wellfan

I hope the conclusions I’ve drawn on Alfred are also wrong, as I can’t be bothered with more managerial turmoil, but the evidence so far leads me to believe what I’ve been consistently posting recently.

You’re not mistaken. It’s his MO on here at times. Just look at my recent ‘debate’ with him.

Your point about wanting to see an improved performance over a victory is pretty much what I said ahead of the Dundee defeat. And that gets to the heart of the issue here. Most of us aren’t complaining simply because of the results; we’re complaining because the performances have been awful and are getting progressively worse.

You’re doing it again. Your attempts to deconstruct my opinions don’t make your own interpretation of the evidence any less subjective, or mine any less valid. Reframing what I said to suit your own narrative doesn’t make your argument any more convincing, either. I’ll continue to call out your verbose word soup for what it is. You talk a good game, though. A bit like Alfred.

A win would be nice on their new grass pitch.

Absolute bollocks. You’re twisting things now. Recasting my observation about your apparent need to police my opinions as an issue with how I’m “allowed” to express myself is a disingenuous misrepresentation of what I actually said. I said you seemed overly interested in policing my opinions, given the lengthy response you wrote picking apart my original post. We can debate and disagree all day long, but misrepresenting what someone said isn’t debate.

You seem overly interested in policing how I express my opinions on here. You’ve decided the evidence doesn’t justify my conclusions, but that’s your interpretation, not some objective threshold I’ve failed to meet. I think Alfred’s out of his depth, and I’ve explained why. You don’t agree and think it’s too early to reach that conclusion. Fine. Who cares? We’ll soon find out, won’t we?

You’re confusing having a strong opinion with presenting it as fact. I’ve explained why I’ve reached my conclusions about Alfred, and I stand by them. The points tally is a fact, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. My argument is about the performances, the lack of identity and the apparent regression. You can argue that eight games is too small a sample, but that doesn’t make those concerns any less legitimate. I’m not claiming to know with certainty how this ends, but I don’t need to wait until the season’s over to say what I think I’m seeing.

Accusing me of presenting hindsight as objective analysis is ironic when your entire response is largely subjective analysis presented as objective fact.

He seems to spend a lot of time angrily shouting from the dugout, as plenty of managers do. But as I’ve said before, respect is earned, not demanded.

What's went wrong since? Alfred has had 6.5 more weeks on the training pitch with the squad.

So, in that aftermath of that drivel, Alfred comes out with this: “We believe we picked the right starting XI.” Bloody hell.

Maybe some fans were sarcastically applauding the manager for finally taking Vogt out of the firing line. A firing line he should never have been put in in the first place, given he’s clearly not good enough. It’s absolutely shite man management, to the detriment of both the player and the team.

We were absolutely shite yesterday, and most of that was down to the manager. While that pissed me off, what annoyed me even more was his post-match interview. If he keeps trying to tell fans that water isn't wet and shite isn't shite, he's even more naive than I thought. There's nothing wrong with admitting you're getting things wrong, that something needs to change, and that it's time to reset rather than stubbornly persevering with a transition phase that's clearly not working. Honesty goes a long way and buys you time, and he'd do well to realise that sooner rather than later.

People keep banging on about the similar points tally so far, but that misses the point entirely. Under JBA, there was a clear identity from day one. Alfred keeps talking about a transition phase, and that's fair enough. Nobody expects him to replicate what JBA achieved. But a transition has to show signs of taking you somewhere, and we're seeing absolutely none. If anything, we're moving further and further away from what was good about us under JBA, and we've looked increasingly clueless the longer Alfred's had the players on the training pitch. I said he'd rightly be given time, but time is worthless if there's no sign of progress. We're getting worse, the same glaring weaknesses persist, and he seems either incapable of addressing them or too stubborn to change anything. I don't expect another JBA season. I expect a team that looks like it has a clue what it's doing. I expect decent performances even in defeat. I'm struggling to see what anyone thinks we're waiting for. Alfred looks increasingly out of his depth. And this isn't a plea for him to be sacked, nor is it a desire to return to the 'dinosaur' style that some keep referring to, as if this is some sort of modern football versus dinosaur football debate. Calling a spade a spade isn't creating toxicity either. The situation is plain to see for me, and if others can't see it, I think they're allowing the transition argument to overshadow some pretty obvious problems. This is also an entirely different situation from the ones we found ourselves in under Alexander, Hammell, Kettlewell et al. The needle has shifted since then, and I don't think criticism of Alfred should automatically be lumped in with the discontent that surrounded those managers. A defeat to Killie this weekend, coupled with another poor performance and no evidence that Alfred is learning from his mistakes, will only accelerate what is increasingly starting to feel inevitable.

I don’t think I’ve once called outright for him to be sacked or jumped on the bandwagon of those demanding it. In fact, I previously posted that he’d rightly be given time. I’m now just questioning whether that patience will ultimately be to the detriment of both him and the team. All I’ve done is point to what I see as his failings and suggest that, increasingly, they look terminal.

I think the ship has already sailed on Alfred, unfortunately. Today could’ve been the day he put his hands up, took ownership, drew a line in the sand and said things have to change. But he didn’t. And that’s despite us getting progressively worse the longer he’s had on the training pitch with the players. It’s now becoming pretty clear to me, and others, that he doesn’t really seem to know what he’s doing, and even the good players in his squad are starting to look lost as a consequence.

The manager.

Yeh. The difference was that, under JBA, you could see what the team was trying to do from the very start of his tenure. There was an identity. The same can’t be said for the start of Alfred’s tenure, and that’s my biggest concern.

Stubborn to the point of failure. I called it.

Trouble in paradise? Players losing faith in their manager. A manager who’s never actually done what he’s asking them to do. Perhaps that’s cynical, but that’s a possibility.

People are entitled to piss and moan when they’re being served up utter shite. Nobody expects another Jens season, but the absolute minimum is some semblance of a decent performance and a clear identity. Losing is frustrating enough, but continually losing without putting in any sort of performance is unacceptable. We’re in a death spiral, and that’s not the fans’ fault.

It’s probably a bit unfair to single out Vogt. It’s not his fault that he’s not up to the standard of the league (yet?). It is, however, the manager’s fault for continuing to stick by him to the detriment of the team. And that’s probably going to be the hill he dies on.

This team has absolutely no identity and nothing of any note to offer. That ultimately comes down to the manager.

Some say we’ve appointed a swede. I say we’ve appointed a turnip, unfortunately.