Tue Sep 11, 2018 6:34 pm
Wed Sep 12, 2018 5:56 am
Wed Sep 12, 2018 9:03 am
Tonteg Bluebird wrote:It should take a remarkable managerial reign for a football manager to be honoured, Alex Ferguson deserves to be honoured for the years of service, success and dominance he gave to Man Utd. Russell Slade definitely doesn't deserve to be honoured, but he should definitely be thanked for what he did for our football club.
Slade had an incredible mess to sort out after Ole's disastrous reign. We were in free fall and I think Slade definitely steadied the ship, stopping us from plummeting down into League 1. Slade nearly got us into the playoffs and made the necessary cut backs required to make our club more financially stable. Slade was the correct manager to bring in at the correct time. Actually, I think Russell Slade was one of the most important managerial appointments in our clubs history, and I'm not joking!
I will never understand why some fans complained about Slade's "boring" football. We only lost at home twice in his one full season with us and he made us very difficult to beat. Fans moaning at Slade's style of play must have forgotten where Ole's "entertaining" football got us where we were sliced open at will by teams we finished well above in Malky's promotion season when we lost home to Hull 3-0 and home to Palace 4-0.
We actually played some decent stuff under Slade at times. He didn't even have a good enough natural striker to work with after all the cut backs he had to make, but he brought in Lex Immers and converted Pilkington to a striker, they forged a very successful partnership. Our 4-1 win home to Brighton was the highlight of Slade's full season with us and Slade wheeled and dealed impressively to offload the high earners and bring in the likes of Tom Lawrence on loan.
Unfortunately, because Slade was an ex PE teacher and lower league manager, it was easy for fans to slag him off. We were in free fall until Slade arrived and steadied the ship. Warnock never gets criticised for setting us up negatively to grind out an ugly 1-0 win. Nobody complained about Malky's football being boring. But with Slade, it was different. I was delighted Slade immediately got us more organised and more difficult to beat, even if it made us uglier to watch. It was what was required at the time to stop the rot and get us climbing the table.
Slade got us the results required to comfortably avoid the drop and he built on that with an 8th placed finish in his one and only full season with us. We actually only lost home twice in Slade's only full season with us. To be fair, the majority of our fans sympathised with Slade with those only 2 home defeats. We battered Hull, doing everything but score and we went down to 9 men against Leeds. We all applauded the players efforts as soon as Leeds put the second in, as we outplayed them with 9 men and gave it everything.
That's why I will never understand some of our fans. Everyone applauded the players efforts under Slade, he got the players giving their all for him and we only failed to make the playoffs because we fell away at the end with our lack of strength in depth from all the cut backs Slade had to make. But he's an ex PE teacher who had only managed lower league teams before us, so he wasn't "glamorous" enough for our fans and easy to criticise.
Personally, I will always appreciate what Russell Slade did for our football club, I will always stick up for Slade for the job he did and I will always defend Slade because of how disgracefully he was treated here by our fans. I have never seen a manager get so much unnecessary criticism for doing a very good job for us under difficult circumstances.
Wed Sep 12, 2018 10:47 am
Wed Sep 12, 2018 11:35 am
Wed Sep 12, 2018 12:22 pm
Tonteg Bluebird wrote:It should take a remarkable managerial reign for a football manager to be honoured, Alex Ferguson deserves to be honoured for the years of service, success and dominance he gave to Man Utd. Russell Slade definitely doesn't deserve to be honoured, but he should definitely be thanked for what he did for our football club.
Slade had an incredible mess to sort out after Ole's disastrous reign. We were in free fall and I think Slade definitely steadied the ship, stopping us from plummeting down into League 1. Slade nearly got us into the playoffs and made the necessary cut backs required to make our club more financially stable. Slade was the correct manager to bring in at the correct time. Actually, I think Russell Slade was one of the most important managerial appointments in our clubs history, and I'm not joking!
I will never understand why some fans complained about Slade's "boring" football. We only lost at home twice in his one full season with us and he made us very difficult to beat. Fans moaning at Slade's style of play must have forgotten where Ole's "entertaining" football got us where we were sliced open at will by teams we finished well above in Malky's promotion season when we lost home to Hull 3-0 and home to Palace 4-0.
We actually played some decent stuff under Slade at times. He didn't even have a good enough natural striker to work with after all the cut backs he had to make, but he brought in Lex Immers and converted Pilkington to a striker, they forged a very successful partnership. Our 4-1 win home to Brighton was the highlight of Slade's full season with us and Slade wheeled and dealed impressively to offload the high earners and bring in the likes of Tom Lawrence on loan.
Unfortunately, because Slade was an ex PE teacher and lower league manager, it was easy for fans to slag him off. We were in free fall until Slade arrived and steadied the ship. Warnock never gets criticised for setting us up negatively to grind out an ugly 1-0 win. Nobody complained about Malky's football being boring. But with Slade, it was different. I was delighted Slade immediately got us more organised and more difficult to beat, even if it made us uglier to watch. It was what was required at the time to stop the rot and get us climbing the table.
Slade got us the results required to comfortably avoid the drop and he built on that with an 8th placed finish in his one and only full season with us. We actually only lost home twice in Slade's only full season with us. To be fair, the majority of our fans sympathised with Slade with those only 2 home defeats. We battered Hull, doing everything but score and we went down to 9 men against Leeds. We all applauded the players efforts as soon as Leeds put the second in, as we outplayed them with 9 men and gave it everything.
That's why I will never understand some of our fans. Everyone applauded the players efforts under Slade, he got the players giving their all for him and we only failed to make the playoffs because we fell away at the end with our lack of strength in depth from all the cut backs Slade had to make. But he's an ex PE teacher who had only managed lower league teams before us, so he wasn't "glamorous" enough for our fans and easy to criticise.
Personally, I will always appreciate what Russell Slade did for our football club, I will always stick up for Slade for the job he did and I will always defend Slade because of how disgracefully he was treated here by our fans. I have never seen a manager get so much unnecessary criticism for doing a very good job for us under difficult circumstances.