The Waghorn situation

[Ellafella]

4 hours ago, G-Ram said:

Im glad he's been called out. About time someone has the balls to single out players. His performances like many others this season have been terrible. 

We have a group of players that look like they care (but might not be good enough) and some that look like they aren't bothered. 

Not every manager we've had in the psst 5 years is a bad manager. The players have to take responsibility. You're in a relegation battle. Get your head down, work hard and get out of it. Its not a time to be messing about. 

Absolutely this @G-Ram. Wazza was asked why Wag wasn’t in match day squad..Wazza answered. Wazza is building a winning culture. Players know what the lines are. Totally support Wazza’s approach. It’s the right way. Fans cannot have their cake and eat it. No player is exempt. Success isn’t built on sentimentalist weak attitudes. 

[Yani P]

100% correct to call it out - disgraceful that a senior pro isnt putting the work in when we are where we are as a club..it isnt like he is even that good a player and to be freewheeling is just a joke..glad he called him out publicly..the attitude of a player who doesnt care about the club..a culture we can do without..Rooney is clearly not seeing what he is expecting to see..

[Steve Buckley’s Dog]

28 minutes ago, Yani P said:

100% correct to call it out - disgraceful that a senior pro isnt putting the work in when we are where we are as a club..it isnt like he is even that good a player and to be freewheeling is just a joke..glad he called him out publicly..the attitude of a player who doesnt care about the club..a culture we can do without..Rooney is clearly not seeing what he is expecting to see..

I am definitely not seeing what I am expecting to see either! Omnishambles-from top to bottom.

[Mick Brolly]

40 minutes ago, Yani P said:

100% correct to call it out - disgraceful that a senior pro isnt putting the work in when we are where we are as a club..it isnt like he is even that good a player and to be freewheeling is just a joke..glad he called him out publicly..the attitude of a player who doesnt care about the club..a culture we can do without..Rooney is clearly not seeing what he is expecting to see..

You don't even know what happened. 

[Philmycock]

Waghorn had been stealing a living in football for too long, bet he turns up at Sunderland in the summer

[Bald Eagle's Barmy Army]

1 hour ago, Ellafella said:

Absolutely this @G-Ram. Wazza was asked why Wag wasn’t in match day squad..Wazza answered. Wazza is building a winning culture. Players know what the lines are. Totally support Wazza’s approach. It’s the right way. Fans cannot have their cake and eat it. No player is exempt. Success isn’t built on sentimentalist weak attitudes. 

Which is fine, but how can he change his mind within 24 hours? 
 

I think people would accept it and probably agree more if the comments the day before saying Waggy was training well hasn’t been said. 

[OoooMarkWright]

1 hour ago, Ellafella said:

Absolutely this @G-Ram. Wazza was asked why Wag wasn’t in match day squad..Wazza answered. Wazza is building a winning culture. Players know what the lines are. Totally support Wazza’s approach. It’s the right way. Fans cannot have their cake and eat it. No player is exempt. Success isn’t built on sentimentalist weak attitudes. 

You don’t build a winning culture by going public on players when confidence is at an all time low. It seems Rooney is trying to increase standards in training - good. But, this sort of thing should stay behind closed doors. Team spirit will be huge over the next 2 months. This creates division in the dressing room. I’m all for players being absolutely nailed in house for a lack of standards, but I don’t see what Rooney has to gain by going public. 

 

[BaaLocks]

12 hours ago, Gee SCREAMER !! said:

He suffers with depression.

I know it's OK to not be OK but it's also OK if at least someone in this football club is OK, or at least somewhere near OK. 

[Elgin_Ram]

5 hours ago, Ghost of Clough said:

People have to remember he only just had another baby. A bit less sleep here and there could have a big impact on his physical performance.

The whole world must have dropped out of his bottom.

[SillyBilly]

Backing Rooney on this, the players need to take a large slice of the responsibility for the mess we're in, too easy to blame two consecutive managers for putting the club's league status in jeopardy, the players are a constant common theme in this campaign. Waghorn for all his professionalism up until now has not been anywhere near good enough this year. If he has been messing about in training on top of his low level of performance in games then so be it on being called out. I am sure you can turn a blind eye to somethings if he was producing the goods every week on the pitch but when you're not and we're in a relegation battle then you ought to at least be showing a determined attitude in training. Larking about now would not be appropriate.

[brady1993]

4 hours ago, RamNut said:

The possible scenario in my head is....

Gregory can’t play, CKR is injured, so Waghorn is expecting to play, and trains well on Thursday.

on Friday morning the team is named and he is not in it. Rooney has preferred to pick a player that is unfit, than pick Waghorn.

Waghorn is pissed off and it affects his training. Row with Rooney. Gets dropped from squad.

p.s. I’ll put my own Roy Mac laughing emoji to save him the effort.

 

The timeline definitely fits, especially as the comments are weird about Waghorn in particular who from what you've seen of him and what others have said about him it just doesn't quite fit.

[brady1993]

2 hours ago, Ellafella said:

Absolutely this @G-Ram. Wazza was asked why Wag wasn’t in match day squad..Wazza answered. Wazza is building a winning culture. Players know what the lines are. Totally support Wazza’s approach. It’s the right way. Fans cannot have their cake and eat it. No player is exempt. Success isn’t built on sentimentalist weak attitudes. 

Is he ?

To be honest I think that's a very generous interpretation of what's happening here because "singling out individuals" is firmly on the bingo card of struggling managers alongside questionable tactics, tactical/selection inconsistency, continually failing to address or deal with problems that arise and shifting blame from themselves.

It's not even the first piece of notably questionable man management from him, in fact the examples seem to mount from week to week. 

[Brammie Steve]

Brian Clough:-

"If someone has a different opinion to mine I have 'em in my office for twenty minutes after which they realise I was right!"

Supreme confidence? Yes!

Arrogance? Justifiably.

Good man management? Definitely!

Why? Because he discussed things face to face behind closed doors and did not wash dirty underpants in public.

PS Did anyone else notice how scarlet the players' ears seemed to be when coming out for the second half and how often  they seemed to score before the 50th minute? Funny that!

Let the past be our mentor!

[May Contain Nuts]

Some awful posts and assumptions on this thread. 

The Rooney-can-do-no-wrongers pretending everything he says and does is an exemplary case of man management, seemingly simply "because he's Wayne Rooney and is England's record goalscorer, therefore we must slap him on the back at every opportunity"

The 'screw Waghorn' type posts after hearing only one side of the story, even if the reports are of him acting totally out of character.

The claims Waghorn's been poo for us and only had one decent season in his career (even though for a start, he was at least 'decent' under both Lampard and Cocu S1) and those bringing transfer fees into it to use against him (as if he sets the fee)

The age old baalocks of, "well he earns a lot of money and footballers have an easy life, he'll be fine - what does he care?"

It's come across like a pack of dogs circling round him on Rooney's say-so without most being able to put themselves in Waghorn's shoes for even a minute.

 

 

The move to Derby was a big one for him, coming back down from Scotland (...or maybe upper Northumberland) and bringing his young family with him, moving into a different area again, all the usual stuff, but you got the sense that he saw it as a chance to settle down in a more peaceful environment than his time at Rangers. (He's on record talking about the pressures of playing for them and how difficult it can be)

He's had a couple of good season with us, scored a decent if not great number of goals before this season (for someone switching between positions regularly) and it would appear from the outside that overall he's felt happy and been enjoying his time with us.

He's "faced his demons" (hate the saying but there it is) and is open about that, so again.. being settled is a big thing, especially now he's had another baby (and all the stress that brings) with his wife, especially with the world in the state it has been for the past year. (No he's not immune from stress and worry just because he has.money)

Injury problems at the start of the season meant he was coming back into a team devoid of confidence and structure, not creating chances and he's expected to provide a lift - he scores a couple of free kicks but like all our attacking players this season struggles to maintain any sort of consistency, or in his case any form at all.

He knows he's underperformed this season, he knows he's out of contract at the end of it, he knows that he isn't in a good position to negotiate, not with us, not with anybody tbh and his future is up in the air - exactly what he doesn't need at the minute from a personal, wider family, and professional perspective.

With all of this on him, who knows -  maybe he just had a really, really shitty day and Rooney triggered something in him? Maybe on the day in question what's seen as  'not taking it seriously' was Waghorn struggling mentally but trying to play the clown to hide it. We just don't know, but hey.. 'screw him', right? 

Everybody has bad days but some are more prone to letting it affect their day to day life than others, and someone with a history of illness is probably more likely to be struggling with the situation he's in.

The amount of pressure he's under must be immense, it's got to be taking its toll on him and affecting his performances - sorting them out isn't as simple as "working harder", "wanting it more" or other such clichés. I highly doubt he's failing to perform because he "doesn't care" either, that just isn't his character.

[Jimbo Ram]

1 hour ago, enachops said:

You don’t build a winning culture by going public on players when confidence is at an all time low. It seems Rooney is trying to increase standards in training - good. But, this sort of thing should stay behind closed doors. Team spirit will be huge over the next 2 months. This creates division in the dressing room. I’m all for players being absolutely nailed in house for a lack of standards, but I don’t see what Rooney has to gain by going public. 

 

Exactly, need as a Manager of any organisation to be professional. Criticising individual players in public is not the way to do it. Giving players a good dressing down and kick up the backside is fine, but do it behind closed doors. He is showing his inexperience unfortunately. If it is part of his winning culture then the plan is clearly not working.

[Anon]

29 minutes ago, Brammie Steve said:

Brian Clough:-

"If someone has a different opinion to mine I have 'em in my office for twenty minutes after which they realise I was right!"

Supreme confidence? Yes!

Arrogance? Justifiably.

Good man management? Definitely!

Why? Because he discussed things face to face behind closed doors and did not wash dirty underpants in public.

PS Did anyone else notice how scarlet the players' ears seemed to be when coming out for the second half and how often  they seemed to score before the 50th minute? Funny that!

Let the past be our mentor!

In theory I agree with you, but the game has changed so much since those days. If a modern manager dished out some of the abuse Cloughie did behind closed doors the players would be on their phones to agents leaking stories to the press and posting thinly veiled criticism on instagram with about 2 dozen completely superfluous emojis.

[Brammie Steve]

50 minutes ago, Anon said:

In theory I agree with you, but the game has changed so much since those days. If a modern manager dished out some of the abuse Cloughie did behind closed doors the players would be on their phones to agents leaking stories to the press and posting thinly veiled criticism on instagram with about 2 dozen completely superfluous emojis.

And Cloughie wouldn't  have cared tuppence (less than 1p)!

[sonofmidnight]

I don't really have much sympathy for Waghorn. He is actually in a very privileged position. Plenty of people suffer depression, I'm one of them, have babies and still put in 100% effort every day of the week often in jobs that pay a tiny fraction of what a professional footballer earns. It's the women who give birth, get up to breast feed in the night and still go out to work. Many workers have to make life and death decisions  some of which continue to haunt them for years and yet they carry on. Surely it is a matter of personal pride that you do your best. In my opinion the massive wages, the sense of entitlement that some players have have contributed to poor attitudes.

[Jimbo Ram]

1 minute ago, Sinistra ram rousse said:

I don't really have much sympathy for Waghorn. He is actually in a very privileged position. Plenty of people suffer depression, I'm one of them, have babies and still put in 100% effort every day of the week often in jobs that pay a tiny fraction of what a professional footballer. Many workers have to make life and death decisions  some of which continue to haunt them for years and yet they carry on. Surely it is a matter of personal pride that you do your best.

Where is the evidence that this is anything to do with depression. The point is as a Manager how do you go about dealing with an employee that is not performing as required? Wazza seems to think criticising individual players in public is the best way. As someone who has managed an organisation with over 60 employees my management style was somewhat different. What does he hope to achieve with his approach? Can’t see how it can help whatsoever....

[sonofmidnight]

8 minutes ago, Jimbo Ram said:

Where is the evidence that this is anything to do with depression. The point is as a Manager how do you go about dealing with an employee that is not performing as required? Wazza seems to think criticising individual players in public is the best way. As someone who has managed an organisation with over 60 employees my management style was somewhat different. What does he hope to achieve with his approach? Can’t see how it can help whatsoever....

The point about depression is in answer to an earlier post that is not by me.  The point about babies is also a response to an earlier post again not by me. As a woman who has had 3 children and worked full time I cannot feel much sympathy for a man! The point about management and I too have managed  people is that you need to know your workforce as individuals and find out what makes them tick. What works for one person might not work for another.