Petty Arguments | Page 4 | Vital Football

Petty Arguments

Oh, I agree C_Latic. He was far from perfect. I acknowledge that. I was merely trying to ensure that the positives and negatives of both ex Managers was considered.

As for how they both might deal with different budget values ....... .well I suppose Bob did OK first season at Everton (with more money), then let things slip a little thereafter. As for Brucey, I guess you're right ......... he didn't want to play that game.
 
You've summed it yourself Moonay re the positives and negatives of both Bob and Bruce. Different styles and approach but the positives far outweighed the negatives of both. When you compare them to the dross we've had since I fail to see how anyone could not recognise the good job they both did. When Cook moves on - and hopefully no time soon - I'd be delighted to have either of them back.
 
Just wondered how it is was going on here? Not seen so many spats recently, so have kept out of things.



Not many posts so not many differences of opinion, this place is struggling
 
Only if there was somewhere else to go for the low brow volume of posts

Is that where everyone is?
 
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craig214 said:
..............Not many posts so not many differences of opinion, this place is struggling
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It always tickles me when folk have a pop at a board being quiet when they've done bugger all themselves in terms of generating traffic.

Without the pop, I'd agree with you. It has been quiet, and yes, there have been fewer spats. Why you thought the extra comment was needed beats me.
 
moonay said:
Some fair points there KDZ, and when I "liked" the post by Soccerates, my memory was probably ( as you suggest) clouded by those final few months (in the same way as those who disliked Martinez always remember the Blackpool and Tottenham results instead of the Arsenal and West Ham ones).

In fact, there's a point - for all the good he did, Bruce still never managed a win against any of the "big 4".
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You can say the reverse on Martinez too with people remembering him better than he was due to the brilliant highlights and forgetting the more plentiful dour performances and results.

Martinez had the bizarre combination of some of our absolute best and absolute worst moments - he had so many long horrible spells followed with big moments. While Bruce was much more consistent and solid he never really had those lows but also never scaled those hights. At least until he decided he was fed up after Palacios left and it slumped badly. In both cases for Martinez and Bruce you can make a case for them being great or terrible with the reality being somewhere in between overall. They were both mixed bags.

It's hard to properly compare Cook to those 2 until he's managed in the Prem, but i genuinely think he's going to be a better manager than both of them once he gets that chance.
 
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moonay said:
It always tickles me when folk have a pop at a board being quiet when they've done bugger all themselves in terms of generating traffic.

Without the pop, I'd agree with you. It has been quiet, and yes, there have been fewer spats. Why you thought the extra comment was needed beats me.
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I'm sure it will get busier as we approach October 12th.
 
moonay said:
It always tickles me when folk have a pop at a board being quiet when they've done bugger all themselves in terms of generating traffic.

Without the pop, I'd agree with you. It has been quiet, and yes, there have been fewer spats. Why you thought the extra comment was needed beats me.
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I also wonder why people post about there not being enough conversation but think that the best response is to moan rather than start a new thread talking about something interesting to get people talking.
 
Only critism Bruce deserved was the fact he left us, but if someone was to offer anyone a much bigger wage and budget in football it is generally what happens.
If it wasnt for losing Palacios, Heskey and Taylor in the January window Latics would most likely have had their best ever Greed League season.
Then look what happened when he went, football changed to the dull, dire and boring with the ball being walked around the pitch and Jason bloody Scotland flapping around like an headless chicken waiting for 329 passes before he could even get a sniff of the ball.
 
jeffs right said:
Only critism Bruce deserved was the fact he left us, but if someone was to offer anyone a much bigger wage and budget in football it is generally what happens.
If it wasnt for losing Palacios, Heskey and Taylor in the January window Latics would most likely have had their best ever Greed League season.
Then look what happened when he went, football changed to the dull, dire and boring with the ball being walked around the pitch and Jason bloody Scotland flapping around like an headless chicken waiting for 329 passes before he could even get a sniff of the ball.
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Oh and yes, we won the FA Cup, forgot about that one!
 
Four years on from that we won the cup your highness. We were slightly more cavalier in our approach when we won the cup too.
So sorry Kenneth I didnt realise critism of Bobbys style, that bored the pants off many fans the majority of the time was a taboo subject. I do see though what others say that having an opinion other than some on here is soon met with wrath.
 
For a club of our size and budget, relegation from the Prem at some point was an inevitability - as it will be for all with the exception of 6, maybe 7 clubs. It was some achievement to stay as long as we did and that's testament to Jewell, Bruce and Martinez. Sure we went down, but I think it was a combination of a string of injuries to centre halves and fixture congestion/fatigue because of the cup run. We weren't a bad team or appalling, unlike the two subsequent relegations. There was nothing fundamentally wrong. It's why the Coyle appointment was so so wrong and infuriates me to this day.

Style is a personal choice and with Bob I too found him frustrating as i felt at times it was style over substance. I genuinely respect and admire the bloke though wish at times he'd sometimes sacrifice style and replace it with pragmatism. When it was good however it was superb.

As for Bruce. It's difficult to pass opinion at times on other clubs decisions as those most involved with the club are better placed to make assessments. As such it's why I find it surprising villa fans want rid of him, because from the outside looking in I would find it a ridiculous it's being contemplated. If he was culled, he wouldnt be short of offers.
 
I've been on the sauce toneet, so if any of this is either bollocks or offensive, I apologise in advance.......

Bruce were alreet, but he (& his style) didn't really get your juices flowing.

Bob on the other hand....... tippy tappy / ticca tacca ......... it could be dire, or it could be exhilarating............ and when it was exhilarating - and I humbly offer the first half agin Newcastle as evidence - well, it was equivalent to ejaculatory ecstasy.

I could live with the shite .................. but no team made me feel so completely in love with football as when one of Bob's teams were on song.

Refill required.

Edit:
Just seen MiW's post ........can't argue with any of that ......... bugger !!!
 
Got to agree that when Bobs football went up a tempo it could be fantastic ie Everton, City, Newcastle and some of those brilliant come backs and the greatest of all great escapes the Greed League has ever seen and probably will never be seen again (Leicester went close one year) but thats what made the average run of the mill stuff so harduous to watch. For me that is, but for many it wasnt. Thats just my opinion and I can see other contributors are perfectly entitled to theirs.
 
jeffs right said:
Four years on from that we won the cup your highness. We were slightly more cavalier in our approach when we won the cup too.
So sorry Kenneth I didnt realise critism of Bobbys style, that bored the pants off many fans the majority of the time was a taboo subject. I do see though what others say that having an opinion other than some on here is soon met with wrath.
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Hardly "wrath" just mentioning something you seem to have forgotten.
 
jeffs right said:
Only critism Bruce deserved was the fact he left us, but if someone was to offer anyone a much bigger wage and budget in football it is generally what happens.
If it wasnt for losing Palacios, Heskey and Taylor in the January window Latics would most likely have had their best ever Greed League season.
Then look what happened when he went, football changed to the dull, dire and boring with the ball being walked around the pitch and Jason bloody Scotland flapping around like an headless chicken waiting for 329 passes before he could even get a sniff of the ball.
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To be fair - and I think I’ve made this point before so apologies for repeating it - Bruce did have a very decent chunk of around 10-11 million to spend of the Palacios/Heskey/Taylor money in January 09, so I don’t think he can feel that hard done by.

If he’d been able to extract the potential from N’Zogbia/Watson/Rodallega that Martinez did, we’d have had a very good chance of staying in the fight for Europe. I think regardless of who we signed though, he’d already thrown his toys out the pram a bit and seemed throroughly disinterested at times in the second half of the season which is a shame.

While I do quite like Bruce, I don’t remember his teams nor his football being particularly entertaining (how much that matters is subjective I guess) - nor did I ever really feel that we were anything more than a temporary stop gap for him.

Of course, Martinez will have always had an eye understandably on reaching the big leagues too, but I always felt he understood the club’s values and how to engage effectively with the fans a lot more than Bruce ever did which goes a long way.

His infectious enthusiasm, ability to cultivate a new generation of fans, in addition to his exciting style which attracted the eyes of the world and his penchant for delivering some of our greatest ever results in both league and cup despite operating on an increasingly diminished budget sees him stand above the rest for me. Top fella.

I’d take those four years of crazy ups and downs under Martinez over another couple of mediocre and bland years under Bruce going wholly unnoticed in mid-table any day.
 
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Made in Wigan said:
Sure we went down, but I think it was a combination of a string of injuries to centre halves and fixture congestion/fatigue because of the cup run. We weren't a bad team or appalling, unlike the two subsequent relegations
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I'd agree with most of what you said MiW but I can't agree with that - Yes we got struck by a glut of injuries right at the tail end of the season but we were already in deep trouble by that point.
And yes, we had some extra games although only 3 had been rescheduled due to the FA Cup by the time we'd got through to the final - league games on the 5th rnd, 6th rnd & semi-final dates so that isn't too much.

The truth is that we were poor for the majority of the season in the league. We only spent 7 out of 38 games outside of the bottom 5 all season (82% of the season in the bottom 5). From the 8th December, we only got out of the relegation zone following 5 of our 22 games between then & the end of the season & only once did that last for more than 1 game (for 2 games).
And in nearly a fifth of our games the defeat was by more than a 2 goal margin.

Cup competitions aside, we were consistently poor for the majority of the season - with or without injuries & deserved to go down. Unfortunately we seemed to pick up on the media's "it's Wigan Athletic, they always get out of it" attitude.

Let's not forget either that the line up for our FA Cup game against Everton was a mish mash of regulars & squad players (there'd been 4 changes from the team that had played the previous 2 league games - nearly 40% of the team).
The Everton line up then became his preferred line up for the rest of the season (when fit) but we only had 10 league games left after that & were already in deep trouble - as it happens the points per game ratio picked up in those last 10 games (when injuries really did start to pile up) was far better than earlier in the season & had we picked up points at that rate all season Latics would have wound up with 46 points & finished 10th.

As I said, we got relegated coz we were poor over a 38 game season and not coz of a late fixture pile up or a late build up of inuries
 
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