I'm still listening to that fat lady singing. I do think he has stumbled on a good formula at the moment. But will it last? I reckon we need only 8 points from the remaining games now to be safe and we can't quite make the playoffs! 16th or 17th would be my guess.

He does seem to have turned it around despite a jumbled up defence!
Still not convinced though, I'd like to see a different face next season. Sorry!

Ny.
First of all can i say i am not here to condem you for your earlier opinion.
I am pleased though that you are open minded enough to see things for what they really are.
On your Forest v Rovers match thread Azza asked me a ckuple of questions.
I answered them and exained my viewpoints as clearly as i could.
I was very suprised that not one of my 606 friends had anything to say afterwards.
Some of the things you have said on this thread indicate that perhaps you can see why i have been having different views to yourself.
As for new owners,well you and supported a takeover pre Christmas when it looked like TB and DW didnt look like supporting PD and the first team.
Since they have proven otherwise i fully support them now.
I guess new owners will come along one day but none of us will have any say in that so why worry.
PD has proven that he can produce a solid team with the right playersand the backing of the owners so why shouldnt he deserve another go next season with what should surely be a stronger squad.

Sorry for the typing errors.
Damn phone keypad.
Too small.

That was a good move NY you stole my thunder!


Should PD do the decent thing?

Come to think of it should Bramall and Watson do the decent think?

That Bournemouth result was used by so many to say Young Dickie wasn't good enough and should go. It wasn't helped by the poor results just before that game I admit.

As many posters on 606 will admit I don't fear standing on my own and expressing a controversial view, so here goes.

I have stuck with YD and the board all the way and that remains my position today.

With YD getting the support of Bramall and Watson the future is good. We have a club that is on a firm financial footing and a manager still learning his job who may well prove to be a gem but its too soon to say. The Championship is one hell of a difficult league.

I don't tend to jump in and make rash judgements in general and the following points I take in to consideration explaining the ups and downs of our season.


The main points I take in to consideration when I look back on this season are:-

1. With a week to the start of the season we never had enough players signed up
2. We never even had a GK.
3. No pre season to talk of.
4. A wafer thin squad that eventually gave way to injuries which explains the fall in form.
5. We had that blasted SC Hedge Fund offering silly money which caused big problems.
6. The leaks to the press turning supporter against supporter.
7. We lost the best Chairman in the league, leaving in disgrace, but still forgiven for his sins but I won't forgive him for that Barnsley Fiasco.

The decent thing is:-

“MORE OF THE SAME”


In my opinion.

I must also grovel as I have had my doubts about PD. With our poor support and limited resources every season not getting relegated is a big achievement. (Football is indeed a funny game, although I'm sure Arsene Wenger doesn't think so this morning.) Every time I look at the opposition's team sheet I see players we couldn't begin to afford and I wonder how we will fare against them. I try to expect very little - so when we play such good stuff as we have over the last four games, not just avoiding defeat but playing the better football, it is a balm to the soul. I don't know how PD and the team are doing it but long may it continue.

i'm still not convinced,lets see what unfurls shall we?

I believe that my opinions expressed on the manager were fairly based on the evidence at the time. The opposing views, in which Hound was a leading voice, struck me as expressions of faith; commendable, but generous.

Personally I had been very disappointed with the two away performances I saw at Brighton and Bournemouth which were part of that bad sequence, where there was a lack of application by the players and a failure in tactics. PD admitted this and apologised. He rightly now gets credit for pulling things together and the revelation for the first time, via Richie Wellens, of some change in, or at least a development of, playing strategy. We hear very little of that side of the set-up and I am tempted to share the view that he may “stumble upon” solutions like putting Copps at right back. You might speculate that it was improvisation rather than inspiration. He could hardly drop Cotterill after the previous game’s performance and was short of a right back... As a tactician he seems neither of the serious scientific type (like SOD) nor of the “if that doesn’t work we’ll try something else” Saunders Trial and Error system. But no one ever asks him what his approach is.

So it was not inappropriate to criticise him for those poor results. (The oft-repeated “freak result ” is not an accurate descriptor for the final 0-5 debacle of the series, as Hound would realise if he had been there.) Even in his latest interview, when asked if he thought we were now “safe”, PD admitted that things had slipped earlier in the season when (prior to the Barnsley, Brighton etc results) we had previously created a points gap between ourselves and those in the relegation positions.

I think we all agree that PD is learning on the job and things are moving in the right direction. I am very pleased that he is now tasting success, but we have not reached real consolidation yet.

There is considerable room for improvement away from home. “Character”, such as we saw last season and admirably epitomised by Rob Jones is most obviously displayed in hostile situations and PD needs to work on that. Indeed I do wonder whether he might have employed Rob Jones’s motivational skills off the field more effectively. I was sorry that his coaching role was taken away from him and as club captain it is odd that he seems largely invisible when he is obviously still in and around the club. I don't remember a column from him in the last Match Programme I saw.

I am really looking forward to the Burnley game. It will be a very serious test of all of the above. I will not be going for PD if we lose, but I will be looking for an organised, committed display. Top teams do sometimes falter at this stage (as we did against Notts County and Carlisle last year) and if they do, such qualities will be needed for us to capitalise.

Donaldo.
I refer to the Bournemouth defeat as a freak result not just because of the scoreline but also because of the poor performance by the whole team.
Sometimes two or three have a bad game but very rarely does the whole team have a bad day.
It was a freak in much the same way as the Sheff Wed beating Leeds 6-0 was a freak.
Since Christmas, in the main our performances have been solid and defensively in particular we have been very good.
Almost half of the goals conceded this year were in that one game.

Ok things look a lot better then a month or so ago, and hope it continues, nothing to say we are clear yet with some real tough games ahead and a shocking away form that needs sorting out, I'm still not convinced but do agree now with the many who said leave PD be to the end of the season to keep stability. Maybe I was harsh on him at the time but when your passion is running high wrong judgements can be made! Team seems so much more settled with Wellens and sharp back and gives the rest of the team more confidence at home and copps owning that right back position restored some of my faith in PD's decisions !

"Sometimes two or three have a bad game but very rarely does the whole team have a bad day."
Not true Hound - Johnstone had a good game; otherwise the freaks(!!) would have lost 0-8 or worse.

By the way has anything been released about what happened to Tamas. I would have thought that they would have found out something by now.