Clemence Set Up To Fail
- Thread starter BlueToTheGills
- Start date
PuB
Vital 1st Team Regular
Historically league one level is where we’ve spent most of our seasons in our time in the football league. It actually might be overall seasons at L1 level, but I’m too lazy to check
NWBluesFan
Vital Squad Member
PuB
Vital 1st Team Regular
Well how would it not be?
OneSirKeefy
Vital Football Hero
Why wouldn’t it? I’d say a “natural level” would be defined by where you spend most time all things being equal.
Isn’t The Prem / Div 1 Liverpool, Arsenal or Man U’s “natural level”.
Since the 60’s I reckon we’ve spent more seasons in 3rd tier than any other. We’ve had some in 4th and a few in 2nd. Crowd numbers over 50 years would probably also put us either high 4th or low 3rd tier.
Where would you put GFC “natural level” and how would you determine it?
NWBluesFan
Vital Squad Member
OneSirKeefy
Vital Football Hero
A lot of fans saying this about us “becoming the new Watford”, “keep sacking managers”, “not given time”. Etc.
Clem is basically the only manager who’s not really been given time. Although given too long for some fans.
Neil Harris was maybe given an extra year here when BG arrived. With us dead set bottom at the time and fans baying for his blood it would have been the very easy decision to change then. But he was given the season to turn it around (he did) and then time into the next season.
So this is not “third time lucky”, It’ll be “2nd time lucky”. And if they had growing doubts about Clem then I’m glad they’ve pulled the trigger now rather than in October or at the end of another failed season next year.
If we hire someone now and they are sacked mid-season with us sitting 10th then I’ll agree with you.
PuB
Vital 1st Team Regular
All I meant is that the third tier is where we normally are. Nothing to do with entitlement.
We are where we are on merit (or lack of it), as is everyone else.
OneSirKeefy
Vital Football Hero
Eh?
PuB has simply called L1 “our natural level”. Where we usually reside. Nothing about where we “deserve” to be.
Edit - Soz, pub beat me to it.
Will add, last year we “deserved” to be bottom of L2 and then maybe NL. But that’s not our “natural level” by any definition.
Solent Knight
Vital Squad Member
I'm with you & OSK on this. Our history shows that we have spent more seasons in the third tier. Nobody is saying we have a divine right to be there which NWBF seems to be implying how you see it. Get the impression he's looking for an argument as he still has the hump SC was sent on his way. He's gone so move on as things may just turn out better for us and get us back where we belong. The Championship of course.
GillsBluenose
Vital Football Hero
11 games and never lower than 8th?
and yet: If we hire someone now and they are sacked mid-season with us sitting 10th then I’ll agree with you.
NathanH_GFC
Vital 1st Team Regular
Only because he was sacked before we dropped further! What’s the benefit in pretending Harris was successful? He really wasn’t.
GillsBluenose
Vital Football Hero
I actually think actions over this season tends to indicate more that we have entitled owners, being as there was not a huge majority of fans calling for either Harris's or Clemence's head.
Right or wrong, they see us as a sleeping giant with only a slightly intended exaggeration.
GillsBluenose
Vital Football Hero
He was in spells and wasn't in spells. If results over Jan 2023-Oct 2023 were stretched to a whole season, we would be in the automatics, which to me is at least comparative success.
We had a dip in form but so did Stockport late in the season, as did Mad Dog's promotion team.
Millwall have not "dropped further", particularly winning their last 4 games after also winning at Southampton and Sunderland as well as beating the champions at home.
I suppose success is all relative. He didn't win the league, of course.
PuB
Vital 1st Team Regular
Probably the first sacking in modern times where I’ve not seen a single person calling for the manager to go on here, that is not to say it was the wrong decision before anyone starts.
NathanH_GFC
Vital 1st Team Regular
It’s a shame the season isn’t Jan to October then isn’t it.
What he does at Millwall is irrelevant. Glenn Roeder got West Ham to their highest ever PL finish, was he a success for Gills?
I’m not saying Harris was a disaster, either, but relegation, lowest goalscorers during his entire time with us, and a declining team despite significant investment at the end ultimately means he was not a success in my book. But then success is subjective. If you’re content with what I describe as mediocrity that’s up to you.
However, I do suspect if we spent the Harris (and now Clemence) compensation money on a half decent forward rather than sacking both, then maybe we’d been a bit closer to the play offs.
Captainreblue
Vital 1st Team Regular
We have become Watford esq as we're looking on our third manager (when hes appointed) in under 9 months and if we're giving managers 6 months and then giving them the boot. BG has set a dangerous precedent IMO.
What the football side needs is stability.
If our owners expect any manager to come in, especially mid season and implement the changes expected their nieve and if they believed SC would/could do that, again IMO it shows their lack of football savy.
I've said many a time I wasn't convinced by SC but IMO he deserved a decent fair crack at the job (and that isn't 6 months from Nov-Apr).
I also said back him or sack him, which they've done, so let's now hope they properly back the next guy and give him the tools to do the job (pace and decent strikers/goalscorer) and give him the whole season. Anything less will say more about the owners and football board than the next incumbent IMO.
GillsBluenose
Vital Football Hero
The only reason for mentioning Millwall, or Cambridge for that matter, is that there seemed to be some that could see in to the future who were convinced that when we dropped from 1st to 8th, but still within a point of automatics, some sort of rot had set in that NH could not possibly correct.
Our home form was still good, Colchester game apart, so we had not been on a winless run at all. And we were generally taking three points at home, rather than one.
Millwall and Cambridge were both perilously close to the drop zone and he did stop the rots at both clubs. Statistics show that so it is relevant to the above.
Having said that, it only relates to results and it is an entertainment business. The logic which I accept is that the style of play had to change and I now expect us to therefore appoint a proper manager who favours an attacking and possibly high pressing game. If SC had been capable of that, I would have thought that we would have at least have seen some early signs of it, even with the existing players. Were there any that I missed?
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Lizardprime
Vital Newbie
Great post and point in my opinion. I had the same slightly confused reaction to the sacking of Clemence following his unequivocal backing, but that's rather a case of not seeing the wood for the trees: you're right that it's bigger than that and seems to fly in the face of the whole pitch we were given.
As we all keep saying it's their club now and they can do things their own way. It's just becoming less clear to me what exactly that way is. I find it a little disappointing and deflating. Obviously it's not some unforgivably harmful move or anything but for me it's unfortunate that I'm going to struggle to take their word on things until it aligns with their actions now. And from what I read I'm not the only one to lose a bit of trust in them. Still, as someone else said, it's a reality check and only time will tell.
