F.A.O Doffcocker

doffcocker wrote:

MartinBWFC wrote:

wanderlust wrote:I'd like to think Lennon would be good in the longer term but just as there is no evidence that anyone else could do better with this squad equally there is no evidence that he has tried all the options available to him. He hasn't.
He seems to be very dogmatic about his system and selections (ok - he's reluctantly tried a few new faces for short periods) and seems unwilling to change things mid-game. But above all it's his lack of imagination that is in evidence.
We lose week upon week so eventually you'd think that he'd realise that the same old shit ain't good enough and serious and radical changes have to be made - even if it's to put a rocket up the arse of his regulars.
I don't like changing managers mid season and we can't afford to do it anyway, but those that argue for change have a fair point and should be allowed to make it.

Bottom line? Lennon has shown us nothing to demonstrate he's up to the job.

 Good point, well said.

Ha ha, you mean it vaguely reads "Lennon isn't very good" so it's good enough for you.

Bit confused to be honest how wanderlust could be as supportive as he seemed towards Freedman, yet so unsympathetic towards Lennon who's clearly inherited a smaller squad and had less money to spend on it.

Perhaps I misinterpreted the posts at the time. Please enlighten me Wanderlust.

Just saying that as Lennon hasn't shown any real imagination or initiative in these difficult circumstances it seems fair to suggest others may do better - if change was an option - which I don't think it is, so it's a moot point anyway.

Think you could level the same at you Doff, you were one of Freedman's biggest critics yet make the same arguments for Lennon as you argued against for Freedman. Freedman may have inherited a bigger squad but he had to cut it drastically, undeniable that he did a better job of bringing players in than Lennon has (even when Lennon did have money to spend).

bwfc1874 wrote:Think you could level the same at you Doff, you were one of Freedman's biggest critics yet make the same arguments for Lennon as you argued against for Freedman. Freedman may have inherited a bigger squad but he had to cut it drastically, undeniable that he did a better job of bringing players in than Lennon has (even when Lennon did have money to spend).

The key difference is Freedman had a squad that was there to be rotated and good God he did do that.

In Lennon's case, there basically isn't that option. He too has had to let players go and seems to have been given a pitiful fraction of it back to reinvest. On the one hand it's a curse and it's probably taking us down, on the other hand it makes picking the team a walk in the park, and Lennon can hide behind the fact that he's so few options.

Looking back I have more sympathy for Freedman than I did at the time. Clearly we've had so many players over the last five years who could be great on their day but were ultimately not good enough. A situation certainly not helped by Dougie's ridiculous constant swapping and changing, but I do agree on reflection that there were bigger underlying problems at the club at that time.

I don't necessarily think Lennon hasn't made mistakes, I just don't think he's had enough chances to make them, certainly not as many as Dougie had. We don't know that he'd be any better at managing a bigger group of players than Freedman and other managers before him, but we don't know the opposite is true either.