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From Despair to Where?
Written by BlueBadger on Thursday, 25th Oct 2018 00:08

Some thoughts, in the wake of another gutless, soulless defeat. This time at the hands of Leeds.

In the wake of Mick McCarthy's departure, Marcus Evans promised a new direction for the club that promise looks, at best, somewhat naive, at worst an outright cynical move from a man who made his money in public relations desperately seeking to curry favour. So, where do we go from here?

For me, this is where ITFC needs to be going as club, both in the immediate and long term.

1 Paul Hurst has to go. Now. He looked like the right man at the time of appointment but, like Roy Keane before him, he's tried to change too much, too soon, often unnecessarily.

His talk in his pre-match presser before the Leeds game of 'many things needing to change' strikes me as the words of a man who has nonsense of irony, given the gutting of the playing squad carried in in pre-season.

I can accept Martyn Waghorn going - the money being bandied around in close season we were NEVER going to be a position to refuse a sale.

Adam Webster and Joe Garner, on the other hand, are big and wholly avoidable losses, whatever you feel about these two players' level of ability there's two experienced Championship players in key 'spine' positions.

The sale of Webster in particular is grating given that the Waghorn sale alone would have funded the Nolan purchase and we'd have had a centre-half who can pass out of defence with Championship experience as opposed to the game-but-limited Toto Nsiala, who probably cost us a similar amount of money as our original purchase of Webster.

Garner's loss is evident given our utter lack of bite up front. He might not be an out and out goalscorer but we'd have had some presence and 'needle's front where, presently there is none.

2 How do we salvage this season? Much as it pains me to say thus I think we need to bite the bullet and bring in an experienced old lag on a short-term contract to the end of the season with a 'golden goodbye' bonus if he manages, somehow, to keep us up.

3 If Evans REALLY wants a future based round decent football, the academy and an up-and-coming man then director of football is the way to go.

Had we a DoF, I suspect that a lot of the utter recklessness displayed by Hurst in the transfer market this summer might have been mediated by a wise head saying 'are you sure that letting all these first teasers go is wise? This is a tough division and you need a few streetwise faces to support the up-and-comers'.

Lest we forget, Hurst is still a relatively young manager and has no experience of the Championship, a notoriously tricky division to learn on-the-job.

4 (with a slight return to Point 2). The short-term appointment of An Old Lag would buy us time to sound out a manager with the appropriate up-and-coming-play-the-youth-players-and-good-football credentials.

5 Finally, and most importantly, Marcus Evans needs to seriously evaluate how serious he is about pushing the club forward particularly within the context of his level of investment at first-team level.

Whilst I appreciate he's been offsetting sometimes quite substantial losses that's not enough. Every transfer window since 2015 has seen us progressively more diminished as a competitive force on the pitch.

The time has come for him to put his money where his mouth is, if he genuinely, genuinely wants us to compete rather than tread water or, as we look more likely to at the moment, drown.




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Bluearmy71 added 00:30 - Oct 25
I thought you were just gonna copy and past Manic Street Preachers lyrics, I would have read all of them!! ;)
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Marshalls_Mullet added 01:27 - Oct 25
On point 3, we officially have a Director of Football, called Dave Bowman. I know what you mean though as I think he's more of a glorified scout.
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parkinshair added 08:02 - Oct 25
Good blog and nice to see you step away from the forum. Can't fault any of what you said. Hurst looks and sounds like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders at the moment. I think it would be best for all parties if Evans pulled the trigger and bought an old lag in to steady the ship. To be honest, I wouldn't mind Holloway. Would help boost morale if nothing else.
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Whymarkmariner added 10:42 - Oct 25
Certainly something needs to happen, we look like "Dead men walking" already. We don't have strikers of any note and the midfield don't either help the defence or supply the forward line.
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Palestine added 11:42 - Oct 25
We are weak and lost at the moment.
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RegencyBlue added 12:56 - Oct 25
Hurst is the immediate problem but Evans is, and has been for a long time, the force that is destroying this club.

Relegation at some point was inevitable given his penny pinching regime, Hurst has accelerated the process alarmingly though. I genuinely do not see what Evans is doing here any more and can only hope the rumours he is actively looking to sell the club are true. Hopefully this happens before the damage to the club is beyond repair.
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MVBlue added 13:49 - Oct 25
Evans isn't necessarily the problem. Its getting a decent manager who will have us playing football on the ground with an attacking edge come what may. He did sound out Frank Lampard, who could have been the right one. We need our Eddie Howe. Bye Bye Paul.
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