let's stand together come what may

The fans ARE behind the side, BUT poor displays like yesterday need addressing.
Fans can chant all game but the side has to compete.

Thats down to the management. What are THEY doing to get us out of this mess ?

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

No it doesn't. Not all of it anyway. The blame, well the vast majority of it, lies with those who preceded Brent. Administration left the club stripped of pretty much everything. We couldn't even put a team on the pitch without packing it with youth teamers. Everything else had gone. We were being managed by Peter Reid and being coached by his brother. After that there was almost nothing at all.

We were so thoroughly shafted that in terms of both club structure, resources and league position that it is a miracle that we aren't relegated already. I'm as unhappy as anybody else that things haven't turned out better but Brent has made his decisions and has to live by them. We may yet stay up. If we do then his decisions are vindicated. All of them. Lock, stock and barrel. If we go down then obviously his decisions were not successful and it will be open season for criticism during the post mortem.

If we go down the blame does not "entirely" rest with Brent but if we stay up then the glory will surely be his and his alone.

*****wallet was ultimately to blame for the two relegations and administration - selling Ollie's team, inviting in the Japs etc etc - but brent has been custodian for long enough now to avoid a third successive relegation and expulsion from the FL. Brent has done nothing despite there being a whole transfer window in his tenure. This is an attrociously bad division and it wouldn't have needed much investment for safety or even to push for promotion. And then there's his apparent refusal to do anything about quite probably by far the worst manager in Argyle's history. Brent will be completely culpable for our being ejected from the football league in May and any subsequent fallout from that.

I am getting a hell of a lot of criticism for stating the bloody obvious and have been for a long time now. Come match day, barring illness or skintness I am urging on the team in the way I always have a a fan of 49 years. I have never booed an Argyle player, ever. However what I have always done, in the pubs and in the workplace, on the bus, is discuss Argyle, the board and the team/manager. If I disagree with what the manager is doing I will say so and lately I have to say I have disagreed with Brent sticking by Fletch and most of Fletch's tactics. Does that make me a lesser fan?

No it makes you a realistic and sensible one.

merse wrote:

Mr President wrote:

For those that say Carl Fletcher should be doing better with these players, you could point out that half the team weren't paid for months, we had no pre-season and the rest of the team have had to come into this mess.

For those that say our form should see us just safe, you could argue that it won't be enough if others pick up results.

We can sure as hell beat Macclesfield and Dagenham.

Three selected quotes that suggest to me you STILL do not get it..................

Having a player as manager who has been associated with your serial failure for the third successive season is a major part of your dilemma right now. The players you have NOW are being paid (they are aren't they?) pre-season has gone and those "that have come in" should be the type to whom whatever has gone on is an irrelevance.

I don't think your current "form" is good enough to be honest.

Why can you "sure as hell beat Macclesfield and Dagenham". What at playing football or in the size of your crowds? I hope you think it is in playing football because as Scotland prove time and time again; big and fanatical followings mean naff all once the white line has been crossed and can in fact become an added pressure to players who do not have the stature or mental toughness to cope with it.

Being "the biggest club in any division" does not guarantee success as a look at the Champions board of The Conference shows year in year out.

Mock Dagenham at your peril by the way for they have a manager in John Still who can do this beat the drop thing with his eyes closed and a club spirit ideally suited to this dog fight. Northampton have appointed Adie Boothroyd who knows how to achieve from a substandard squad and if YOU had shown any sense you would have turned to Ian Atkins who is the daddy of them all at saving clubs.

............and finally do you really think your club is now owned by someone who has the slightest clue how the world of lower league football works? Because I'll tell you this pal ~ Plymouth Argyle are now in uncharted waters as regards what is needed to survive the type of battle you are in, and in my opinion you have neither the chairman nor manager who appear to either grasp the nettle or know what the hell they are doing............the lower you get in the football world, the more you need to know the nuts and bolts of it; and it appears that James Brent has only surrounded himself with the nuts!

Observations of this level of reality are not welcome. Take your sound advice elsewhere. We're Argyle and we'll never learn

Czarcasm wrote:

For me, it's pretty simplistic.

Question:- Who's far and away the most important and influential person at any club?

Answer:- The Manager.

So, if basic business sense and common sense follows, then it is a given that you go out and get the very best that falls within your budget.

In our position, a firefighter with some calibre in the 'getting teams out of the shit' bracket is the very least we should have been hoping for. But no. Instead of that we give the gig to a 31yr old with zero management experience, who also happens to be our captain and best player. That very same fella now decides it's more important to try and carve out a management career, than do what he used to do - play.

A monumental f**kup by Brent and whatever idiots are advising him.

Now I wonder who that might be

Our so called "best player" (not my words)......I thought was employed as a player/manager......why is he allowed to get away with not playing........has his terms of employment been changed since taking on the job to allow that to happen.

You would think he would want to play..... to off-set his lack of management ability.... and make himself of some worth to the club........he surely doesn't want to be known as the manager who took us into the Conference.... without trying to influence play from on the pitch, there is more chance of that happening (I hope) than from the dug-out.

ZYPH wrote:

Our so called "best player" (not my words)......I thought was employed as a player/manager......why is he allowed to get away with not playing........has his terms of employment been changed since taking on the job to allow that to happen.

You would think he would want to play..... to off-set his lack of management ability.... and make himself of some worth to the club........he surely doesn't want to be known as the manager who took us into the Conference.... without trying to influence play from on the pitch, there is more chance of that happening (I hope) than from the dug-out.

I think he's realised he's rapidly on the decline and has taken himself out of the firing line (playing wise). Earlier in the season too many teams dominated the Fletcher/ Walton partnership. Brent knows f'all about football and has supported his dire performance as manager.

I recently saw Greensam crowing about how getting an experienced manager (aidy boothroyd) hadn't helped Northampton- well it has now. John Deehan seems to have had spells with relegated sides and does not seem to have added to the management team- what is the point in having him?