…that we should achieve immediate promotion?
I think that was a very special one off situation 
but fair enough!
I think there was a plan by Smith - hindsight is a wonderful thing…
But I don’t think it was too unreasonable to be upset with the manager after 1 win in 26 games or whatever it was 
We won’t achieve immediate promotion. I don’t care how slow Clarke starts, this side has weaknesses and I can’t see them putting together a run strong enough to get into a promotion place never mind achieve it.
Is that a failure on what was discussed as a target at the start of the season? Yes. Sackable? Obviously not. As long as this season isn’t a disaster Clarke will be given the time to put a side together, as he should. But that doesn’t mean he’s exempt from criticism when we perform badly between now and then.
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That’s just ridiculous.
Please read it instead of misunderstanding me yet again. I’m saying he will be given time and should be.
I don’t disagree
I just have to smile when I read the bias for or against a particular manager.
I thought and still think that Clarke will work out well, but can’t get the hard on over a couple of wins.
The main thing for me is that Boner has gone and if it takes a while, it takes a while. I can almost guarantee though that the jizzum will turn to bile should we find ourselves still in the bottom 6-8 at the start of the new year.
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DC is certainly not exempt from criticism and the side have underperformed - agree with all that.
However, I disagree that a new regime’s fanfare should override the reality of the situation.
We will need time to undo 29 years of Bonser, namely reuniting the freehold.
The playing side will always suffer until that is resolved.
Priorities for me at the start of this season were:
Clearing out dead wood - done, a bit too well !!
Stopping the rot - ongoing
Looking coherent and organised - done
Starting the rebuild from the back - absolutely done
I’m impressed with those things to date.
I just wish he would be a little more adventurous because I think we could get a few results together if he was.
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That’s why I said I’ll wait until we know any figures before I decide if Clarke has underachieved or not.
I just hope whatever happens it gets more exciting to watch. I was ready to fall asleep by half time on Saturday.
But that’s the point isn’t it?
You’ve been going off on one for about 6 weeks over the results.
You can’t turn around now after two weeks and say “I’m going to wait”
That’s very fickle.
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I’d rather have an organised team winning 1-0 consistently than a side like Whitney’s/Keates that would go gung-ho and lose more weeks than not.
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How is it fickle to say I don’t think the performances in those games or his selections were good enough? I still think that now. Fickle would be me turning round and calling him the best manager ever after two wins. I’m still unsure just like I was before.
But the slightest criticism and you read “OMG sack Clarke now, he’s useless!”.
But I say one thing and you read another. There’s no point doing this dance again so keep your insults and laughing faces mate 
I don’t think that DC is some sort of messiah but I do think he has the experience and knowledge to help develop us into a good team again. I have no doubt this will take time. It might well be 2 years before we have any youngsters coming through the system as part of his brief was to reorganise the playing side from top to bottom. In Migual LLera we seem to have appointed a good bloke but we must give him time too to bring on the youngsters we will need.
I am prepared to give him the time required and am pleased that so far he has built from the back. We don’t look like conceding many goals which is a good starting point for future success.
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You can still be an organised team winning 1-0 but you can still attack and be exciting too. Just because you try to score goals doesn’t mean you have to be disorganised, look at Man City.
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PS to my earlier post. I genuinely believe that we have a good chance of making the playoffs if Clarke is as good as we hope he is. This league is absolute cack and having watched all but the first couple of games I haven’t seen a team to worry about. We could easily have 3-4 points more than we currently have.
We have a very solid defence with decent back up, and solid midfield with a very good player in Guthrie if we can keep him fit.
I have been impressed with Gaffney and both he and Lavery are fine at this level. With such a solid and organised defence / midfield we won’t need to score too many to win / draw games.
Hang around the top 8-10 til January and then plug whatever gap and job could be a gud en.
But to reiterate, I’m not getting carried away based on 2 wins on the trot.
Edit - and we have some useful back up in midfield as well plus Adebayo up front
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Totally agree , but hope we progress even further than (where we belong ) as this is historically League One .
Get to League One and LP said he could get extra backing from some American links , so hopefully we can expand our normal horizons
Technically better than Spurs tonight looking at the league cup result…
Go on Darrell.
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Genuine question - are you still seeking an apology from people reaching a different assessment on the state of affairs?
Genuine Answer - I never was. I wondered if I would get one for being called a ********, retard and so on after saying our start was not simply down to gelling and that we were under performing. Something that Clarke himself has since said (“Walsall are failing miserably”, “we owe the fans”).
I never cared what their assessment was and I certainly don’t expect an apology for that. But personally I don’t think those terms warrant being used over any difference of opinion to be honest. You clearly do, you used one of them and I’m at a loss as to what this has to do with the topic to be honest.
Just checking whether you had evolved beyond the hypocrisy of being both noisy protagonist and embattled victim yet, and whether it was worth taking you seriously again.
So, no. 