PeteG

Invaluable? By his own admission he hasn't seen us play, which means any defence of the manager and saying we should stick with him for the sake of stability is purely meaningless.

Or you could argue he had 1 lucky spell, where fixtures were kind and we were playing sides with nothing to play for and therefore the end of the season came at a good time for him.

Spending almost always does guarantee success. Look at the Prem and Championship, the top 5 spenders will be the top 5, it's just the order they finish in that changes now and again.

This statement I keep hearing about it being the hardest league in the pyramid to get out of and battled hardened clubs who have been here a long time is the biggest load of bollocks i've ever heard. The league is made up of shite football teams us included. The standard is woeful. Your not telling me if you dropped a team out of league 1 into the national league now, they wouldn't absolute piss it? Which makes it nonesense. So based on your assumption it's the toughest league in the world to get out of, we should just accept our lot and continue watching the worst football i've ever seen us produce in over 40 years of watching us?

Agree to a certain extent. Part of the problem of having numerous people involved in the recruitment is that it's easy to shirk responsibility when it doesn't go to plan. I don't think it's been a disgrace though although I have described it as scatter gun which is probably giving them a bit of an easy time. Norwood and Raglan clearly weren't in the plans and whilst you don't turn the opportunity to sign Norwood down, I do think it creates problems when you decide to go away from the planned signings. It has meant the squad seems unbalanced and probably finding it difficult to keep players happy with the end result we have 4 strikers on the bench just so they are involved in the matchday squad. Who takes the blame for this we will probably never know but it does highlight that the issue of getting rid of Unsworth is not as simple as would seem. Doesn't excuse Unsworth btw, he's certainly not getting enough out of what he has available.

Exactly, which makes it negligent.

Unsworth would have been down the road long ago

Why any employer would make that promise is negligent in itself. Nobody can give that sort of guarantee because any business, football included is results based.

I'd hazard a guess, Joe is only involved for his son. Who else would employ DR as a CEO of a football club after Wigan?

He wants his 6 month pay out!!

I was clearly talking about the football staff. If you read into what i've actually wrote you will see that i'm defending the board by suggesting it's much more complex than just sacking a manager. There is no agenda here.

Agreed but not all managers will want that. I want a manager who gives us the best chance of success on the pitch tbh.

I didn't say physio, the same girl has been at the club for a good few years now, but yes, when a manager gets the sack, there's usually a few who follow him out of the door. A new manager might not want to follow a stats based recruitment process. It's just an opinion that it might just be a bigger decision than usual given what has been put in place in the last 12 months. If it was a case of just replacing Unsworth and Ebrell, I do think Frank would have pulled the trigger by now.

I'm not going over the points made by many for Unsworth out, I think 99.9% of the fanbase can see he's not the man to take us forward. However, I think there are some big issues that need addressing when they do eventually get rid. We must have the biggest backroom staff in the league, I get it was put in place as part of a long term plan but are these all Unsworth's men? It could get very expensive having to get rid of the lot. It's clearly not working, recruitment as i've said before seems very scatter gun, (the subs bench yesterday showed that) Mick Rathbone was brought in to improve fitness and psychology apparently but have we seen any real improvement in that area? We were going to have a B team but that's been shelved. I realise Jeffers has gone but Nicky Adams seems to have replaced him to a certain extent, we've got all these stats experts but there is one stat staring them in the face. There has clearly been a big investment in the infrastructure but is it all necessary at this level and was it put together at the request of Unsworth? A new manager will want his own people in place but I do believe it would be beneficial to scrap the whole process, get rid of the majority of them and go back to basics with a manager and his own small team. I admire the thought process but it just seems over the top for the level we are at and there could be an accusation that the players have been somewhat spoilt and started to believe they were on a far higher level than they actually are which may have resulted in complacency on the pitch which is where it ultimately matters.

I'm very much in the Unsworth out camp, however, I thought that was a much improved performance. Much more on the front foot, he brought Hobson back in (who was MOM for us) and actually played him in his proper position after wanting to sign him for the past 6 months or more. Can't really point the finger at Unsworth for us not winning that game but with 1 win in 7 he's surely on borrowed time. The worrying thing is Frank's speech before the game, he admits he knows nothing about football but he's going to stick with Unsworth because he loves the club and it hurts him when we don't win! We know the Royles won't pull the trigger so we look stuck with him. I just can't see him ever getting us promoted.

What have the previous regime got to with this, or Corney or Blitz or any other regime. We are talking about the here and now.

I'm not going over old ground but if Unsworth had any respect for the Royles and the Rothwells, he'd resign tonight. However, I very much doubt he will.

But you need to have been down here a few years to get used to it. Difference is they appointed a manager in Askey who knows what he's doing in this division. There are a whole host of decent managers out there we could attract if they had only gone about the recruitment process properly in the first place. Don't compound the error now by holding on too long to get rid!

Absolutely shocking so far from both sides

Any evidence of that?

All due respect to you but people aren't demanding absolute success today, we are asking for the manager to take the handbrake off, have a go at the opposition and look to win games from the outset rather than have a must not lose mentality. Given the size of our club, budget and the improvements we have made in the squad plus the division we are playing in, I don't think it's a lot to ask for. If Blackpool were playing Wealdstone this weekend, i'm certain you'd be miffed if you set up as defensively as we have been doing.

Obvious really, the current one as he was able to buy the ground and get rid of Blitz.

Going back about 10 years Craig Davies was on £14k a week in League 1 at Wigan and not even part of the matchday squad at the time. I think Barnsley would have been paying Norwood around the £6k - £8k a week that's been mentioned and we would have had to at least match that. As @yarddog73 says though, it could very well be money well spent, if he gets us up, I think he's a top top player at this level. Brings us back to the point though, that getting up asap is important because we won't be able to spend like that for years if we stagnate in this division. I don't understand the mentality that it might take 5 years or so and we are ok with that. The division is really poor.

I think this is a valid point and the fact it seemed to be a little underhand on how they went about it under Shez's nose. I think most would have wanted a proper recruitment process with a proven manager installed however, if Unsworth was playing decent, attacking football it would have been overlooked. The fact is, his football is defensive, dull and atm not even that successful in terms of results. If we (Unsworth out camp) thought the team was inferior to the vast majority of opposition we could accept that, it's the fact that in the main, we feel the team is better than most and if he just allowed the players to go out and express themselves, get on the front foot, results would be better and it would also be a much better product to go and watch. He can still prove us wrong and i'd be more than happy to eat humble pie. But, the clock is ticking.

I disagree, it was a great success unfortunately he only delayed the inevitable as the club had been in serious decline for many years. I'll ask you this, was Eddie Howe successful last season?