Mel Q&A with Marketing Derby

[sage]

I would say to Mel, that although the players are getting the brunt of it, people are booing for 1 or 2 reasons...

1. They are entitled bandwagon jumpers who can't accept the other team can win as well

and/or

2. They are frustrated at how a series of appointment and recruitment disasters have took us from top of the league to bottom six playing crap football in 21 months.  

[TomBustler1884]

26 minutes ago, Mafiabob said:

So much I could boo about on here.....

The chairman is niave to think he shouldn't receive any critiscism from any corner.

As I've been away from the forum just one more comment from other week regarding Radio Derby blackout. 

It certainly feels there is a them vs us scenario now been created by the club. 

I agree with you, they shouldn't be blacking out press, but the headline in the DT seemed deliberately provocative to me imo. Certainly doesn't help their case!

Also, Mel has made mistakes, and I 100% don't think he thinks he is immune to criticism. He clearly regrets the poor communication from the club over the last few months and said as much.

[cannable]

4 minutes ago, philmycock said:

The day we signed Darren Bent was the day we lost the plot.

And Alex Pearce on the same day I believe? 

[61GT]

All this talk of booing reminded me of this: -

Sums it all up pretty well! 

 

[Mostyn6]

17 minutes ago, philmycock said:

The day we signed Darren Bent was the day we lost the plot.

nah, you'd have been screwing if he went to a rival, and got game time and banged a load of goals in. You'd have definitely criticised Mel for not signing a player off the back of 12 goals in about 20 games on a free transfer.

Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't.

[RamNut]

12 hours ago, David said:

 

Bollx

[Philmycock]

18 minutes ago, Mostyn6 said:

nah, you'd have been screwing if he went to a rival, and got game time and banged a load of goals in. You'd have definitely criticised Mel for not signing a player off the back of 12 goals in about 20 games on a free transfer.

Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't.

He just doesn't, well unless you're talking about being offside, then he does, Bent that is, not MM 

[StockholmRam]

37 minutes ago, philmycock said:

The day we signed Darren Bent was the day we lost the plot.

Nah.... That was when we signed Derek Hales mate. 

[sage]

17 minutes ago, Mostyn6 said:

nah, you'd have been screwing if he went to a rival, and got game time and banged a load of goals in. You'd have definitely criticised Mel for not signing a player off the back of 12 goals in about 20 games on a free transfer.

Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't.

We signed a player who, along with Ince took us from 2nd to 8th.

To be fair I would play him every week if i wanted to spread bet on offsides in a game. 

[Bris Vegas]

20 minutes ago, Mostyn6 said:

nah, you'd have been screwing if he went to a rival, and got game time and banged a load of goals in. You'd have definitely criticised Mel for not signing a player off the back of 12 goals in about 20 games on a free transfer.

Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't.

He was a terrible signing, taking him on loan played a key part in our downfall during the 2014-15 campaign.

We would have been better off loaning Kenweyne Jones from Cardiff. At least he could come short and hold a ball up. Playing with Bent was like playing with ten men and a goal hanger who does nothing else.

 

[Alex W]

8 minutes ago, Bris Vegas said:

He was a terrible signing, taking him on loan played a key part in our downfall during the 2014-15 campaign.

We would have been better off loaning Kenweyne Jones from Cardiff. At least he could come short and hold a ball up. Playing with Bent was like playing with ten men and a goal hanger who does nothing else.

 

While Jones would've fit the system more the signing of Bent was absolutely not a terrible signing. It was a very good one, his scoring rate for us was fantastic and this side has proved previously it can play with him in it, our troubles lay with the CDM spot and playing without a striker for a month. And even then we were one game away from remaining in the play offs.

Ince and Bent played very well together, there were zero issues with them.

[Mostyn6]

11 minutes ago, sage said:

We signed a player who, along with Ince took us from 2nd to 8th.

To be fair I would play him every week if i wanted to spread bet on offsides in a game. 

 

9 minutes ago, Bris Vegas said:

He was a terrible signing, taking him on loan played a key part in our downfall during the 2014-15 campaign.

We would have been better off loaning Kenweyne Jones from Cardiff. At least he could come short and hold a ball up. Playing with Bent was like playing with ten men and a goal hanger who does nothing else.

 

we've had this out numerous times, so I'll leave my thoughts here now you've both had yours, Darren Bent (and Tom Ince for that matter) were not responsible for Lee Grant throwing the ball into his own net, Will Hughes giving Albentosa a dodgy pass, and Richard Keogh going to ground at the wrong time. We threw our league place away for a combination of reasons. Darren Bent was probably about 2%.

[Kernow]

I don't think this has been picked up on too much, but I haven't read the thread meticulously. Surely this part is one of the most worrying, not the boo comments.

That's openly admitting that we had zero strategy in signing players, how can we expect that to be successful? Who is actually being paid to recruit players when our approach was just sign any players that might be able to fill the gap? I hope this 'plan' that will be put in place focuses on recruitment heavily, and gets it right. If we had spent the money we have done in the last 2 years wisely, we'd surely have the quality to go up. Mel's openly admitting he's thrown his money away.

[Bris Vegas]

1 minute ago, Alex W said:

While Jones would've fit the system more the signing of Bent was absolutely not a terrible signing. It was a very good one, his scoring rate for us was fantastic and this side has proved previously it can play with him in it, our troubles lay with the CDM spot and playing without a striker for a month. And even then we were one game away from remaining in the play offs.

Ince and Bent played very well together, there were zero issues with them.

It was terrible, as he contributed to about two wins in 12 or something like that. His sheer presence on the pitch made us weaker, regardless of his goal scoring record.

Every time he was on the pitch we lost shape altogether. We were under constant pressure from the opposition as nothing was sticking upfront, and our midfielders as a result were getting caught out of position.

Numerous goals against us came from having no options on the ball, forcing the defence into mistakes. Sure Grant was having a mare and the lack of a natural holding midfielder hindered us, but these players were put under far more pressure than normal because our CF spent most of the game trying to run in behind rather than come short. 

 

[Mafiabob]

6 minutes ago, Mostyn6 said:

 

we've had this out numerous times, so I'll leave my thoughts here now you've both had yours, Darren Bent (and Tom Ince for that matter) were not responsible for Lee Grant throwing the ball into his own net, Will Hughes giving Albentosa a dodgy pass, and Richard Keogh going to ground at the wrong time. We threw our league place away for a combination of reasons. Darren Bent was probably about 2%.

The main reason was one player we missed sorely during that time. John Eustace.

Yet we all got ourselves whipped up in a frenzy over Newcastle.....

To blame Ince and Bent is pure folly. 

[RadioactiveWaste]

That time in the season the attack was bailing out the defence for a while before it got really bad.

[sage]

There are several reasons.

 

Bent replacing Martin and to a lesser extent Ince changing our pattern of play.

Signing Lingard on loan instead of replacing Eustace/Mascarell

Grant playing injured as we didn't have a good enough back up

Bucko getting injured.

 

The top 2 reasons cost us a top 2 finish.

The bottom 2 cost us a top 6 finish.

 

Oh and the Newcastle farago cost us our best manager since Jim Smith

[angieram]

Interesting comments from Mel today, particularly about the expectations of the fans and the relative definitions of failure - a good comparison with Brighton and the way that both clubs are run. 

Also about how difficult it is to get that managerial appointment right. 

I read the tweets this morning and the Telegraph article later but didn't have time to react until this evening. 

Just wanted to add something positive as there's been a fairly negative reaction on here.

[G-Ram]

Id like one of these £1500 season tickets that gets spent on better players and guarenteed promotion

i get he spent £10m replacing two injured players to safeguard our position and didnt improve the first 11 but why not spend £15mil on two players that then improve the first 11? Surely this makes better sense because we only went on to buy more dross. Spend money but spend it more wisely 

we look unbalanced, bloated and a bit of a mess. Lets turn back the clock start playing macs old system. Then as we progress buy players that suit the system, if we get promoted buy butter players that slot into that system, have scouts that search for players that slot into a system that are better than the players they replace, managers that come in and want to play the system and youth that come through playing the same system

hopefully lessins are learnt, we get the next appointment right and give it time. We'll probably rake the best part of 12 months to get back to where we were in terms of looking a unit and promotion hopefuls 

 

[BOB BIGGS]

32 minutes ago, Mafiabob said:

The main reason was one player we missed sorely during that time. John Eustace.

Yet we all got ourselves whipped up in a frenzy over Newcastle.....

To blame Ince and Bent is pure folly. 

And yet, I seem to remember John "Useless" from lots of people when he was signed...and after. They couldn't have been wrong about that, could they?