Whilst im not going to get into the "Who was best manager since fergie" debate i do have the following to say.
Today is a happy day for stoney, some of you think i didnt have much time for Calderwood, truth is in the past 2 and a bit years you would be correct, but today is a little bit of a sad day too.
In Jimmys first year with us he inherited some great young players, backed up with signing experianced players (seve, barry nic and lovell) to bring them on, the perfect mix. Its fair to say after the season before i was fairly excited by the season that was to follow and i wasnt dissapointed. First season in the job is always getting the team to the way you like it and building up a good team we even had an outside chance of Europe- Passed with flying colours couldnt be happier with him.
2nd Season - wasnt the greatest but we were still playing decent football, never left a game early we were unlucky that hearts and hibs were flying that season and had money to spend. Plus we had an excellent team, a natural leader (in anderson) an international standard midfield (seve at the time was playing his best stuff, nicolson after taking a year to settle in was playing well, and we all knew what jamie smith could do on his day)
3rd Season - Started off the season like a house on fire, we were flying in the league playing some of the best football i had seen us play, couldnt be happier with calderwood he was doing a fantastic job - we looked a nap to finish 2nd that season, i remember it quite well that we had rangers at pittodrie to go 6 points clear of them, it was like something changed over night and we were scared to get beat in that game, for some reason we changed the whole way we played in that season to accomodate rangers, i have no idea why to this day but we ended up getting beat of a very shite rangers team and i started to think that calderwood didnt have a clue what he was doing.
A few weeks later we were playing worse and worse and we got humped badly from hibs (first game i have ever left early at the time) kept hearing calderwood talk more and more about other teams instead of having faith in his own players, we had a great team at that time and i felt that if we had a better manager we could have finished 2nd that season.
4th Season was the beggining of the end if you take the euro trips out of that season it was awful we took a massive step backwards in my opinion i cant remember wanting to stay till the end of many games, the last straw for me was the QOTS game think he should have walked after that game, quite dissapointed its taken him so long to jack it in, would have still had some respect for him if he walked last season, altho there isnt a massive differance in the home attendances the away support is well down on what it was and also the supporters are a lot less vocal.
Whilst i give Calderwood the credit he deserves for making us hard to beat and very solid i feel in his past two years that we became a team scared to get beat and hence never really had a great run of consistant wins. Too many stupid draws against lesser teams, if he left us at the start of the 07/08 season i honestly think we would have had some success in the cups by now, we put hearts and united in their place and they have crept back on us - i think this season was a wasted season.
Im not sure about mcghee he's done a good job with motherwell on a third of our budget and also has worked well with the young players they have, which is what we are going to have to relay on, i dont think the next manager is going to get the backing that calderwood has, and i think a reverse effect of this season on any new manager, i think the JIG will make it very difficult for us to have the chance to rebuild. Whoever comes in he's going to need the same two years that calderwood had to get the show on the road.
I dont believe our fans have the patience for this.
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Mr Mcghee the seat is all yours.
Whilst im not going to get into the "Who was best manager since fergie" debate i do have the following to say.
Today is a happy day for stoney, some of you think i didnt have much time for Calderwood, truth is in the past 2 and a bit years you would be correct, but today is a little bit of a sad day too.
In Jimmys first year with us he inherited some great young players, backed up with signing experianced players (seve, barry nic and lovell) to bring them on, the perfect mix. Its fair to say after the season before i was fairly excited by the season that was to follow and i wasnt dissapointed. First season in the job is always getting the team to the way you like it and building up a good team we even had an outside chance of Europe- Passed with flying colours couldnt be happier with him.
2nd Season - wasnt the greatest but we were still playing decent football, never left a game early we were unlucky that hearts and hibs were flying that season and had money to spend. Plus we had an excellent team, a natural leader (in anderson) an international standard midfield (seve at the time was playing his best stuff, nicolson after taking a year to settle in was playing well, and we all knew what jamie smith could do on his day)
3rd Season - Started off the season like a house on fire, we were flying in the league playing some of the best football i had seen us play, couldnt be happier with calderwood he was doing a fantastic job - we looked a nap to finish 2nd that season, i remember it quite well that we had rangers at pittodrie to go 6 points clear of them, it was like something changed over night and we were scared to get beat in that game, for some reason we changed the whole way we played in that season to accomodate rangers, i have no idea why to this day but we ended up getting beat of a very shite rangers team and i started to think that calderwood didnt have a clue what he was doing.
A few weeks later we were playing worse and worse and we got humped badly from hibs (first game i have ever left early at the time) kept hearing calderwood talk more and more about other teams instead of having faith in his own players, we had a great team at that time and i felt that if we had a better manager we could have finished 2nd that season.
4th Season was the beggining of the end if you take the euro trips out of that season it was awful we took a massive step backwards in my opinion i cant remember wanting to stay till the end of many games, the last straw for me was the QOTS game think he should have walked after that game, quite dissapointed its taken him so long to jack it in, would have still had some respect for him if he walked last season, altho there isnt a massive differance in the home attendances the away support is well down on what it was and also the supporters are a lot less vocal.
Whilst i give Calderwood the credit he deserves for making us hard to beat and very solid i feel in his past two years that we became a team scared to get beat and hence never really had a great run of consistant wins. Too many stupid draws against lesser teams, if he left us at the start of the 07/08 season i honestly think we would have had some success in the cups by now, we put hearts and united in their place and they have crept back on us - i think this season was a wasted season.
Im not sure about mcghee he's done a good job with motherwell on a third of our budget and also has worked well with the young players they have, which is what we are going to have to relay on, i dont think the next manager is going to get the backing that calderwood has, and i think a reverse effect of this season on any new manager, i think the JIG will make it very difficult for us to have the chance to rebuild. Whoever comes in he's going to need the same two years that calderwood had to get the show on the road.
I dont believe our fans have the patience for this.
Good luck Mark - You are going to need.
COYR