Mcinnes On Talk Sport

[Guest]

He had to half the wage bill? A play on words there, when our wage bill is one of the highest in the division yet we are performing as a bottom 6 club, doesn't it make sense to cut it?

Not sure this is a stick to beat him with (although I may be missing the point). The wage bill was a result of his predecessors, a legacy from KM, SC, and GJ. He came into the club when it was under performing and spending extortionate amounts. He left it (presumably given the departures) spending a less extortionate amount but equally under performing.

When I think of McInnes' reign I don't think he was terrible, but the circumstances regretful. I think he ultimately underestimated how bad the defence and midfield was and whilst he made a lot of positive moves, neglecting these areas was borderline negligent. Perhaps when he gets his next job he will stress the importance of a solid spine and not improve other areas as a priority.

In his defence I could understand it if he felt a large portion of our defensive frailties stemmed from DJ and that in bringing in Heaton this would immediately improve our goals against column and allow him more time to identify the correct defensive back line. Further last year we were absolute pony up top and had during the course of the season lost our most potent striker. Weighing that all up I would excuse him for pursuing two exciting attacking prospects.

Personally, I would have wanted to sack a lot of players before I would have sacked McInnes (that is not to say I wouldn't have sacked McInnes - just that there are people at the club who would have gone first).

[BCFC_Dan]

I know he had to go, But I agree with many on here about the squads attitude and effort,

let the man down or just not good enough? we will see i guess..

Or didn't know what he wanted of them.

Put 11 footballers on a pitch with no instruction and they ought to organise themselves into some sort of sensible 4-4-2 arrangement with a solid back line. You won't get the best out of them but they shouldn't look completely clueless. The trouble starts when they're given instructions they don't understand, or which don't work. The players either follow instructions and end up exposed and blamed, or they ignore the instructions and end up dropped. They can't win in that situation.

I'm not trying to defend the players or say they're blameless in any way, but if McInnes wasn't instructing them in the right way they couldn't do much about it.

[real_bristol]

I was one of those that thought sacking him might not be the best option. Admitedly though I was hiding behind what he was doing off the pitch which should always come second to results on it.

I still think he is a good manager and don't think this is the last we will see of him, it just didn't work out for him here. All in all the correct decision by the board regardless of how SOD performs.

[Esmond Million's Bung]

Not sure this is a stick to beat him with (although I may be missing the point). The wage bill was a result of his predecessors, a legacy from KM, SC, and GJ. He came into the club when it was under performing and spending extortionate amounts. He left it (presumably given the departures) spending a less extortionate amount but equally under performing.

When I think of McInnes' reign I don't think he was terrible, but the circumstances regretful. I think he ultimately underestimated how bad the defence and midfield was and whilst he made a lot of positive moves, neglecting these areas was borderline negligent. Perhaps when he gets his next job he will stress the importance of a solid spine and not improve other areas as a priority.

In his defence I could understand it if he felt a large portion of our defensive frailties stemmed from DJ and that in bringing in Heaton this would immediately improve our goals against column and allow him more time to identify the correct defensive back line. Further last year we were absolute pony up top and had during the course of the season lost our most potent striker. Weighing that all up I would excuse him for pursuing two exciting attacking prospects.

Personally, I would have wanted to sack a lot of players before I would have sacked McInnes (that is not to say I wouldn't have sacked McInnes - just that there are people at the club who would have gone first).

Can't agree, he acted far too late. in his last 2 post match interviews he started to quite rightly blame the players who he stayed far too loyal to, he should have been ruthless in the summer telling some of these guys thanks but they were no longer wanted and threaten them with training with the kids anything to get them out and off of the wage bill and bring in players who want to play and not players who want all of the trappings. One of the reasons that football is in such a sorry state and BCFC in particular is because the players have all of the power and have legions of people defending them for whatever they do from cheating, to bad attitude and even rape, it's about time footballers started to be treated like employees and not spoiled privileged kids.

[Port Said Red]

Its common sense. Any manager whose team is rock bottom and six point away from safety in mid January must have had some indication that his job just might be at risk.

Yes especially as the owner had made quotes along the lines of "dels our man" and allowed him to make a signing only the day before. The indications were defintely there weren't they?

It's a huge shame that the board couldn't back their man for the long term plan as they indicated, I suppose some people don't have any the courage of their convictions and make the easy decisions at times.

They have lost my support for ever more, I wonder how many others feel the same way.

[Esmond Million's Bung]

No midfielder worthy of the name should be instructed to track back opposing players.

No defender worthy of the name should be instructed to effectively mark an opposing player.

The position we are in is, in my opinion, almost entirely down to the players - especially our former captain and our current one. Captains my arse.

Its no wonder McInnes was chopping and changing the team trying to get the best possible combination, but when you have players who have just given up on the basics what chance does the team have ? None, we were set up to lose.

The biggest mistake McInnes made (and those before him) was trusting the wrong players, they'll always let him down. He should have been braver and given others a run in the side.

and shipped out the players who continually let him down, he wasn't tough enough.

[Nibor]

The biggest mistake McInnes made (and those before him) was trusting the wrong players, they'll always let him down. He should have been braver and given others a run in the side.

No, the biggest mistake McInnes made, and made over and over again, was constantly changing the formation, tactics and first XI.

It is impossible for a team to form when subjected to constant change and tinkering like this does not give the players the opportunity to trust him.

I accept that he was asked to do some hard work on the wage bill but I know for sure that it was not halved this season, not even close, and he knew this going into the job.

I think he did well in the transfer market with players he did sign, I think he spoke well and wanted him to succeed.

What let him down was the constant ******* about with the team and not signing a couple of permanent centre halves.

[BCFC_Dan]

No midfielder worthy of the name should be instructed to track back opposing players.

No defender worthy of the name should be instructed to effectively mark an opposing player.

This is my point, though. With no instructions they might do those things you expect of them. With unclear or conflicting instructions they might not.

I'm not suggesting McInnes told defenders not to mark and midfielders not to track, but if what he told them to do didn't get through or confused them then it will have caused problems. Or even if they did what he told them and it didn't work. It leaves the players with a choice of disobeying instructions or being made to look at fault.

[Nibor]

Yes, the chopping and changing is a big factor in us being at the bottom. But when a manager trusts players that continually let him down by not doing the basics, regardless of formation and team or tactics, the team will always be at a disadvantage. He should have dropped them ages ago, and previous managers should have done the same. He did eventually drop Fontaine - then brought him back again. I did say when McIness came in that trusting certain players would see him out of the door and, coupled with his own shortcomings including panicking into all the changes, I think thats what has come about. It turned out that McInnes was too soft and inexperienced for the job.

SOD will get a settled side and I fully expect Skuse and Fontaine to suddenly, miraculously, remember what it is they are supposed to be doing.

I don't buy into the idea that the players just let him down. Not one bit. Players don't just decide to play badly. They can lose confidence, be confused, frustrated, whatever but they don't go out and decide to stitch the manager up. That is fan fiction.

I do agree that Fontaine needed dropping a long time ago and I don't know why that wasn't done but I will speculate.

I have a suspicion about the defence that I've nursed for a while. If you look at how we've defended, you see defenders sticking fairly rigidly to their positions, and continual confusion about who is picking up who. I'm not certain, but I think that McInnes tried to switch us to largely zonal marking, and that was a large part of all of the confusion. I think McInnes left Fontaine in because he wanted the defence to get accustomed to zonal and saw Fontaine as the lynch pin.

In the last few games when he swapped us to 532 he left it zonal and still nobody seemed to know who to pick up. We didn't get any additional benefit from an extra man at the back. Now 532 normally has two of the back three doing man to man but we didn't seem to. We had opposition just ploughing through the gaps inside the full back and through the back three, every time taking advantage of the "who's man is he?" indecisiveness - at least it seemed that way to me.

Of course, this is just guesswork but it does seem to fit.

[downendcity]

They shouldn't need instructions to do the basics should they.

They're supposed to be professional footballers at championship level.

If they can't think for themselves out on the pitch then just what do they get paid £5-10000 per week for - turning up?

[Super]

I don't buy into the idea that the players just let him down. Not one bit. Players don't just decide to play badly. They can lose confidence, be confused, frustrated, whatever but they don't go out and decide to stitch the manager up. That is fan fiction.

I do agree that Fontaine needed dropping a long time ago and I don't know why that wasn't done but I will speculate.

I have a suspicion about the defence that I've nursed for a while. If you look at how we've defended, you see defenders sticking fairly rigidly to their positions, and continual confusion about who is picking up who. I'm not certain, but I think that McInnes tried to switch us to largely zonal marking, and that was a large part of all of the confusion. I think McInnes left Fontaine in because he wanted the defence to get accustomed to zonal and saw Fontaine as the lynch pin.

In the last few games when he swapped us to 532 he left it zonal and still nobody seemed to know who to pick up. We didn't get any additional benefit from an extra man at the back. Now 532 normally has two of the back three doing man to man but we didn't seem to. We had opposition just ploughing through the gaps inside the full back and through the back three, every time taking advantage of the "who's man is he?" indecisiveness - at least it seemed that way to me.

Of course, this is just guesswork but it does seem to fit.

I don't buy this. We have all seen players not giving a 100% effort that is clear to see.

[Nibor]

I don't buy this. We have all seen players not giving a 100% effort that is clear to see.

It's not possible for us to actually know how much effort a player is putting in. We can only guess what's going in their heads.

I don't think players go out intending to do less than their best, I think they make mistakes and lose confidence. They're not intending to let anyone down or stitch anyone up.

[BCFC_Dan]

They shouldn't need instructions to do the basics should they.

They're supposed to be professional footballers at championship level.

No. Which is what I said.

I imagine you don't need instructions to do your job to a decent standard either. Now imagine that your boss (if you don't have one, please imagine that you do) has asked you to do something that to you seems completely counter-intuitive. Do you:

(a) Do what he says and hope for the best or

(b) Do what you think is right and go against his wishes

If you go against his wishes he might not ask you to do the job again. If you do what he says and it doesn't work you'll start to lose faith that he knows what he's doing. The only way the situation can really work is if the manager is actually right and his instructions work. Which didn't happen for McInnes.

[TRL]

It's not possible for us to actually know how much effort a player is putting in. We can only guess what's going in their heads.

I don't think players go out intending to do less than their best, I think they make mistakes and lose confidence. They're not intending to let anyone down or stitch anyone up.

I'm not sure the players chose not to play for McInnes, but who really knows, but players definitely have done so in the past at this club and at other clubs. If they lose faith in the manager, they put in the performances to remove him.

This came from a player I know, who will remain nameless, as he still plays, not for us I hasten to add.

[The Bard]

Exactly what did happen: we lost 5-3 to Blackburn, 3-2 to Leeds and 3-2 to Bolton. Confidence disappears, so do the goals and suddenly a 4-3 win becomes a 3-2 defeat, then a 3-0 defeat. The only way back is to stop shipping goals and McInnes couldn't do it.

Perfect analysis of why our season has fallen to pieces. Any manager shipping 3 goals a game that doesn't do something about it is asking to be sacked. He lost his job entirely due to his inability to get us to defend to any acceptable standard. The tinkering was a symptom of this failing.

[Robbored]

And I'll say it again, the players were as much to blame for McInnes leaving as he was himself.

Of course they were but neither Anderson or Skuse held their hands up on that score during their interviews yesterdays.

That said we don't actually know what instructions the players were given before each game by McInnes. Maybe he was strict about them following his dodgy tactics.

I did hear that a certain defender who was coming back from injury and hadn't trained that week was made to travel to an away match. 45 mins before ko he was told he was starting not having done any preparation at all. He, nor any of the defenders were given any instructions by McInnes.

[BCFC_Dan]

Me, some time ago:

I'm not suggesting McInnes told defenders not to mark and midfielders not to track, but if what he told them to do didn't get through or confused them then it will have caused problems. Or even if they did what he told them and it didn't work. It leaves the players with a choice of disobeying instructions or being made to look at fault.

You, just now:

Nobody said to Skuse "please don't track back, just let the opposition run by you"

Nobody said to Fontaine "please don't man mark the opposition, let 'em score"

[BCFC_Dan]

I'll say it again;

Nobody said to Skuse "please don't track back, just let the opposition run by you"

Nobody said to Fontaine "please don't man mark the opposition, let 'em score"

And thats it.

No. But maybe someone said "Always track back. Except when we're playing 3 at the back or the opposition has a quick forward or there's an R in the month or Liam Fontaine is nearby and make sure you track their attacking midfielder but always track their wingers and their strikers and don't track back if the ball is in a wide position. And if you don't do all that you're dropped."

If things were as simple as you're making out we wouldn't need football managers at all.

[SaintB]

I seen some parallels between the City team and the Saints team that McInnes inherited.

Our fist season in the SPL we were scoring for fun but to win a game we had to score 3. The following season he almost overreacted to our poor defence and we ended up one of the lowest goals total by any club in any season. We finished 8th with a worse goals scored column than the relegated side. Fortunately he did manage to fix our defence though with the third best defensive record in the league and the 2nd most clean sheets. The following season he finally seemed to get the balance right - it took 3 years though. This is why it surprised me that he never cracked it at City.

One good example of the above is Blackburn Rovers this season. Steve Kean absolutely knew Rovers defence was utterly appauling so he went gung-ho attack in every game. When he was sacked Rovers were in the top 3. Henning Berg, as a defender himself, took it upon himself to try and fix the defence. He made the team more defensive, more compact and ultimitely more impotent. Unfortunately for him the defence was still awful so the result was less goals scored, still too many conceded and 1 win in 10 games. I think Del made the mistake of trying to tighten a defence that he simply did not have the personnel to improve and consequently you lost your attacking edge which in all likelyhood would have seen him survie at least until he bought some better defenders.

[BCFC_Dan]

As per Clough, shankly and Ferguson - it IS a simple game.

If people want to make out how complicated it is with formations and zonal this and that, thats up to them.

Its utter bullshite.

If players are lazy or so thick that they can't take in what they're responsibilities are then they shouldn't be at this level - its as simple as that.

So if the manager wants to over complicate it then the players should just ignore him and do what they think is right?

[Red-Robbo]

I don't buy into the idea that the players just let him down. Not one bit. Players don't just decide to play badly. They can lose confidence, be confused, frustrated, whatever but they don't go out and decide to stitch the manager up. That is fan fiction.

I do agree that Fontaine needed dropping a long time ago and I don't know why that wasn't done but I will speculate.

I have a suspicion about the defence that I've nursed for a while. If you look at how we've defended, you see defenders sticking fairly rigidly to their positions, and continual confusion about who is picking up who. I'm not certain, but I think that McInnes tried to switch us to largely zonal marking, and that was a large part of all of the confusion. I think McInnes left Fontaine in because he wanted the defence to get accustomed to zonal and saw Fontaine as the lynch pin.

In the last few games when he swapped us to 532 he left it zonal and still nobody seemed to know who to pick up. We didn't get any additional benefit from an extra man at the back. Now 532 normally has two of the back three doing man to man but we didn't seem to. We had opposition just ploughing through the gaps inside the full back and through the back three, every time taking advantage of the "who's man is he?" indecisiveness - at least it seemed that way to me.

Of course, this is just guesswork but it does seem to fit.

100% with Nibor on this one.

They got to be professional footballers by a natural ability coupled with a will to win, a competitive ego if you like. Very few lose that instinct, but they do get demoralised, confused and played out of position.

[Nibor]

I'm not sure the players chose not to play for McInnes, but who really knows, but players definitely have done so in the past at this club and at other clubs. If they lose faith in the manager, they put in the performances to remove him.

This came from a player I know, who will remain nameless, as he still plays, not for us I hasten to add.

I simply don't believe that. They might be glad to see a manager go, they might be unhappy and unmotivated and low on confidence playing for a particular manager and hence play worse. But players don't deliberately put in sub par performances to stitch a manager up, someone who did that would be letting their teammates down. It wouldn't be OK with the rest of the team at all.

[Monkeh]

It's not possible for us to actually know how much effort a player is putting in. We can only guess what's going in their heads.

I don't think players go out intending to do less than their best, I think they make mistakes and lose confidence. They're not intending to let anyone down or stitch anyone up.

Yes they do

They did it with Johnson they did it with Millen and now they've done it with mcinnes

The following players should have their contracts termanated at the end of the season

Skuse, Elliot, Fontaine? Foster, these four are the main culprits

[Nibor]

Yes they do

They did it with Johnson they did it with Millen and now they've done it with mcinnes

The following players should have their contracts termanated at the end of the season

Skuse, Elliot, Fontaine? Foster, these four are the main culprits

No they don't, it's a nonsense idea. An argument on this basis could go on for a while though so I'll leave it there.

[TRL]

I simply don't believe that. They might be glad to see a manager go, they might be unhappy and unmotivated and low on confidence playing for a particular manager and hence play worse. But players don't deliberately put in sub par performances to stitch a manager up, someone who did that would be letting their teammates down. It wouldn't be OK with the rest of the team at all.

You can disbelieve it all you like, that was direct from a pro footballers mouth.