“He should be Manager of the Season”

DJ said:
I didn’t put it across very well. :)
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That’s alright, I’ve pretty much made a rambling expletive filled essay about Bournemouth being called small and crap and not liking it lol. I had points I thought I was making but I’ve clearly failed to make them in an entertaining way.
 
NWCherries98 said:
I mean, the point of the thread was kind of just that I think we’re better than we’re given credit for. Not really having a go at anyone tbh, I thought Mark was a bit smug in his tweet, I’m sure he can handle that. Other than that it’s faceless pundits I’m insulting so :shrug:
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If you watch the interview it's clear Mark also thinks that we and Gary have not been given enough credit. The point of his tweet was to make the people posting sustained personal abuse directed at him think twice about their behaviour. I agree with him it has been absolutely disgusting, disproportionate and needs calling out. Nothing smug about that.
 
NWCherries98 said:
I didn’t say it was a great squad tbf, I said it was bottom 6 and that we’re probably going to finish bottom 6. I have consistently hyped up everyone from Stephens to Zabarnyi and everyone in between. You won’t find anyone on here that’s been more militant against booing than me either. We have much more in common than you think.
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Yeah, the original post was a beauty.

Bottom 6? ......... two of that "cr*p-fest" behind us would have to pass us. Not sure I expect that, I see us getting maybe 4 more points and that would take us well beyond bottom 6. Heck, even on 39, we could still be 14th.
 
NWCherries98 said:
I agree with all of this. I haven’t watched and was unaware of any BOTN video so I’m going off his initial tweet, which he muted replies on. I don’t think it came across very well, but that’s just my opinion. I agreed with what I assumed was his general point, but I thought it was dismissive of the legitimate criticisms many normal fans have had over the course of the season. If he’s cleared it up elsewhere then fair enough.
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That's fair enough the Tweet probably doesn't feel as antagonist to me because I largely agree with it. Tone doesn't really translate well to the written word.

He does acknowledge in the podcast that he's not saying there weren't issues and that people are entitled to have negative opinions. The reason for turning off comments was because he didn't want to engage with the flack he knew was coming and has largely abandoned social media during the season because he found the abuse in his words "hurtful".

NWCherries98 said:
That’s alright, I’ve pretty much made a rambling expletive filled essay about Bournemouth being called small and crap and not liking it lol. I had points I thought I was making but I’ve clearly failed to make them in an entertaining way.
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Don't be discouraged it's a good thread.
 
Mark came across far better on the podcast than he did in the tweet (which i thought was a poor look for him). But that speaks to the nature of the platforms, and the nature of a longer form 'in person' conversation versus social media. Always glad to hear / see from him on SSN or AFCB media bits.

As for external pundits, half of them are probably just taken aback on the rare occasion they bother to flick down the PL table, and see Bournemouth above West Ham or Everton currently.
 
DJ said:
Playing devils advocate, who should be in the conversation regarding manager of the season? Pep, Arteta and Howe. That’s pretty much it, maybe the Brighton guy then why not throw O’Neil in the mix?

He doesn’t have to have been perfect throughout. But he’s got it right when he’s needed to.
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Well I suppose somebody has to come last.
 
DJ said:
Playing devils advocate, who should be in the conversation regarding manager of the season? Pep, Arteta and Howe. That’s pretty much it, maybe the Brighton guy then why not throw O’Neil in the mix?

He doesn’t have to have been perfect throughout. But he’s got it right when he’s needed to.
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Only one candidate for me. Step forward Nathan Jason Jones.
 
NWCherries98 said:
Dunno if anyone else agrees, but it’s Starting to really piss me off seeing this everywhere!

To get it out of the way, I’ve always thought that in many ways O’Neil was a very good coach on the training pitch. I loved his energy when he first took over, talking about how much of an honour it was to be the manager, how the players are more than good enough to stay up. Saying how he feels part of the club. Generally, he’s probably the most likeable of the short group of managers we’ve had since EH, and seems like a very hardworking person and a great guy, with the respect of the players.

It’s a fantastic accomplishment to have turned the season around from where Parker left us to be safe with 4 games to spare. And recently we’ve even been playing some great stuff too. Having said that…

We have Mark McAdam and other local pundits and reporters slagging off the fans for not keeping the faith earlier in the season. We’ve got every other pundit with wide eyes and expressions of disbelief muttering “my lord, to keep THAT squad up. Christ. He should be manager of the season!”

Kindly go **************** yourselves. They’re going to sit there in their little media boxes and tell us that our squad is that much worse than Southampton’s, Everton’s, Forests, and Leeds’? Our squad is probably, on the whole, bottom 6 in terms of quality (lower and maybe higher before and after the Jan. window). I wouldn’t have been “surprised” to go down, but I’d have been disappointed, as even before January we were more than capable of staying up with some confidence and sensible tactics.

The way these pundits are patronisingly carrying on like this, refusing to give our players or Gary O’Neil himself any sensible credit is infuriating. It’s not a miracle that we’ve stayed up, a lot of it is down to Gary himself learning on the job and phasing out some his awful habits. We were fucking dreadful for a good 4 months, DESPITE the quality of players we often had at our disposal. When we were at our worst, we were missing all of our best players - the same players written off as being, obviously, THE worst squad in the entire league.

And with tweets like McAdam’s it goes the other way. Obviously the people with O’Neil clown profile pics on Twitter and being abusive should feel very stupid. But the fans, generally speaking, know what they’re looking at. From Late October to March, the football we were playing was piss poor, and we were grossly underperforming.

Not sure where I’m going with this tbh. O’Neil at the end of the day has done a brilliant job, and I’m glad we stuck with him. But he’s not this messianic figure that all these pundits are making him out to be, rescuing our simple-minded championship dross squad from certain doom. And all of the 90% of people that thought he’d relegate us aren’t bad people or stupid people for thinking this.

With our investment at the start of the season and in January, and in comparison to how other teams are looking, I’d expect us to finish around 16th. I imagine that’s probably where we’ll realistically end up. Mission accomplished, well done Gary. Let’s push on next year. In the meantime, these crap youtuber pundits, the dimwits on Sky, and the well meaning but smug local ones ought to remind themselves that we’re a quality team with big investment behind it and a recent legacy of being a solid, mid table club in the richest league in the world. And that it’s not entitled or ungrateful to expect more when we’re not seeing this.

If Foley is to be believed, we’re going to become even more a part of the furniture of the elite than we are now. Maybe these pundits will get onboard eventually, but I doubt it lol.
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Great post.....
 
Pundits don't have a clue about clubs outside the top six or so - patronising nonsense from them is par for the course unfortunately.

As McAdam says the abuse Gary got was ridiculous but it wasn't just that, even the criticism of him has been way over the top. He was branded a clueless idiot by a significant number of our supporters. It looked like a complete overreaction then and looks silly now. I don't know why people who are guilty of this ott criticism are so sensitive to people pointing this out either. Surely if you can dish it out you should be able to take it when you are criticised for making yourself look like a plank.
 
Bloody hell, just wrote out a three paragraph post, then got me glasses to see what ig written, then SDD steps in! Great post by the op, some points to consider for sure, I think some are carried away by the last thirteen years. GON can certainly be considered for manager of the year, only Arteta argues with him in overachievement. UTCIAD
 
Red Sky said:
If you watch the interview it's clear Mark also thinks that we and Gary have not been given enough credit. The point of his tweet was to make the people posting sustained personal abuse directed at him think twice about their behaviour. I agree with him it has been absolutely disgusting, disproportionate and needs calling out. Nothing smug about that.
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Imo that wasn’t all that clear from his original tweet, but I can see that is probably what he meant which is fair enough. To me it came across more as a clumsy, blanket criticism of any criticism, which along with other stuff I’ve been seeing annoyed me a bit. Even at our worst the O’Neil out content on Twitter was petty, lowest common denominator, typically abusive bullshit.
 
rgb said:
If Notts. Forest stay up, it should be Cooper. He's been herding cats since his owner and DoF bought all those players. He's probably still learning their names.
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Sure it was difficult but helps having some quality options to choose from
 
It’s an interesting argument.

Did everybody under estimate us? Or did we over perform?

Personally I’m in the over perform camp, looking at the quality the likes of Leicester, Everton and Forest have, we don’t really have any right to realistically expect to finish above any of them. We have talent in our squad for sure, but comparatively to the rest of the league, we are definitely in the three weakest in terms of squad strength.
 
KingKieffer said:
It’s an interesting argument.

Did everybody under estimate us? Or did we over perform?

Personally I’m in the over perform camp, looking at the quality the likes of Leicester, Everton and Forest have, we don’t really have any right to realistically expect to finish above any of them. We have talent in our squad for sure, but comparatively to the rest of the league, we are definitely in the three weakest in terms of squad strength.
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I think on paper our squad now is very solid, probably the higher end of the bottom 5-6. Before January and when we had a few injuries, it was the worst matchday squad in the league. But then again, we were absolutely atrocious during this period anyway; if O’Neil had somehow had us picking up points at that time too, then we’d probably be top half and he absolutely deserves consideration. I just think he’s done a “good” job, nothing more or less.

Marco Silva has done a much better job tbf to him. Fulham weren’t that much better than us at the start of the season, and they were pushing for Europe at one point. Unai Emery pound for pound has perhaps won the most points this season? Pep is probably winning the treble lol.

I think, on the whole, he’s definitely more over performed than under. The motivation for this thread was these types of pundits overegging the issue and making a meal of “just how unlikely it was that we’d survive”. I’m sure you’re probably closer to their thinking than someone like me, but it’s not some great miracle that we’ve stayed up - even purely by looking at the sorry state of the teams below us. If anything, we should probably be a few wins better off than we are now, which would be incredible, if not for O’Neil in individual games. And when you’re talking about manager of the season, that should be considered. Not just “lol tiny ground 9-0 20th, what a magnificent job”.
 
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