mikegil
Everyone keeps going on about we were sixth when Euseless was there. But where would we be if he was still manager? I think about the same or a point or two better off. The Rotherham draw was about as bad as the Millwall and QPR draws when Eusless was in charge, we wouldn’t have beat Middleborough, Sunderland, Ipswich, etc.
The mistake the board made was to sack Eusless after two wins as I’m certain if they had kept him he would have been sacked by now anyway and it would have given Rooney some leeway.
The other thing about Eusless and Gardener is the players they bought in over the summer. Nearly all of them have been plagued by injuries, why did we buy/loan them. No matter how good they are they are no good when they are not playing. Look at the other championship sides and some of the players they have, young, skillfull, full of energy, our players with a couple of exceptions are slow, lacking in skill and energy. Look at Coventry tonight energy, give and go, making run after run and I’ve never heard of most of them, look at the football Plymouth and Ipswich play again with players I don’t really know of.
People might say it’s the coaches job to work at the tactics, player improvement etc. but the players have to have something in the first place to be able to do it.
As I see it Rooney is trying to play a type of football that will get us out this division and he is seeing what players can do it and who can’t. From the nine games so far possibly 3-4 can do it. Rooney will need 2-3 transfer windows to get the right players in and get rid of the rubbish. Whether he gets the time is another matter.
I know it’s not good at the moment but we have to back the club. The poor squad and scouting of new players previously was down to poor owners and lack of funds. But with the new owners we have to hope this improves. I’m hopeful as Rooney and Co should hopefully attract / persuade better players to come, in sure Asante at the Albion would have come if Rooney was in charge.
We going to have to wait and se.
Eustace had gone through a bad spell but had then seemed to find the right balance. Hogan was binned and Stansfield was playing up top. Things were seeming to gel.
In his bad run, it was obvious what changes needed to be made, we all called out for them - he made them and we insistently looked better so on that basis I was very positive that he getting the best out of the squad he had and we would remain in the top half of the league.
I think we would have rolled over Sheff wed and Rotherham just as we did Huddersfield. The millwall game was bad but he made the right changes since then.
Having said that, I always thought he was doing just about good enough and if the money was there, then we should make an upgrade. So I wasn't disappointed that he was sacked as I thought we would bring in a manager with the pedigree of Bielsa or McKenna or a european up and comer, not Rooney.
