Quote: BarnetFC "For me the concern isn't the results or the league position. We're told that we're changing our outlook, concentrating on bringing youngsters through rather than signing big names etc and that's always going to take time. Saints have had some poor seasons by their standards of late while they've been fielding kids but it's stood them in good stead because they now have a crop of youngsters with loads of first team experience.
What does alarm me is the amount of players going backwards - including some who you would think would be at the heart of this 'team Hull' business. Lineham and Crooks are the obvious examples but there's Chris Green as well - all a shadow of the players that impressed under Gentle. Jamie Shaul, arguably, not as good as he was last season. Micky Paea nowhere near as good as he was for Rovers last season. Richard Whiting completely bombed out. Watts has been poor. There have been some successes - Westerman, Abdull, Lacaster - but overall the individual players are regressing and the team is getting worse.
So even if you excuse the results, the league position, the questionable man management with young players being publicly bombed out to Doncaster, the inconsistent team selections where players are started one week then dropped altogether the next, the odd behaviour in the transfer market where we've signed people like Carvell and Colbon for no apparent reason only to cast them aside almost immediately, the alarming media statements such as last week's laugh-a-minute claim that Talanoa is one of the best wingers in the competition (presumably we'd find out if he ever went and stood on the chuffin wing) and wrote it all off as inevitable teething problems of a long term project, what faith can you have in Radford to carry out the long term project when players who should be key to it are getting worse?
I thought he was a lousy, ill-disciplined player for us second time around. I thought he was a dreadful captain, standing silently and blowing out of his ars under the posts after we conceded tries while giving away penalties for fun. I think he sounds like that annoying bloke down the pub who reckons he knows everything but actually hasn't got a brain in his head. And so far as coach I think he's been appalling.'"
Absolutely spot on!
I know many long term fans, we're not talking fickle here, who have just about had enough. I'm one of them. It's all very commendable, the idea of getting behind a new young English coach. But we're seeing things go backwards at an alarming rate. You can talk of loyalty to the club etc, but there's a fine line between that and being a bloody idiot, and I think it's time to speak out. At the very least we need a bit of experience overseeing everything. Who I haven't a clue. The club is fast becoming a poison chalice.