Red-Robbo

Why then, in your response to nibor's post which is 100% about SC, is the first word "SOD"?

You seem to have missed the point. The point was that you do not have to LIKE a manager for him to be a good choice.

The 80's? How far do you intend to go back in your efforts to deflect the spotlight from Labour?

I believe we invaded a few countries back when the Royals were in charge, should we bring them into it?

Anyways, this thread isn't about what a wonderful Labour government we had and I'll leave it there.

If you'd read my post it raised questions about conflicts now, Darfur; South Sudan; I could add Irian Jaya, the Celebes; Somalia and many more. All humanitarian crises, none seeing UK intervention.

If you took off your blue coloured specs you might be able to see the world as it is.

We are not Team UK world police. You rightly slate Blair for his pretensions in that direction, but then to criticise Britain for not getting mixed up in more foreign conflicts is a bit rich.

Shame? Come off it. My opinion is that Cotterill was a terrible appointment. There are loads of reasons for that, some of which aren't for the public domain, but there are two that are absolutely fundamental:

1) His appointment was divisive. Before he was appointed a massive majority were against it and even after it was a done deal a large minority of fans still did not want him. The most divisive since Pulis or Osman.

2) For many people he is extremely hard to like as a person, because he comes across as a bullshitter. No, that's not objective but it is reality for many fans.

When you've got either of those problems you've got a bad appointment but both together in a relegation battle makes it terrible. The board dropped a giant 3.5 year bollock on this one and no amount of hypocritical forum defence is going to change that, particularly when results are pretty much unchanged, signings poor and performances maybe even trending downward.

None of the opinions about the manager affect the support shown for the team however, so where you get the idea of shame from I don't know.

SOD was very hard to like as a person IMHO. A distant, sniffy, sub-audible droning Midlander with pseudo intellectual pretensions and a habit of getting his excuses in first. Other than on this board, I've yet to meet anyone with a good word to say about him. And that includes casual supporters, diehards and - yes - club employees.

But that's neither here nor there. To paraphrase Churchill, they don't have to be nice, they have to right.

As NickJ points out correctly, Sean's record was atrocious and you'd not be able to point anywhere in the leagues to find a manager who survived such a terrible run.

As for the first point: SC wasn't my first choice either, but what does that prove? We don't vote in our managers - thank God - and I doubt, say, Alan Dicks would've been the popular choice.

I'm sick and tired of every thread turning into an SC v SOD civil war. Most posters said last season you couldn't judge SOD on a few months, FFS show some consistency and do the same to Cotterill. The bloke hasn't been here 3 months yet!

The problem is the smoking gun discovered in 2011 from Blair's own paperwork, that he and Bush had already agreed to go in to Iraq with or without UN support 5 months earlier than the dodgy UN resolution, they were going in come what may.

Quite agree. It was a done deal.

What a stupid post. I was adding context to Blairs war mongering, and how he avoided much worse suffering.

As it happens, I do think ouselves and France have a duty to Africa. As shown in Mali recently, the timely intervention of Western forces can contain a situation before the conflict spreads. You could also say the same about Libya.

We'll also never know if intervention would have been illeagal, as the moment we ruled it out it would never have got through the UN. What do we see a few months later? Chemicle weapons used in Hommes.

China and Russia would never have allowed an intervention. Your post focuses on Labour's failings while ignoring failures by Tory administrations. The subject of Mugabe was brought up earlier and the question of why did Labour not intervene there was raised. Of course, it's a different problem entirely to Iraq which had invaded neighbours twice in 12 years, however if you wanted to make a case you'd need to ask why the Tories didn't intervene in the late 80s/early 90s when Mugabe was using North Korean troops in a near genocidal way against Matabeleland and his political opponents.

I agree- we weren't good that day. Yet we still dominated the whole game and were pretty much robbed. They came for a draw and got all three.

When you compare that to the game just gone when Sheff Utd 'should have been very tired' and we should have been fresh - we got smashed. Not even in the game against a side around us in the table.

I guess we just saw it differently. We never looked like we'd score a goal, dominated possession but had just one good chance up the other end. United's strategy was to sit back and play on the break. They were a shyte side back then before their confidence was up but it was always possible they would get a break through: put it this way, I was always more nervous during their attacks then I was excited during ours - such as they were.

Anyway, Cowshed is quite right that I haven't gone to an away game since September and I cannot fully comment on the team's recent form. What I would say is losses on the road at top sides like Wolves and Brentford are a bit easier to shrug off than a loss in Sheffield which does seem to be something of a new low.

Home again on Saturday, let's see how the team responds.

Would they bollocks!!! Missed opportunity in Syria, as we've since not only seen chemicle weapons used, but the rebellion infiltrated by Jihadists.

The Labour government sat and did nothing while 6 million were slaughtered in Congo. Dafaur? George Clooney did more than our government. I guess Blaire was too busy hugging Gadaffi to care.

So your view is that the UK should send task forces everywhere there are conflicts, is it? So Cameron should send forces to Darfur (it's still going on) and the South Sudan? Major should've interfered in East Timor and Rwanda?

You're on your own with that one. There were international peacekeeping forces in the DRC but not including Britain.

Still you can't fault your Daily Mail logic: Labour was wrong to lead us into an illegal war in Iraq but then also wrong not to support an illegal intervention in Syria. And we'd of had as much chance of damping down extremism there as we had in Iraq.

Anyway, back to the OP's topic. I reckon Clegg will founder on a debate entirely based on the EU, but if he goes on the offensive and widens the debate it will be Farrage on the defensive. But I can't see that happening.

In the Sheff U home game, they didn't have a shot of note - only Flint scoring an OG gave them the win and I bet they couldn't believe their luck. Wasn't a great performance by us but we should have got a draw at least. It wasn't like the recent Coventry or Tranmere games where we were outplayed.

Flip to the away match - we weren't even in the game and they dominated long periods.

If O'Driscoll was so negative like many have said, why did we score a boat load of goals (26 goals in the league alone this season before he left). If anything we were too positive and needed to work on sorting the defence. He did that and was then sacked - in his last 6 games in charge only Orient scored more than 1 against us and they were top at the time. He was beginning to find the balance - OK it was slow progress and I was frustrated like many that we had not made a good start. It did take him too long to sort out the mess. But all the groundwork that was done, all the talk from the board about the long term etc it was all a waste of time.

I probably could have understood moving SOD on if we had a replacement who was more upbeat but fitted in with the strategy etc that the club were trying to implement. With the signing of El Abd came the end of any of that. Strategy forgotten, defence tampered with and JET's form nowhere to be seen. We had a nice honeymoon period when SC arrived but the first half at Orient apart, things have generally been worse for me. 10 points from last 10 games is a big concern too.

I hope that SC can turn it around starting with the Gillingham game. He may do when he stops playing 4 CB's in defence and gets the best out of JET. He needs to do those things and fast else we are down.

At home against a team below us in the league who had yet to win away I'd argue we should've expected a win. Instead we were utterly toothless and - as I've said totally boring.

If football was always like that match I'd never go.

Red-Robbo, yours is the 78th reply to this topic. Don't you find it interesting that no one is fighting Nick Clegg's corner with their replies !!!!! In the greater scheme of things Nick Clegg is a nobody, I'm thus hoping that Nigel Farage can get to take on the so called big boys of the EU loving Lib-Lab-Con......David Cameron and Ed Miliband.

 

 

I'm not a fan of the acne scarred former ski instructor (and Young Conservative!) as you may have gathered.

 

I don't think many in his party are either TBH....

Did you watch that show?

 

It was the show that Labours Stephen Twigg was on the panel, Rutland had met Twigg in advance and tweeted to all that she was going to be on the show. Rutland was a paid activist for the Labour party and knew in advance of the night she was going to get her moment of fame.

She quickly took down all of her tweets when she got exposed.

 

You can pretend all you like mate that these programmes are impartial, but you are not fooling anybody.

 

 

But they've had Tory activists in the audience on the show too. Look at the audience and see some of the Hooray Henry's making comments and that should be patently obvious.

 

People are not banned from the audience if they are party members, how could they be - it's appeal is largely to the politically interested - but they are required to declare those allegiances so audiences can be broadly balanced.

Is this 'Mentorn' company a propaganda film unit of the European Union project?

 

 

Undoubtedly Gobbers, they do such biased rubbish as Robot Wars and Traffic Cops.

 

But to be fair, they do balance this with their documentary series about Nige Farage in the European Parliament, An Idiot Abroad....

Really?

 

You haven't heard of Amy Rutland?

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/2891/a_new_low_for_neutral_bbc_question_time

 

There are party activists from all parties there - as is obvious if you watch the thing rather than read some obscure blog written by a bloke who works for a neo-con think tank. My point was the producers balance the audience. The show's rarely recorded live. Questioners and audience commentators are closely scrutinised before broadcast to ensure balance.

It had nothing on Rotherham.

 

 

I have to say Sheffield United at home was the nearest I've ever come to falling asleep at a football match. I managed to endure the first half versus Carlisle despite being jet-lagged and having been awake for 23 hours - and I was positively animated during the second! By contrast I was fairly gripped throughout versus Rotherham.

 

I've only been to one away game this season, maybe the away Sheffield fixture was worse, but in terms of sheer mind-numbing tedium that home game in November breaks personal records for me. 

The BBC is the Labour party mouthpiece Gobbers. You watch any episode of the Labour partys midweek broadcast called question time, the audience is loaded with Labour activists and lefty apologists. King Tony and his heir to the throne Prince Gordon must not be shown in a bad light.

 

What a load of crap. The audience is screened and party members are given equal allocations. The questions have to meet strictly balanced criteria.

 

It's an independent production incidentally, made by a company called Mentorn.

Are you trying to legitimise in some way our invasion of Iraq?

Did we not stand by and watch Robert Mugabe kill his own, he didn't have the oil though did he.

 

 

The scale is entirely different. Comrade Bob also hasn't invaded neighbouring countries. Twice.

Well that's ok then Bill, if he did it, then so can we.

 

 

I don't think we did gas thousands of Iraqi civilians. Let's face it, 99.99% of Iraqis have been killed by other Iraqis - in the name of sectarianism.

and now protected by a labour party full of shit bags who went along for the ride and gutless labour voters, to blinkered to able to admit the truth, this is the same labour party who would enter into talks with the Spanish government over sovereignty of Gibraltar and no doubt Argentina over the Falklands, a government who expected support in government but never offer support in opposition.

 

Actually, and I don't want to defend Labour over Iraq, but it was Callaghan who sent two nuclear subs to the South Atlantic when Argentina first threatened an invasion. Thatcher's actions in removing British citizenship from the Falklanders and decommissioning the only Royal Navy ship that was stationed in the area encouraged the junta to believe that the British had lost interest in defending the islands.

 

Read about it in the staunch Conservative ex-Telegraph editor Max Hasting's book on the Falklands War. It's a cracking read incidentally.

 

EDIT: PB made the points first!

I seem to recall a saying in the oval office 'the buck stops here', something Blair wouldn't know if it bit him on the arse, Blair's recent released conversation with Rebecca Brooks tells you all you need to know about how he got away with it and how he hopes she will as well.

 

 

wholeheartedly agree, Es. When I read about his advice to Brooks I was staggered.

indeed on flawed, altered and sexed up intelligence from a pm, who was going to war come what may and who should be properly held to account for his actions.

 

 

The "dodgy dossier" was presented via an intelligence committee which is an all-party body. Blair has to take the lion's share of the blame, but don't let Conservatives or Lib Dems  try to suggest they were misled into voting for the war. Blair's defence is he was misled by American intelligence who say they in turn were misled by Iraqi defectors.

 

The fact is due diligence was not done by anyone as Dubya wanted and got a war to follow on from his daddy's.

Nobody voted for the kidnap and torture bit but the then wonderful socialist government (with a small blue 's') decided it was fine and dandy and as for killing them in Afghanistan, I think there is a marine sergeant who might just disagree about that as a policy having been cut adrift by the military and this government.

 

 

Quite agree with all that, mate. My main point was that D Cameron et al cannot say that they bear no responsibility for the Iraq War. His party pressed for military action and voted for it.

Yes but no illegal wars, kidnap and torture of UK citizens.

 

 

That's true Es, but remember they all voted for the war.

 

As for the kidnap and torture stuff. If you go to a foreign country to engage in an irregular war, don't wear a uniform and join no recognised military unit you are a mercenary and not protected by the Geneva Convention. The Yanks could've saved themselves a lot of time and expense if they'd just shot them in Afghanistan.

Well he's stood for that shit in nearly every performance since he has been here.... I don't expect any change.

 

I think you're exaggerating a bit there GH. He's actually overseen more wins than the past manager and 12 days ago oversaw a 3-1 away victory at a top club.

 

I'm not defending the performance at Sheffield U. It's unacceptable.

 

My first post, where you fixated on the SOD reference, was to say I don't think anyone should read too much into interviews given directly after football matches. I thought that under O'Driscoll and I think that now.

 

Trying to pick out phrases as sticks to beat the manager is a bit sad, frankly.

I despair at some of our fans at times.

 

Here's a manager you despise, giving you a golden opportunity to rip the piss out of him with his "I'm a winner" comment and not one of you have referenced Charlie Sheen.

 

 

Or indeed post this fine song:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgSPaXgAdzE

Other than my thread about Jay?

I have plenty of thoughts about where we go. This season is a write-off now... I don't think I'd keep Cotterill next season regardless of our league status, his signings have been poor, his coaching appears to be failing based on the evidence of our worsening performances and shambolic defending and I genuinely don't see him taking us up next season, which has to be the aim.

I'd invest in a proven coach. Someone who has a track record of improving players. I'd set out a long term plan that I would stick to no matter what pain it causes in the short term, I'd actually utilise the scouting networks available and bring in as many cheap lower league players as I could and get them coached to a high level.

In terms of keeping us up this season?

I'd like to see us get our best players playing with freedom to express themselves. I'd let our younger players play as much as possible because their attitudes have put many of the experienced players in our squad's to shame. Louis would be in the side ahead of Flint and El Abd but behind Williams and Osbourne.

Those are things id like to see, past that all I know is what's going on now is unacceptable and the new manager has not improved us at all, results or performances.

 

 

I agree with the second part of your post there - and the bit about the scouting network.

 

And yes,if Cotterill fails it will be because he failed to use January to strengthen where we needed it.  That said, most who trekked up to Sheffield said Wade Elliott was the one player who consistently performed and that more established team members were dire, so it's not a black-and-white picture.

 

If he keeps us up, I'd certainly give him more time. A sacking merry-go-round has got us nowhere - that's something that we can agree on - and given our position, he faced a hell of an uphill struggle when he joined.

I thought the board was eerily quiet after the Orient game.

 

The usual rush of people, keen to post "Cotterill is a tvat" and "sack the board" didn't even make an appearance.

 

TBH in the stands and the pubs - as opposed to on here - most people I talk to haven't decided about Cotterill's competence. He has made mistakes, but it's still fairly early here and we've seen other manager's do similar. I can't say I was ecstatic at his appointment, but I haven't written him - or us - off yet. 

 

This was a really bad loss and Cotterill has to take his share of the blame with the players. The other recent losses were against top sides and Orient excepted, we've not been able to compete with them all season.

 

As others have said, round pegs in round holes is essential for our starting line-up against Gillingham.