MON: Pros, Cons & Vote 2

[zicorice]

Because I heard that repeated votes is a good way to get a majority...

Seriously, the MON situation has become very divisive, fans seem to have gone into two camps although the stick camp is starting to lose members. The way I see it:

Pros: 
- stability, the stats on teams that get promoted having kept a manager are very compelling and the main reason to stick I’d say.
- previous record, he has an excellent record elsewhere (in his younger days) and a lot of experience.
- icon, he’s a club legend and we want to see them treated with respect.

Cons:
- style of football, we currently look terrible, it’s hard to watch.
- team selection, carvalho aside he’s made some other pretty baffling decisions, Yates at right wing, colback left back, 3 DMs etc
- carvalho, his treatment of carvalho has been appalling. He’s let him become a pawn between himself and the fans. It’s common sense to keep the fans onside but not just that he’s destroyed a talented player. It’s stubborn and unnecessary, he’s not give notice him a fair opportunity while other players are underperforming in the same position. I appreciate the fans aren’t helping now but it wasn’t difficult to see how this would play out. Surely at this point with the season over it made sense to pick carvalho for the remaining games, make peace etc and maybe prove his point that he’s not good enough. Instead he chose the alternative and then immediately quitting on him when he lost possession. 
- fans, he’s gone to war with the fans, this is both stupid and unhelpful. Under karanka fans showed how supportive they can be and in the stadium even in the face of the end they backed him. The football wasn’t tooo dissimilar at times and now karanka had plenty of flaws and was doing an average job but was still backed. Just shows it doesn’t take a lot to keep people onside but it seems like he’s decided it’s his way or nothing. Reminds me of a few other current high profile figures outside of football. 


Anyway, feel free to add more pro’s as I think my position is clear. I’ve never been to a game where I actively didn’t really want us to win and I didn’t enjoy that feeling but his attitude towards A block was utterly pathetic and for both me and my dad it was game over. Can’t make Bolton so last game is boro, not looking forward to it at all. That in itself is pretty depressing as even in other S**t seasons I still enjoyed going.

Love the Brexit slant on this...

However, in cold light of day I would like to add the following after a 4 and a half hour journey home:-

I genuinely thought we tried to play football yesterday, at times we did look quite good and should have scored at least a couple more. Our wide players were ripping their full backs and put in a number of dangerous balls.That said, the openess of the game also helped Blackburn look decent-alongside some defensive lapses, they should have scored more too. Pants had no chance with either goal and made a double save out of the top draw-I think the debate around Steele has been put to bed this last week, albeit the debate has moved to us now needing to sign Hugo Lloris or similar. 

Up front Grabs looked a bit ponderous, dwelling on the ball and ignoring Lolley again with a simple squared pass, but his effort could not be questioned, he just looks a bit like he's not quite 100% and that's all it takes at this level.

MON: Brave with his team selection, set us up to play football (2 high quality footballers at full back, good width) and for the main part we tried too. Around me the vibe was generally positive, but a few were slating MON but then moaning when the ball was played sideways or backwards rather then hoofed up the line. Carvalho still looked classy when he came on. I felt he would have come on earlier, but after they scored 2nd  we had a really good spell and it made no sense to change it. Would still like to see him more though, just a joy to watch most of the time (I accept most not all). 

My personal conclusion: Impossible to judge a manager on such a short period at the helm. Yesterday's football was more than half decent at times and MON is no fool and can see that we are lacking in both ability and the minerals to consistently challenge. A few astute signings and another clear out of some dead wood and we would be there or thereabouts.  I genuinely think changing is pointless, we have become a bit of a laughing stock in some ways. I get the frustration of some of the "pragmatic" football we were playing, but now the winning is not really taking us anywhere and we've tried to play some football (albeit without Carvalho-arguably our best "footballer" in the pure sense of the word) and lost twice against fellow midtablers surely the question is whether the players are actually quite good enough either ability or mineralswise to kick on.

 Only Cloughie could get a tune out of this lot and without a doubt, many of them would be shown the exit door. Under AK before injuries we drew alot of away games, smash and grabbed a couple which possibly glossed over where we actually are as a club. 

Short answer: Stick. Let him see out his contract and reassess. Unless floundering in bottom end of table, give him time.