Paul Faulkner: Is He Delivering?

[Risso]

So,

is Faulkner doing a lot better at the moment? :-)

I think he is.

As I said earlier, this season should be a clean slate, and it's started off well so far.

[Monty]

I also think time will show that the season just gone wasn't a disaster either. We've cleared a whole lot of deadwood, retained our PL status and let Lambert prove himself for a season.

The only person who can feel hard done by is TSM, although financially compensated, he's been professionally ruined and treated like a patsy.

We have also given extended runs to young players which should enable decisions on their future to be made quicker than would normally have been the case.

Yes, but they were played in incredibly restrictive systems and told they weren't good enough every week and that as soon as the underperforming, trouble-causing, arrogant seniors returned to even half-fitness, they'd be out.

I very much doubt that they were told that at all. It is probably another mountain out of a molehill concerning something McLeish said that has been misconstrued.
However, the fact remains that many young players got longer runs than normal and we have the benefit of that experience.

The facts of what he did and said in the press are there and overwhelming. He would always bemoan the loss of the seniors, and would say, essentially, that the main reason we were getting bad results was because we had to play loads of youngsters in there instead. As soon as a senior even approached full fitness, they were back in the team. It was the most maddeningly pathetic excuse for man-management - you don't ever help people to be better at anything they do in any walk of life by telling them, directly or indirectly - that they're not good enough.

However, he's gone, I don't wish to ever have a McLeish debate ever again. The fact that you are, almost literally, the only person in the world other than him who gives him as little responsibility for our disastrous season as you do is your own problem.

[pauliewalnuts]

The McLeish defence falls down on the fact that in the first half of the season we had next to no injuries and still managed to win hardly any games.

Injuries don't help, but McLeish's worst enemy was himself and the turgid anti-football nonsense he fell back on far too often.

[Dave Clark Five]

I also think time will show that the season just gone wasn't a disaster either. We've cleared a whole lot of deadwood, retained our PL status and let Lambert prove himself for a season.

The only person who can feel hard done by is TSM, although financially compensated, he's been professionally ruined and treated like a patsy.

We have also given extended runs to young players which should enable decisions on their future to be made quicker than would normally have been the case.

Yes, but they were played in incredibly restrictive systems and told they weren't good enough every week and that as soon as the underperforming, trouble-causing, arrogant seniors returned to even half-fitness, they'd be out.

I very much doubt that they were told that at all. It is probably another mountain out of a molehill concerning something McLeish said that has been misconstrued.
However, the fact remains that many young players got longer runs than normal and we have the benefit of that experience.

The facts of what he did and said in the press are there and overwhelming. He would always bemoan the loss of the seniors, and would say, essentially, that the main reason we were getting bad results was because we had to play loads of youngsters in there instead. As soon as a senior even approached full fitness, they were back in the team. It was the most maddeningly pathetic excuse for man-management - you don't ever help people to be better at anything they do in any walk of life by telling them, directly or indirectly - that they're not good enough.

However, he's gone, I don't wish to ever have a McLeish debate ever again. The fact that you are, almost literally, the only person in the world other than him who gives him as little responsibility for our disastrous season as you do is your own problem.

Your last paragraph makes assumptions which are wrong. I made the point about the kids getting a better chance than normal in response to a comment about the season not being a total disaster. That is fact. Also some of them were not automatically dropped when more senior players became available.

[Toronto Villa]

So,

is Faulkner doing a lot better at the moment? :-)

I think he is.

I agree Drummond. The problem with football is that so many people can second guess you all the time based on limited information and every major decision is so public. He's made errors as he learned his job, but he has made some very good moves along the way. In the end stepping in front of MON may prove to be the best one of all for the long term future of the club.

[paul_e]

I also think time will show that the season just gone wasn't a disaster either. We've cleared a whole lot of deadwood, retained our PL status and let Lambert prove himself for a season.

The only person who can feel hard done by is TSM, although financially compensated, he's been professionally ruined and treated like a patsy.

We have also given extended runs to young players which should enable decisions on their future to be made quicker than would normally have been the case.

Yes, but they were played in incredibly restrictive systems and told they weren't good enough every week and that as soon as the underperforming, trouble-causing, arrogant seniors returned to even half-fitness, they'd be out.

I very much doubt that they were told that at all. It is probably another mountain out of a molehill concerning something McLeish said that has been misconstrued.
However, the fact remains that many young players got longer runs than normal and we have the benefit of that experience.

I have serious reservations as to how useful any experience gained last season will be for any of the younger players.  I also thoroughly agree that his attitude towards the kids was pathetic.

Back on topic as mentioned, since he got the job he's been fighting to stave of administration, whatever the reasons/failings are that led to that point is nothing to do with him.  This summer is probably the end point of that process as most of the MON failures are now gone (particularly if we see the back of Warnock and 1 of Collins or Dunne).

I therefore think this topic is probably a season premature as it's only when we're not struggling under a crippling wage bill that the effects of the work Faulkner has done to increase turnover will truly be felt.

Once more the only true error he's made was in believing that blues as a club were shit and no manager could make them anything more than shit.

[miksten]

NO. Don't be silly. Why Paul Lambert? Here we go again, who will it be at the end of next season I wonder?

[not3bad]

NO. Don't be silly. Why Paul Lambert? Here we go again, who will it be at the end of next season I wonder?

"Here we go again" with what?

[hawkeye]

[

Back on topic as mentioned, since he got the job he's been fighting to stave of administration, whatever the reasons/failings are that led to that point is nothing to do with him. 
[/quote]This is complete bollocks

[Louzie0]

Whilst the job of any CEO is to fight the corner of the club, whatever, I'm struggling to identify the times when Villa have been close to administration since PF took office. 

Crappy team performance, yes, over the last season.  Implosion of the club to the extent of impending complete economic collapse?
To quote Hawkeye, above.

[pauliewalnuts]

Back on topic as mentioned, since he got the job he's been fighting to stave of administration, whatever the reasons/failings are that led to that point is nothing to do with him. 

Crikey.

What on earth are you talking about? Stave off administration?

[paul_e]

We had a wage bill of ~90% of turnover and have been kept in the black by numerous loans from the owner, there has been no immediate danger but it was clearly where we'd have been heading without wholesale changes.  I clearly played it up a bit (mainly to get some responses if I'm honest) but the facts are we were in a terrible financial position when he got the job, the reasons for which are irrelevant to(this discussion.

The whole point is, no one likes the people who are in charge when the money dries up, but if they do the job well, without the consequences being too great, and the spending starts again in the future then you have to applaud them.  At the minute we've only seen PF in the bad times, lets give him a year of not being the fall-guy before we judge him too harshly.

I'd liken it to the government but I guess the difference is slashing costs without a concern is fine when it means a relegation scrap or 2 but doing it at the expense of a couple of million people having jobs is possibly taking things a bit far.

[QBVILLA]

We had a wage bill of ~90% of turnover and have been kept in the black by numerous loans from the owner, there has been no immediate danger but it was clearly where we'd have been heading without wholesale changes.  I clearly played it up a bit (mainly to get some responses if I'm honest) but the facts are we were in a terrible financial position when he got the job, the reasons for which are irrelevant to(this discussion.

The whole point is, no one likes the people who are in charge when the money dries up, but if they do the job well, without the consequences being too great, and the spending starts again in the future then you have to applaud them.  At the minute we've only seen PF in the bad times, lets give him a year of not being the fall-guy before we judge him too harshly.

I'd liken it to the government but I guess the difference is slashing costs without a concern is fine when it means a relegation scrap or 2 but doing it at the expense of a couple of million people having jobs is possibly taking things a bit far.

Your surname isn't Faulkner is it?

[Archbishop Herbert Cockthrottle]

I saw a milkman on our road the other day and I said:
"Do you deliver?"

"No" he replied "just milk and eggs and bacon".

[Risso]

I saw a milkman on our road the other day and I said:
"Do you deliver?"

"No" he replied "just milk and eggs and bacon".

And I thought Peter Kaye was a Bolton fan.