Weymouth v. Dulwich Hamlet, 4 February 2023

[AveryDave]

Important match against the team with the worst form in the League over the last six games - five losses, including the home game before Christmas, and one win being their last time out against Hampton & Richmond. They've scored six and conceded 15 goals in that time compared to our 12 scored and 17 conceded.

Their home record for the season stands at two wins, two draws and nine losses - our away record stands at four wins, three draws, five losses.

 

[editor]

If this fixture was later in the year I'd quite fancy the trip and taking a look around the town but I don't fancy it so much in winter.

 

[Pink Panther]

I'm doing this one and looking forward to it, having missed our only previous visit in early January three years ago, due to a combination of rail engineering works and uncertainty with the weather. Forecast looks pretty good for the time of year, still nearly 3 hours on the train, so staying overnight and coming back the next day. Ground looks a fair hike from the town centre. Bus 3 gets you within a few hundred yards but it looks like there's no bus back with the winter timetable.

Weymouth have announced three new loan signings today, all 19/20 year olds from Football league clubs, as well as losing one loanee from Wimbledon who found the travelling too much.

 

[AveryDave]

 

[AveryDave]

 

[AveryDave]

 

[AveryDave]

 

[AveryDave]

 

[AveryDave]

 

[editor]

So we can't even beat the shittest team in the division.

We've now got the worst form in the league.

 

[AveryDave]

Fourth loss on the spin sees us drop a place to 17th, six points off the relegation places.

 

[tonysingh]

I wonder if we regret pruning Rose now.

 

[B.I.G]

The main quality of the manager is that they are compliant.

 

[scousedom]

I wonder if we regret pruning Rose now.

A thorny question.

 

[tonysingh]

A thorny question.

No point in beating round the bush

 

[Moroccan Sunset]

I wonder if we regret pruning Rose now.

On the contrary, if we were gonna do it, we should have done it sooner, rather than giving him the summer to assemble a squad that the next manager was going to have to work with.

 

[liamdhfc]

The main quality of the manager is that they are compliant

Manager being asked to try to get consistent form from a team assembled by a previous manager that was full of poor recruitment and the solution is to bring that manager back.

Team has no pace and players under contract so hard to shift and free up budget. Players shifted out to cut budget but not able to replace.

Time to judge can only be when manager gets to assemble team he would want, which I know would have the pace this one lacks.

In what way should he not be compliant? How does he do that? Resign or just go to the press and complain or he could just slag the players off all the time. That didn’t work last time.

 

[B.I.G]

Manager being asked to try to get consistent form from a team assembled by a previous manager that was full of poor recruitment and the solution is to bring that manager back.

Team has no pace and players under contract so hard to shift and free up budget. Players shifted out to cut budget but not able to replace.

Time to judge can only be when manager gets to assemble team he would want, which I know would have the pace this one lacks.

In what way should he not be compliant? How does hw do that? Resign or just go to the press and Joan or he could just slag the players off all the time. That didn’t work last time.

What happened to speculate to accumulate? Like when you set the budget at tooting far in advance of the likely attendance.

Anyway, its not Barnes fault for taking the job, as its whoever recommended / hired them for the manager role, because they did so primarily because they would be compliant to their wishes.

Do they have a wider remit than managing the first team? If not, then ultimately they will fail as they aren’t a good enough manager.

 

[scousedom]

No point in beating round the bush

Leaf it out, petal.

 

[The new one]

On way back home from game don’t know what to say really poor from everyone and I bring management team into that aswell

 

[B.I.G]

We all remember that Gavin Rose was given a three year contract by the same people in charge of the club right?

As far as I recall. He behaved exactly the same over the last five years in his role. Yet they gave him a three year contract, but now he is to blame for everything.

Provided its not them that make mistakes. Its all cool.

 

[tonysingh]

On way back home from game don’t know what to say really poor from everyone and I bring management team into that aswell

Things must be bad, you're moaning.

 

[Pink Panther]

Today was both infuriating and worrying. A decent performance for half an hour against a struggling side with only 23 goals in 26 previous league games. We put ourselves in a strong position, our keeper saved a penalty to keep us in front (for about 5 more minutes) but we still couldn't get over the line. I'd probably have taken a point, just to stop the rot, and we really ought to have done enough to come away with that. The decisive goal was excruciating to watch. Wood kept the ball in play on the left touchline when it might have been safer to concede the throw, it was relayed back to Vint with time to clear but he seemed to take an age to pick a pass that was charged down by an opponent, who burst into our box and squared for a simple finish. It was a car crash, you could see it coming before it happened. We had chances to equalise but mainly from the edge of the box or beyond. For a team that's failed to score in only one of our 27 league games we do look strangely impotent when it matters most. Even scoring once in every game ought to have earned us more points than we've got but we have only two clean sheets, one against these opponents when they played two thirds of the match a man short.

On a positive note, I like the look of the two new midfield recruits. Thompson looked decent but unsurprisingly seemed to run out of steam, having barely played all season. Odesanya looked like a player who's been playing regularly in the division above. Powell was decent again too. That trio has been recruited by the current manager, which suggests he has an eye for a player and knows what he wants. I just hope we can cobble together the 19 or so points we still need from our remaining 19 games. It's not a high bar. We're a lower mid-table side and the reality is that such teams will experience a worrying slump once or twice a season. We've already proved we can offset that with an encouraging month (11 points from 15 in December) and we may need a repeat.

 

[Christian Burt]

The only good thing lately is the return of the excellent Pink Panther match reports.
Worrying times, and can’t disagree with the BIG overall summary on his last post.

 

[scousedom]

We all remember that Gavin Rose was given a three year contract by the same people in charge of the club right?

As far as I recall. He behaved exactly the same over the last five years in his role. Yet they gave him a three year contract, but now he is to blame for everything.

Provided its not them that make mistakes. Its all cool.

A three year contract and talk of being on the Board.

 

[B.I.G]

A three year contract and talk of being on the Board.

I’d forgotten that.

 

[liamdhfc]

What happened to speculate to accumulate? Like when you set the budget at tooting far in advance of the likely attendance.

Anyway, its not Barnes fault for taking the job, as its whoever recommended / hired them for the manager role, because they did so primarily because they would be compliant to their wishes.

Do they have a wider remit than managing the first team? If not, then ultimately they will fail as they aren’t a good enough

They did speculate as the manager said he could reach the play offs with the budget he had. That would have been set based on a projection of income based on average attendance and other income sources. The loss of Saturday home games and unplanned expenses always make a difference to that as the season progresses. Nothing new there that doesn’t happen at every club, except often the money man just sticks their hand in their pocket to cover it.
There is a massive amount of work to do to build a club and I’m sure the manager’s knowledge in other areas will be very useful in that.

 

[Moroccan Sunset]

We all remember that Gavin Rose was given a three year contract by the same people in charge of the club right?

As far as I recall. He behaved exactly the same over the last five years in his role. Yet they gave him a three year contract, but now he is to blame for everything.

Provided its not them that make mistakes. Its all cool.

Not often I agree with you, B.I.G, but I think you're right here. Appreciate the board are up to their necks with stadium stuff, but what on earth was the justification for keeping GR on over the summer, when there were clearly enough doubts for us to sack him 10 games in?

Today feels like a kick in the clangers, as I'm sure it does for all of us. In fact, it feels to me like confirmation that we are in a relegation dogfight rather than a gentle amble to a mid table finish and a very, very busy pre season.

For me, the big thing is the budget: Barnes has clearly had to cut it, and by a substantial amount. Splatt, Hill, Deadfield, and Akanbi have all gone with no direct replacements. All (bar Splatt) are experienced at this level and must have been on reasonable whack. But if we could afford that wage bill under GR, why have we not given the same resources to Barnes? Surely, we didn't give GR a budget that was unsustainable, so why have we cut back mid season?

I assume it's because the budget was for a league position higher than we thought we would get after the crap start, but Barnes's job was always going to be a tough one - it wasn't his squad and the profile of the player he clearly likes (i.e. Powell, Eweka, Thompson etc.) is patently different to players like Ming, Comley, Vint, Mills, Holland, Blackman etc. who are all longer in the tooth. By ensuring he couldn't replace people like Deadfield with players he preferred, we made a tough job even tougher.

If the board allocatdd a decent budget to GR after several seasons of poor football, then that is their fault, but by making Barnes cut it, when the side he inherited was already on the ropes and contracted up to the hilt, they've made it even worse, IMO. Unless the budget was financially unsustainable for the whole season, then I think it was a mistake they had to take the responsibility and the consequences for, not Barnes - they should have just left it as it was to give him the best chance of avoiding what we now find ourselves in.

I'd genuinely like to hear someone from the top brass explain the thinking, but we've got fuck all chance of that happening. They'll just leave liamdhfc to take the flack for the umpteenth time.

 

[B.I.G]

Not often I agree with you, B.I.G, but I think you're right here. Appreciate the board are up to their necks with stadium stuff, but what on earth was the justification for keeping GR on over the summer, when there were clearly enough doubts for us to sack him 10 games in?

Today feels like a kick in the clangers, as I'm sure it does for all of us. In fact, it feels to me like confirmation that we are in a relegation dogfight rather than a gentle amble to a mid table finish and a very, very busy pre season.

For me, the big thing is the budget: Barnes has clearly had to cut it, and by a substantial amount. Splatt, Hill, Deadfield, and Akanbi have all gone with no direct replacements. All (bar Splatt) are experienced at this level and must have been on reasonable whack. But if we could afford that wage bill under GR, why have we not given the same resources to Barnes? Surely, we didn't give GR a budget that was unsustainable, so why have we cut back mid season?

I assume it's because the budget was for a league position higher than we would get after the crap start, but Barnes's job was always going to be a tough one - it wasn't his squad and the profile of the player he clearly likes (i.e. Powell, Eweka, Thompson etc.) is patently different to players like Ming, Comley, Vint, Mills, Holland, Blackman etc. who are all longer in the tooth. By ensuring he couldn't replace people like Deadfield with players he preferred, we made a tough job even tougher.

If the board allocatdd a decent budget to GR after several seasons of poor football, then that is their fault, but by making Barnes cut it, when the side he inherited was already on the ropes and contracted up to the hilt, they've made it even worse, IMO. Unless the budget was financially unsustainable for the whole season, then I think it was a mistake they had to take the responsibility and the consequences for, not Barnes - they should have just left it as it was to give him the best chance of avoiding what we now find ourselves in.

I'd genuinely like to hear someone from the top brass explain the thinking, but we've got fuck all chance of that happening. They'll just leave liamdhfc to take the flack for the umpteenth time.

Agreed.

 

[scousedom]

Not often I agree with you, B.I.G, but I think you're right here. Appreciate the board are up to their necks with stadium stuff, but what on earth was the justification for keeping GR on over the summer, when there were clearly enough doubts for us to sack him 10 games in?

Today feels like a kick in the clangers, as I'm sure it does for all of us. In fact, it feels to me like confirmation that we are in a relegation dogfight rather than a gentle amble to a mid table finish and a very, very busy pre season.

For me, the big thing is the budget: Barnes has clearly had to cut it, and by a substantial amount. Splatt, Hill, Deadfield, and Akanbi have all gone with no direct replacements. All (bar Splatt) are experienced at this level and must have been on reasonable whack. But if we could afford that wage bill under GR, why have we not given the same resources to Barnes? Surely, we didn't give GR a budget that was unsustainable, so why have we cut back mid season?

I assume it's because the budget was for a league position higher than we thought we would get after the crap start, but Barnes's job was always going to be a tough one - it wasn't his squad and the profile of the player he clearly likes (i.e. Powell, Eweka, Thompson etc.) is patently different to players like Ming, Comley, Vint, Mills, Holland, Blackman etc. who are all longer in the tooth. By ensuring he couldn't replace people like Deadfield with players he preferred, we made a tough job even tougher.

If the board allocatdd a decent budget to GR after several seasons of poor football, then that is their fault, but by making Barnes cut it, when the side he inherited was already on the ropes and contracted up to the hilt, they've made it even worse, IMO. Unless the budget was financially unsustainable for the whole season, then I think it was a mistake they had to take the responsibility and the consequences for, not Barnes - they should have just left it as it was to give him the best chance of avoiding what we now find ourselves in.

I'd genuinely like to hear someone from the top brass explain the thinking, but we've got fuck all chance of that happening. They'll just leave liamdhfc to take the flack for the umpteenth time.

Given his contract “wasn’t picked up” or whatever the wording was, I assume this isn’t the case but… If there was a payoff to GR and or staff, is that what the sudden hole in the budget is…?