I havent commented much in the last day. The situation at the club wasnt an easy one and everyone in here knows where I stand when it comes to managers and their performance.
Now that it seems the situation with AK has been cleared, some might say that I am happy. The truth is, I am not. I will only be happy when we are in the Premiership, and IF possible, on the way there we play some nice and exciting football.
No matter what many say, I dont classify our time under AK as a successful one. I dont buy the part that he got a broken team and brought it on the verge of the play offs. Other managers (Forest) inherited our team with much less resources and `worst` players, and achieved better or similar results to AK. Lets admit it, he was no Ferguson or Wenger in the making (it will be interesting to see where he will end up now). No other manager (in the last 10 years at least), was able (by being supported by the ownership) to bring so many new players and offload a similar number, in such a short period of time. it was his choice, no one forced him to do it. Instead of trying to work with what was here and fine tune (like most of other managers at this level do), he preferred to go the `total clean up route`. Was it working? In my opinion no. he was playing the `trial and error` game, with other peoples money. Look at the players that he brought to the club in the past 12 months and at the same time look at the team that was playing (regularly) in the last games.Was it an upgrade? an upgrade that justified the net spent.
Keepers: he brought Pant and Steele- especially the former, i dont think that they came cheap. Did this area of the team improved that much? Probably we will never know as Smith was never given the chance to play in a defence made up of the players that played infront of Panti.
Defence: even though he tried to side line Dariwka, he ended up using him regularly, On the left hand side he brought a player (Robinson) that he is performing reasonably well, definetly he has no resale value and we all know that we need better to be considered a really top division team, in the meantime we have Robo (paying his wages) for a couple of more seasons.
Central Defence- he loaned out Worrall, not giving the boy a real chance to play alongside more experienced players. Instead he brought in Hefele. A player that from what has transpired, he wanted to sell this month !!!. Our defence still relies on the good old Fox, again another player that he inherited. We also spent over 2 million on Figi, is he really worth that money? many say that when Dawson is fit, our best partnership is Fox-dawson, so at most Figi is back up. If we needed just a young back up, why we didnt keep Worrall. One of ours, that cost us nothing.
Midfield: Here apart from Lolley, for the rest I have to say that the investment here was a flop.
He inherited Cash and Ozzy, did these two players improve under AK as much as the club expected? It seems that Ozzy`s development stalled a wee bit, cash on the other hand, started the season in a bang, but I feel that technically he didnt improve much. A player that runs into players was and a player that runs into players still is.
Watson? what a waste of money. It was clear last season that his legs were gone. What AK does? he makes him club captain. Watson was good enough for the last three months of last season and thas it, why give him a permanent contract and force/saddle a wage on the club. He will not be easy to offload and definetly the club will be taking a hit with his signing.
Gueddy: Slightly better then Watson, but in the long run, not the type of player to sign permanently if you consider yourself a top division team. after all he was surplus to requirements at a team that we were expected to compete with.
Colback was a good signing both for last season and same for this one, but he is not ours. If we erase these three from our central midfield (Watson,Gueddy and Colback), we end up have to rebuild a complete new central midfield.
Yacob is showing that was a decent/useful signing. Even here, AK`s behaviour was a bit dodgy. We had to wait almost 3 months from his signing to see him on the field, why? In first game he already showed that he was up to speed. AK was playing Watson instead of him ...for months. maybe not to drop Watson so early in the season after giving him a permanent contract?
No need to mention the strange signing of the Greek fella, cause I dont know if he was forced on him or not, the situation with this player looked very much like the Boyd-Billy MKI situation.
On the striker front, the signing of Grabban was a good one and the price we paid was reasonable for a player of his level. So a plus for AK on this one.
The Iranian: similar to the greek, was he an AK signing or was it forced on him. How you can sign a player and then play him for a maximum of 10 minutes in the odd game? It took Grabban 6 full games to start getting a grip to the system and the team. What he expected from the iranian? that he will score a hat trick in 5 minutes?
The three portugese: I dont know if these players were forced on him or what was his part on their signing, but my view on them has been pretty clear. Diaz and Gonclavez , bar a miracle from the new coac/manager, might as well go back, as i dont see them much being part of a team that wants to win promotion, at least this year. they came here on a season long loan, so we expected them to be ready to be regulars and not to play a bit part in the campaign. for that we might aswell used a couple of our kids and not somebody elses, and to make it even worse, if we opted to keep them, we had to pay astronomical figures.
In regard Carvalio, I said enough of the boy. He might turn up to be the new Ronaldo, but for what we need right now, he is suitable. Chelsea paying 12 million for a player and then send him on loan somewhere to develop is one thing, Forest to spend the same figure is a different matter. My gut feeling is that if the new manager is allowed to sign between four and five players, Carvalio will be one of those to be replaced. I dont mean that he will not play again, he will cause somehow the club must get something from someone that costed twice of what we paid for the next most expensive signing, but he will not be as regular as he was under AK . Offcourse all this might change, if some of the less performing and under used players are given a second chance and they grab it with both hands (by the new manager).
I wish to see how the players behave today, during and after the game v Reading. We know that Dawson is Forest through and through. We saw earlier in the season, when he was on the touchline, how emotional he was. Now, is his chance to give even more. I have a feeling that the players respect him a lot. I know he is not the long term of the club (on the bench), but if he can manage to lift the morale of the team by at least 20%, that should be enough to see us through the next couple of games, and to keep us in contention. If we let him and Ireland continue till the end of the season, that is another matter. Man U did it, why cant we do it too. We all know were the upgrades are needed, if these players are brought in and Ireland/Dawson are happy with them...let them try to finish the season and then we assess the situation then.
Engaging and sacking managers is expensive, not just in regards their personal package. I think that with a couple of signings (starters and not back ups), this squad is good enough to make the play offs.
I am sure that AK wasnt relived just for the results only or some of them)...his relationship with the management and (probably with some of the players) wasnt great...that is not a receipt for promotion ... a similar situation to Billy, maybe that was kept more under wraps , but still toxic...
