Shooting From The Hip

[star sail]

A week is certainly a long time in football. Last Monday the sun was shining, we were getting excited about our new manager, Stockport fans were telling us about his qualities and we were excited about the new players coming in.

 

Reading through this thread the mood has changed somewhat. Concerns about Gannon's man management, concerns about English players fitting in to the Scottish game, Clarkson and Quinn sounding more like superstars with every passing day. In reality nothing has changed since last Monday, except that we lost 1-0 to Llanelli, a game that Gannon cannot be judged on and Gannon has commented on our captain's lack of command at the corner that led to the goal.

 

Before we start talking about the drive and determination of Quinn/Clarkson lets remember they were both playing in the two defeats by St Mirren (cup and top six game). They also played against Nancy and were somewhat out of there depth along with the rest of the team admittedly.

 

Stephen Hughes is not an 'SPL type' player and yet he has been Motherwell's best player over the last couple of seasons. I also remember a midfield player McCormack? (excuse my memory) who played with us (possibly under Billy Davies). He came from the English lower divisions and more that held his own, infact if we get players of his quality we will be laughing.

 

If the comment's about Craigan causes problems then that says more about Craigan than Gannon. The comments were right so hopefully Craigan will use any anger to channel it into aggression on the pitch. To be fair, I heard Craigan on the radio on Saturday and he was talking very positively so it should not be an issue. That Gannon spoke out in public may cause some unease but again go back a week and we were all applauding that very style (Sky box etc).

 

I can understand the unease but we have to keep things in perspective. We need to give the new man a chance and yet I sense that even after one week his honeymoon period is over.

[Haggischomper]

Selling Clarkson and Quinn is suicide for me and no ammount of people telling me that "it had to be done" is gonna cut it. I just can't see it that way.

 

I know what you mean, milo, but it would also be suicide NOT to have sold them. We have to think of the long term and not the short term.

[weeyin]

I see in The Scotsman this morning, Wattie is saying that nothing has changed from the January transfer window and the entire Rangers squad is still up for sale.

 

So it's not just us that is having to make the books balance like this.

[charlietoogood]

I wonder if any Stockport fans would comment on Gannon's man management. Having spoken to couple of friends down south, the perception I got was that although he plays good football and is astute tactically, his man management leaves a little to be desired. The number of players he falls ouut with, the fact that if a player falls out of favour he's out of favour until he leaves the club. What have Stockport fans heard about the opinions of players who played under Gannon...?

 

It's well known around here that players didn't like him (and something I'm sure we've warned you about before), but it's only over the last half of last season, when off-field problems seriously affected our form, that they started to want to leave. Yet no-one really wanted to leave during the previous 3 years when we'd win every other game - funny that.

 

It's a comparison I've made before, but if you join the army, you don't care if you're sergeant's a nice bloke, you care that he's going to lead you to victory in the battle.