The Pissing-Conduit run Nothing but Claret. Burrnla A 17/10

[thebish]

here's the reality check...

the only antidote I could find today was to go out and burn stuff - a massive autumn bonfire - not quite dry stuff 'n all so it made masses of smoke... I feel better now!

[jonnycooper]

Come on now! Turn that table upside down..

[BWFC_Insane]

Looking at that table....Rowett took over Birmingham when they were near the bottom and below us at a similar time to Lennon coming here.

He finished last season better. And Brum are 4th this season.

Spending and budgets at Birmingham are very similar to ours, they've spent little and haven't got wages to flash around.

Dispels the myth that there isn't anything Lennon can do. It is a very difficult situation. But we shouldn't be as bad as we have been since January. It isn't just the start to this season. We've had bottom of the league form for 6 months or so.

[jonnycooper]

Correct! Without that (almost) predictable new Manager Bounce last season,we would be playing League 1 football now! I can't see anything changing soon,but am still fully behind Lennon and sincerely hope that he can turn things around..

Even Sir Bruce was a bit hit and miss when he came in!

[LeverEnd]

Correct! Without that (almost) predictable new Manager Bounce last season,we would be playing League 1 football now! I can't see anything changing soon,but am still fully behind Lennon and sincerely hope that he can turn things around..

Even Sir Bruce was a bit hit and miss when he came in!

The miss being a few early games and the hit being promotion from nowhere at the end of his first season. Hardly a valid comparison.
Lennon is looking tactically inept and doesn't look like he's learning. But a striker in january could make all the difference, as could the new coach Walford I'd hope.
We have poor players and a poor manager for this league. Would Gary Rowett have done better? I suspect yes but we will never know. No point sacking him now, but I reckon we will go down before the club starts to get on an upward curve again.
It's different from Freedman, he looked a wreck who had given up. Lennon looks like he's up for the challenge but whether he's good enough is looking doubtful.

[Mar]

Looking at that table....Rowett took over Birmingham when they were near the bottom and below us at a similar time to Lennon coming here.

He finished last season better. And Brum are 4th this season.

Spending and budgets at Birmingham are very similar to ours, they've spent little and haven't got wages to flash around.

Dispels the myth that there isn't anything Lennon can do. It is a very difficult situation. But we shouldn't be as bad as we have been since January. It isn't just the start to this season. We've had bottom of the league form for 6 months or so.

Do they have crippling debt?

I think our slide down the table is more than just whats on the pitch. I think all the off the pitch negativity and severe lack of optimism is affecting the club too much to draw a fair comparison with most teams financial situations.

[BWFC_Insane]

Looking at that table....Rowett took over Birmingham when they were near the bottom and below us at a similar time to Lennon coming here.

He finished last season better. And Brum are 4th this season.

Spending and budgets at Birmingham are very similar to ours, they've spent little and haven't got wages to flash around.

Dispels the myth that there isn't anything Lennon can do. It is a very difficult situation. But we shouldn't be as bad as we have been since January. It isn't just the start to this season. We've had bottom of the league form for 6 months or so.

Do they have crippling debt?

I think our slide down the table is more than just whats on the pitch. I think all the off the pitch negativity and severe lack of optimism is affecting the club too much to draw a fair comparison with most teams financial situations.

They are for sale like us. I'm not sure what difference there is beyond that? Budgets are budgets. Our debt doesn't hurt us in any way. The thing that hurts us is no further investment from Eddie or anyone else. And Birmingham are in the exact same position and have the same uncertain future.

We've not had a manager capable of turning round our sinking ship like Rowett has done there.

[thebish]

Looking at that table....Rowett took over Birmingham when they were near the bottom and below us at a similar time to Lennon coming here.

He finished last season better. And Brum are 4th this season.

Spending and budgets at Birmingham are very similar to ours, they've spent little and haven't got wages to flash around.

Dispels the myth that there isn't anything Lennon can do. It is a very difficult situation. But we shouldn't be as bad as we have been since January. It isn't just the start to this season. We've had bottom of the league form for 6 months or so.

Do they have crippling debt?

I think our slide down the table is more than just whats on the pitch. I think all the off the pitch negativity and severe lack of optimism is affecting the club too much to draw a fair comparison with most teams financial situations.

I'm not sure it's our crippling debt that is to blame for on-pitch performances - it's not even that "crippling" as debts might go, is it? i doubt many of the players care two tosses about our debt as long as they are being paid - and they are...

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Didn't the holding company that owns Birmingham go into receivership after Carson Yeung was chucked in chokey?

[LeverEnd]

I wonder how our wage bill now compares with Burnley's when they were promoted a couple of seasons back? We've had dwindling resouces but it's not just the debt that's holding us back, it's what money has been there being fecking wasted on players who are not pulling their weight.
I've heard 'haves and have-nots' mentioned, we were the haves in this league for a while and did feck-all with it.

[Worthy4England]

Dunno about Burnley. Bournemouth was £15.5m last year. I think we were probably about £20m

[BWFC_Insane]

I wonder how our wage bill now compares with Burnley's when they were promoted a couple of seasons back? We've had dwindling resouces but it's not just the debt that's holding us back, it's what money has been there being fecking wasted on players who are not pulling their weight.
I've heard 'haves and have-nots' mentioned, we were the haves in this league for a while and did feck with it.

This has been the case since relegation. The damage was done by a) how we spent our last premiership money and b) getting relegated.

If we had binned Coyle off in the November as we should have, and given the January window and Cahill cash to someone with real experience and know-how (say Mick McCarthy) we may still have gone down (though we might not have) but we'd have been far better positioned than we were to mount a sensible go and coming back up.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Managers are always prone to the Andranik syndrome - the incontestable notion that "the other guy would have done better".

I was impressed with Rowett when we (FFT) did an interview with him at Burton last year, and I tipped Birmingham to do well this term because a bright manager will go a long way in this division – arguably as far as a fat chequebook, which plenty of teams have had and failed to use well.

Dyche is different in some ways – he seems far less about out-thinking opponents than about maximising resources, getting his players very well drilled and spectacularly hard-working – but similar in others: basically lower-league, with a lot to prove in management. (Dyche had had one season in charge at Watford, finishing 11th but shunted out for Zola; he was, however, seen as a promising young gaffer and was quickly taken on by England U21s until Burnley came calling.)

That's one of the reasons why, after Freedman, I wondered whether we should appoint a lower-league manager (another important one being bargain-spotting). Obviously it's fraught with difficulties and it's quite possible that a less established manager operating in a higher league than his experience would have taken us down last season.

I hope Lennon can pull us through this. He's got some very good qualities and a lot of promise, and I hope he can guide us through what is almost certainly the hardest (on-field) time of his career.

[BWFC_Insane]

Managers are always prone to the Andranik syndrome - the incontestable notion that "the other guy would have done better".

I was impressed with Rowett when we (FFT) did an interview with him at Burton last year, and I tipped Birmingham to do well this term because a bright manager will go a long way in this division – arguably as far as a fat chequebook, which plenty of teams have had and failed to use well.

Dyche is different in some ways – he seems far less about out-thinking opponents than about maximising resources, getting his players very well drilled and spectacularly hard-working – but similar in others: basically lower-league, with a lot to prove in management. (Dyche had had one season in charge at Watford, finishing 11th but shunted out for Zola; he was, however, seen as a promising young gaffer and was quickly taken on by England U21s until Burnley came calling.)

That's one of the reasons why, after Freedman, I wondered whether we should appoint a lower-league manager (another important one being bargain-spotting). Obviously it's fraught with difficulties and it's quite possible that a less established manager operating in a higher league than his experience would have taken us down last season.

I hope Lennon can pull us through this. He's got some very good qualities and a lot of promise, and I hope he can guide us through what is almost certainly the hardest (on-field) time of his career.

Interesting. Why do you think we are struggling more than Birmingham then? Is it just circumstance? Player quality? Or something else? It isn't like they can have a budgetary advantage and were like us, at the wrong end and struggling when Rowett came in. The season before having just survived thanks to our own generosity in injury time.

[Tombwfc]

I think people are massively overestimating Birmingham here. It's still only 11 games. I'd be fairly confident in backing that they'll finish closer to us than they do the automatic slots.

Now I've said that, you can all blame me when they smash us to bits tomorrow night.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

I won't blame you, Tom. Such superstition is one of football's most irksome nonsenses (and there are a lot of those).

You might be right, they might fade away, but they're certainly doing better than us at the moment. Two and a half times better than us this season, in terms of PPG – which is, after all, how the table is decided. And although there's only 11 games *this* term, our slump (like their recovery under Rowett?) is certainly longer-term.

For the record, I'm not wishing we'd appointed Rowett, but it's an interesting comparison.

EDIT I know this might annoy people but it interested me so I compared the teams' records since Rowett took charge.

Rowett was appointed on 27 Oct 2014, a fortnight after Lennon, two days after Birmingham had lost 8-0 at home. Since then they'd played 43 league games each.

Birmingham W20 D13 L10 • F60 A47 +13 • 73pts
Bolton W11 D15 L17 • F50 A61 -11 • 48pts

Tweaked up to a 46-game season that PPG would get Birmingham 81, Bolton 51. 51 points normally gets you 18thish, 81 points normally gets you comfortably in the play-offs; in 2013 Peterborough and Wolves were relegated with 51+ points and Hull went straight up with 79.

[BWFC_Insane]

I think people are massively overestimating Birmingham here. It's still only 11 games. I'd be fairly confident in backing that they'll finish closer to us than they do the automatic slots.

Now I've said that, you can all blame me when they smash us to bits tomorrow night.

Dates back to last season though. They finished 10th. And the upturn has seemingly moved across to this season. Whereas our dreadful finish has continued into this.

Rowett seems to have brought a more permanent upturn in their fortunes, at least to date than we have managed. What is interesting is why that might be.

[CAPSLOCK]

Especially as all we needed was somebody slightly competent to turn our collection of players into one in the top half

[thebish]

Especially as all we needed was somebody slightly competent to turn our collection of players into one in the top half

aye... IIRC - anybody could do it as long as they weren't Freedman!