What do we want?

This topic contains 6 replies, has 4 voices, and was last updated by  sarky parky 2 years, 10 months ago.

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  • #1958058

    derwentd
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    Having supported WBAFC since the early 60s, which is a frighteningly long time, I have seen many different manifestations of the team.

    The most important thing to remember is that back in Division 1 (pre-Premier League) the discrepancy in funding was nothing like it is today. And the Albion sides of the mid to late 70s truly were top class. But since the creation of the EPL and arrival of foreign ownership the gap between the haves and the have nots has just got wider and wider, with roughly 60% of teams having no chance whatsoever at anything but survival.

    Albion currently have an owner who would like to sell, if anyone will pay him enough to withdraw without losing face. And the prospect of a new owner with deeper pockets seems very remote. So, as a fan, are you merely interested in patching things together and per a series of loans getting back to just be re-humiliated all over again? Or would you prefer a complete rebuild, under new and progressive management?

    Personally, I would prefer the latter. And, as an example, I cite the Tampa Bay Devil Rays: a baseball club that consistently punches above it’s weight (making the 2020 World Series) with a payroll so low that the entire team make less than many top players with the Dodgers, Yankees and other rich teams. This team, in Kevin Cash, has the savviest young manager in baseball who knows how to utilize his limited resources and motivate his players.

    Its not like you can’t win without signing expensive foreign players. Just look at Bellingham and now Richards (Reading to Bayern Munich) who have come from teams like Albion. And Choppo-Muto (?) who toiled mostly unsuccessfully at Stoke but now starts for Bayern, or Gnabry, TP’s favourite player! Football is a team game; and you must have a good core, around which a good team can be built and that team and it’s many parts will as a result have respect for the culture, leadership and ambitions. (See Pogba and Man Utd. for the reverse.)

    Right now, the good ship Albion is rudder-less (again) and an inspirational captain is needed more than ever. Someone who will commit to the future and get the full support of ownership. We do not need another band-aid solution.

    #1958205

    Northwich Baggie
    Participant
    • :

    It was Choupo-Moting Derwent but I totally agree with what you’re saying. It would be nice to go back to the heady days of the 50’s (runners up to Wolves and FA Cup), the 60’s (Cups again) and the 70’s (Three Degrees etc) but unless we get a new team in we’re more likely to resemble the 90’s when we sold every decent player and replaced them and the manager with dross! If we can get rid of Lai and get an owner who is genuinely interested in football and WBAFC rather than someone wanting to line their pockets this would be a start. Add to this a manager with new ideas rather than a dinosaur. We may lose a number of player but if someone like Lampard or Howe arrived they may decide to stay. We still have a lot of dead (mostly old) wood to get rid of and replace. Who’d want to come to a team managed by a dinosaur though?

    #1958300

    DH54WBA
    Participant
    • :

    What do we want? We want to see our football team winning matches and competing for success. That it what all supporters want and few are satisfied. For those of us time served as Albion supporters perhaps our legacy also includes achieving this with a certain style but I can’t recall too many complaints when Megson took us to the promised land with a brand not much different from that universally deplored version adopted by Pulis. Fickle we are.

    I look back with great fondness at the excitement created by the wonderful teams we witnessed during our years as a top club but absent a super rich Arab or anyone else prepared to pour huge sums of money into our club our past is most certainly not our future unless you are looking at the last twenty years of bouncing up and down the leagues.

    A manager who will build for the future? A pipedream I’m afraid. In the twenty years since returning to the top flight we have had 13 of them and in the next twenty I dare say there will be just as many again. In this we are not alone -it is simply the way the game has developed. Short term results are everything. The owners demand them and the fans want them. For this reason I fully expect the current vacancy to be met with this in mind and so much the better if it can be done at next to no added cost. Step forward Mr Wilder?

    My hope is that whoever arrives and whichever players we recruit we contrive to play attractive football and win matches by scoring more than the opposition rather than conceding less but would I be happy to see us playing prettily every week and losing? Would you?

    #1958395

    Northwich Baggie
    Participant
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    Attractive football and Wilder? Non sequitur for me!

    #1958892

    DH54WBA
    Participant
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    An impressive command of Latin but rather less understanding of my English I think. I am neither proposing Wilder nor commending his style of football but simply explaining the rationale of his likely appointment and in response to the subject question my desire for someone who will win matches. No contradiction there as far as I am aware?

    That said I remember Sheffield U taking us apart in their Chump winning season at the Hawthorns with a pair over overlapping centre backs and a style of football we simply couldn’t handle and were it not for missing at least five nailed on chances last season they would have done the same again so I shall not be bothered if he turns up. Whoever does is unlikely to last two full seasons. Only Pulis has done that out of the ten which have arrived since Mowbray.

    #1958951

    Northwich Baggie
    Participant
    • :

    Might have my namesake of the Hodgson variety according to rumours. Apart from him and Wilder the main contenders seem to be Lampard and Ismael from Barnsley although they’d have to pay for the latter which they tend to be reluctant to do!

    #1959064

    sarky parky
    Participant
    • :

    Sheff U took us apart last season as well,DH, missing chance after glorious chance as we scraped a 1-0. And yes we accepted Megson’s brand of football in 2002-3. It gave us success and we were promoted on the basis of a lot of 1-0 wins Although when we had Jason Roberts fit, we played differently as he was our one Premiership class player – I remember a dismantling of Portsmouth 5-0.
    But we didn’t really care about the style. We’d been out of the top flight for 17 years and still had a team that on paper and with the bookies looked more likely to go down than to go up. And to add an extra glint to our promotion, we did it at the expense of Wolves. Then we yo-yo’d for several seasons but when we went down in 2018 we’d had eight consecutive seasons in the PL. more than half the clubs currently there. So we don’t have to reach book to 1980 for PL credentials that around 1980 was the last time we set the PL alight.
    As for the present, Lampard is the most exciting choice though, if Frank would wear it, I wouldn’t object to Uncle Roy being with him as an elder statesman casting an avuncular eye over proceedings.

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