I disagree but I like the contrarianism.
I think we’ll start the season badly, he’ll be given ten matches like Dodds but might be canny enough to see the writing on the wall and quit rather than be sacked.
So you think we’ll start the season badly. On what grounds do you base such an unfashionably negative view?
The current squad is brim-full of talent, both established and latent, and the sense of togetherness and team spirit, epitomised by the clear delight of Cauley Woodrow to be back at this great club, surely augurs really well for the immediate future.
Your attitude for many years towards the longer term prospects of the football club has been consistently wary at best and downright pessimistic at worst. Whether that stems purely from a desire to be provocative and different or from deep seated conviction is unclear but in the past your words of caution have usually been focused on the longer term and have therefore been less open to challenge.
It’s quite disturbing, especially to those of us who can only realistically focus on the immediate future, to hear talk of a bad start to the season.
Do any of the rest of you share such negative thoughts and feelings?
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Manager isn’t black.
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This point here is the one thing that, if he continues to do it, will have me seriously questioning him as manager of WWFC.
I understood the need to criticise players when he came in
I was with him when we threw away leads but got increasingly worried as his games in charge count increased.
After a full preseason, if the attitudes still aren’t right and he still can’t get the players to act in the professional way he desires, then that will be on him.
It’s his team and squad now - no excuses about player attitudes please
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Funny, I have had 2 feelings around the signings this window:
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It’s felt to me that Duff has had a say in all of them. They feel like he has been well involved in the process. Unless I have missed it, I haven’t heard anyone claim the signings are Rice/Stockwell signings and not players/positions Duff would want/need.
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Dan Rice is many negative things to many people. But the one thing I would say he has done is learn from past mistakes. This window feels less like Rice was playing Football Manager and more like some expirenced grown ups are doing the transfer business. I think the lack of throwing big money around is actually because he is trusting his transfer team - including Duff - more, rather than less.
The only weird thing about transfer business, for me, is that Duff never talks about the new players coming in and it’s always stockwells comments. But I guess that’s the structure these days
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The part I share with him is the IF we start badly part his job will be under threat.
I think we have largely forgotten, or happy to explain away, the awful post Bolton slump (also very quick to forget we actually beat Cardiff the next game iirc?). The issue with the form wasn’t the Bolton game per se, it was nearly every game after that Cardiff win. It literally IS his job to motivate and get the players to try and win. It wasn’t the fact we lost so many post Bolton, but the WAY we lost those games.
That is on Duff imo.
If that form and the way we lose does continue into the next season then his job should be questioned.
That said, I don’t think we will start as bad as we did last season though. So that will be a big improvement on 25/26.
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I agree. If the team starts badly, the manager is in trouble. if we don’t score any goals for ten games, our goal difference will be bad, and if we concede 20 goals in the first ten games, questions will be asked about the new keeper. If the new striker does not smile enough there are problems in the dressing room.
Don’t shoot the messenger.
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I hope hazard claps the terrace, empty or not. Has he been given that memo?
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We lost the one straight after Bolton (Luton H), though did win 2 out of the 4 games after Bolton. And tbf the other we lost in those 4 was away at Orient was solely down to the early red card
People using the Bolton result is a convenient excuse. Not sure it had any dealings on the 5 we didnt win after beating Vale 4-0.
We had a pretty poor end of season, so we need to show a big improvement. Think we had 7 points in the last 7 games.
I also think there will be an expectation to include academy players, which im not sure its Duffs aim.
My word, you are just as interminably bleak as a certain recently banned poster, just with the ability to put more than 10 words together in a coherent fashion.
Your relentless negativity knows no bounds, and your wish to hold the contrarian view on almost everything is so obviously contrived it is painful.
I think one huge factor people are just not taking into account with our mini end of season slump is the fact that it occurred at ‘the end of the season’. Tired bodies and minds of a core of players that had played a lot of football, probably over relied on by Duff, but that is because he didn’t trust players outside of the core group. Did the fact that post February in each season under Gareth Ainsworth we were almost exclusively a shadow of the side that we had been earlier in the season make him a bad manager?
Talk of Duff being under pressure really exemplifies just how entitled football fans have become. Of course there is pressure, like in all circumstances at all times, but to date he has done a very good job and has some credit in the bank. IF we lose the first 10 league games of the season he will be sacked, as would Mikel Arteta at Arsenal, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.
We have quite a tough start but would @aloysius put his money where his mouth is. Would you bet £50 to a charity of the gasroom’s choice that we will have 10 points or less after 10 games? For each point in total we get below 10 I’ll add an extra £10 (so if we have 0 points I would pay £150). For each point in total we get above 10, you’ll pay an extra £10 (so if we have 20 points you would pay £150). Happy to take that bet with you.
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I don’t want to see the Gasroom turning into a gambling site!
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I find myself in the unlikely position of defending @aloysius. (Recognising that they are more than capable of defending themself).
I don’t think it is fair to call them a contrarian as the reasons for their scepticism of Duff is consistent and generally well explained.
I personally don’t agree with their overall assessment but I do understand the rationale of how they have reached their opinion, and one or two of their concerns I do share
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I like Duff, but he is at us on the back of 2 sackings, where he didnt have long. His good form so far outweighes the bad stuff. But, there are concerns. I do wonder if he was purely in to stabilise after the Dodds fiasco. Im not sure he fits the long term strategy of bringing through the youngsters, i don’t think they will hold back if he struggles again.
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Gasroom becomes a gambling site 10/1
Duff starts wearing Fred Perry 100/1
Everybody on the politics thread agrees the libdems are the best. Lommy’s bank account/1
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Terrace gets fixed this season 750/1
I travelled back from yesterday‘s game with Tezgel’s father-in-law, who lives near me in West London and also doesn’t have a car. He is a Huddersfield fan and said that most sensible Huddersfield fans were completely against Duff’s sacking.
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Thanking you @bookertease.
I’m not sure that writing a blog makes you police of views, @Quarterman. Other opinions exist on the internet, I think you’ll just have to learn to live with that.
I’m not a gambling man so I’ll kindly decline your offer. However here’s a scenario that I think plausible. When Duff goes I wonder if the person that replaces him might be… Matt Bloomfield. It’s been two years, plenty of time for both him and Rice to bury the hatchet, accept that both made early mistakes in their relationship. Matt compromises and accepts role of Head Coach in the current structure. Rice accepts Bloomfield has a say in transfer strategy and views that deserve listening to on the way the club is run. Suddenly we start playing sexy football again. Harmony is secured and @shev returns to the Gasroom.
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I guess all views should be accommodated, but blimey. The quicker we get some proper football to talk about the better. Encouraged by Duff saying they’re still looking to add, we may get our top striker yet.