I finally listened to the Paddy interview.

Not quite sure what to think after that. It was a real mixed bag. A lot of fair points, a lot of total deflection and a smattering of David Brent.

The “we were nearly there this season” narrative needed to be challenged a lot more. I have no idea quite how we were nearly there, but Paddy should have pointed out that in the form table we were pretty close to bottom over the final 10/12 games. I think relegation is more likely than promotion next season, unless we have a remarkable summer.

The lauding of the academy and pipeline of amazing talent ditto. I totally get the minutes played by academy stat, but I think that’s very misleading. It’s all propped up by players that were here before Webber arrived. Just being honest, last two seasons I haven’t seen anything out of the academy that looks even close to first team ready. Maybe that’s harsh, but the it looks to me like the academy is providing players capable of being on the fringe of a pretty average to poor championship team. That for me is nothing to celebrate.

There was little pushing on transfer record. Why do we still not have a CDM? On promotion, why did you splash so much money on two left wingers and a young striker that doesn’t score that many goals when we needed a CDM? When you did get a CDM on loan, we ended up with someone with niggling injuries who was hampered/injured for most of the season. Instead of learning from that, why did we do exactly the same thing again this season with Hayden?

On the abuse he has received, I do get that there are some that take things too far, and that’s inexcusable. But putting the abusers to one side, Webber has allowed the situation to become toxic by failing to do anything to address the manifest failings at the club. No excuse for people yelling c**t at him and his family, but he needs to reflect on what he could have done differently to stop the mood souring so much that a lot of fans regularly boo him, the team, the management, and offer only sarcastic applause. That stems from a very long period of denial, deflection, refusal to engage and sending out people from the club to blame the fans. That setting of the tone came from the direction Webber set, and he needs to reflect on that.

The framing of the impending sale of Aarons was a bit bizarre. Like we can’t even aspire to retain a player like Aarons. No wonder we are mid table fodder (or worse) if someone like Aarons is totally and completely beyond our locus.

Last thought. He said a lot of things where I wanted Paddy to say “yeah, but…” and hit him with a follow up question. But his plea for us to get behind the team and manager next season and give them a chance has got to be right. I just think it would be a lot easier to do that if he did more honest explanation and less reaching to excuses. But that is what we all need to do, or we’ll be even more screwed next season.

PS if he can get 20m+ for big Andy, he’s a f**king genius.

Posted By: Under soil heating, May 20, 08:45:02