Danny Wilson

[Panda Paws]

And another point, we're 2 points and one place off the bottom four, but Notts County have a game in hand, against either Rochdale, Oldham or H'pool which should they win would obviously dump us into the relegation zone.

Not good enough, and the excuses are running out.

[tj2002]

Not read the whole thread so I'm probably covering old ground but the problem with sacking Wilson is who is available to replace him? On footy manager whenever I leave Swindon we always appint Russell Slade and that the level of replacement we'd be looking at.

 Wilson has brought some high quality players to this club, the likes of Douglas, Prutton, Greer, Sheehan, quality we haven't seen for a while, and it was Wilson who convinced them to come to Swindon. Yes his tactics haven't been working this season, we've not replaced some big players but the way this divsion is we're still only a run of games away from launching an attack on the play-off positions.

If we're still here at Christmas then it's time for a change but Wilson deserves the chance to turn this around.

[STFC_Gazza]

You said exactly the same with Malpas though you pretty much loved the bloke and were dead against sacking him. In a round a bout way I kind of wish I had your rose tinted specs and could only see the good things in a manager. But sadly i witnessed that mess last night, as I did Yeovil, Dagenham, Leyton Orient etc etc and as well as the players underpermorning the set up and mentality of the tactics are at times just bizarre.
This season thus far has been nothing short of a disaster and I find myself rapidly losing interest.

I was against Malpas being sacked to start with but in the end even I said he had to go. FFS people were chanting they wanted him out after about 7 games without giving his squad time to gel. Ultimately yes he was clueless. Wilson has provided the goods before where as Malpas knew nothing but failure.

[Rich Pullen]

I think I was the last man standing on Malpas (on TEF). Who admitted it anyway.

We're in a sorry ol' situation at the moment.

[tans]

I was against Malpas being sacked to start with but in the end even I said he had to go. FFS people were chanting they wanted him out after about 7 games without giving his squad time to gel. Ultimately yes he was clueless. Wilson has provided the goods before where as Malpas knew nothing but failure.

Who did malpas sign to change the team?

The majority of that squad were already when he arrived were they not.

At least he gave us that useless cunt Casal.

And old man Nalis.

Top class

[glos_robin]

Wilson has provided the goods before where as Malpas knew nothing but failure.

Well has he? Wilson has not ever got a team promoted out of this division, he's had a couple of play-off finishes with us and City and relegation scraps with Hartlepool and Franchise.
Wilson obviously aint a crap manager but is he good enough to get a team promoted out of this division or is he ultimately lacking when it comes to the crunch...

My personal opinion is Wilson is an average league 1 manager who if you kept in place for say 10 years the majority of the time you would end up floating around mid-table, you'd have the odd flirt with the play-offs and the odd flirt with relegation. History says this is our natural position and if we want to maintain Status Quo then Wilson could probably do that. If that is the limit of our aspirations then fair enough but sometimes you need to take a punt as steady will only get you so far and in the long run could see you go backwards.

I think in the next few weeks a big decision will need to be made one way or another....

[STFC_Gazza]

Well has he? Wilson has not ever got a team promoted out of this division, he's had a couple of play-off finishes with us and City and relegation scraps with Hartlepool and Franchise.
Wilson obviously aint a crap manager but is he good enough to get a team promoted out of this division or is he ultimately lacking when it comes to the crunch...

My personal opinion is Wilson is an average league 1 manager who if you kept in place for say 10 years the majority of the time you would end up floating around mid-table, you'd have the odd flirt with the play-offs and the odd flirt with relegation. History says this is our natural position and if we want to maintain Status Quo then Wilson could probably do that. If that is the limit of our aspirations then fair enough but sometimes you need to take a punt as steady will only get you so far and in the long run could see you go backwards.

I think in the next few weeks a big decision will need to be made one way or another....

Totally agree a decision must be made but maybe let's see who he brings in before making a knee jerk reaction. On paper there aren't many decent replacements (or those that would come to us), need to remember Fitton was looking at Kinnear and Richard Money (who will be gone from Luton soon no doubt after falling out with their fans over and over), not exactly the calibre of manager to take us forward either or better Wilson's results thus far. Also Wilson has had some good signings as we know Douglas, Cuthbert, etc. although some may attribute them to David Byrne or Fitton but on paper who could do better that is a reailistic target? 

[Phil_S]

For me the problem is pretty simple.... It's the defence. Stop conceeding most of the stupid goals & we win most of our games. Wilson obviously knows this cos he bought in Frampton who promptly got injured.
Morrison & Cuthbert have undoubted ability, but are too inexperienced to operate in their on their own. Lecinel, also makes too many mistakes back there. Although all have promise, they lack the experience. We need to replace Greer, & maybe give Charlie some help upfront & we will go up the table no question. I'd have an experienced head in their with Cuthbert & Morrison fighting for the other CB position.

[Bewster]

The way I see it is that we over performed last year and our expectations were high this - so its been a complete disappointment so far.

However, if the motivation isn't there and the tactics aren't right then somebody has to take the blame. I like Wilson and like most of you I'd like to see him work it out - but results is results.

I just don't want to replace him with another Malpas/King/Macca fuckwit.

[glos_robin]

on paper who could do better that is a reailistic target? 

It's not knee jerk though is it, 6 wins in our last 24 leauge games is piss poor gaz, teams have figured us out and know how to play us and we have no answer to it.

As others have alluded to though if you keep a manager in purely because you don't think there is anyone better around then it's over and you may as well give up. There's always people out there and it is upto the chairman to find them, most of us laughed when Poyet got the Brighton job........we're not laughing now are we?! They took a punt and it worked, we could take a punt and fall on our arse but it's the nature of the beast. Who would have though that people like Adkins would go from a physio to sought after manager? To believe there is no one better around would be very naive.
I

[Paolo69]

I think we should let the man do his job. Like it or not he IS our best manager for years. I've no doubt he didn't want to lose Greer but money and contract issues talked and we have (lost him). We haven't replaced him and that has to go down to the manager, however decent centre back leaders don't grow on trees which is why Brighton were prepared to push the boat out for ours.

In my opinion none of the centre backs listed by Panda would fill me with confidence that they could be the leader we're missing anymore so than Frampton or our own big Shaun (before the season started). The only one in that list might well be Docherty but he is a carthorse of the highest order and despite Charlton's documented financial struggles they were still probably a more attractive propostion than us.

[Langers]

Lose on Friday and the pressure really mounts on Wilson, we would be out of all cup competitions and in 20th place in legaue 1.

[bassett boy]

As i said yesterday i do not think we should lose Danny my concern is the next 3 games is the honeymoon over? as fans where we expecting too much for this season after the playoffs?
Our form since we beat Leeds away last season  has not been good

[RobertT]

The biggest problem this season has been the loss of Greer's organisational/motivational/whatever it was ability on the defence, coupled with an inconsistent team selection.  The latter has been largely due to injuries to key players, or complete loss of form of others.  Douglas - in and out, Ferry - largely missing, Manky - injured even when playing it seemed, Sheehan - in and out, Austin - missed games where he didn't last year.

Last season's patchiest form was whenever the core players were missing.  The team is generall young and once that key experience and ability goes, so does the teams confidence or organisational ability.

Greer went, Wilson clearly didn't want that to happen, but we know the reasons why even if we disagree with them (and at the time I thought his lack of form personally and general injury record etc meant it was ok).

None of the above get solved by a new Manager.  Douglas' toe does not get better, Manky doesn't reover over night back to his best, Lucas' back doesn't fix itself (which may be part of the reason for his up and down form as well).  Last season we got lucky, lucky in that we could generally select our best eleven players for most games once we got through the first couple of months.  In that period we hit form.

If the best eleven were fit right now, and picked for a period of weeks, I have no doubt we'd be winning more than not.  We'd still have a bit of problem in the defence that needs work in January (if not before), but we'd be ok - nothing more, but not this bad.

The defender is something Wilson can fix, and he tried, but getting 28-32 year old central defenders worthy of top half League one teams means going for players probably already getting picked in their teams, which means they are not in the loan market.

In summary, I don't see a change of manager fixing the things listed above.

For the record, I don't think Paynter's loss has a huge impact.  I think his loss is the difference between fighting tooth and nail right at the top and being a team capable of being in the hunt for play offs or safely top half.

[luckyluke699]

Everyone knows the problems is in defence. I know it, you know it, the poster above knows it, we all know it. I would imagine the budget is tight (probably minimal purchase cost, and low wages compared to some other clubs) and anyone in charge may struggle to find the right player with that setup (as much as we think there are parallels, this isn't Champ Manager!  ).


I ran a little exercise shown below for the last 10 league games. There are the actual results, and the "adjusted" results. All I did for the adjusted results was cap the numbers of goals conceeded for each game down to 1 (just to see how "big" the effects were).

                Lost   Draw    Won   Points   *4.6 (season worth)
Actual            5   3          2        9             41
Adjusted*       2   1          7         22           101

In short, we would have won most of our games. We scored 1.9 goals per game over that period ffs!

Before someone points it out, obviously this is not a fair exercise and I'm not suggesting we'd finish on 100 points. I'm just trying to show a very obvious point that the team isn't "massively" away from where we all want it to be, and that it's a lot closer to being a good team than people are giving the team, and Danny credit for

!