Freedman out!

[TKIZ!]

I'll tell you what I'd like to know - how many games, like yesterday's, has Freedman elected to to bang on an extra defender only for it to prove counter productive? It doesn't work but he insists on doing it. Against Wigan if it wasn't for Bogdan we'd have lost from winning position in a game in which we were always on top.

Personally I thought against Wigan and yesterday we were struggling at the back before Freedman brought the extra player on.

He's brought extra defenders on more times when we've seen out a result than when we've failed.

The way Birmingham pushed forwards towards the end I don't think many managers wouldn't have thrown Zat on to help out aerially. Allardyce for example, would have done the same. Nailed on.

My thoughts were that their lanky bugger was getting on the end of crosses quite a bit (though doing nowt with them) and Zat was brought on to counter that. Whether he did or not is another matter, but I could see why you might do it.

Still, he brought Zat on. Boooooooo. Dougie out

The way the game was set up I felt we defended ok broadly at the end. We did enough to stay solid and in doing so create two breaks we should have killed the game off from. Having not done that one ball into the box with all the numbers the had in there and their sense of need was always possibly going to just break for them, which it did.

Totally agree with that, Insano. I'm not a fan of that tactic but Zigic was beginning to get on the end of more and more of those crosses

[SmokinFrazier]

I still feel he's going to be for a while yet. Even if we're sat in 12th after 10 games he'll say it's an improvement over the last two seasons and if we finish the same way we finished those... and people will lap it up. And there will be at least one player injured or who we don't sign that would've absolutely definitely made the whole thing click.

He's lowered expectations to the point his previous shitness will keep him in a job

He's statistically better than the last three managers (Lee, Megson and Coyle), that's fact. With this being the ast season of his contract if he doesn't perform then I'd happily see him gone.

Winning 33% (Coyle) of games in the Premier League is tougher than winning 35% in the Championship. Freedman has a better win percentage but we aren't up against world class players every week and if we were, our winning percentage would be less than 20%.

Why is it tougher to win 33% of games in the Prem, on the budget Coyle had?

Because we had one of the worst teams in the league. Around 15 of the 20 teams in the league back then had more quality than we did whereas now, maybe 5 or 6 teams have similar levels of quality to us, so the expectations changed. A 2% better win percentage when you drop down to a league with teams like Doncaster and Yoevil instead of Man City and Chelsea is not an improvement.

[Worthy4England]

I still feel he's going to be for a while yet. Even if we're sat in 12th after 10 games he'll say it's an improvement over the last two seasons and if we finish the same way we finished those... and people will lap it up. And there will be at least one player injured or who we don't sign that would've absolutely definitely made the whole thing click.

He's lowered expectations to the point his previous shitness will keep him in a job

He's statistically better than the last three managers (Lee, Megson and Coyle), that's fact. With this being the ast season of his contract if he doesn't perform then I'd happily see him gone.

Winning 33% (Coyle) of games in the Premier League is tougher than winning 35% in the Championship. Freedman has a better win percentage but we aren't up against world class players every week and if we were, our winning percentage would be less than 20%.

Why is it tougher to win 33% of games in the Prem, on the budget Coyle had?

Because we had one of the worst teams in the league. Around 15 of the 20 teams in the league back then had more quality than we did whereas now, maybe 5 or 6 teams have similar levels of quality to us, so the expectations changed. A 2% better win percentage when you drop down to a league with teams like Doncaster and Yoevil instead of Man City and Chelsea is not an improvement.

If we had one of the lowest quality teams in the league, it was Coyle's fecking fault for assembling it. The level of investment it was getting was more than 1/3rd of the teams in the Prem, so I would expect a 33% win rate as just about average.

Whilst Donny and Yeovil are certainly not Citeh and Chelsea, Freedman has fairly clearly reduced our spending. That's not a defence of him, we should have done much better this season, and I'd be surprised if we were only the 14th best invested team in the division. Which for me puts him on a par with Coyle. Both significantly underachieving.

I don't think your argument about win rates stacks up though. Yes it is harder to win games one division up, which is why the wage bill was significantly higher, to level the field.

[Nicko58]

I still feel he's going to be for a while yet. Even if we're sat in 12th after 10 games he'll say it's an improvement over the last two seasons and if we finish the same way we finished those... and people will lap it up. And there will be at least one player injured or who we don't sign that would've absolutely definitely made the whole thing click.

He's lowered expectations to the point his previous shitness will keep him in a job

He's statistically better than the last three managers (Lee, Megson and Coyle), that's fact. With this being the ast season of his contract if he doesn't perform then I'd happily see him gone.

Winning 33% (Coyle) of games in the Premier League is tougher than winning 35% in the Championship. Freedman has a better win percentage but we aren't up against world class players every week and if we were, our winning percentage would be less than 20%.

Why is it tougher to win 33% of games in the Prem, on the budget Coyle had?

Because we had one of the worst teams in the league. Around 15 of the 20 teams in the league back then had more quality than we did whereas now, maybe 5 or 6 teams have similar levels of quality to us, so the expectations changed. A 2% better win percentage when you drop down to a league with teams like Doncaster and Yoevil instead of Man City and Chelsea is not an improvement.

But it's not the same team?

[thebish]

Because we had one of the worst teams in the league. Around 15 of the 20 teams in the league back then had more quality than we did whereas now, maybe 5 or 6 teams have similar levels of quality to us, so the expectations changed. A 2% better win percentage when you drop down to a league with teams like Doncaster and Yoevil instead of Man City and Chelsea is not an improvement.

where on earth do these stats come from?

it is tougher to win 33% of games in the Prem, on the budget Coyle had...

15 of the 20 teams in the league back then had more quality than we did

now, maybe 5 or 6 teams have similar levels of quality to us

[BWFC_Insane]

Question for Smokin Frazier...

If Coyle knew how to set a team up to attack and seemingly in your opinion that makes him better at getting results than Freedman why when we compare the only real direct budget and team comparison possible did Coyle leave those players in 16th place and Freedman take them to 7th?

That is the most comparable period to directly assess how the two managers perform on broadly the same budget and same group of players. Though Coyle had the money in the summer that Freedman didn't. But that aside if those results are indicative of Coyle knowing how to set us up to attack and Freedman's cluelessness, I'd prefer Freedman's cluelessness every single day!

[Prufrock]

I genuinely can't my head around anyone thinking he's worse than Coyle. It just does not compute. Coyle was spectacularly bad at it, like paradigm definingly bad.

Therefore being better than Coyle is a bit meaningless. He's still underperformed.

[thebish]

I genuinely can't my head around anyone thinking he's worse than Coyle. It just does not compute. Coyle was spectacularly bad at it, like paradigm definingly bad.

Therefore being better than Coyle is a bit meaningless. He's still underperformed.

i think you'll find that a long series of statistical FACTS prove it...

[TKIZ!]

The long and short of all of this is:

a) DF has under performed this year, he knows it, the players who care know it and the fans definitely know it
b) Statistically Doogie is a better manager than Coyle. And no amount of fudging that will make me believe that Coyle was anything short of a shambles when it started going wrong, and I would also even suggest that sometimes when it was going right it was also a shambles.
c) For some reason under four consecutive managers we're programmed to sit back on a lead, we did it under BSA and we still do it now.

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

c) For some reason under four consecutive managers we're programmed to sit back on a lead, we did it under BSA and we still do it now.

At least there were positives under Sammy Lee

[Lord Kangana]

b) Statistically Doogie is a better manager than Coyle.

I'm sure when Dougie gets us promoted he probably will be.

As it is, Tom has hit the nail firmly on the head. We're celebrating the achievements of the guy who came second in the village idiot contest. It's quite alarming.

[Tombwfc]

I still feel he's going to be for a while yet. Even if we're sat in 12th after 10 games he'll say it's an improvement over the last two seasons and if we finish the same way we finished those... and people will lap it up. And there will be at least one player injured or who we don't sign that would've absolutely definitely made the whole thing click.

He's lowered expectations to the point his previous shitness will keep him in a job

He's statistically better than the last three managers (Lee, Megson and Coyle), that's fact. With this being the ast season of his contract if he doesn't perform then I'd happily see him gone.

Statistically Kenny Jackett is better than Mourinho and Ross McCormack is better than Wayne Rooney.

I'm not talking about Jackett/Mourinho/Rooney/McCormack. I'm talking about what's relevant to BWFC. He might not be a lot of people's cup of tea but this is the realistic arena that we have to operate in for now.

Of course you are, because to apply your warped view on 'statistics' to the rest of football shows just how bonkers it is. I actually thought you were on a wind up.

At the peak of our Premier League spending, we had the 13th highest wage bill in the Premier League. As per the last set of published accounts, we had the highest wage bill in the Championship. I accept that QPR will have come into the league since, but in terms of our actual number, feel free to look through our ins and outs and tells me how that has dramatically reduced since June 30th 2013 - http://www.soccerbase.com/teams/team.sd ... =transfers" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

Accumulating points in a division where you're spending more on players than seven teams is not comparable to accumulating points in a division when you're spending more on players than 20+ of the teams.

[BWFC_Insane]

I still feel he's going to be for a while yet. Even if we're sat in 12th after 10 games he'll say it's an improvement over the last two seasons and if we finish the same way we finished those... and people will lap it up. And there will be at least one player injured or who we don't sign that would've absolutely definitely made the whole thing click.

He's lowered expectations to the point his previous shitness will keep him in a job

He's statistically better than the last three managers (Lee, Megson and Coyle), that's fact. With this being the ast season of his contract if he doesn't perform then I'd happily see him gone.

Statistically Kenny Jackett is better than Mourinho and Ross McCormack is better than Wayne Rooney.

I'm not talking about Jackett/Mourinho/Rooney/McCormack. I'm talking about what's relevant to BWFC. He might not be a lot of people's cup of tea but this is the realistic arena that we have to operate in for now.

Of course you are, because to apply your warped view on 'statistics' to the rest of football shows just how bonkers it is. I actually thought you were on a wind up.

At the peak of our Premier League spending, we had the 13th highest wage bill in the Premier League. As per the last set of published accounts, we had the highest wage bill in the Championship. I accept that QPR will have come into the league since, but in terms of our actual number, feel free to look through our ins and outs and tells me how that has dramatically reduced since June 30th 2013 - http://www.soccerbase.com/teams/team.sd ... =transfers" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

Accumulating points in a division where you're spending more on players than seven teams is not comparable to accumulating points in a division when you're spending more on players than 20+ of the teams.

But much of our larger budget last season, in fact virtually all of it was tied up. One can argue forever about how good the players were but given we had previously had the budget of the 13th placed premiership side and managed to go down with that, one can assume the return on the size of budget was never going to be fully realised.

QPR have by far the largest wage bill this season but haven't won the league or even gone up automatically. Which perhaps shows that big historical budgets from the premiership, ie relegated players on big contracts is not the answer in this league. Even Joey Barton said on twitter the other day that he felt QPR lacked knowledge in the squad of this division.

Talking about historical budgets that are tied up is not the same as what has been available to each manager.

[Worthy4England]

I'm sure we can have a go at the "outs" that were on big money.

N'gog. Stealing a living.
SKD. Past it.

Alonso, Ricketts, Andrews all purported to be on a decent wedge, to which we've added today Eagles, Mears and Knight. That would be £10m+ off if they were all on a "standard" £25k per week premiership salary..some of them, we were fairly sure were higher than 25k. Clearly we tried to unload Mears (and possibly Eagles), but if he didn't want to budge for less then there was little we could do other than pay him up. Stealing tw@t.

[Harry Genshaw]

I'll tell you what I'd like to know - how many games, like yesterday's, has Freedman elected to to bang on an extra defender only for it to prove counter productive? It doesn't work but he insists on doing it. Against Wigan if it wasn't for Bogdan we'd have lost from winning position in a game in which we were always on top.

Personally I thought against Wigan and yesterday we were struggling at the back before Freedman brought the extra player on.

He's brought extra defenders on more times when we've seen out a result than when we've failed.

The way Birmingham pushed forwards towards the end I don't think many managers wouldn't have thrown Zat on to help out aerially. Allardyce for example, would have done the same. Nailed on.

My thoughts were that their lanky bugger was getting on the end of crosses quite a bit (though doing nowt with them) and Zat was brought on to counter that. Whether he did or not is another matter, but I could see why you might do it.

Still, he brought Zat on. Boooooooo. Dougie out

I'm surprised at those views. For a 6'7 giant Zigic won nowt in the air until he scored and he makes Ngog look industrious. He's supposed to be on about 50k a week and has the heart of a pea. I felt we'd have been better served by leaving2 up top and Knight on the bench. Dropping deeper just handed them the initiative imo

[Bruce Rioja]

I'll tell you what I'd like to know - how many games, like yesterday's, has Freedman elected to to bang on an extra defender only for it to prove counter productive? It doesn't work but he insists on doing it. Against Wigan if it wasn't for Bogdan we'd have lost from winning position in a game in which we were always on top.

Personally I thought against Wigan and yesterday we were struggling at the back before Freedman brought the extra player on.

He's brought extra defenders on more times when we've seen out a result than when we've failed.

The way Birmingham pushed forwards towards the end I don't think many managers wouldn't have thrown Zat on to help out aerially. Allardyce for example, would have done the same. Nailed on.

My thoughts were that their lanky bugger was getting on the end of crosses quite a bit (though doing nowt with them) and Zat was brought on to counter that. Whether he did or not is another matter, but I could see why you might do it.

Still, he brought Zat on. Boooooooo. Dougie out

I'm surprised at those views. For a 6'7 giant Zigic won nowt in the air until he scored and he makes Ngog look industrious. He's supposed to be on about 50k a week and has the heart of a pea. I felt we'd have been better served by leaving2 up top and Knight on the bench. Dropping deeper just handed them the initiative imo

My point precisely, Harry, and it happens game after game. If we're doing something well and are winning - keep doing it! How many people on here defending Freedman stood up for Megson after the Hull debacle? My guess is not a one!

[Worthy4England]

I actually thought he bought Knight on as much to say ta-raas anything else...

[BWFC_Insane]

My point precisely, Harry, and it happens game after game. If we're doing something well and are winning - keep doing it!

I'm not sure it works like that, most teams get pushed deeper when they have the lead. Ok sometimes if you dominate possession you don't. But as teams chase a goal they commit more forwards and into the box and you either leave those runners free and unmarked or your players drop deeper to pick them up.

How we played against Birmingham for me was fine, we defended deep but had two or three excellent chances on the break, you just have to take those.

Thought Zigic had a good game. And the Birmingham fans love him. They were stupid in not getting the ball on his head in the box earlier.

[thebish]

I actually thought he bought Knight on as much to say ta-raas anything else...

he was criticised recently for NOT bringing on a player to say ta-raas - and that was a loanee!

[Tombwfc]

I'm sure we can have a go at the "outs" that were on big money.

N'gog. Stealing a living.
SKD. Past it.

Alonso, Ricketts, Andrews all purported to be on a decent wedge, to which we've added today Eagles, Mears and Knight. That would be £10m+ off if they were all on a "standard" £25k per week premiership salary..some of them, we were fairly sure were higher than 25k. Clearly we tried to unload Mears (and possibly Eagles), but if he didn't want to budge for less then there was little we could do other than pay him up. Stealing tw@t.

Eagles, Mears and Knight haven't left just yet, so for the purposes of this particular discussion are irrelevant. They were available for the entirety of last season.

So that's Ngog, SKD, Alonso and Ricketts. With Andrews and Sordell going out on loan.

In the opposite corner you have Tierney and Spearing signed from Premier League clubs, the 'eye watering' wages of Baptiste, Jermaine Beckford who was on £35k a week (even if he's dropped that to closer to £20k) plus Moritz. And then a small army of loanees of which included at various points, Neil Danns, the Juke and Alan Hutton.

Even with your estimate of a £10m reduction, that'd still put us above everyone but Blackburn, Cardiff and Wolves based off last seasons accounts.

So, to re-iterate, it's impossible to comparing winning games in a league where you're spending more than seven teams with winning games in a league where you're spending more than 20 (actually, I'll remove Cardiff and Wolves and replace them with Wigan, QPR and Reading, so 19 teams).