Is this the same bloke whom tried to punish / humiliate one of the young 'uns . by making him strip bollock naked ?
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There’s a lot of selective hindsight going on here.
Any conversation around Whitney needs to be viewed through the prism that as supporters we were constantly being told throughout his reign that the aim was Championship football and of course the famous ‘biggest ever budget’ interview. As ridiculous as that sounds, it was regularly being repeated by our CEO in the media and fans’ forum meetings.
Let’s not forget the binning of Matt Preston and James O’Connor in summer 2017 for Shaun Donnellan and James Wilson loans, to only oversee one of the most panicked January transfer windows I think we’ve ever seen. Ian Sharps tweeting Brentford to watch Justin Shaibu via a stream was a particular lowlight.
It was only natural that the fan base were becoming disgruntled at a bloke who consistently struggled to show any signs of progress past lower mid-table, when the stated target was so much higher. Rather than pointing the finger at supporters, surely the unrealistic targets set by the Board only helped to increase the pressure on Whitney? I’ll never forget that fans’ forum meeting where they wheeled out JW to face the fans to take the heat off their backs. As @geordiesaddler has pointed out, it was classic deflection tactics from the Bonser regime.
In my opinion:
The decision to appoint Whitney in the summer of 2016 was wrong.
The decision to continue with him after the Newport debacle in the FA Cup was wrong.
The decision to appoint Dean Keates was wrong.
I’ve said it many times before, Whitney was a fantastic member of the backroom team, but a seriously limited manager. Just because our Board have been unable to make the correct, subsequent managerial appointments since his departure it doesn’t mean he was the right man for the job.
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That sounds like selective hindsight
JW was a decent physio and a ■■■■ manager.
No more than that.
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