cec_the_saddler wrote:Jorge14 wrote:Fuming, embarrassed by the cheapness of the appointment, and appalled that Mullen has been appointed above the genuine ability of the other applicants.
Might as well name names, I am assured that Cotterill, Kinsella, Taylor and Allen applied. Holloway would probably have been available at some point next week and Paul Lambert is available; not to mention the potential of people such as Shakespeare or O'Kelly.
I'd have taken all of the above, plus a good number others, above Mullen who did not impress at all in the last two games. If we give a direct comparison to what Kinsella did when he was caretaker-manager (again for the last two matches), Mullen favours worse.
Stupid, stupid appointment. We have passed up the opportunity to build for the FUTURE - something the club claim they are enthusiastic about. We could have appointed Kinsella, Lambert, Shakespeare or O'Kelly, not to mention Rob Kelly, and we would have had a manager who wanted to stick with it for the long haul.
I said a couple of weeks ago that if Mullen was appointed he wouldn't last. I don't think he will. Personally, I think he'll be gone by January because the fans will not give the same lee-way that they did with the Graydon appointment, despite the obvious comparisons.
Attendances will be bad enough next season as it is, but if we start poorly they are going to crash. I will not be surprised if we end next season with averages around the 4500 mark - which will be an embarrassment.
I think people know that I'm not on the anti-Bonser bandwagon, and I've backed him when most have been critical. But there is truly no reason for this appointment other than that it is the easy option; from within the club and easier than having to bring a new man in and build new relations. He will work within the clear structure at the club - which is that Paul Taylor handles signings, and Mullen puts the team out on a Saturday. It is how it worked with Graydon, and Bonser has been yearning to return to those levels of prudence and control ever since. Unfortunately, Taylor's contacts aren't what they once were - and I will be amazed if we get any players in anywhere close to the 1998 class of Rammell, Pointon, Wrack or the Matias, Leitao, Angell, Aranalde, Tilson group which followed.
So...this was Bonser's chance. A 'name' in, and it would have brought him another season of little criticism. If Steve Cotterill had been brought in today, there wouldn't have been much criticism and it would have quelled the moaning for a while. As it is, this appointment has brought any support of Bonser crashing down. As I've said, I don't believe that there are any footballing reasons behind this appointment, and it is a slap in the face of the fanbase who sat through three months of their best players leaving, morale crumbling and a very successful manager jumping ship in the hope that the next appointment might be an improvement and that we might be able to look forward to 08/09 with some sort of hope. As it is, it is, quite simply, more than a little disapointing and thoroughly irritating and predictable.
Jimmy Mullen OBE...
Out Before Easter.
bloody hell, last 2 games Alex Ferguson wouldn't have done any better
Interesting you choose to pick up on a very small piece of the post. My point was, even on a playing field far removed from what was important in choosing our new manager, he still came up short.
I don't think this appointment is good enough; but by God I am looking forwards to being proved wrong - because I reckon if UTS had have been like it is now in the summer of 1998, we'd be reacting in a very similar manner.