A "happy Clapper" Writes...

[Olé]

Well, to be fair "happy clapper" is your description of people, not mine, but since some of you keep 'daring' someone positive to speak today, here we go.

1. It is the most staunch GJ critics who have created this picture that people who are positive are somehow also blindly loyal to Johnson. Polarising views is the oldest tactic in the book for giving credibility to extreme views, those of you clearly salivating at the concept of dismissing Johnson need to create the impression the alternative view is more irrational. You know, it doesn't pay to have positive people who also question Johnson but are of a rational belief that it'd be healthy to get to the end of the season first.

2. I'm no apologist for Johnson, I posted after Saturday that there was no excuse for what he served up (I thought we were more inept against Coventry than Cardiff), however I also pointed out I didn't associate that with simply firing the guy. I've just read a stream of self satisfied posts from people who passionately want Johnson gone who paint the picture that there is nothing further for them to prove, that their view is ALREADY vindicated. Did I miss the memo that said WHEN we sack GJ we get awarded 20 points?

To quote Harvey Keitel in Reservoir Dogs "let's not suck each others dicks just yet". You seem to have forgotten that you have actually proved nothing about what life without Johnson holds. If he goes today and his replacement accelerates the freefall, I'm guessing this discussion will all be forgotten? Why are you all so convinced that replacing a manager is an automatic shot in the arm and boost to any club. History tells us it's a season changer but with no guarantees of being positve, it''s frequently disasterous too.

So, back in the real world middle ground, there is room for reasonable people to see that Johnson is screwing up but not wish to just put a bomb under everything and blow it all up and hope the pieces fall in a better position. The transfer window is closed, we have a load of players the manager has scouted, invested in and knows, the season has 10 weeks and one objective now, just maybe there is less risk in letting GJ get on with it until then. Twice before he produced winning runs after of a dreadful series of results.

3. Quite a few of the GJ out posters with the most conviction are starting to sound quite self-congratulatory now. We're getting the "I told you so" type remarks before we have even seen a decision or any change. There are some who are more concerned now with baiting "happy clappers" and giving the impression the forum is now theirs (like it is some sort of competition for popular opinion). Not to mention sounding quite excited by poor performances if they hasten GJ's exit (where it's traditional to be demoralised).

If it's more important to you to be proved right and to grandstand on an internet message board than it is to see City succeed week on week then granted, the current situation is one for you to relish and potentially is for the patient among us, "all our chickens coming home to roost", but let's please have that perspective to all these posts about GJ and stop creating the impression that some of you are posting wildly for the greater good of the club. A few of you haven't even thought beyond "sack Johnson". What next?

4. How many of you have actually run a business? I'm sure some of you have so this isn't meant to be a provocative remark, but some of you wielding the axe don't seem to have the first clue about practicalities of a business. And if you have run a business, how often have you actually dismissed people? Very rarely I'd wager. Business isn't all hire and fire. Steve Lansdown has to consider what the alternatives are, the costs involved in severence and new appointments, and weigh up the risks to his business.

If you've run a business you take informed decisions and prepare for them - even if that means time passing with the status quo maintained. If you haven't run a business, you just post on forums "P45 in the post" at the first opportiunity and other trivial remarks such as this, like it's the easiest thing in the world. It's not. Some of you would have GJ out the door and us p1ssing about with a caretaker manager in freefall for a month, so we can get relegated with the usual "tut tut 3 managers in one season" media sign-off.

Not so easy is it.

There is no GJ out camp, just as there are no happy clappers. There are also no moaners (well maybe a few..!). We're all simply passionate about our club and desperately frustrated about the form this season. Being positive is about supporting the club - not being blindly loyal - whilst criticsing the club is about holding it to account - not simply a bloodlust for sackings. No one is wrong, no one is right. Steve Lansdown has more to lose than any of us so he must balance these views. Be positive and have patience.

[eskay]

If you've run a business you take informed decisions and prepare for them - even if that means time passing with the status quo maintained. If you haven't run a business, you just post on forums "P45 in the post" at the first opportiunity and other trivial remarks such as this, like it's the easiest thing in the world. It's not. Some of you would have GJ out the door and us p1ssing about with a caretaker manager in freefall for a month, so we can get relegated with the usual "tut tut 3 managers in one season" media sign-off.

Not so easy is it.

Well I have and what you say is true and that is why I hope the SL has a backup plan. Last year I think it was he said no matter what happens we must stay in this division and not get relegated, we are now heading that way.

[dezgimed]

It was Pulp Fiction.....

[grove park city]

Well I have and what you say is true and that is why I hope the SL has a backup plan. Last year I think it was he said no matter what happens we must stay in this division and not get relegated, we are now heading that way.

And that is the worrying aspect of all this as S L pointed out to the players at the training ground meeting effectively saying get your bloody fingers out and earn your wages ,if Johnson goe's i couldn't give a damn but the thought of Steve Lansdown getting fed up or worse still leaving then that would be a real hammer blow. He has spelt it out relegation means a financial melt down of drastic cost cutting and possibly good bye new ground ,its almost not an option at all the whole set-up could fall like a house of cards as you say i hope there is some sort of contingency plan .

[Ron]

I said at the time so long as Cardiff is a one-off things will be ok. 2 points from 3 games after would suggest otherwise. I'm not a staunch GJ defender as some may believe, I'd rather say a realist, but we shouldn't be looking over our shoulders at this stage of the season. Last night should maybe have been the straw that broke the camel's back, or at a push Sheffield United on Saturday.<br>

[Mr Ed]

There's no real sign as yet of Gary getting things right to change the results around. Only a week or so back he was quoted as saying "You can't change your team week in and week out and expect to get any sort of consistency." Actually he's wrong we are changing the team week in week out and we are getting consistency, we're consistently poor but I guess that's not what he meant. Changing the entire midfield three after what he said was a good performance against Coventry was crazy. OK, he would have had to make a change with Sno getting injured but he wasn't in the named starting line up.

I want the consistent approach to be 4-4-2. The Preston performance was the best in ages so why discard the formation on the back of the horror show v Cardiff. The focus should have been on correcting what went wrong e.g. the very high defensive line we played rather than what appeared a knee jerk reaction of 5-3-2. Orr and Macca are not good enough in forward positions to play wing backs, let them concentrate on defending. Have right and left midfield players who are comfortable playing there. If players are playing poorly lets show some faith in the younger generation, Ribeiro, Wilson, Akinde rather than farming them out and giving some players the comfort of very little competition for their place.

As the OP stated Gary has turned things around in the past but I'm not sure whether too much damage has already been done with the constant tinkering for it to happen again.

[FreeReds]

This is one of best posts I have read on this topic, well balanced & factual, Football is a business and there are many factors behind lots of tough decisons to be made, clearly things aren't right at the club but what's key for me is the part that if GJ does go in any shape or form there is no guarantee we will not get relegated!!

[Nibor]

1. It is the most staunch GJ critics who have created this picture that people who are positive are somehow also blindly loyal to Johnson. Polarising views is the oldest tactic in the book for giving credibility to extreme views, those of you clearly salivating at the concept of dismissing Johnson need to create the impression the alternative view is more irrational. You know, it doesn't pay to have positive people who also question Johnson but are of a rational belief that it'd be healthy to get to the end of the season first.

Polarising views is indeed the oldest tactic in the book and it's completely wrong to suggest that it's use is limited to GJ critics. It's been abused by people holding the opposite view just as much.

2. I'm no apologist for Johnson, I posted after Saturday that there was no excuse for what he served up (I thought we were more inept against Coventry than Cardiff), however I also pointed out I didn't associate that with simply firing the guy. I've just read a stream of self satisfied posts from people who passionately want Johnson gone who paint the picture that there is nothing further for them to prove, that their view is ALREADY vindicated. Did I miss the memo that said WHEN we sack GJ we get awarded 20 points?

To quote Harvey Keitel in Reservoir Dogs "let's not suck each others dicks just yet". You seem to have forgotten that you have actually proved nothing about what life without Johnson holds. If he goes today and his replacement accelerates the freefall, I'm guessing this discussion will all be forgotten? Why are you all so convinced that replacing a manager is an automatic shot in the arm and boost to any club. History tells us it's a season changer but with no guarantees of being positve, it''s frequently disasterous too.

So, back in the real world middle ground, there is room for reasonable people to see that Johnson is screwing up but not wish to just put a bomb under everything and blow it all up and hope the pieces fall in a better position. The transfer window is closed, we have a load of players the manager has scouted, invested in and knows, the season has 10 weeks and one objective now, just maybe there is less risk in letting GJ get on with it until then. Twice before he produced winning runs after of a dreadful series of results.

I agree it's riskier to make a change than not to, but the important thing here is that SL has the confidence that GJ knows how to turn this around and can. What could give him that confidence at the moment? I can see very little. The chopping and changing reeks of panic, the players don't seem to want to play for him sometimes and the half time rocket has lost effectiveness. If loaning Agyemang is the answer - what was the question?

3. Quite a few of the GJ out posters with the most conviction are starting to sound quite self-congratulatory now. We're getting the "I told you so" type remarks before we have even seen a decision or any change. There are some who are more concerned now with baiting "happy clappers" and giving the impression the forum is now theirs (like it is some sort of competition for popular opinion). Not to mention sounding quite excited by poor performances if they hasten GJ's exit (where it's traditional to be demoralised).

If it's more important to you to be proved right and to grandstand on an internet message board than it is to see City succeed week on week then granted, the current situation is one for you to relish and potentially is for the patient among us, "all our chickens coming home to roost", but let's please have that perspective to all these posts about GJ and stop creating the impression that some of you are posting wildly for the greater good of the club. A few of you haven't even thought beyond "sack Johnson". What next?

Some of the "told you so" comments have been very childish but if you'd care to look back over the season you'll see exactly the same from the other camp every time we scrape a win so it isn't surprising people who feel they saw it going wrong a while back and were shouted down are now acting vindicated. It's extremely disappointing both ways.

4. How many of you have actually run a business? I'm sure some of you have so this isn't meant to be a provocative remark, but some of you wielding the axe don't seem to have the first clue about practicalities of a business. And if you have run a business, how often have you actually dismissed people? Very rarely I'd wager. Business isn't all hire and fire. Steve Lansdown has to consider what the alternatives are, the costs involved in severence and new appointments, and weigh up the risks to his business.

If you've run a business you take informed decisions and prepare for them - even if that means time passing with the status quo maintained. If you haven't run a business, you just post on forums "P45 in the post" at the first opportiunity and other trivial remarks such as this, like it's the easiest thing in the world. It's not. Some of you would have GJ out the door and us p1ssing about with a caretaker manager in freefall for a month, so we can get relegated with the usual "tut tut 3 managers in one season" media sign-off.

I agree, any management change needs careful thought but bear in mind that there are few businesses indeed where so much rests on the performance of one employee. That's why hiring and firing in football happens with such regularity. Actually severance won't matter and I don't think SL will give much thought to who is available - that will just be a problem he solves later - the simple criteria will be his confidence in the manager's ability to get the results needed.

Not so easy is it.

There is no GJ out camp, just as there are no happy clappers. There are also no moaners (well maybe a few..!). We're all simply passionate about our club and desperately frustrated about the form this season. Being positive is about supporting the club - not being blindly loyal - whilst criticsing the club is about holding it to account - not simply a bloodlust for sackings. No one is wrong, no one is right. Steve Lansdown has more to lose than any of us so he must balance these views. Be positive and have patience.

Criticising the club is about improving it, or it should be, not holding it to account. But I agree with the rest and it's extremely important now that fans back the players at every game.

[BrizzleRed]

Great post Ole and many very well reasoned points.

With some of the recent performances and team selections, there seems to be an element of desperation about GJ and he's giving plenty of ammunition to the camp who are claiming 'he's lost the plot completely'.

That said, as you rightly pointed out, there's no guarantees that getting rid would suddenly turn things round. Although most of us are pretty sure this squad of players are capable of far more than they are producing, it could still take some time to turn things round with confidence so low, even IF we could get the right person in. The Johnson outers also seem to conveniently forget that their favoured 'replacement' managers might not want to touch us with a barge pole. We could then find ourselves in a position of having a caretaker manager or having to grab a lower league untried at this level candidate and be in an even worse mess than we are now.

I was delighted when we got GJ from Yeovil, as I felt he was the perfect choice for us and has generally done a great job in moving us up. Sadly, I think it is now a question of when, rather than if he leaves, but I honestly believe he should see the season out.

My reasoning is GJ seems a proud and stubborn man and won't want to have our relegation on his CV, so I believe he will manage to instill enough battling spirit into the players to get us to safety in the end. Unfortunately imo, I think at the end of the season we will then have to wave goodbye and say thanks for what you've done GJ. He is now giving a very good impression of a man floundering out of his depth and I think it's safe to say he's lost the majority of fans, certainly on this forum. With fans providing the bums on seats, what would keeping him on do to next season's ST sales? With only the promise of the same type of dross we've had to endure this season, sales could take a massive dive.

[SC_Red]

Wondeful post Ole and the most well balanced comment I have ever heard.

Managers get sacked so often in football because every set of fans and chairmen want to win and want success. But there are 23 other teams playing against us who want to win too and not every body can. I have doubts about Johnson of course I do, but you look at clubs like Charlton and Norwich and have to accept that it can be very tempting at times but it isn't always the best answer.

[SimplyRed]

A very eloquent post by Ole and an equally erudite response by Nibor.

I think, regardless of what is posted on this forum, Johnson will only go if Lansdown has lost confidence that he is able to get us out of this worrying downward spiral we're currently experiencing.

The opposing camps have shifted slightly. At first it was the 'happy clappers' who thought that Johnson could do no wrong, and the 'moaners', who were admonished for daring to criticise Johnson's methods. Now we all seem to agree that Johnson is struggling, but now we are divided on whether he should go now, or give him time to try to sort things out.

Whether all the 'moaners' are now in the 'Go Now' camp and all the 'Clappers' are in the 'Give him time' camp, I don't know, but it would certainly seem that way.

Personally, having criticised Johnson for a long time now, I'm happy to give him a few more games to see if he can recover, but I'm not confident that he even knows what is wrong and how to fix it, so if it doesn't work out, he should do the honourable thing and fall on his sword, rather than force the chairman's hand.

I honestly feel if we wait too long, we may find ourselves struggling to stay up.

Steve Lansdown have some soul searching to do in the next few weeks - is he confident that Johnson can keep us up, or not? It would be a disaster for the new stadium and the future if we were relegated this season.

[The Casual Connoisseur]

A great post and a great response from Nibor.

I have a question:

Do you believe that Gary has the full support of the dressing room?

My opinion is that the players do not believe in him anymore down to the constant chopping and changing of the starting 11 and formation, it must be hard to believe in someone who seems to not know his best method of approach to getting a result.

If and it's an if I am right then keeping the manager who's staff do not believe he is making the correct decisions and even some strange decisions, will lead to a few possible scenarios: questioning of management, mutiny, underlying negative attitude all producing one outcome and that is not performing to your full capability, the end result being a negative result and terrible performance.

The players can not perform to the best of their capabilities without the correct desire, discipline and direction, if you look at lastnight performance the result was a lack of those 3 D's.

So you can argue that changing the manager will do no good but as correctly stated, football is a bussiness, like other businesses they survive and prosper on positive results, if the current management are causing the business to be potentialy jeopardised by failure then, a risk has to be taken to advance and prosper.

A change needs to happen Sooner rather than later as time needs to be given to implement a positive change and fresh attitude, desire to succeed needs to be injected in asap.

[Tunley Legend]

It seems that GJ has finally recognised that Saborio will not cut it.

But past experience tells us he is stubborn and I fear that we will continue to see Agyemang on the pitch contributing nothing to the relegation fight. He even mentioned last night that he had to go back to the players he knew at half time (the same players that have been letting him down) - effectively meaning that the young lads were literally on the bench making up numbers and are not even remotely close to getting any match experience.

Orr is in a dreadful run of form but is GUARANTEED a start.

McAllister is in a similar position.

Agyemang seems to be going this way too.

Expect Lee Johnson to be given an extended run.

The problem is that the "same old, same old" is not working and we have a Manager who is PETRIFIED to inject fresh impetus into the side. Yes, he makes changes but only by shuffling his current under-performing pack.

[miketh2nd]

A interesting thread and one I'd strongly agreed with say Decemeber but we've got no better and GJ tactics are a bit worrying indeed. I'm happy to give him a month or so but if we're still in the rut then consider sacking. But a worrying sign of GJ is that he hardly reacts on gut reaction and makes quick subs in a game always keeping faith in the team he started for a long time. As after the game he said " After 25 minutes I realised that wasn't working on the day."

[Portland Bill]

There's no real sign as yet of Gary getting things right to change the results around. Only a week or so back he was quoted as saying "You can't change your team week in and week out and expect to get any sort of consistency." Actually he's wrong we are changing the team week in week out and we are getting consistency, we're consistently poor but I guess that's not what he meant. Changing the entire midfield three after what he said was a good performance against Coventry was crazy. OK, he would have had to make a change with Sno getting injured but he wasn't in the named starting line up.

I want the consistent approach to be 4-4-2. The Preston performance was the best in ages so why discard the formation on the back of the horror show v Cardiff. The focus should have been on correcting what went wrong e.g. the very high defensive line we played rather than what appeared a knee jerk reaction of 5-3-2. Orr and Macca are not good enough in forward positions to play wing backs, let them concentrate on defending. Have right and left midfield players who are comfortable playing there. If players are playing poorly lets show some faith in the younger generation, Ribeiro, Wilson, Akinde rather than farming them out and giving some players the comfort of very little competition for their place.

As the OP stated Gary has turned things around in the past but I'm not sure whether too much damage has already been done with the constant tinkering for it to happen again.

Very good post, last nights team selection was bizzare. The two strikers are both on loan, central midfield compromised of LJ who hasnt played for us for 2? monthsand Skuse wasnt fit enough for the bench last saturday.

How the manager came to the decision of playing these four (for starters!) is beyond me.

We have young talent playing for other clubs at the moment who would inject some desire into the team, they are the future of the club and not Costa Rican lonees.

GJ knows what is successfull in this division because of 2 years ago, 4-4-2 with a least one wide man.

So why did he mess around with it last night?, he stated that he was going to go" longer " last night because of the pitch.

We all know that Agyemamg and Soborio arent the sort of strikers who are going to terrorise defences in the air ( so why doesnt GJ?)and if your not going to play a passing game (GJ said the pitch was going to stop this) why bring LJ into the side ??.

Midtable has always been fine by me, but now it is getting to the stage where i cant see us scoring let alone winning, and a relegation battle with about 10 other clubs looks likely.

SL and GJ obviously get on really well, and it will be a very tough decision if GJ is to go.

Sheffield Utd and Leicester are real tough games but the one which could be make or break it for GJ is probably West Brom,a bad performance live on national tv could be the end.

,

[ralphindevon]

Football is very different to other business' GJ is already about the 10th longest serving manager in the country.

He relies on motivation and when it comes to seeing the same motivational poster on the dressing room wall for 3ooth time it starts to ware a bit thin.

I'm sure he would get another job where it will work again for a few seasons.

In the mean time we need something new for the players to listen too. 

[Olé]

I have a question:

Do you believe that Gary has the full support of the dressing room?

I've got to be honest - no. In spite of my position calling for stability and patience, my nagging concern in all of this is that what has happened in the past few weeks has been very sudden. Yes there are stats to show a steady decline since last season but I believe what I see in games themselves and only the last few performances and selections smack of utter cluelessness, whilst the resultant performances smack of players who no longer believe in their manager.

This is the one aspect of this situation I'm struggling with. I don't want to take that destabilising step we've always taken in the past and dump the manager and pick up the pieces, but I've a nasty feeling something has happened somewhere that has wrecked any chance of reconciliation. This is all such a distance from what was our hallmark coming into the season (unity, belief, organisation) that I can't see this is just gradual loss of direction - more a major falling out.

What on earth has happened? Was it the Cardiff half time debacle? Or something that pre-dated that? Who has fallen out with who, and why have we taken to signings like Agyemang, which seem more consistent with the type of desperation moves Johnson made in his first season when most of the players hated him and he wanted to prove a 'Savage' point. In other words, this isn't just a steady decline, this is a sudden shambles precipitated by something specific.

Which is one of the reasons why I believe you give Johnson until the end of the season. The long term view of decline is irrelevant, excepting our first season at this level, we'd all take the mid-table / inconsistent form for longer than people are currently prepared to. What's got to a majority of fans at the moment is this sudden chaotic performance and form, and you don't chuck everything away just because of that, unless what precipitated this cannot be recovered.

So the question "Do you believe that Gary has the full support of the dressing room?" is a very important one because it's far more relevant to whether this is as retrievable a situation as some of us, myself included, believe it is for Johnson. After all, he went 9 defeats on the spin in League One and was able to turn it round, and even just last season put a run together after Christmas that recovered WORSE form than this and kept the season alive and in credit:

Oct 25th to Dec 26th last season - 1 Win 6 Draws 5 Defeats, GF 9 GA 18, started October 25th in 4TH, went into December 26th in 18TH

After this we turned it around and were back in 4th in February. So we dropped 14 places with worse form than now, and recovered 14 places after it. If GJ can do that, I'd rather let him have a chance again, than go with the complete unknown of sacking him, picking up the pieces, and hoping someone else can do better. I mean a) at least Gary has form over course and distance for recovering this and b) the season is a write off anyway, what is the rush to change?

Furthermore, people are simply distorting the truth if they say we haven't played well even this season. There have been good games, as good as anything in this division, and there have been some warning signs too. There were a lot of people who felt a lot of steps taken coming into this season were positive ones and said during the season we had our strongest ever squad. It's deteriorated since and recently has been dismal but does it justify chucking it all away now?

Personally I don't want to be part of a club that dumps managers as soon as things get rocky. Loyalty goes a long way and as above, Johnson has proved that twice already. Loyalty and unity in adversity breeds a much stronger unit out the back of it. From a purely business perspective it makes too much sense to leave this season to GJ to see if he can turn it round, than gamble that turning it upside down generates a positive short term response, not a total collapse.

But I'm not defending Johnson nor treating him as a messiah. He has faults, quite a lot of them. His answers recently have been inconsistent and provocative but for me it's because he is under pressure. He does struggle with his ego and accepting blame or backing down on things. That is probably a handicap to his handling of adversity like this, but piling more pressure on the guy and hammering him on here is only bringing out the worst in him. He needs SUPPORT.

He doesn't need constant reminding that people are unhappy with him, I'm sure when he sits down with Millen or his brother, he doesn't say "we're bloody brilliant at signing strikers, don't know what all the fuss is", he'll know what's wrong, the problem of late is he doesn't know how to fix it, but he's stuck at it twice before when we were slumping and eventually found a way out. Steve Coppell tends to walk away from clubs as soon as it gets a little sticky.....

Finally, on where it started going wrong - not that it differs much from a lot of you - my guess is Johnson let his ego tell him that with Adebola and Basso he could show that he didn't depend on any players for his success. The problem is, he was wrong, in their own ways I think we absolutely depended on both of them. Reading home and away last season showed Dele's difference, Basso's importance in his position and to the team's psyche is well documented too.

A humbled Johnson with his track record of turning things around here and experience of the job at hand is an asset to closing out this season without any serious danger and opportunity for a sensible review of the club's progress in the summer. A scorned and ridiculed Johnson is no asset at all, whilst new bloke with someone else's players for ten weeks is more often than not a disaster (this is not John Ward in Division 3). This is why I see being positive as necessary.

[newboy]

I obviously can't speak for other employers, but I run a small company with 15 employees. Sacking someone is an absolute wrench - not only do you feel bad because you're depriving someone of their livelihood, but from a business perspective it's a pain the ass because it takes a lot of time and investment to bring that person.

For a £15k role you're looking at £2k+ in recruitment fees, time spent writing job specs, lots of time interviewing and then a lot of time training that person up to be effective.

And then when you need to get rid of someone there's a lot of due process to follow.

So it's only a last resort - in the mean time you do everything you can to address the faults and give the person every opportunity to turn it around.

Unfortunately after a while you can do no more and when it's obvious the person cannot do what's required and is showing no sign of improvement the person has to be given their P45. For me, that's the key criteria.

GJ has been on a decline for a year now and at this stage of his City career has had plenty of time to bed in his practices. He's had ample opportunity to shape the squad as to how he sees fit and although it must be recognised he's got a difficult task, his performance is getting worse not better.

He's not been hampered by collossal bad luck, has had pretty much all the funding he's asked for in terms of transfers and has squandered millions. He's not had a director of football interfering with his plan like some managers do and all of the last year's performance is his own doing. If he needed help, he should have asked for it. He can't blame the players because he's had years to form his squad. He's had every opportunity to make City perform and for the last year he's not done that.

People have been talking about the risk of a replacement. Well in Business you try and act on what you do know, and for some time now GJ has been spending lots and getting worse and worse results and alienating more and more customers (fans). He started off well, but as an Employer you have to deal with what's in front of you.

Given this year-long trend, the only thing we can say at this point is that if we persist with GJ, this team will likely be in a relegation battle. It's not a short term blip, it's a long term downwards spiral of form and there appears to be no clear plan for redressing the issues with inconsistent messages, teams and formations.

How could any replacement be worse?

I guess the only factor in his favour is the cost of getting rid of him. Is it greater than the cost of going down?

[Daniro]

This is by a long way the most sensible thread I've seen for a long time with a much more balanced approach to the serious problems we are facing at the club.

What is now clear is the GJ simply doesn't have the tactical know how to survive at this level. In our first season up we made it on sheer exuberance, will to win and a close knit, consistent team, doing what they knew how to do and sticking to it. It worked a treat but as soon as clubs worked out our game plan it came to an end.

Watching Millen and Johnson in the technical area against Cardiff and Coventry gave you no confidence that they had an ideas about what to do to change things around. I wasn't there last night at Watford but it was not exactly a surprise to most of us to see that starting line up fail so dismally in the first half. There is no way we should fail so abjectly against Watford or Coventry (where we were lucky not to lose imo).

I run a business and I agree that hire and fire is no quick solution to a problem. You have to have some sympathy with the injuries to key players like JCR, Sno and Hartley who might have made the difference yesterday. It's tempting to give GJ to the end of the season but very risky I think unless he gets some serious support on tactics. How many times do you see our lads looking clueless - out of position and uncertain what to do? Sno's a good player who could create much more for us if only the others knew how to work with him - that's a training ground issue - Millen must take a lot of the blame - he surely should be able to tighten our increasingly ropey defense - that's his background - but it looks like he's not up to it. He's no striker himself and so offers nothing when it comes to scoring goals where we create so few chances it's embarrassing.

I know it's unlikely to go down well with GJ but is one solution maybe to give him a heavyweight, experienced right hand man and get rid of Millie? GJ has no experience at this level and it's beginning to become a really serious problem for us. We need someone with a much bigger footballing brain to give us more options.

Oh ... and I'm not talking about Bennie!

[The Casual Connoisseur]

So, many of us think he has lost the dressing room, how do you get it back?

If it is a matter of falling out with certia. Players then that is easy, you admit you are wrong apologise (even if you are in the right), start a fresh, have a team meeting, everyone airs their view and you give them a speech from the heart etc!

I see a problem in what I have just said, EGO, it won't happen will it?

If it doesn't then for me it's a calculated assumption that the man is (in his mind) bigger than the club, sometimes wnen there is a bigger picture involved you have yo stand up and say I AM WRONG, that time is now, if Gary Johnson wants to save his job and out championship status he needs go turn things around, as ole previously stated, he has done it before, bit that was with the team and supporters with him, if he has lost the dressing room and a large faction of our support then his job is impossible and it's time to stand down.

[cityhead]

I know it's an old cliche but one game at a time.

As already stated change now will not gaurentee more wins - just ask Middlesborough and Peterborough.

[cinker]

I know it's an old cliche but one game at a time.

As already stated change now will not gaurentee more wins - just ask Middlesborough and Peterborough.

No it doesn't guarantee. But in-action means things will continue as they are....

[RedM]

This is the first thread I've read since last night, so I'm not sure what is written elsewhere but I can guess.

It gives me no pleasure to see people asking for a football manager of our club sacked, as it means my club has failed, and that hurts. If this is going to happen then it's Steve Lansdown's call. I trust his judgement. If he backs Gary then he'll have my full support, just as he will if he decides to take another option.

[eskay]

I said at the time so long as Cardiff is a one-off things will be ok. 2 points from 3 games after would suggest otherwise. I'm not a staunch GJ defender as some may believe, I'd rather say a realist, but we shouldn't be looking over our shoulders at this stage of the season. Last night should maybe have been the straw that broke the camel's back, or at a push Sheffield United on Saturday.<br>

I keep thinking 'this must be it' when these results come in but he seems to survive week after week.

[Spud55]

Good post Ole, i agree with the sentement that changing manager doesn't always guarantee success, but al of us have seen watching football in general that shot in the arm that a change of manager gives a team in the short term, it doesn't always but it often does, and to be honest short term i think thats what we need, if this was a sudden thing i could accept that it was just a purple patch, but this has been a slow and steady decline for the past 12 - 18months now, and it's frankly getting beyond a joke.

I said a while back to give Johnson January to sort out our problems with our squad and we have summarily failed miserably to do so, we've brought in a left sided player to bring some balance to our squad then after putting a decent show on the left against cardiff we then go straight back to she square pegs in round holes thing with him playing central midfield (something that many Barnsley fans attribute to him being largely crap for them for a while) had he not got injured we would have been doing the same against Cov. He failed miserably to do anything about the defence, which has been looking more and more shaky as time has passed. Yet he did bring in another striker to not score goals for us, which was a complete waste of time and money, Agyemang is not a bad player but he was and is never going to be what we needed if we were going to have to go out and get another striker, to be frank with the team as we set it up at the moment much less than Didier Drogba would be a waste of time as thats the sort of ability level we need to score a decent amount of goals with the piss poor service we give.

I can forgive mistakes but not when the same mistakes are made over and over again, it was plainly obvious from the start of the season the McCallister and Orr are simply not capable of playing as wing backs, neither of them are good enough bombing forward to play that role, much the same that neither of them are good enough to play as full backs in a narrow formation which requires them to provide all the width, they can play as full backs in a 4-4-2 when their occasional forrays forward can be quite effective, not necessarily in the quality of crosses and balls they play but in that it gives the opposition full backs and wide men something else to think about other than our wide men. I think 90% of us on here could have told Johnson this before this season started, but fair enough he wanted to give it a try and it didn't work, it happens. But to still be trying to play them like this now is just pure lunacy, field marshal Hague would be proud.

If you have a shape in mind that you want to play, you simply have to if you do not have the players to play it then you have to bring them in, or abandon the shape, not Johnson he will play players out of position all the time and blindly continue with a shape that does not work for us, had he gone out in the summer and signed a couple of wing backs then maybe his idea of 5-3-2 may have worked but he didn't and thus it didn't, so that should have been 5-3-2 out of the window, same goes for 4-3-3 as again you basically need bloody good wing backs to operate as the full backs in tat formation, few teams can do it, Chelsea are probably the most effective with it, but they have the best left back in the world in Ahsley Cole and one of the best right backs in Bosingwa (when fit) Man U can do it with Evra and Neville, or Rafaele (or the other one can't remember which) we have Orr and McCalister who are passable full backs but nothing more.

To even further compund this we, before replacing them with players to play this new system got rid of the players that allowed us to play the systems that had served us well previously, we get rid of McIndoe who is our only left winger which leaves us unable to play anything like a proper 4-4-2 and we also get rid of the only striker we had who could effectively lead the line throwing 4-5-1 out of the window, leaving us only with the option of 5-3-2 and 4-3-3 which we didn't bother to recruit the player to play. Yes you don't always get the players you want in the transfer windows but you certainly don't get rid of the ones they are replacing until you are certain that you have the replacements. McIndoe should not have been allowed to leave until we had recruited either another left winger or a left wing back to replace him.

Adebola should have not been allowed to leave either, i don't think anyone was going to expect him to play every game or score loads of goals, but we have a replacement already in the squad in Akinde and i'd guarentee that he'd have learnt a lot more training with and learning from Dele and replacing him after 60 mins most games with the odd start spattered in between, than he has out on loan, for me that would have made deles wages a bloody good price for what you get, even more so when you consider how much we have spend on, Saborio, Clarkson and Agyemang just to replace him.

I've had enough of watching Johnson make the same mistakes over and over again, and unless he gets a minimum of 2 wins from the rest of this month then i'm sorry but he simply has to go.

[View from the Dolman]

It gives me no pleasure to see people asking for a football manager of our club sacked, as it means my club has failed, and that hurts. If this is going to happen then it's Steve Lansdown's call. I trust his judgement. If he backs Gary then he'll have my full support, just as he will if he decides to take another option.

I fully share that viewpoint - Steve is clearly much more astute that I can ever be, so whatever his judgement I shall support him.

[Mr Ed]

To be honest I'm torn between both camps. The emotive side of me witnesses or hears about the performances , the tactics and team selection and thinks let's get rid of him before it's too late.

Conversely I'm fully aware of the instabilities that change causes and the potential consequences. The more reflective side of me wants him to succeed and turn things around.

I think a lot of supporters would be more supportive if we were trying to reverse this bad run by having a consistent approach. All this chopping and changing gives the impression the management don't know how they're going to get a result and it's a case of trial and error with tactics and personnel hoping they'll stumble on a winning formula. Trying to predict the team to face Sheff Utd on Saturday is nearly as difficult as picking the lottery numbers. Injuries haven't helped but dropping Elliott and Hartley last night was a strange one.

[Pezo]

This is by a long way the most sensible thread I've seen for a long time with a much more balanced approach to the serious problems we are facing at the club.

What is now clear is the GJ simply doesn't have the tactical know how to survive at this level. In our first season up we made it on sheer exuberance, will to win and a close knit, consistent team, doing what they knew how to do and sticking to it. It worked a treat but as soon as clubs worked out our game plan it came to an end.

Watching Millen and Johnson in the technical area against Cardiff and Coventry gave you no confidence that they had an ideas about what to do to change things around. I wasn't there last night at Watford but it was not exactly a surprise to most of us to see that starting line up fail so dismally in the first half. There is no way we should fail so abjectly against Watford or Coventry (where we were lucky not to lose imo).

I run a business and I agree that hire and fire is no quick solution to a problem. You have to have some sympathy with the injuries to key players like JCR, Sno and Hartley who might have made the difference yesterday. It's tempting to give GJ to the end of the season but very risky I think unless he gets some serious support on tactics. How many times do you see our lads looking clueless - out of position and uncertain what to do? Sno's a good player who could create much more for us if only the others knew how to work with him - that's a training ground issue - Millen must take a lot of the blame - he surely should be able to tighten our increasingly ropey defense - that's his background - but it looks like he's not up to it. He's no striker himself and so offers nothing when it comes to scoring goals where we create so few chances it's embarrassing.

I know it's unlikely to go down well with GJ but is one solution maybe to give him a heavyweight, experienced right hand man and get rid of Millie? GJ has no experience at this level and it's beginning to become a really serious problem for us. We need someone with a much bigger footballing brain to give us more options.

Oh ... and I'm not talking about Bennie!

I agree with most of the posts on this thread but to say he has no experience at this level is a clear falsification. Like most employees at the club he has over 2 1/2 seasons experience at this level.

[PFree]

Well written and well worth the read thank you.

We need a stable line up with players playing in their correct positions and personally, I would consider using some of the youngsters - James Wilson as an example as he has great pace that's needed at the back - they are guarantedd to chase every ball and give 100% not like a number of the so called first team players at the moment?

I don't believe getting rid of GJ would benefit anybody at the moment as it's costly and all things said and done he is trying to do the right thing and has got it right before but I would consider a new assistant (Our defensive coach?) as fresh ideas, a new perspective and new contacts within the game for loans etc would help?

GJ will be hurting as much as us and will be worried by events, rest assured. Either way, we are all stronger together?

What would you prefer to face one opponent or many in unity?

to face or ?

[Ron]

On the youngsters note, what Nyatanga has done to merit a place in the starting line-up ahead of Wilson is a mystery.. He got done an absolute treat at Boro last week and Carey bailed him out last-ditch, sounds like last night wasn't much better.