent season in the Bundesliga.. enough to earn a move to La Liga!

Still, Dwight Gayle & David McGoldrick preferred over them THREE?!?!
 
I mean.. £11.5m is still a fair whack.

He was backed last January and should have made the playoffs..

He wrote off our whole academy and with the emergence of Hayden Hackney that is looking like a very silly thing to do indeed!
I'm not denying that he was backed, I just feel he would have been even more heavily backed had Gibson trusted him fully.

For me, at one stage it felt as though it was the first time since Karanka that we had actually gotten an appointment right, and that he was going to be the one to lead us back to the Premier League.

I think Gibson himself would have felt that at the time and I think he would have gambled and backed Wilder big time last summer if he'd have fully trusted him, in the same way he did with Karanka.
 
I'm not denying that he was backed, I just feel he would have been even more heavily backed had Gibson trusted him fully.

For me, at one stage it felt as though it was the first time since Karanka that we had actually gotten an appointment right, and that he was going to be the one to lead us back to the Premier League.

I think Gibson himself would have felt that at the time and I think he would have gambled and backed Wilder big time last summer if he'd have fully trusted him, in the same way he did with Karanka.
He was after a £10m striker.. Strand Larsen?

Does he fire us to top six under wilder?
 
I'm not denying that he was backed, I just feel he would have been even more heavily backed had Gibson trusted him fully.

For me, at one stage it felt as though it was the first time since Karanka that we had actually gotten an appointment right, and that he was going to be the one to lead us back to the Premier League.

I think Gibson himself would have felt that at the time and I think he would have gambled and backed Wilder big time last summer if he'd have fully trusted him, in the same way he did with Karanka.
I think you're right, once Gibson knew he wasn't committed the club were reluctant to spend money on players for him, which is perfectly sensible.
 
I think you're right, once Gibson knew he wasn't committed the club were reluctant to spend money on players for him, which is perfectly sensible.
Yeah but in hindsight if Gibson didn't trust him he should have been shown the door last summer, instead of giving him the opportunity of trying to build his own team.

We're now in a position where Jones is really the only natural winger we have, yet we now have a manager who wants to set up to play with wingers.
 
Last edited:
Yeah but in hindsight if Gibson didn't trust him he should have been shown the door last summer, instead of being able to try and build his own team.

We're now in a position where Jones is really the only natural winger we have, yet we now have a manager who wants to set up with wingers.
I see it a bit differently, in that the club were hoping that Wilders tenure would settle after the skirmishes with Burnley, Bournemouth etc, but it obviously became clear that it would, plus the results were horrendous.
 
Towards the end you could tell he’d given up and knew he was going. One week he said how can I suddenly be bad manager and with my record I can’t possibly be that bad, same as I wasn’t really the best manager after the Man U and Spurs games. I think this was him trying to justify himself for the future and take away the spotlight from his poor run. Another week he said there’s an air of expectation around this club and I haven’t got a clue why. That showed he’d given up as far as I’m concerned.
 
Back
Top