Has Bowyer lost it?

Are we as a team making progress ? Are we looking that we might ? For me at this point no but we have some new players and we have to accept that when they settle we might become better. How long before we can tell ? I think six games is reasonable but by then the slight hope of playoffs will have completely vanished. Unless there is a general upturn then Lee should go at the end of the season. 

MuttleyCAFC said:

FirenzeAddick said:

First time posting.

Going back to the title of the thread. I think what Bowyer has ‘lost’ is that spark and enjoyment. 

It comes across in his demeanour and is clear to see. Sadly it happens in this game at times.

I wish he could take a break and come back invigorated to start the ‘journey’ again. But that’s not an option without stepping back from the game entirely for a period.

I sincerely hope he can stop the rot and introduce a better style with the new signings, but if that doesn’t happen in the next 5 games I can see TS making the decision which for many is becoming an inevitability.

The problem is we are at a stage in the season where those 5 games could be the difference between having a chance or virtually no chance. Mind you, whilst we haven't been great away, our issues are at home as one tactic scuppers us time and time again. I don't think opponents even have to watch us now, they know how to set up against us.

I don’t disagree. We could and should be performing better, without doubt. I do think there is a real argument to be had for improving the backroom. Newcastle have tried to assist Bruce by bringing in Graeme Jones. 

FirenzeAddick said:

First time posting.

Going back to the title of the thread. I think what Bowyer has ‘lost’ is that spark and enjoyment. 

It comes across in his demeanour and is clear to see. Sadly it happens in this game at times.

I wish he could take a break and come back invigorated to start the ‘journey’ again. But that’s not an option without stepping back from the game entirely for a period.

I sincerely hope he can stop the rot and introduce a better style with the new signings, but if that doesn’t happen in the next 5 games I can see TS making the decision which for many is becoming an inevitability.

The thing is in almost any other walk of life you would like to think his boss would say something like "you have worked flat out for 2 years, in far from ideal circumstances, take 2 weeks off and totally switch off.  Me and Jonnie can look after things".

It never happens in football, ever.  It's probably a reason why MOST football managers, with notable exceptions get worse the longer they are in the same job. 

Loyalty is a very fragile word in footy terms, I do feel some towards LB as he has been through such shit times with previous owners, however what’s being served up currently is nothing short of complete & utter ****ing garbage. There doesn’t, as pointed out by many, any consistent formation or tactic and regardless of our 2 1st choice  CB’s not being available the team just can not defend front to back. February is an important month for LB if play offs are out of reach by the end then I think TS advised by Ged Roddy might pull the trigger.  Eddie Howe would be my choice, but no doubt he has a few suitors in higher leagues than us. 

Mendonca In Asdas said:

J BLOCK said:

Bowyer can count himself lucky that fans aren't allowed in at the minute. There would be more than a few grumblings these past few weeks at the full time whistle. 

Spot on, better on here is toxic than at the ground, if things were opened up and we could go back to games in say a months time (won't happen) how many on here would seriously consider going to a match?

100% with bells on! I can't wait to get back to The Valley as soon as it is safe to do so regardless of what pish is served up. 

Having thought about the situation, I now believe more than ever that we can have a shot at promotion this season or stick with Bowyer.  TS has a difficult, but necessary decision to make, IMHO.

I have tried to rally round and give him the benefit of the doubt, but in the end, I am just kidding myself.  The evidence is there for all to see.  We are going backwards.

It is now quite apparent that he is just not a very good manager; I think that he is just not bright enough to think strategically, nor does he have the emotional intelligence necessary to be a good man-manager. You need to be shrewd in this game and LB is just not capable of this.  It is interesting that the only argument for keeping him on is loyalty; no-one is making a convincing argument as to why he will bring us success, because he is failing on so many fronts.  This is why the argument that this is just a slump in form does not make sense to me - he has not shown the aptitude as a manager that would result in anything else than mediocrity.  As such, we cannot have him as the foundation of our project to restore our club to former glories as he does not have the skills to do so, so it would be a predictable failure.

Make no mistake, we have a squad that many other teams in this division would have killed for - we are underperforming badly and heading for mid-table obscurity.  He has no ethos; we don't look like a team when we play and the players don't look like they understand what their jobs are.  He flails from one team and formation to another out of what now looks like sheer desperation, hoping that he will stumble upon a magic combination by chance, because he doesn't appear to have the smarts to work it out for himself.  Plus, if you play well, he will drop you; how is that going to motivate a player to give their all?  However the clincher for me is his negativity, which will trickle down and affect all at the club.  Teams that enjoy their football play good football and do well; does that look like us at the moment?

So, tactically - not very good
Man management/motivation - not very good
Training? - we appear to be getting worse the more time that is spent on the training ground
Improving players? Not any more; starting to look like a hollow boast.

So what is he good at?  And good enough at that it will turn our fortunes around in the face of all the evidence that we have seen so far?  Loyalty aside, what logical reason do we have to expect him to succeed?

So, the argument appears to be that we owe it to LB to forego promotion and tread water as a club and put TS's project on the back burner.  As much as I am thankful to him for what he has done for us in the past, he isn't good enough now and this situation is not good enough for CAFC, especially since we now have an ambitious owner who wants us to move forward again as a club.

Keeping Bowyer here and then expecting a miraculous turnaround in results is sheer fantasy based on the available evidence.  We either get shot and then have an outside chance of salvaging the season, or we soldier on and delay the inevitable and vital rebuilding job that is the only way to long-term success.  How many seasons are we (or more importantly, TS) prepared to spend in this horrible League?

End of the day, he is not a very good manager.  We need to find someone who is and then let them rebuild the team.  The sooner we do this, the sooner we can begin to turn this club around.  If I was TS, then I would have already begun this process as his project is doomed with LB at the helm and any delay sets us back further each week.

It is a shame, but there  it is.

bigstemarra said:

Having thought about the situation, I now believe more than ever that we can have a shot at promotion this season or stick with Bowyer.  TS has a difficult, but necessary decision to make, IMHO.

I have tried to rally round and give him the benefit of the doubt, but in the end, I am just kidding myself.  The evidence is there for all to see.  We are going backwards.

It is now quite apparent that he is just not a very good manager; I think that he is just not bright enough to think strategically, nor does he have the emotional intelligence necessary to be a good man-manager. You need to be shrewd in this game and LB is just not capable of this.  It is interesting that the only argument for keeping him on is loyalty; no-one is making a convincing argument as to why he will bring us success, because he is failing on so many fronts.  This is why the argument that this is just a slump in form does not make sense to me - he has not shown the aptitude as a manager that would result in anything else than mediocrity.  As such, we cannot have him as the foundation of our project to restore our club to former glories as he does not have the skills to do so, so it would be a predictable failure.

Make no mistake, we have a squad that many other teams in this division would have killed for - we are underperforming badly and heading for mid-table obscurity.  He has no ethos; we don't look like a team when we play and the players don't look like they understand what their jobs are.  He flails from one team and formation to another out of what now looks like sheer desperation, hoping that he will stumble upon a magic combination by chance, because he doesn't appear to have the smarts to work it out for himself.  Plus, if you play well, he will drop you; how is that going to motivate a player to give their all?  However the clincher for me is his negativity, which will trickle down and affect all at the club.  Teams that enjoy their football play good football and do well; does that look like us at the moment?

So, tactically - not very good
Man management/motivation - not very good
Training? - we appear to be getting worse the more time that is spent on the training ground
Improving players? Not any more; starting to look like a hollow boast.

So what is he good at?  And good enough at that it will turn our fortunes around in the face of all the evidence that we have seen so far?  Loyalty aside, what logical reason do we have to expect him to succeed?

So, the argument appears to be that we owe it to LB to forego promotion and tread water as a club and put TS's project on the back burner.  As much as I am thankful to him for what he has done for us in the past, he isn't good enough now and this situation is not good enough for CAFC, especially since we now have an ambitious owner who wants us to move forward again as a club.

Keeping Bowyer here and then expecting a miraculous turnaround in results is sheer fantasy based on the available evidence.  We either get shot and then have an outside chance of salvaging the season, or we soldier on and delay the inevitable and vital rebuilding job that is the only way to long-term success.  How many seasons are we (or more importantly, TS) prepared to spend in this horrible League?

End of the day, he is not a very good manager.  We need to find someone who is and then let them rebuild the team.  The sooner we do this, the sooner we can begin to turn this club around.  If I was TS, then I would have already begun this process as his project is doomed with LB at the helm and any delay sets us back further each week.

It is a shame, but there  it is.

Most managers reach a point where they become not very good. It isn't always their fault, but they may just get themselves into a hole they don't know how to get out of. It doesn't mean they were always bad, but it means they are scrambling for an answer and they don't know where to find it.

I believe, and it is a belief rather than known fact, that Bowyer is a bit too proud. he has made errors which everybody can make, but he can't admit them to himself. That is why, IMO, he has taken it out on players in a completely inappropriate way. What he is asking them to do is likely to be possible with better players, but they are not him and getting angry they can't perform to his levels is a recipe for disaster. He needs to accept the evidence based on what he is seeing and find a way to maximise what these good players for the level can achieve.

I don't know JJ's emotional intelligence either, but I suspect it is not a weakness. He has ambitions to be a manager and maybe, if the players like him, as I believe they do, he could turn the tide in the short term. Beyond that, it may need much more, but we have good players, and he is probably there looking at what is happening and thinking what should be done differently. If that is the case, he would be ideal for a caretaker role when in all honesty, we have nothing to lose in giving it to him.  

Not insulted by any opinions on here.

You are all off your bloddy rocker.

 I cannot work out if it is mostly substance abuse or just inbreeding and gene juggling...

soapy_jones said:

Not insulted by any opinions on here.

You are all off your bloddy rocker.

 I cannot work out if it mostly substance abuse or just inbred gene juggling...

You need to be subtence abusing to watch us at the moment! 

Chris_from_Sidcup said:

Callumcafc said:

ColinTat said:

It wouldn't be acceptable if we had to sell our best player to build a stand?  It wouldn't be acceptable if we had to rebuild a squad after losing all our major players?  The 90-91 to 92-93 squads had continuity, only forced to sell Rob Lee:  Can't think of many others moving on to better things.  Andy Peake and Gordon Watson?  From 18-19 to 20-21 we have none of our main players left barring Pearce.

Jackett's had four seasons to build a squad in League One.  Sunderland three.  Robinson had two and got nowhere near.  We should be better, but expecting everything to click in one season without anywhere near proper planning is crazy.

This is bang on the money. Everyone wants everything instantly in this day and age - it doesn't work like that I'm afraid. Bowyer has earned the opportunity to get a proper season with backing from a proper owner. And no, that earned season is not this season. Putting together a squad in two weeks in the middle of a pandemic does not constitute a proper crack at it.

If it looks like we're getting nowhere by Christmas, then let's reassess. It took us three seasons to get out of this league on the last two occasions we were down here. I'm still expecting us to do it sooner than that but to bounce straight back up was always going to be a tall order. I think people have been a bit spoiled by that stupendous run of form through October/November.

Can't agree with this. So if he fails this season, you still want to give him half of next season too? Sandgaard surely hasn't come in to invest all this money, boasting of grand plans to reach the Premier league in 5 years, to then dick about wasting 2-3 of those years in league one. 

We are sitting below Lincoln and Accrington and level on points with Crewe. If some of the sides below us win 1-2 games in hand we will be mid-table. 

He's shipped out all of his scapegoats and the same problems are still there. So were they the problem?

There is no guarantee that someone else coming in will do a better job than the bloke who has a promotion from this division on his CV. Only half sensible suggestion I’ve seen is Paul Cook and he’s probably going to sit on his hands until a stable Championship job becomes available.

MuttleyCAFC said:

Wheresmeticket? said:

Lots of people feeling insulted now.  The "enough is enough" contingent (note I didn't say "brigade") feel insulted by people ridiculing them or suggesting that they want the team to fail, the "show some loyalty, it's early days yet" cohort (still no "brigade") are insulted by the suggestion that they place loyalty to Bowyer above the club or are blinkered.

This move to narcissistic self obsession away from the actual topic is pathetic, ridiculous and childish.

There.  I've insulted everybody.

And I have LOL'd your post which I assure you is not intended as an insult.

Nor is mine.

soapy_jones said:

Not insulted by any opinions on here.

You are all off your bloddy rocker.

 I cannot work out if it mostly substance abuse or just inbred gene juggling...

Do one.

Champs85 said:

If we don’t win almost all of these I think the bell will toll for Bowyer

The Rochdale result probably saved his job, it was certainly enough to make sure he was here to see put the transfer window and probably ended our hopes for the season. 

Squad isn’t good enough. Simple as that.