Confidence In Paul Buckle No2

Well, this just shows how fickle football can be. One bad run and opinions change so quickly. Having said that, my opinion has changed, drastically, in this time.

At the start of the season I allowed myself to accept the poor signings and loss of Phillips and I, wrongly, thought that they were all, in fact good signings, at first.

I now think that Brough is a waste of space and that Wroe, Thompson and Hodges were additions that were made in the wrong area. In the case of Green, it is too early to cast him off but I would certainly rather see Lee Phillips. To me Carlisle was a good signing and I can see Carayol making it as a decent impact player but I would no way start with him ahead of Stevens, who is clearly more skillful, more composed and generally a better player.

Therefore, the signings must be questioned, as must the non signing of a right back or any new natural centre back.

I thought that attacking him last season was slightly unfair because he got some decent players in but the wheels just came off abit at the end and, he made tactical errors whitch you can, sort of, accept in a new manager.

But now, we can see that he has acted poorly in the transfer market and, despite the fact that he made these purchases and every player here is one of his, he does'nt seem to know who to play or where to play them.

You mentioned on another thread that people have seemed to stop caring so much. I think this was a very good point. I have become less interested with keeping up with matches. I watched the Kidderminster game on Setanta and was, ultimatley dissapointed again. Therefore, I decided not to go to the (slightly inconvieniantley timed for me) Northwitch game that I could have managed to get to if I had really wanted to. Rather than listening to the radio devon commentry throughout, I just kept up with the score online and listened to the last few minutes.

Its not that I have stopped caring but I am becoming resigned to the fact that we have no where to go this season, unless our form drastically improves. Therefore i , like many im sure, just feel less intrested in a result when it means little. We won yesterday and I was obviously very pleased with the result but I still can't help but think that we will become a mediocre midtable side for the rest of this season and results will soon have very little bearing on anything other than the team that is playing against us.

Yes, I'm another who has no confidence in Buckle. What possessed him to put Thompson at right back instead of Mansell. On the popside it soon became very obvious that it was a mistake and we were shouting to Mansell to change over, which eventually was what happened. As a result Thompson seemed drained of any confidence and it showed in his performance for the rest of the game. And let's be honest the second half performance was dire. It was obvious on the popside that they were going to score as they came out with much more passion and urgency than us.
I had no objection to him playing the starting forwards, although I would like to have seen Stevens starting on the right instead of Carlisle. Once again the midfield was poor. Both Mansell and Hargreaves both worked their socks off but as a report in my paper says" they huffed and puffed to no avail". We totally lack any creativity in midfield. We have a plethora of hardworking battling midfield players, but only Adams could be described as being creative.
My quick summing up of the game is that we didn't deserve to win, but Northwich deserved to lose. I'm surprised that noone has mentioned their blatant time wasting with players going down all over the place. It came back to haunt them at the end with all the added time. I had a horrible premonition, that they would score the winner in added time; it's the sort of thing that happens to us. But more by luck than judgement it went theother way.
I don't know why the likes of Merse are continually criticising the likes of me for being anti- Buckle. We are constantly being told to give him a chance as the seasons only so many games old. What is conveniently forgotten is that this has been going on for 30 games, not 8. From the new year on we have been subjected to the same poor quality of football, with the same tactics of hoof and run, playing players out of position, (seems to be a failing of England managers as well). Why do they do it? and why does it take so long for them to realise they've made a mistake. Even Cappello is at it.
The truth is we are just not good enough and no amount of intelectual twaddle from the likes of Merse is going to improve things. I went to all the preseason games at Bideford, (did you go Merse?) and would just point out that we were well beaten twice by a side in the Conference South, which is what our level is at the moment.
There are those that say changing the manager won't have any effect as we will have the same players. You only have to look at happened at York last season to show how a new manager can change things around, with the same players.
Is it any surprise that crowds are dwindling. In case the idle rich in London hadn't noticed, times are hard financially for many of us, including yours truly. As many of us travel a fair distance to even the home games the time comes when enough is enough. I have been a supporter for over 60 years, (I even have black and white blood coursing through my veins [you have to be of a certain age to understand that]), and although when I was working I couldn't manage many games what with working at weekends etc., I have been to every home game since I retired 4 years ago. My journey is 60 miles each way, taking about 11/2 hours and costing about £25 for fuel alone. SUNDAY WAS MY LAST.As long as Buckle is manager. I can hear Merse saying what sort of supporter am I, running away from the team I love, when I shoud be giving them my all at a time of need. What about them giving their all at my time of need.
I shall continue to be a "supporter" "until I die" as the song goes, but spend £40 plus to watch that, no thanks.

Edit Hi I just sorted out the red bit for you as It did not come out properly when you did it Dave R

Congratulations on contributing to another young player receiving abuse and losing confidence. Try to help yourself by keeping off the players' backs and as for what sort of fan you are..............................one that Thompson won't miss for sure!

I am in the Buckle camp on this.

Yeah, if the results dont improve soon, maybe the club will/have to act to get a new person in.

I belive in giving people time to prove tht what they have done is not just luck or riding any waves or going through a bad patch. If you look at other clubs you get managers that have gone nearly 10 matches or more without a win and then sort it out and get the team back on track.

Yeah I can see where everyone is coming from: Buckle being inexperianced, the team not getting the results we want, signing too many midfielders, not signing a right-back etc...

...but in time I think and hope he will find someone that can cover the right-back position and sort out where everyone else plays in the team.

First of all to that Merse person. Thompson did not get any abuse from anyone that I heard and I was near to him. If anything he only got sympathy for being played in a position he obviously did not relish. IF YOU HAD BEEN THERE YOU WOULD HAVE SEEN THAT FOR YOURSELF. Instead of pontificating from afar about something for once you have absolutely no idea about. And further for your information I did not hear any abuse from any supporter for the team at the end. I think we were all rather relieved that we got 3 points.
With regard to confidence in Buckle, I can only repeat what I keep saying.. I am not judging him on 8 matches, but on the last 30. We all agree things were not good from Xmas on, and I am saying that he was partly responsible for the steady decline from then onwards.