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By Red Skin
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Monkeh

Monkeh

Posted
Posted

Wasn't so long ago he was strongly linked with a move to Southampton for a very big fee! His confidence was just shot during our downward spiral a few seasons back and he never recovered.

He wasn't just strongly linked we agreed a deal and he failed a medical so Millen and sexton decided To give him a 3 year contract instead
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Fordy62

Fordy62

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Luckily everyone got behind him......

I think initially everyone tried to. But it' was like trying to remain friends with someone who keeps punching you in the face over and over and over again.

Such was the effect of that last season, I'm struggling to remember the good he ever did.

Cov 5-4 City. Enough said.

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Super

Super

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Still not sure what happened with Fonts, he went from superb to incredibly poor pretty much overnight

 

I wish him well, but perhaps he's found his level

Fans fault according to some on here.

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Guest

Guest

Posted
Posted

Still not sure what happened with Fonts, he went from superb to incredibly poor pretty much overnight

 

I wish him well, but perhaps he's found his level

 

I agree.

 

It does irk me a little when the fans are blamed for his downturn. It happened almost immediately and he was still a fan's favourite for some time thereafter. Fans didn't cause the loss of form, and his sustained loss of form in spite of initial support led to unrest. Yes perhaps if support was more vocal things may have ended differently but after such a long and sustained barren run I believe it an unreasonable ask. He had to leave for his sake and for the club's... it just so happens like that for some players.

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Steve Watts

Steve Watts

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Fans fault according to some on here.

Not the fans' fault, but certainly they didn't exactly help matters.  After a while, there was almost a feeling that some were disappointed when he didn't make a mistake so they could jump on his back!  And then of course the verbal he got when out with his kid? missus?  (can't remember which), meant that he was never going to recover here.  We could be a little more supportive at times with players, and Fonts was a great example of that, imo.

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Major Isewater

Major Isewater

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Fonts was , for a long while, a class act at City .

I seem to recall his performance dropping off at the same time as his baby arrived and put it down to the disruption at home .

Then the disappointment , for him , of the failed transfer to the Saints . He was never the same after that .

I'm glad he's enjoying his football again but a shame how his career finished here .

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Guest

Guest

Posted
Posted

After a while, there was almost a feeling that some were disappointed when he didn't make a mistake so they could jump on his back!  And then of course the verbal he got when out with his kid? missus?  (can't remember which), meant that he was never going to recover here.  We could be a little more supportive at times with players, and Fonts was a great example of that, imo.

 

I think it's an unfair accusation that people were searching for the next mistake. It may have felt like that, but I think you're confusing expectation and desire. Towards his end here I certainly expected the worst whenever he was called upon, but I think with the exception of the idiotic few every club has, everyone would've been delighted if he could rediscover his form. Some of the moans, and those who moaned immediately after, I think were more borne out of it being an incredulous situation than 'I told you so.

 

I will be the first to shoot this opinion as it is uninformed and based solely on a handful of TV appearances across 18 months or so, but on each of those occasions I still don't see Fontaine performing anywhere close to how we know he can. I genuinely do believe he has found his level where the attackers are not so punishing.

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Steve Watts

Steve Watts

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I think it's an unfair accusation that people were searching for the next mistake. It may have felt like that, but I think you're confusing expectation and desire. Towards his end here I certainly expected the worst whenever he was called upon, but I think with the exception of the idiotic few every club has, everyone would've been delighted if he could rediscover his form. Some of the moans, and those who moaned immediately after, I think were more borne out of it being an incredulous situation than 'I told you so.

 

I will be the first to shoot this opinion as it is uninformed and based solely on a handful of TV appearances across 18 months or so, but on each of those occasions I still don't see Fontaine performing anywhere close to how we know he can. I genuinely do believe he has found his level where the attackers are not so punishing.

That's why i said it almost felt like it,  not that it was, because i don't believe that people genuinely were disappointed when something went right for us, but I do remember him being brought on at half time in the cup (Watford? Palace?) and just having his introduction booed, and every touch that didn't go to an opposition player mocked....not really the most supportive support in the world!  It was at that point that it was clear that there would never be a turning point for him here.

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screech

screech

Posted
Posted

Blame the idiot who kept playing him when he was churning out those performances, not the fans.

It was painful to watch a player who had done so well play so poorly and his manager Mcinness hung him out. He needed to be dropped but the clown kept playing him, and so it began that the fans would eventually speak out in the only way they knew. Mciness ruined his confidence completely, quite ironic he kept playing Fontaine constantly when the rest of the team were changed game by game.

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joe jordans teeth

joe jordans teeth

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Fonts was , for a long while, a class act at City .

I seem to recall his performance dropping off at the same time as his baby arrived and put it down to the disruption at home .

Then the disappointment , for him , of the failed transfer to the Saints . He was never the same after that .

I'm glad he's enjoying his football again but a shame how his career finished here .

. Seems a rather fragile type going on what ur saying,baby,then the disappointment of not moving,or just excuses for a rank average player who will fit in with the rest up Scotland
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Nogbad the Bad

Nogbad the Bad

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Posted

Blame the idiot who kept playing him when he was churning out those performances, not the fans.

It was painful to watch a player who had done so well play so poorly and his manager Mcinness hung him out. He needed to be dropped but the clown kept playing him, and so it began that the fans would eventually speak out in the only way they knew. Mciness ruined his confidence completely, quite ironic he kept playing Fontaine constantly when the rest of the team were changed game by game.

 

So dropping your Captain is better for his confidence than giving him the opportunity of playing himself back into form?

 

Not sure about that. Isn't there the near certainty that the humiliation of being ignominiously jettisoned would have finished off his confidence completely? 

 

Perhaps Fontaine was pleading persuasively for the chance to stay in the team and make amends, perhaps he looked imperious and confident during the week in training but inexplicably fell apart on matchdays, indeed perhaps after his transfer to Southampton fell through it was in his new contract to start every game.

 

Or perhaps McInnes was indeed an idiot in his treatment of Fontaine, but really, without the full facts behind a very baffling plummet in form who knows?

 

Should he have been dropped earlier? From our viewpoint in the stands, of course he should. Much earlier? Not so sure, always that chance he would have one solid match and go on to redeem his City career. When to drop his skipper was clearly a tough call which in retrospect - with Fontaine not regaining any form - the manager clearly got wrong.

 

One thing I do know is from where I sat no blame can be attached to the fans who were incredibly patient with Fontaine long after they should have been expected to be.

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Guest

Guest

Posted
Posted

Nogbad, I am a fan of McInnes and usually one to pipe up in his defence but he made a big mistake with Fontaine. Cotts showed his experience and did the exact opposite with Flint and it worked tremendously.

McInnes' treatment of Fontaine and the rest of the senior squad, despite my desire to stick with del, was more than reason enough to call time on him here. What disappoints me is the penny should've dropped months before it did when his P45 was drying.

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CITYAREREDANDWHITE

CITYAREREDANDWHITE

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Nogbad, I am a fan of McInnes and usually one to pipe up in his defence but he made a big mistake with Fontaine. Cotts showed his experience and did the exact opposite with Flint and it worked tremendously.

McInnes' treatment of Fontaine and the rest of the senior squad, despite my desire to stick with del, was more than reason enough to call time on him here. What disappoints me is the penny should've dropped months before it did when his P45 was drying.

The only reason flint was taken out of the team was because of injury

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Bris Red

Bris Red

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Couldn't fault him for years he was a class act for us, easily stringing together good performance after good performance in the Championship. Confidence is a funny old thing, us fans didnt help him much either mind did we, f0ok me!

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Nogbad the Bad

Nogbad the Bad

Posted
Posted

Nogbad, I am a fan of McInnes and usually one to pipe up in his defence but he made a big mistake with Fontaine. Cotts showed his experience and did the exact opposite with Flint and it worked tremendously.

McInnes' treatment of Fontaine and the rest of the senior squad, despite my desire to stick with del, was more than reason enough to call time on him here. What disappoints me is the penny should've dropped months before it did when his P45 was drying.

 

I don't understand the Flint comparison 29R - he'd already found his form prior to his season ending injury at Shrewsbury.

 

It might look like I'm defending McInnes for the sake of it here, but that's not the case. I was as baffled as anyone by Fonts' horrific drop in form and his continuing presence on the pitch, so I was attempting to put forward theories to explain an otherwise bewildering episode.

 

There was a lot going on behind the scenes at the time, unhappy dead wood both being discarded and still rotting amongst the other players on the training pitch. Pressures were clearly being exerted on the players and manager from within that we didn't know about, and puzzling selection decisions made for reasons we will never know.

 

From the outside McIness' mistake was to place too much faith in Fontaine coming good, but the background for this faith, as well as the reasons for Fontaine crumbling before our very eyes, remains unknown, so any speculation behind this apparent kamikaze selection is just that, guesswork.

 

I can't believe there wasn't more to it than met the eye of the fan in the stands, i.e. McInnes apparently continuing to pick a clearly out of form Fontaine to spite not only Fontaine but everybody at the club out of some weird sadistic stubbornness - and that extra, were it known, may either alleviate the blame on the manager, or indeed damn him absolutely.

 

Why would a manager continue to pick his captain when his continuing presence was not only regularly costing the team points and slowly but surely making the player a figure of ridicule and disdain, but was also very likely to cost McInnes his job? It's not in the managers' best interests, it simply doesn't make sense.

 

To me it remains a mystery and there must be more to it than apparent stubbornness, naively misplaced faith, or indeed, the favourite theory on here, idiotic incompetence.

 

Before anyone says I don't believe it was a combination of all 3 either.

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