All Bad managers???

[RutlandRed]

I have pondered for a few days and looked at this site and have considered the views of others and now want to give my opinion on the current situation at Forest.

I find Billy Davies' comments very interesting. I have a lot of time for the man, honest, straight to the point, and has the courage to voice his opinion. I do not find these traits to be conceited or egotistical. I read with interest the NEP article and the comments made therein. Billy comments on how he put forward his proposals for players but does not have any say in relation to finances.

Now if you look at the players quoted, Billy has identified, correctly in my view, the main areas of weakness. He wanted a centre back (Jones), a goalkeeper, a strong, physical centre forward (Adebola) and a right winger (croft, albeit whilst Ando was injured). Now these were clearly areas that needed strengthening. He went to the board who put in their usual derogatory bids. I mean as if a club would sell their captain (Jones) for a poultry £600,000!! £1m maybe at a stretch!! Now this is down to the 'transfer committee' as Billy said its not his club, not his money, he has no say in that, but he does highlight where we need players. If given a budget for example he could pay a bit more for a player and instead of having 4 players have 3, but at least it would have strenghtened the squad!

Now cast your mind back to the season we just missed out in the playoffs under Hart. We had Harewood (sold) Scimeca (sold), Brennan (at the time a great full back sold) and more importantly we had Darren Huckerby just about in his prime in the championship as he had just come from a prem side!! Doughty failed to invest then and back Harty, when just a bit of backing to keep Huckerby and to keep some of the others and bring a couple of players in could have really made us serious contenders for promotion! (were you serious?? i was!!)

Instead, the side was dismantled beneath Hart's feet, the team struggled and ultimately Hart got the sack! I in fact recall a quote in the NEP by Doughty around that time of that he would rather give his money to charity!!! I cannot forgive him for not backing us then when we were in the 'position of strength' that he always used to say he would only back us in.

My argument is this Are Harty, Megson, Kinnear, and even Billy Davies all bad managers??? No. Megson, premiership manager, Kinnear premiership manager, and now Hart caretaker of a premiership side!! It is simple they are not all bad managers!

what they have suffered from is a lack of ambition shown by the club at crucial times when it was needed and became scapegoats for the failings of the club as a result!

something is seriously wrong deep to the core of this club and maybe, just maybe, Billy has given us fans and indication of what is wrong!

 

[Midland Red]

I'd have to say that I agree with quite a lot of that.

 

[Strummer]

All good points; I'm mindful of the Chairman's wish to put the "Nottingham back in Nottingham Forest" and Billy's comments that he had been brought in to work with the young players.

Whilst we've brought several good players out of the academy (fully justifying the Chairmans' expenditure on it) we are not going to be able to produce a full Championship-standard squad of players from within (we wish!) therefore, money has to be spent, and the Manager, surely, must identify when that time is.

Billy has done this, but hasn't been backed by the board - no wonder he is "upset"!

 

[EmJay]

Can't disagree with any of that

 

[Eastwood Red]

Good points made there RutlandRed

 

[RutlandRed]

Thanks Midland for your agreement! Now others may not agree with my views, as football and life in general is all about opinions, and it would be dull if we all had the same.

I just cannot buy into the Doughty is our saviour argument. It does not wash with me. How many games a season does he watch? i know chairman (david gould is one that immediately springs to mind) who bust their guts to be at as many games as possible so as to be in a postion, when necessary to be able to make informed and critical business decisions in relation to the club. Doughty has his many business ventures, and i admire him for that and it is not my place to consider which should be top of his priority, but i feel, and this is totally opinion, that forest are falling down his pecking order and as long as this 'asset' is ticking over and making ends meet and is 'self-sufficient' then he is happy. again that's my opinion only!!

he is a businessman, yet fails to understand that relegation will cost us between £8m and £10m. Now then i ask this, is it worth spending £2m to avoid 300% - 400% (£8m to £10m for those non mathetical minded of us) loss??

 

[Midland Red]

Billy has done this, but hasn't been backed by the board - no wonder he is "upset"!

He's been backed by the Chairman's confidence. But over-ruled by the Chief Executive, who doesn't seem to be backing him.

That's very worrying. Nigel needs to sort that out.

 

[red_outlaw]

All good points; I'm mindful of the Chairman's wish to put the "Nottingham back in Nottingham Forest" and Billy's comments that he had been brought in to work with the young players.

Whilst we've brought several good players out of the academy (fully justifying the Chairmans' expenditure on it) we are not going to be able to produce a full Championship-standard squad of players from within (we wish!) therefore, money has to be spent, and the Manager, surely, must identify when that time is.

Billy has done this, but hasn't been backed by the board - no wonder he is "upset"!

Am I the only one who feels that the quality of the players the academy has produced has declined since Hart was sacked? There is nobody of the calibre of Dawson, Prutton, Jenas or Reid.

 

[Erik]

Am I the only one who feels that the quality of the players the academy has produced has declined since Hart was sacked? There is nobody of the calibre of Dawson, Prutton, Jenas or Reid.

That may in part be down to us being a League 1 club and the quality of 'raw goods' we can attract. It may also be down to Paul Hart being one of the best producers of young talent around at the time (think Woodgate, Robinson, Smith etc).

 

[marshal99]

Am I the only one who feels that the quality of the players the academy has produced has declined since Hart was sacked? There is nobody of the calibre of Dawson, Prutton, Jenas or Reid.

There's no way to maintain that type of constant quality , these only come along once in many years , like the manyoo homegrown youth lads that came together like giggs, scholes , neville , beckham etc. How many homegrown lads has manchester produced since then ?

 

[Senior Flange Technician]

not many, most are bought at a very young age from foriegn countries

 

[marshal99]

Yeah , but not produced , they basically paid a lot of money for youngsters like ronaldo , anderson etc. Locally produced players like Eagle & martin pretty much falls by the wayside.

 

[FBS]

Thanks Midland for your agreement! Now others may not agree with my views, as football and life in general is all about opinions, and it would be dull if we all had the same.

I just cannot buy into the Doughty is our saviour argument. It does not wash with me. How many games a season does he watch? i know chairman (david gould is one that immediately springs to mind) who bust their guts to be at as many games as possible so as to be in a postion, when necessary to be able to make informed and critical business decisions in relation to the club. Doughty has his many business ventures, and i admire him for that and it is not my place to consider which should be top of his priority, but i feel, and this is totally opinion, that forest are falling down his pecking order and as long as this 'asset' is ticking over and making ends meet and is 'self-sufficient' then he is happy. again that's my opinion only!!

he is a businessman, yet fails to understand that relegation will cost us between £8m and £10m. Now then i ask this, is it worth spending £2m to avoid 300% - 400% (£8m to £10m for those non mathetical minded of us) loss??

I see Doughty getting on the London-Nottingham Saturday train quite a bit. Certainly more so than I would expect to see a Chairman turning up at a club 200 miles away

 

[mouldy]

Fully agree. I do believe the budget concept is a much better one. A transfer budget means Billy can bring players in at the price he feels right. I think after a few weeks in the loan market the board have shown a clear imcompetence to sign players and there is clearly no desire to part company with money in return for players.

We have had some terrible managers in the past and the caution is clearly warranted with the cash. However, we simply have been left with no other option we need players and the board are not delivering. A budget would be much more logical and a manager as qualified as Billy Davies has the ability to do something good with the cash.

 

[Tricky Trev]

Well said Rutland.

I've been so pissed off since Saturday, I'd virtually hid my head in the sand, and not really wanted to post, as there have been lots of valid points made over the past few days.

I'm convinced, like you, that the problem we have at this club is not really knowing what happens behind the scenes.

I'm not sure that this committee for signing players works, especially for the likes of Billy, he should be given cart blanche to seek & sign the players he wants.

I don't want to be critical of Pleat, but he was never a good manager, or player, I think I ever only saw him play one first team game, he was mainly in the reserves.

It makes you feel better that Billy, for all his critics, has, identified the areas we need to strengthen, in fact, in the window, I think he was spot on.

If the funds weren't available it wasn't his fault.

I have heard from a Donny fan though that staying in this league is worth £12m next season, and if they manage to stay in for 2 seasons, they're hoping to buy the ground from Donny Council, so if it is true, over 2 seasons that's £24m, which we won't get anywhere near in Div1.

I would have thought that ND if he truly loves the club like us, would be itching to ensure that we stay in this league, 'cos revenues will certainly drop dramatically if we do.

We're dicing with death hoping, and believing that the squad as it is, is good enough to finish 4th from bottom, a few weeks ago, I would have said we'd have stayed up, but now, we're on a bad run, whilst the other clubs down here with us are getting a bit of form going.

Still in a state of depression from Saturday, and I've run out of prozac, I'll have to go and get my prescription increased from 20mg to 40mg, my only hope.

 

[Senior Flange Technician]

We're dicing with death hoping, and believing that the squad as it is, is good enough to finish 4th from bottom, a few weeks ago, I would have said we'd have stayed up, but now, we're on a bad run, whilst the other clubs down here with us are getting a bit of form going.

we all knew feb was gonna be hard, we are still not in the relagation spots, we have a good run in, keep the faith 8)

 

[mouldy]

we all knew feb was gonna be hard, we are still not in the relagation spots, we have a good run in, keep the faith 8)

I don't get how it is disappointing to lose to Cardiff and Brum and Ipswich with the squad we have.

 

[king_congo_red]

Now if you look at the players quoted, Billy has identified, correctly in my view, the main areas of weakness. He wanted a centre back (Jones), a goalkeeper, a strong, physical centre forward (Adebola) and a right winger (croft, albeit whilst Ando was injured). Now these were clearly areas that needed strengthening. He went to the board who put in their usual derogatory bids. I mean as if a club would sell their captain (Jones) for a poultry £600,000!!

This highlights the root of all the clubs problems. We have in place a structure where the person responsible for the playing side of the game - the manager, has no control over how highly we value potential targets. Mark Arthur is not a stupid man, he is quite aware that if the team fails on the pitch, regardless of whether this is down to managerial ineptitude or through not having enough quality in the squad, then it is the manager who will carry the can for the poor performance. He is also aware that if he overspends on wages, transfer fees or whatever and fthe finances look dodgy, then he himself will be accountable and will likely be fired.

In creating this structure we have fallen into one of the great traps of failing businesses, creating a hierarchy where people are concerned with only what they are accountable for, they work for themselves rather than in the best interest of the organisation.

 

[Tricky Trev]

We need backup though, Perch's out now, moose may be available, but we're still short of 1st team championship players

 

[RRRREDUN]

The fact is that in our name, our club has been run in an appalling fashion. What have we gained from the so-called expertise of the people running the club?
Over the years, we have seen our once proud club sunk below a host of clubs who really shouldn't do much else other than clean out our toilets. We need experts to run this club - other clubs gain promotions etc with much less fan-base than us but they have people running their club who have vision and expertise. I have to say it ........ they are also able to take a risk. Occasionally, you have to take a punt on the financial front. Doughty has (supposedly) kept our head above water - what's the point if we spend 3 years in the 3rd division and are fighting for our lives now? Without Doughty, 'where would we be?' I hear you ask. Well, no other club has got Doughty and some of them (potentially much smaller than Forest) are doing very well thank you. Name 25 clubs in the Prem and Championship who you think of as being lesser clubs than the reds. This is NOT anti-Doughty. But, I for one can't be eternally grateful to someone who has overseen the embarrassment our club has become. Up the reds!

 

[goatboy]

I don't get how it is disappointing to lose to Cardiff and Brum and Ipswich with the squad we have.

We didn't lose to Cardiff, the ref's a cheat.

 

[T.B.T.]

This is an interesting debate and probably one to which we will never have the answers.

In my mind, which is a simple one, Billy locates the players he wants in his team, Nigel Doughty supplies the cash and Mark Arthur (and board) decide how much they are willing to spend and negotiate the deals.

We know that Billy has done his bit and we assume Nigel is willing to part with the money. So, the weak link appears to be in the middle.

If we need to spend £1.0m on a good player and we believe he's worth it, then we should pay it. The potential cost of relegation will be one hell of a lot more than that and one from which it will takes us many years to recover from.

 

[thetfordred]

i wish we had a chairman like john ryan at doncaster , he's backed the club from the conference and i'd say they have much,much more chance of being in the premier league in the next 3 years than we do , i still cannot believe what goes on at our club ,absolutely no ambition at all .

 

[daztheman]

i wish we had a chairman like john ryan at doncaster , he's backed the club from the conference and i'd say they have much,much more chance of being in the premier league in the next 3 years than we do , i still cannot believe what goes on at our club ,absolutely no ambition at all .

The lack of ambition is deflating but also the silence is deafening we hardly ever hear from ND it just really gets on your t*ts!

 

[Capital1Red]

GOOD POST! Carnt disagree with much of that!