[seteefeet]

Suggesting it’s easier to win in lower divisions is far too simplistic

It's far more simple than the Premier league, yet it's ok to dismiss Moore's record there?

Plus,isn't the general consensus with Moore's detractors, that he should be tearing up this "lower" league with this squad?

[Backofthenet]

I'm struggling with the concept of us going up as the reason for not losing some of our squad. Lets be fair most of our squad was not good enough for the PL so we are deluding ourselves if we think it will be any different.
A Norwich supporter on a phone in on Saturday summed it all up for me when he said that he would be delighted to win the league, take the trophy and then tell the authorities they want to stay in the Championship. He rightly said that they will struggle regardless of how much they spend and it will be a lot less enjoyable.
At the start of the season we ran a poll to see where we thought we would end up and loads thought mid table. That being the case we are over performing. We would struggle in the Premier League and we are fooling ourselves if we think otherwise - rebuild or not. Top players do not want to sign for clubs who are likely to be facing a relegation battle. 

[tuamigos]

I'm struggling with the concept of us going up as the reason for not losing some of our squad. Lets be fair most of our squad was not good enough for the PL so we are deluding ourselves if we think it will be any different.
A Norwich supporter on a phone in on Saturday summed it all up for me when he said that he would be delighted to win the league, take the trophy and then tell the authorities they want to stay in the Championship. He rightly said that they will struggle regardless of how much they spend and it will be a lot less enjoyable.
At the start of the season we ran a poll to see where we thought we would end up and loads thought mid table. That being the case we are over performing. We would struggle in the Premier League and we are fooling ourselves if we think otherwise - rebuild or not. Top players do not want to sign for clubs who are likely to be facing a relegation battle.

That's it for me as well.
Regardless of what division we are playing in next season we will have a massive overhaul of the squad.
6 loanees will go back.
The likes of Dawson/Phillips/Hegazi/Livermore/Gibbs/JRod would they fancy another season of Championship football or a relegation struggle in the Premiership?
Barry, Morrisson, Brunty all past it IMO.
Hoolihan and Mears will go  (hopefully)
Harper not signed a new deal yet.
That leaves the kids, Johnstone, Calamity Kyle and HRK.
Not inspiring is it?

[TiptonThrostle]

How is this sense, its a pointless comment.  If this season is too imortant to.mess up does that mean you Ythink he should be replaced NOW? and with who?  Big Sam???  A top lower league manager (please see Stoke).    Ask Rafa to pop by and bring Sol back with him.........or did i misunderstand the original post?

You cant replace him now because we are still in contention to be in the top two and look quite confident of play offs as a minimum.

dont understand the sarcasm to be fair or what you're trying to point out.

but its not very difficult, we have to get promoted this year to keep majority of our squad. I believe the players who got us relegated were good enough to stay in that division, dont forget the summer before so many on here were saying its the strongest ever top flight squad we have had !! we got relegated by poor management and sticking with a complete dinosaur for too long when a lot of players were not playing for him, then had a manager come in on the cheap who did not have a clue.

we fail to go up this season, then we make none of the loan signings permanent, we lose other assets like Gibbs, Dawson, Hegazi etc etc and it then becomes even more difficult to gain promotion, the parachute money reduces further and each season it becomes less likely to get back into the premier league (look at villa).

that is why it is absolutely imperative to get back into the premier league for next season.

if we do not, then the question has to be asked, was the squad good enough? yes.
was the manager backed? yes.
did the manager fail? yes.

unfortunately then if that does happen then in my oppinion, we then have a huge re-building job and have to appoint an experienced manager over a 4-5 year project.

as i have said before, a decent manager should be getting Albion out of this division with the resources available to use this season. if Moore achieves that, brilliant, i will be proud of the club and what DM has achieved in his first full season as manager and he should be backed to try and build his own squad.

but failure is not an option this season and if we do fail then unfortunately he must be made accountable for it. a lot on here dont seem to like that but its true.

i will continue to do what i have all season, remain positive and back my team every single home and away game and hopefully we achieve our aim.

COYB.

[Oldbury24]

You cant replace him now because we are still in contention to be in the top two and look quite confident of play offs as a minimum.

dont understand the sarcasm to be fair or what you're trying to point out.

but its not very difficult, we have to get promoted this year to keep majority of our squad. I believe the players who got us relegated were good enough to stay in that division, dont forget the summer before so many on here were saying its the strongest ever top flight squad we have had !! we got relegated by poor management and sticking with a complete dinosaur for too long when a lot of players were not playing for him, then had a manager come in on the cheap who did not have a clue.

we fail to go up this season, then we make none of the loan signings permanent, we lose other assets like Gibbs, Dawson, Hegazi etc etc and it then becomes even more difficult to gain promotion, the parachute money reduces further and each season it becomes less likely to get back into the premier league (look at villa).

that is why it is absolutely imperative to get back into the premier league for next season.

if we do not, then the question has to be asked, was the squad good enough? yes.
was the manager backed? yes.
did the manager fail? yes.

unfortunately then if that does happen then in my oppinion, we then have a huge re-building job and have to appoint an experienced manager over a 4-5 year project.

as i have said before, a decent manager should be getting Albion out of this division with the resources available to use this season. if Moore achieves that, brilliant, i will be proud of the club and what DM has achieved in his first full season as manager and he should be backed to try and build his own squad.

but failure is not an option this season and if we do fail then unfortunately he must be made accountable for it. a lot on here dont seem to like that but its true.

i will continue to do what i have all season, remain positive and back my team every single home and away game and hopefully we achieve our aim.
 
COYB.

I think we just read Gazbergs post differently.....happens.

[gazberg]

How is this sense, its a pointless comment.  If this season is too imortant to.mess up does that mean you Ythink he should be replaced NOW? and with who?  Big Sam???  A top lower league manager (please see Stoke).    Ask Rafa to pop by and bring Sol back with him.........or did i misunderstand the original post?

It's too late to do it now. The warning signs were there right from the start of the season. Our failure to act may very well come back to bite us but we won't find out till all is said and done. Insanity at this point would be offering him a new contract.

[Oldbury24]

That's it for me as well.
Regardless of what division we are playing in next season we will have a massive overhaul of the squad.
6 loanees will go back.
The likes of Dawson/Phillips/Hegazi/Livermore/Gibbs/JRod would they fancy another season of Championship football or a relegation struggle in the Premiership?
Barry, Morrisson, Brunty all past it IMO.
Hoolihan and Mears will go  (hopefully)
Harper not signed a new deal yet.
That leaves the kids, Johnstone, Calamity Kyle and HRK.
Not inspiring is it?

This.  And if we we want to play a more progressive brand of football in the PL would we want Dawson and Livermore first picks anyway?  Both struggle to pass a ball forward more than ten yards.   Phillips is injury prone, Gibbs was often exposed in the air at LB and Jrod will struggle to reach double figures in the division above.  Hegazi is still green at the top level.   Are these the players we are pinning our PL status on?

Clubs needs full rebuild, and needs a philosophy and management team (full team including recruitment and youth) to hang it on..Being in the.PL doesn't magically solve your squad issues  its.not that long ago as a PL team we signed Samaras, Gambia and Davidson.

[Oldbury24]

It's too late to do it now. The warning signs were there right from the start of the season. Our failure to act may very well come back to bite us but we won't find out till all is said and done. Insanity at this point would be offering him a new contract.

Ahhh this is more about the new contract question.  Makes sense now even if I might not agree 👍

[TiptonThrostle]

This.  And if we we want to play a more progressive brand of football in the PL would we want Dawson and Livermore first picks anyway?  Both struggle to pass a ball forward more than ten yards.   Phillips is injury prone, Gibbs was often exposed in the air at LB and Jrod will struggle to reach double figures in the division above.  Hegazi is still green at the top level.   Are these the players we are pinning our PL status on?

Clubs needs full rebuild, and needs a philosophy and management team (full team including recruitment and youth) to hang it on..Being in the.PL doesn't magically solve your squad issues  its.not that long ago as a PL team we signed Samaras, Gambia and Davidson.

Good points but surely being in the PL allows us more financial support and with the right recruitment team like you say in place we can attempt to be an established premier league club again. not being in the PL and failing at promotion year after year just reduces the possibility of it happening and the revenue gets less and less as Mr Lai is not going to invest any into us in 2-3 years if we fail to get back up there.

[Maresca Was A Baggie]

I don't really get the issue with DM. Are we so arrogant as supporters that we expected to win this league by 20 points? This is a tough league, and only 3 teams out of 24 will go up. Many Relegated teams have struggled over the years. We have a new coach, who is learning his trade on the hoof. There was always going to be some ups and downs, but its a darn site more exciting than being bottom 4 in the Premiership, trying to just avoid defeat each week. We will NEVER be on a par with a lot of the Premiership clubs, unless some stupidly mega rich Arab buys us out. We need to keep our feet on the ground and remember who we are. It wasnt too long ago we were playing the likes of Bury at home on a freezing January night.

[TiptonThrostle]

I don't really get the issue with DM. Are we so arrogant as supporters that we expected to win this league by 20 points? This is a tough league, and only 3 teams out of 24 will go up. Many Relegated teams have struggled over the years. We have a new coach, who is learning his trade on the hoof. There was always going to be some ups and downs, but its a darn site more exciting than being bottom 4 in the Premiership, trying to just avoid defeat each week. We will NEVER be on a par with a lot of the Premiership clubs, unless some stupidly mega rich Arab buys us out. We need to keep our feet on the ground and remember who we are. It wasnt too long ago we were playing the likes of Bury at home on a freezing January night.

No one is being "arrogant" and i haven't seen a comment by anybody saying we should win the league by 20 points either.

we have no divine right to win the league and the championship is a very difficult league to get out of. However, we are a recently relegated side with the best squad in the league according to many people including fans of many other clubs. So with this comes expectation. as years go on and on with no success then expectation decreases. but as i say, we are a recently relegated side with the best strikeforce in the league.

[LiamTheBaggie]

Moore should remain regardless of whether we get promoted or not.

A merry go round of managers is not what the football club needs - especially whilst we have remained in constant contention for promotion.

[maximus]

I would rather we kept DM, I disagree alot with him and his choices, Whether that be lineup, Playing players out of position, Not being active enough with subs, Never criticising a loss with his samey answers after every game. But his albion and he is learning himself on the job, Going forward maybe he wont put so much faith in players not performing. Either way i would rather he stay, He did unite the whole club towards the end of last season, And that win against Spurs at home will stick with me forever, Even we did get relegated that day, We had a little bit of hope.

[ronnie_allen]

Some good arguments from both sides. Nice to see compared to some boards.

I feel Moore is probably doing slightly above par. Competing for play-offs and upwards would have been my expectation. Some of those managers around and above us are certainly over-achieving. I think every club would have bitten their hands off to get a manager of Bielsa's calibre at this level.  Stoke I would have thought were stronger at the start of the season and have totally capitulated. I feel Moore has done well to instil a togetherness and focus within the squad to have us competing and towards the upper end without any major fall-off; but certainly with this implemented we are probably being out-thought quite a bit.

One other factor; if we don't go up in relation to Moore being here next season is that as a young novice manager; I would be hopeful that he would have learned and gained a lot of experience that hopefully can make him a better manager next season. Not that there is any scientific guarantees that will be the case.

[gerry m]

Moore should remain regardless of whether we get promoted or not.

A merry go round of managers is not what the football club needs - especially whilst we have remained in constant contention for promotion.

Agree 100% Liam. But i fear that if we don't go up the knives will be out for him.

[gavinrussell]

Let's  face it..if he goes who would we attract will no money to spend....

[johnny Cash]

It's far more simple than the Premier league, yet it's ok to dismiss Moore's record there?

Plus,isn't the general consensus with Moore's detractors, that he should be tearing up this "lower" league with this squad?

In my opinion the Moore sample in the premiership was not large enough to take a great deal from. Galvanising short term is view differently, hence why not all caretakers go on to get jobs, and why Ole at United still has questions around his long term future.

In respect to the second point, the general consensus from me and others who don't think he is doing a great job is that we should be pushing for the title closer than we are, and getting better performances from this squad. You've supported my point though by taking in to account other facts, such as our strong squad.

You can't dismiss a win percentage or suggest its easier without taking in to account further details. Wilders stepped a team up a division only two years ago so you have to say, his percentage is fantastic at SUFC.

[gazberg]

Johnny Cash agree 100%, he should be doing better with the players at his disposal. Anything less than top 2 has to be seen as a failure. Sure there have been some awful, awful individual errors and performances but his stubborness or lack of nous tactically has cost us too so he's not blameless yet he likes to persevere which causes people to see him as a motivator not a tactician.

[AlbionFan]

Johnny Cash agree 100%, he should be doing better with the players at his disposal. Anything less than top 2 has to be seen as a failure. Sure there have been some awful, awful individual errors and performances but his stubborness or lack of nous tactically has cost us too so he's not blameless yet he likes to persevere which causes people to see him as a motivator not a tactician.

And what if we finish 6th and win the playoffs and are promoted?

That surely is the main and overriding objective and the real measure of success

[Droitwich Baggie]

He has done and is doing a good job. He just needs to read the game better from the management side.
ie. When to change personnel and/or tactics.

[albion59]

This squad the best in the league, really? According to lots of different people on here, here us a list of players not good enough
Johnstone
Hegazi
Dawson
Morrison
Brunt
HRK
Rodriguez also Holgate, Field and Harper have come in for some criticism. Then we have the other 4 loanees none of who are exactly pulling up trees. So this leaves Gibbs Phillips and Gayle! So I think Darren Moore not Dave is doing a bloody fantastic job!!

[BoingFlyer]

This squad the best in the league, really? According to lots of different people on here, here is a list of players not good enough
Johnstone
Hegazi
Dawson
Morrison
Brunt
HRK
Rodriguez also Holgate, Field and Harper have come in for some criticism. Then we have the other 4 loanees none of who are exactly pulling up trees. So this leaves Gibbs Phillips and Gayle! So I think Darren Moore not Dave is doing a bloody fantastic job!!

Well put sir, look at the comments in those threads and they are not spoken about as the best in the league.

[LiamTheBaggie]

This squad the best in the league, really? According to lots of different people on here, here us a list of players not good enough
Johnstone
Hegazi
Dawson
Morrison
Brunt
HRK
Rodriguez also Holgate, Field and Harper have come in for some criticism. Then we have the other 4 loanees none of who are exactly pulling up trees. So this leaves Gibbs Phillips and Gayle! So I think Darren Moore not Dave is doing a bloody fantastic job!!

I agree

Given the years of pulis and pardew

Given the fact he took over a club with a disillusioned fan base

Given the fact we did not have a recruitment team when we took over

Senior players rocking the boat throughout pre-season

An aging unbalanced midfield

To be in contention at this point is what I had hoped.

Should we fail to go up, he still deserved time to mould this club how he wants

Rome wasn’t built in a day - neither were Sheffield United, Norwich and Bristol City who appear to be flavour of the month at the moment

Patience, may be a virtue

[TiptonThrostle]

I agree

Given the years of pulis and pardew

Given the fact he took over a club with a disillusioned fan base

Given the fact we did not have a recruitment team when we took over

Senior players rocking the boat throughout pre-season

An aging unbalanced midfield

To be in contention at this point is what I had hoped.

Should we fail to go up, he still deserved time to mould this club how he wants

Rome wasn’t built in a day - neither were Sheffield United, Norwich and Bristol City who appear to be flavour of the month at the moment

Patience, may be a virtue

i think you are missing the point mate slightly without being rude. Sheffield Norwich and Bristol have all slowly built squads capable of challenging as you say.

But we have just been relegated and already have a squad more than capable of being in the top two if managed correctly. When you are relegated as long as you keep majority of the squad together you dont have to "build rome" for that. just a few additions and managed correctly, the first season back in the championship is the best and biggest chance to bounce straight back up.

DM did bring back the feel good factor at the club and plenty of positive feeling after a dreadful season with two poor managers. i would say he is just below par at the moment but hopefully he gets us in that top two.

i think 95% of the time DM picks the right team in all honesty, but its his in game management that is questionable.

tomorrow is the biggest game of the season so far i think, fail to win and we are going to have to do it through the play offs.

COYB.

[Albionic]

This is probably totally off beam BUT....

In Darrens playing career he is unlikely to have been subbed very often at all (barring injuries). Could this influence his thinking that subs should be used as a very last resort ?? Would he feel that players should start and finish games (as he did!)