Relegation: who's responsible? [POLL]

[fmgod]

WBA sacked Di Matteo and bought Hodgson in who in turn led a poor squad of players out of relegation and into mid table security.

A squad worse than ours, a squad with a lot less investment, a squad with a lot less experience, a squad with a lot less ablity.

[thamesmeadhammer]

The fault has to lie at the manager, coaching staff and playing staff.

Manager unable to motivate, "Judge me after 15 games"
Coaches unable to coach basic simple skills "Don't conceed and make sure you at least hit the target"
and players who couldn't give a monkies chuff "Club captain Upson....."I won't sign new contract cos I'm off end of the season" must have an affect on the team

Or maybe we are not good enough from the Management down to be in the Premier league. A few years in the Championship won't do us any harm in the long run......We need to start again, rebuild the squad, move to the OS and start afresh.

Owners, Managers, and players come and go..............Support is forever

[JohnnyBoy3000]

Seems i'm the only one that thinks the Daves have done a good job.

Imagine where we would have been if nobody had bought the club, probably in a situation close to Portsmouth.

Yes they should have sacked Grant, lets hope they get the next manager correct. I'm not exactly going to get excited about Chris Hughton but i'd more than welcome a couple of years down in the Championship stabilising the club.

[Maroonmachine]

The Manager for failing to do his job in motivating the players, and the players who were 'good enough' on paper but just couldn't be arsed.

[AJ]

Basically everyone in the poll list is responsible in some way.

The board should of seen the signs and sacked Grant at the end of December, so for them to carry on supporting him has not helped our situation, but the buck stops at the manager, so judging who is responsible the most, its Grant.

[bubbles1966]

I think, as I temporarily spring to the board's defence, it's easy to forget where we were on January 1st.

15th.

8 points from the previous 4 games incl what seemed like big wins against Wolves and Fulham.

In the semi final of a cup.

A moment's hesitation was understandable then.

[tall paul]

Avram is responsible for the poor performances and motivational issues, but unltimately the buck stops at G and S because it was their decision not to sack him. G&S for me !

If he wasnt useless there would be no need to sack him, so grant for me
If he could motivate and had the tactical nous there would be ne need for the Dave's to be running to the media

[Middlesbrough Hammer]

I would have to say avram. On the odd occasion he sets up the team from the start well to deal with the opposition and we can do well as long as our opponents dont massively change their game plan during the match. But if anything needs changing during a match he seems to have no idea what to do and his one and only tactic seems to be "bring on all the strikers and play them out of position", despite the fact that it NEVER works for him. He probably thinks that it worked when we did it against blackburn, but we were actually worse for a while immediately after he did it. Also, the fact that he seems to think that Ba should be played more wide left than central, despite the fact that he is clearly our main goal scoring threat at the moment. Finally, i would add to the list of things Grant has screwed up, the waste of a large chunk of our summer transfer budget on signing pablo barerra and winston reid, who have added absoloutely nothing and are often not even on the bench. Perhaps you could blame gold and sullivan for not sacking grant before january, but at the end of the day, any decent manager should be able to get our current squad to finish somewhere around mid table.

[fmgod]

I think, as I temporarily spring to the board's defence, it's easy to forget where we were on January 1st.
.

That makes it even worse, we brought in about four quality players and we've still cocked it up.

[sendô]

To blame, it goes in this order:

1. Gold and Sullivan - After scraping home by the skin of our teeth last season, the investment in the playing squad was woefully short of what was needed, and the players we did buy were of poor quality and in the wrong positions. They finally put their hands in their pockets in January but by then the damage had been done, and coupled with the above they were responsible for hiring, and the subsequent failure in firing reason number 2.

2. Avram Grant - Despite having just relegated Portsmouth, and having the personality of a retarded gnat, Grant was the man the owners entrusted with taking the club forwards from the post-Tevez financial malaise into a new future of investment, movement to a big new stadium and what was alluded to be certain Champions League football. What happened was a terrible start, a poor middle which saw us earn the ignominious title of "bottom at Christmas", and despite some promising performances in Feb/March, a piss poor end to the season. Rumours abound that he's lost the dressing room, and some often baffling tactical decisions both in starting line ups and substitutions make Grant one of the main architects of our impending demise.

3. The players - There is no denying that, for the lack of investment in the summer, and the lack of pedigree in the management department, the quality is there in the playing department. The problem is, all to often this season we've not seen that quality, nor have we even seen much in the way of fighting spirit. When you look at teams like Wolves, Blackpool and Blackburn, you have to concede that whilst they are poor teams with a lot of fighting spirit, we've maybe been a victim of the fact that our players are of a good enough quality that they don't really care if we go down, as when we do they can get transfers to better sides on the back of our need to cut costs and recoup transfer fees.

[munichhammer]

If he wasnt useless there would be no need to sack him, so grant for me
If he could motivate and had the tactical nous there would be ne need for the Dave's to be running to the media

WBA's owners didn't spout off to the media when Di Matteo was poor, they just sacked and replaced him.

Actions speak louder than words.

[bubbles1966]

I'm a fan of Hodgson but WBA still haven't kept a clean sheet under him....

Odemwingie hit form up front - just as he did when Di Matteo had them beating Everton, Arsenal, Man City back in the autumn - and Vela was brought in from Arsenal and scored the goals that halted their slide.

I think we underrate other teams players as well.

Odemwingie has 15 goals - he'd walk into our team this year.Mulumbu is a vastly superior midfield enforcer to anything we have - and none of our wide players deliver a ball or shoot like Brunt. Scharner? We really missed out there. Dorrans? Talented midfielder.Shorey? Not great but better than Ilunga and Gabbidon as a left back.

I hear the same with Stoke, Bolton, Birmingham, Fulham, Blackburn - at least half their first teams are better than what we have used for the first 25 games this season.

Blackpool are the only team with clearly poorer players. Holloway has used their momentum and the oppositions early season complacency well in making them put up a fight. The fact that all the players think they've only got one shot at the big time and big money probably helps make Holloway's job a bit easier. They're still going down though IMO. 1 win in 16. Still, a superb achievement by that club.

[rossmundo]

This leaves such a bad taste in the mouth, knowing that if Gold and Sullivan had sacked Grant when they had the chance to, and got someone in decent, we no way would be where we are now. I blame the owners 100% for not acting when they should of.

[bubbles1966]

That makes it even worse, we brought in about four quality players and we've still cocked it up.

That we have.

And it's all been in the last 6 weeks.

We needed 3 things to happen:

a) Grant to stick to the plan that had worked well and avoid tinkering;
b) Our best XI to stay fit, or at least not have a concentration of injuries in one part of the team;
c) Our big name players to step up to the plate and deliver;

None of that has happened.

[Tristan Shout]

I blame football in general, our game is ruined thanks to all the money involved, this is supposedly the best league in the world but when was the last time you Honestly saw a real cracking good game, end to end attacking, great passing and defending, passion, spirit, skill from both sides, and a bit of FAIR PLAY????
All i see now when i watch premiership football is a bunch of overpaid petulant pre-madonnas throwing themselves to the floor clutching their faces when they have been tapped on the ankle, then their team-mates harrasing the referee, waving imaginary cards, constantly badgering the ref to try and gain any advantage they can.
Teams setting up not to lose, (which could be stopped if you take away the point for a 0-0 but thats a different argument), managers trying to gain any psychological advantage or put pressure on the refs before, during and after the game.
Teams like Stoke deliberately cheating, managers like Wenger constantly whining and moaning on the touchline.
This is all down to money, teams cant afford to be relegated (that should never be anything to do with football) i bet i could find 11 half decent players out there that would play for the team they love just for the honour of it, while you have 11 players we will always have a team, how on earth can a football team go out of business? that is discraceful
If it wasnt for all of the above and it was just down to two teams turning up and having a game of FOOTBALL for a change we probably wouldnt have been relegated, but if we were relegated then we could hold our hands up and say "fair enough we wasnt good enough" and then try and win promotion the next year and have another go at it, but at the moment the longer we are out of it the better

[Puff Daddy]

This will be the 4th time they have overseen a club's relegation. There has to be a link between the two doesn't there ?

[Chelmo Hammer]

The owners for hiring Grant in the first place, follwed by Grant himself for being completly inept and incompetant in most of his decision making this season, followed by the owners again for not sacking him back in January, with the players in amongst the lot of it all too.

[anjado]

Grant has to shoulder a hell of a lot of responsibility,during the Manchester United game we looked like we were staying up easily. Yes we ended up losing this match but we were on a very good run we seemed to have somewhat of a settled team. Since then he has basically tinkered with the starting line up every week for whatever reason it is 36 games into the season and he still doesn't seem to know his best line up.

Look at James Tomkins he has been decent this year i wouldn't say brilliant but the kid has been ****ed around so much. When we were playing well he was in our starting line up in fact our record this season with James Tomkins starting this season is

Played - 25

Won - 13
Drawn - 3
lost - 7

Why is he not our first choice starting central defender ? He was for a short period of time before he was moved to right back in the Stoke game which has been one of only 3 things Avram Grant has got right all season. Then he of course stuffs up by keeping him there the next week and for the Bolton game.

Our previous 13 games Tomkins started before being switched

Played - 13
Won - 7
Drawn - 3
Lost - 3

Since that Stoke game he has been dropped for Manuel Da Costa i don't know why. Tomkins only 2 starts since have been at right back and he has been a disaster. Despite Grant playing him at right back all through the pre-season instead of buying a proper right back he buys Winston Reid who he puts at right back for the first game of the season moving Tomkins in to centre half then complains and says ohh Winston Reid isn't a right back this set alarm bells off for me and it was the first game of the season.

He has constantly tinkered with the back 4 and this to me shows signs of a very poor manager. Say what you will about Zola and people have but at least he didn't tinker with the back line as often as Grant even when he had Spector at left back.

Surely you pick a back 4 and stick with it this season we have chopped and changed so often i don't think the guy has any idea what out back 4 should be.

Add this to the fact that he really has no idea who he wants up front either. Guy is utterly clueless he is by far and away the worst manager we have ever had people say Zola is worse to me this is wrong. Grant has had 30+ years of coaching experience yet we have needed to bring in a defensive coach who has failed but the fact we had to bring one in at all speaks volumes of the coaching staff. He has failed to pick a back 4 and stick with it the entire season when it seemed we had the solution he changed it for no conceivable reason at all. He has also had far more money then Zola had and we still may end up with less points then last season.

He is the major reason we have been relegated. Our owners are a close second because they won't keep there mouths shut, The complete and utter rabble that was the Martin O'Neill saga. The fact they have brought in Silkman and allowed Brown back into the fold they have done one good thing since taking over and that was securing the Olympic Stadium this is it.

Players also deserve the blame winning only 68 points from a possible 222 is deplorable and on this basis have been the worst performed team in England over the past 2 years. I am sick of the lack of confidence they need to harden up they are too soft and weak mentally and physically. If i read another article talking about ohh we need to do this and need to do that just shut up and get it ****ing done the players have been talking about doing this and that for the past 2 years in the media just keep it shut and get it ****ing done. Which they haven't they can't back up there words with any sort of actions

So to some up it is probably a mixture but Grant is the top of the list how we are below teams like Blackburn and Blackpool is an utter disgrace we have to search hard for our next manager really really hard we need a winner someone with a winning mentality.

Really the club have been a shambles for the past 5 years especially with all the dirty laundry by the owners and Brady and the Tevez affair and Duxberry and the Icelandics the treatment of our past 3 managers by the club it has all been a disgrace to the club. Everyone involved really should be ashamed of themselves. We deserve better as a club then to be run like such a rabble.

[Gormalysis]

Who do you blame, so I voted for several...

Grant for tactical choices, players for their 'couldn't care less' attitude (not all), G&S for not getting rid of Grant in January despite making a huge fiasco about it and a little bit of bad luck. I would even go as far as blaming dodgy ref decisions and Ashley 'Carpet' Young for rolling around on the floor every time he was touched by anything stronger then a gentle summers breeze during the recent Villa game!

[tjr008]

The summer signings were rubbish - this is the fault of the owners and the manager.

The tactics we've played this season have been woeful - this is the fault of the manager.

The complete lack of any gameplan in games - this is the fault of the manager

The lack of motivation in the pitch - this is the fault of the players and the manager.

The lack of defensive ability - this is the players, the coaches, the manager and the owners (for not buying a lead central defender).

The easiest, simplest relegation of all time. Grant should take 75% of the blame, with the players & owners the rest.