The Keith Hill out thread

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The Keith Hill out thread

Post by officer_dibble » Sat Feb 22, 2020 7:23 pm

Join up when you are ready

Thicker than Owen Coyle and potentially the man to lead us out of the bottom division...into the conference. I’ve seen/heard/read enough 👋

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Re: The Keith Hill out thread

Post by Bertie Wooster » Sat Feb 22, 2020 7:28 pm

I'm in 100% - Hill Out.

Post match interview today, he's now a BWFC fan 'I am one of those supporters' - WTF he's a life long United fan and has never supported Bolton.

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Re: The Keith Hill out thread

Post by TonyDomingos » Sun Feb 23, 2020 8:28 am

I can't easily find it online: what are the terms of Hill's appointment?
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Re: The Keith Hill out thread

Post by Bertie Wooster » Sun Feb 23, 2020 10:49 am

I'm holding on to the thought that FV actually do have a clue what they are doing, and that the minute relegation is confirmed then Hill & Flitcroft will be gone, I highly doubt that FV would have given them long term contracts I would have though maybe 12 month contracts and I don't think that they are paid much so it wouldn't cost FV much to pot them a few months earlier.

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Re: The Keith Hill out thread

Post by Hoboh » Sun Feb 23, 2020 11:21 am

Still in the five more then adios camp so a new bloke can look at what we have got in competitive games, Hill will have had a fair crack by then

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Re: The Keith Hill out thread

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Sun Feb 23, 2020 12:24 pm

Bertie Wooster wrote:
Sun Feb 23, 2020 10:49 am
I'm holding on to the thought that FV actually do have a clue what they are doing, and that the minute relegation is confirmed then Hill & Flitcroft will be gone, I highly doubt that FV would have given them long term contracts I would have though maybe 12 month contracts and I don't think that they are paid much so it wouldn't cost FV much to pot them a few months earlier.
It's an interesting thought, Bertie. But why wait? If there is a good candidate available right now - and I'll say again that Simon Grayson would be better than most - why wait for a mathematical confirmation of the inevitable if we intend to make the move anyway?

Although I understand your opposition to Hill, I'm still not (yet?) in your not-so-merry band. What I will say here, to record an objection on the current management, is this: as we are now accepting our fate and losing every week, I would like us to give game-time to the players who are either already contracted to next season or are likely to be - and play them in their proper positions.

So, assuming (hoping?) that Hobbs and Nsalia will be gone in summer, I'd rather see Edwards and Delaney, even if they're not (yet) quite as good. I'd rather see Brockbank at RB than Emmanuel (although he might stay) or stopgap Lowe. I'd rather see Bunney than Fleming; not that Fleming's a bad 'un, but I don't suppose his planned career trajectory includes "being loaned to a lower division than last year". (Bunney isn't contracted after summer, but we've more chance of rehiring him - if we want to, which we won't properly know if we don't play him in these essentially meaningless games.)

And I'd be asking all the players individually how likely they are to stay for next season if invited - some will need something to play for, others just need weeding out. We can't make an XI from certain 2020/21 starters - and let's be honest, I wouldn't play Mo Faal instead of Daryl Murphy - but we might as well start building and giving those players experience which could help next term. Playing very slightly better fly-by-nights might delay relegation for a week; ignoring next season's players might delay re-promotion by a year.

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Re: The Keith Hill out thread

Post by Bertie Wooster » Sun Feb 23, 2020 1:10 pm

DSB, believe me I don't want them to wait he should have been sacked weeks ago IMO, I think that Hill is a very poor manager in all aspects of the job, I honestly can't think of one positive thing that he's done or brought to the club that would give anyone any hope that we will be any better next season, he's not improved any area of the team (what is it 1 win in the last 12 games from a team supposedly fighting to try & have a go at staying up) - and I can only think that the reason that FV haven't sacked him yet is that they are waiting until we are mathematically down, otherwise why wait ?

I think that a good proportion of the fans have now had enough of Hill, judging by comments on other forums & twitter etc and Iles is spot on in that fans are rapidly losing interest and I would not have thought that FV can or will allow that to happen, as we will need all the support we can get in League 2 and at least have some hope that things will approve, as currently the football is absolutely dire - there is just no spirit, fight, passion or plan on the pitch and there hasn't been for a while now, the players are just going through the motions, Hill is turning many fans off and some may not return next season if they think that its going to be as bad as this season has been under Hill (even taking into account the difficult circumstances) - spirit, fight & passion don't cost anything and is the least we should be allowed to expect a manager to get from the team.

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Re: The Keith Hill out thread

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Sun Feb 23, 2020 1:35 pm

TBH Bertie, I can't argue with much of that, except the usual to-and-fro you and I have had over several years and managers. To wit: From where you sit, it feels like everybody wants Hill out. From where I sat yesterday, it didn't: fans were dispirited, they didn't exactly "back" Hill, but nor did they call for his head.

I will admit that I left while the third peep of the ref's final whistle was still echoing around the cavernous ground the MK occupy like a kid in his big brother's jumper, and that upon said whistle I heard about 10 of the travelling 450 boo for maybe two or three seconds. Perhaps more stayed to personally barrack the manager/players, or to stage a sit-in, with or without shoes held aloft: I don't know, by that time I was out of the ground and into the Milton Keynes Middlebrook. After most previous away games - including Lincoln - I and most others had stayed to applaud the (usually defeated) players; this time, it was a mass exit. No gesticulation, no banners, no anger, just resignation.

So yeah, it feels like you and I are back to previous positions. You're ready for change, and insistent that unless it happens we will haemorrhage support. I'm not, not just yet, and I don't think there's a horde of fans only waiting for a change of manager to flood back in through the doors. I do think our core support will shrink next season but, assuming we stay down, more so the season after - because as I've posted on here before, history has shown that we don't tend to lose quite as much support in the first season post-relegation as might be assumed.

However, we are now in uncharted territory. Never before have we had two successive relegations, let alone two successive relegations preceded by a season so dire it's a mathematical anomaly we survived it. I can only applaud those who continue to go and support the badge, the club, the concept of Bolton Wanderers, no matter what their opinion of the current operatives on the board, the bench and the pitch. Equally, I can't strongly object to anyone (like you) who wants change, because there's a strong and growing case for it. All I'd say is - just because you feel it and a few nearby feel it too, doesn't mean *everyone* feels that way.

Indeed, in time-honoured tradition, there's only one way to take the temperature - and that's for Dibs to set up a poll on this thread. Let the TW denizens decide - and leave it open for them to change their minds as time marches inevitably on...

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Re: The Keith Hill out thread

Post by Harry Genshaw » Sun Feb 23, 2020 2:13 pm

Dave Sutton's barnet wrote:
Sun Feb 23, 2020 12:24 pm
I would like us to give game-time to the players who are either already contracted to next season or are likely to be - and play them in their proper positions
I think that's key for me. Early on in Hills reign, we were playing an exciting brand of football and I was happy for us to beg, steal and borrow whatever we could to give us a chance of stopping up. Now relegation is a certainty then we've got to be seen to be planning for it and for next season.

It's a tough job. Far tougher than say, Parky (for example) going into a club, weeding out the has beens, the negative nellys and the perma crocks then rebuilding around what's left. We're almost building from nothing, with a reduced budget and still under embargo.

I'll be forever grateful to FV for saving my club knowing that they took a huge gamble. I suspect paying a manager off after less than 6 months didnt feature in their business plan. For me, I'd be looking at the situation again in the summer then making a call.
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Re: The Keith Hill out thread

Post by LeverEnd » Sun Feb 23, 2020 2:19 pm

I think the Accrington game is very important for Hill. Lose that badly, and I can't see any justification for keeping him.
Like DSB suggests, there are no signs of planning for next season, a general air of amateurism, contradictory nonsense among the usual verbal diarrhoea.
...

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Re: The Keith Hill out thread

Post by Athertonian » Sun Feb 23, 2020 2:33 pm

I was one who welcomed the appointment of Hill & Flitcroft but I did expect better than this. No doubt the "we have to be lucky we have a club to support" brigade will keep telling us his hands are tied, he's no money and he can't buy anyone.

For anyone who listened to his pre/post match ramblings whilst he was at Rochdale knew what they were getting. Personally I think the club should stick with him until the real alarm bells begin to ring next term, I can't see him turning this mess around for a while, maybe until the embargo is lifted, then it could be too late. Oooooh were doomed.

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Re: The Keith Hill out thread

Post by LeverEnd » Sun Feb 23, 2020 2:38 pm

Athertonian wrote:
Sun Feb 23, 2020 2:33 pm
I was one who welcomed the appointment of Hill & Flitcroft but I did expect better than this. No doubt the "we have to be lucky we have a club to support" brigade will keep telling us his hands are tied, he's no money and he can't buy anyone.

For anyone who listened to his pre/post match ramblings whilst he was at Rochdale knew what they were getting. Personally I think the club should stick with him until the real alarm bells begin to ring next term, I can't see him turning this mess around for a while, maybe until the embargo is lifted, then it could be too late. Oooooh were doomed.
Point 1: I was too, I'm embarrassed to say. :oops:

Point 2: disagree. Will be another wasted season barring an amazing, Riochesque second half season turnaround.

I don't mind admitting I was wrong, just hope FV are of the same mind.
...

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Re: The Keith Hill out thread

Post by Worthy4England » Sun Feb 23, 2020 5:10 pm

Yes, if it's not down to money and the Club situation then the alarm bells would be ringing off the wall by now. As it is they've certainly started. Question for me is do you entrust closed season to Hill? If you don't, now is as good a time as any, to get rid.

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Re: The Keith Hill out thread

Post by TonyDomingos » Sun Feb 23, 2020 5:24 pm

If I was FV, I'd leave it a bit. New manager = renewed interest = ST sales.
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Re: The Keith Hill out thread

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Sun Feb 23, 2020 6:54 pm

Worthy4England wrote:
Sun Feb 23, 2020 5:10 pm
Question for me is do you entrust closed season to Hill? If you don't, now is as good a time as any, to get rid.
IMO Hillcroft will know, as well as any managerial combo we could reasonably expect to hire, which good players will be available within our extremely limited hiring clout. On that, I do trust them. Where I'm losing my faith is in their ability to coach the buggers once they arrive.
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TonyDomingos wrote:
Sun Feb 23, 2020 5:24 pm
If I was FV, I'd leave it a bit. New manager = renewed interest = ST sales.
Wily old silver fox. Also, like Parky, the clean slate works well in summer: no dog-days defeats to besmirch the reputation and replace the dreams with reality.

Against that, however, you would want a new manager to be working ASAP on hiring players for next season, and it's a big job. We can't sign anyone under contract unless their present club magnanimously (and, frankly, mysteriously) releases them from that contract, so (excepting loanees, who are unlikely to arrive before late August) our pool dwindles to free-transfer castoffs. The better ones will already be planning their next moves. Again, conversations should be happening now.

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Re: The Keith Hill out thread

Post by BWFC_Insane » Sun Feb 23, 2020 7:24 pm

Worthy4England wrote:
Sun Feb 23, 2020 5:10 pm
Yes, if it's not down to money and the Club situation then the alarm bells would be ringing off the wall by now. As it is they've certainly started. Question for me is do you entrust closed season to Hill? If you don't, now is as good a time as any, to get rid.
This sums it up for me. I’ve no great appetite for another managerial change and I confidently predict whoever comes in Bertie will be calling for his head within a couple of months. It’s madness to think a manager can suddenly fix us and all is well. We’ve tried that for over a decade...

On the other hand I’ve also no great appetite in letting Hill have another summer and potentially waste it. Now there is a football structure in place with Kenyon and Phoenix advising the owners then I wonder whether Hill would be first choice if say Parky had stayed and left this week...he was almost chosen by default. It made sense. Sadly now he makes no sense. And I don’t know if I’d trust him with a summer. Not sure.

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Re: The Keith Hill out thread

Post by nicholaldo » Sun Feb 23, 2020 7:35 pm

I've never quite been a member of the Hill in club, never mind Hill out. Normally, I like to be patient with managers because I often think there are so many factors at play within a football club that sometimes the main source of the problems are actually out of their control, or at least can't be immediately resolved by the manager alone. If pushed to vote now though I'd vote out simply because of, as LeverEnd correctly put it, the general air of amateurism.

Hill did very well in his first transfer window, and I think a good argument could be made that the team he put out in his first few weeks in charge here (Bridcutt in the “quarterback” role, centre-backs playing to feet, Lowe getting up and down, pace on the wings with Verlinden wide left and Politic wide right, Crawford linking up the play behind Daryl Murphy) was as good as we've had since Parky's best team (Madine up top with Vela behind him as a pressing No.10, Pratley being as the engine in midfeld alongside Henry acting as the defensive shield / breaker of the play, Ameobi and Morais on the wing and Little and Robinson bombing forward on the overlap), but when players began to pick up injuries and we ran into the inevitable consequences of having such a threadbare squad, too much of what he's done to try and manage the situation has been wrong for me to have much faith in him. Not only that, but particularly with his public comments, he's created problems that he wouldn't ordinarily have had to deal with. To be honest, I more or less made my mind up the moment he lost his shit in the post-match interview at Rochdale. If he was struggling to deal with the criticism he was facing at that early stage he won't last the distance here anyway.

But I posted recently that this is the first time he's had something approaching a proper squad to work with, and that he has an opportunity now to get us organised and playing with a bit of energy and purpose between now and May. I still think that's true so I'll stick with it. The players he has aren't perfect so I don't demand results, only performances. However, the way things are progressing, I'm increasingly more certain he won't provide them, and if he doesn't then there's no reason for him to stay on next season.

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Re: The Keith Hill out thread

Post by TonyDomingos » Sun Feb 23, 2020 7:41 pm

Dave Sutton's barnet wrote:
Sun Feb 23, 2020 6:54 pm
Worthy4England wrote:
Sun Feb 23, 2020 5:10 pm
Question for me is do you entrust closed season to Hill? If you don't, now is as good a time as any, to get rid.
IMO Hillcroft will know, as well as any managerial combo we could reasonably expect to hire, which good players will be available within our extremely limited hiring clout. On that, I do trust them. Where I'm losing my faith is in their ability to coach the buggers once they arrive.
.
TonyDomingos wrote:
Sun Feb 23, 2020 5:24 pm
If I was FV, I'd leave it a bit. New manager = renewed interest = ST sales.
Wily old silver fox. Also, like Parky, the clean slate works well in summer: no dog-days defeats to besmirch the reputation and replace the dreams with reality.

Against that, however, you would want a new manager to be working ASAP on hiring players for next season, and it's a big job. We can't sign anyone under contract unless their present club magnanimously (and, frankly, mysteriously) releases them from that contract, so (excepting loanees, who are unlikely to arrive before late August) our pool dwindles to free-transfer castoffs. The better ones will already be planning their next moves. Again, conversations should be happening now.

I might well be misremembering, but isn't the signing of players now out of the manager's hands? I could imagine the conversations are happening now and begin with "... and he'll be gone before you get here."
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Re: The Keith Hill out thread

Post by nicholaldo » Sun Feb 23, 2020 7:42 pm

BWFC_Insane wrote:
Sun Feb 23, 2020 7:24 pm
Worthy4England wrote:
Sun Feb 23, 2020 5:10 pm
Yes, if it's not down to money and the Club situation then the alarm bells would be ringing off the wall by now. As it is they've certainly started. Question for me is do you entrust closed season to Hill? If you don't, now is as good a time as any, to get rid.
This sums it up for me. I’ve no great appetite for another managerial change and I confidently predict whoever comes in Bertie will be calling for his head within a couple of months. It’s madness to think a manager can suddenly fix us and all is well. We’ve tried that for over a decade...

On the other hand I’ve also no great appetite in letting Hill have another summer and potentially waste it. Now there is a football structure in place with Kenyon and Phoenix advising the owners then I wonder whether Hill would be first choice if say Parky had stayed and left this week...he was almost chosen by default. It made sense. Sadly now he makes no sense. And I don’t know if I’d trust him with a summer. Not sure.

I know nothing about Phoenix, but from the impression I get of the way Kenyon and FV operate, they and Hill would at face value seem pretty unsuited to each other.

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Re: The Keith Hill out thread

Post by officer_dibble » Wed Feb 26, 2020 8:39 am

If you were FV at what point do you sack him?

He can’t be anywhere near the players for pre season, but nobody else deserves a relegation on the CV. We’ll be relegated within the month so perhaps then, get someone in to maybe give a lift in April?

If he’s left in charge over the summer you are taking a hit on ST sales. Nobody wants to see us play badly in the bottom division.

Interesting test for FV this. See what they are made of.

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