SNAP POLL - Unsworth, yes or no?

[Kev The Rat]

80% want him gone. That's more than wanted Koeman gone at the end.

Says it all really.

 

[Old Blue 2]

80% want him gone. That's more than wanted Koeman gone at the end.

Says it all really.

I think it's more a case of opting for an experienced Premiership Manager given the present situation, rather than having a 'down' on Unsworth...

 

[Billy Dean]

You're stating things as if they're facts there mate when they are just your opinion and actually have very little to support them.

Why does he 'deserve' time? He's caretaker manager and has to prove that he's up to doing the job full time, he doesn't just get a season long audition because he used to play for us, we need to choose the best candidate for the job, whoever it is. There's no reason at all why a new manager has to be a panic move - giving the job to Unsworth simply because he happens to be already at the club would seem far more panicky than going through a full selection process and choosing the best candidate.

What would your thoughts be on keeping him till the end of the season so that we could appoint the right person from the beginning of next season, where more managers will be available and more would be willing to come with a full pre-season to get their ideas across?

 

[diggerdestroyer]

Not the right time for him. Need someone with experience in these situations. Saftey is paramount. To be in a relegation fight is not the time to test a young manager. Great result yesterday but i am not impressed with his tactics. Playing rooney and gylfi out wide again like koeman did when it didnt work for him made us look slow and disjointed again. Niasse effort and bit of luck gave him a lifeline. I prefer him than bring moyes back.Not for me now but maybe down the line. Big sam until may to retain our premier status and have a top name lined up for summer.

 

[LiamG]

With all due respect mate, that's rubbish.

Why are we relegation threatened? It's hard to see us getting any worse than we have been, and we're not in the relegation zone now so I don't necessarily think we should be fearing the drop just yet. Even when playing dreadfully we've managed to beat Watford, Bournemouth and Stoke at home and there's enough dross in the league for us to carry on doing that all season and stay up with plenty to spare. I wouldn't even rule out finishing 7th or 8th again if the likes of Barkley, Coleman and Bolasie can come back at a decent level and we can get a decent striker in. Some of the reaction to the current situation has been way over the top in my opinion.

More pertinently though, you've missed the crux of the point being made. 'Staying in the game' and then nicking a goal to win 1-0 is fine, Moyes did it for years and to be perfectly honest I was fine with that in the main (although I appreciate many weren't). The issue is that when you can't keep clean sheets - as we quite clearly can't - it's a dreadful tactic. We basically need 3 goals to win any game at the moment, and limiting yourself to a half hour period in which to score them is just ridiculous. In games like yesterday we should be going at it from the off, trying to get a lead and give us something to build on, allowing us to drop further back and defend deeper which suits the players we have. As it is we keep having to chase games and leaving ourselves wide open.

Rubbish. Get your head out of the sand. Our best striker is someone we loaned to Hull last season who were then relegated and our defence is full of players over the age of 33 and 3 out of 4 of them are finished and the other one has a broken leg with a kid who isn't ready and pub standard player as his backup.

We aren't playing dreadful. We are dreadful. When are people going to realise this.

We had Lukaku and Barkley last season. They were our team and carried everyone else. This season is completely different. Half the team is new and the other half doesn't bare mentioning.

It's impossible to keep clean sheets with this defence. Keeping the score down and us still in the game is about as good as it gets. Have you watched how bad they are.

Plus there isn't plenty of dross in the league. Currently the bottom team has Zaha, Benteke, Punchen and Andros Townsend. The team above them has Andy Carrol, Hernandez, Lanzini etc

Wake up because this league is difficult. We had a world class striker that made us look good.

 

[Lanolin]

What would your thoughts be on keeping him till the end of the season so that we could appoint the right person from the beginning of next season, where more managers will be available and more would be willing to come with a full pre-season to get their ideas across?

It's a difficult one to call I suppose. If what you were saying was definitely, undeniably, true then yes it may seem better to wait until the summer to get a better candidate. The truth is though, it isn't. It's entirely possible that we'll end up with the same candidates come the summer, or even find that we have less choice, if some of the preferred options right now are taken by other clubs or sign new contracts with their current employers.

You've then got a few other issues to contend with: Do we sign anyone in January or do we wait and see who the new manager is and what type of player they want? What is seen as a 'good' season with Unsworth - if we finish 10th does he get the job or not? What if he really really isn't a good manager, and proves to be like a Terry Connor, Mike Phelan or Stuart Gray - do we still let him have until the end of the season if he's still making the same mistakes in February as he is now?

 

[Lanolin]

Rubbish. Get your head out of the sand. Our best striker is someone we loaned to Hull last season who were then relegated and our defence is full of players over the age of 33 and 3 out of 4 of them are finished and the other one has a broken leg with a kid who isn't ready and pub standard player as his backup.

We aren't playing dreadful. We are dreadful. When are people going to realise this.

We had Lukaku and Barkley last season. They were our team and carried everyone else. This season is completely different. Half the team is new and the other half doesn't bare mentioning.

It's impossible to keep clean sheets with this defence. Keeping the score down and us still in the game is about as good as it gets. Have you watched how bad they are.

Plus there isn't plenty of dross in the league. Currently the bottom team has Zaha, Benteke, Punchen and Andros Townsend. The team above them has Andy Carrol, Hernandez, Lanzini etc

Wake up because this league is difficult. We had a world class striker that made us look good.

You're preaching to the converted mate, I was saying the team wasn't very good before it was trendy. The thing is, I'm not one to veer between extremes. I didn't think we were going to win the league when we started signing people in the summer and I don't think we're going to get relegated now.

There really is a load of dross in the league. Look at the players you've named there, JASON PUNCHEON! Hahahahaha. We've got Davy Klaassen, Sandro, Schneiderlin, Mirallas and co not even able to get in the matchday squad and you're telling me we need to panic because Tom Ince, Wayne Routledge and Charlie Daniels are better than anything we've got. It's total hysteria. We have played like a bunch of amateurs against Stoke, Bournemouth and Watford and yet managed to beat them all. We're rubbish yes, but so is half the league. The idea that relegation is a formality unless we bring in Sam Allardyce or someone like that is patently ridiculous.

 

[matty1878]

Don't want him obvs for experience when he's ready then maybe.

 

[Bud McBlokeski]

Much as I love Rhino, winning one game isn't enough. He will need to go away and manage another club before coming back I think.

Has to be said - he got the substitutions right yesterday!

 

[Ihaters]

Give him a transfer window and enough money to buy 3 or 4 decent players including a striker. Give him a chance to show what he can do.
Currently his only way to drag us out the brown stuff is to utilise the youngsters he's been using previously. If he had a chance to mould a team to his way of working, we would have an idea as to what he can do.

His starting line-ups have been poor but his changes have had a positive impact in every game. Once he sorts out what he's doing at the start it will make a big difference.
Games have been coming thick and fast since he arrived, with 3 hard away games in a row followed by a win. It is hard to gauge the teams capabilities in the timeframe that he's had and as such it's hard to gauge whether he is tactically good enough to utilise their strengths yet.

I would keep him this season.

 

[LiamG]

You're preaching to the converted mate, I was saying the team wasn't very good before it was trendy. The thing is, I'm not one to veer between extremes. I didn't think we were going to win the league when we started signing people in the summer and I don't think we're going to get relegated now.

There really is a load of dross in the league. Look at the players you've named there, JASON PUNCHEON! Hahahahaha. We've got Davy Klaassen, Sandro, Schneiderlin, Mirallas and co not even able to get in the matchday squad and you're telling me we need to panic because Tom Ince, Wayne Routledge and Charlie Daniels are better than anything we've got. It's total hysteria. We have played like a bunch of amateurs against Stoke, Bournemouth and Watford and yet managed to beat them all. We're rubbish yes, but so is half the league. The idea that relegation is a formality unless we bring in Sam Allardyce or someone like that is patently ridiculous.

Unfortunately it's not trendy just the reality of our situation.

I would have Jason Puncheon over all those mentioned. Klassen and Sandro haven't looked anywhere near the standard. Mirallas and Schneiderlin are both bad eggs who are vastly overrated by our fanbase. I'm not saying Puncheon is good just our squad is bad.

Right now my starting 11 would be:

Pickford
Kenny Keane Williams Baines
Beni
Gueye Davies
Lennon Niasse Lookman.

There's 4 U23 kids in that team. A striker who played for the U23s last season and another young player with potential (Vlasic).

I maybe would depending on the game bring Rooney or Sigurdsson in for Davies or Gueye. Vlasic also deserves to be rotated but that's a pretty poor team. At least if not poor a very young team and that back four is terrifying.

We won all those games at home. If we played them away I have no doubt they would beat us. In January things will hopefully change with new signings but until then there are no tactical solutions, team formations etc to solve this problem. It's brown trousers time and I suspect all our points will be in the manner of Sunday. Hard fought and nothing more.

 

[Joey66]

..he’s been brave with his team selections and substitutions but even yesterday we were second best and looked like conceding every time they attacked. I think he’s failed to make us solid defensively which isn’t easy given the personnel but it’s why these blokes are on big bucks.

Unsworth is not on big bucks if Big Sam comes he will be!

 

[ryanbeno80]

Frankly you're deluded if you think any manager can do that in 4 games in 12 days with the mess left by Koeman. You're also completely wrong with your comparison with Allardyce. Let's look at his record in his first 7 games at Palace. Won 1, drew 1, lost 5; goals for 4, goals conceded 16. Last game of that seven was a 4-0 hammering at home by relegation rivals Sunderland. By your analysis you'd have sacked Allardyce after 4 games and certainly after 7.

Unsworth needs time and he deserves time to sort this out. He's developing a great team spirit and he will get there organisationally. If we appoint someone else it will be a panic move and won't be someone who can take us forward in the long run.

Firstly fella, I didn't compare Unsworths first 4 games with what you would expect from Allardyce, I compared it against my own opinion of the progress I'd expect to see in 4 games.

You are getting confused with me comparing the vacant Everton managers job with the type of job an Allardyce or Pulis would take.

Seens as you don't agree with my opinion, can you tell me why is it deluded to expect better defensive set up from set pieces, more organisation and more balanced team selection in 4 games?

I didn't say it should be the complete product but it's certainly not unfeasible to work on and begin to implement philosophies on shape and defending set pieces in even a few sessions.

 

[Lanolin]

Unfortunately it's not trendy just the reality of our situation.

I would have Jason Puncheon over all those mentioned. Klassen and Sandro haven't looked anywhere near the standard. Mirallas and Schneiderlin are both bad eggs who are vastly overrated by our fanbase. I'm not saying Puncheon is good just our squad is bad.

Right now my starting 11 would be:

Pickford
Kenny Keane Williams Baines
Beni
Gueye Davies
Lennon Niasse Lookman.

There's 4 U23 kids in that team. A striker who played for the U23s last season and another young player with potential (Vlasic).

I maybe would depending on the game bring Rooney or Sigurdsson in for Davies or Gueye. Vlasic also deserves to be rotated but that's a pretty poor team. At least if not poor a very young team and that back four is terrifying.

We won all those games at home. If we played them away I have no doubt they would beat us. In January things will hopefully change with new signings but until then there are no tactical solutions, team formations etc to solve this problem. It's brown trousers time and I suspect all our points will be in the manner of Sunday. Hard fought and nothing more.

I understand the point you're making, I'm just saying I really don't think we're anywhere near as bad (in relative terms) as some are making out. You might take Puncheon but I can absolutely guarantee you that Palace fans would take any of the players I mentioned, so would Bournemouth, Swansea, Burnley, West Brom etc etc. Watford play Tom Cleverley in central midfield and I can tell you 100% that he is not a better footballer than Schneiderlin, Gana, Barkley or Davies. Notwithstanding the circumstances of his departure, Swansea fans would kill for Sigurdsson back because they know he's better than anything they've got now. People need to calm down and accept that while this may not be the season we were hoping for, there's absolutely no reason why it has to be a complete disaster.

 

[LiamG]

Firstly fella, I didn't compare Unsworths first 4 games with what you would expect from Allardyce, I compared it against my own opinion of the progress I'd expect to see in 4 games.

You are getting confused with me comparing the vacant Everton managers job with the type of job an Allardyce or Pulis would take.

Seens as you don't agree with my opinion, can you tell me why is it deluded to expect better defensive set up from set pieces, more organisation and more balanced team selection in 4 games?

I didn't say it should be the complete product but it's certainly not unfeasible to work on and begin to implement philosophies on shape and defending set pieces in even a few sessions.

Because the players are finished. How many managers need to come in and have the same problem before you realise it's not the manager.

Plus he's had 4 games in two weeks. When do you expect him to have the chance to coach them.