What was the moment.

Where it all went wrong for the club.

Big Sam leaving.
Holden getting injured
Hiring Lennon?

Sacking Dougie Freedman was the moment for me. I don't think we'll ever get back in the premier league under the current ownership.

Awful.

Big Sam leaving.
Replacing him with little Sam was the beginning of the end.

Hipster_Nebula wrote:Where it all went wrong for the club.

Big Sam leaving.
Holden getting injured
Hiring Lennon?

Sacking Dougie Freedman was the moment for me. I don't think we'll ever get back in the premier league under the current ownership.

Awful.

There is a lot we do agree about!

boltonbonce wrote:Big Sam leaving.
Replacing him with little Sam was the beginning of the end.

Completely agree.

boltonbonce wrote:Big Sam leaving.
Replacing him with little Sam was the beginning of the end.

Aargh!....the memories!

karlypants wrote:

boltonbonce wrote:Big Sam leaving.
Replacing him with little Sam was the beginning of the end.

Aargh!....the memories!

The moment little Sam appeared,wearing what looked like his Dad's suit,my heart sank.

Megson. Sucked the life out of BWFC. Reserve side in a fucking EUROPEAN game against Sporting!

Natasha Whittam wrote:Megson. Sucked the life out of BWFC. Reserve side in a fucking EUROPEAN game against Sporting!

Good god even worse!

He was an absolute prick as well. Will never forget when he turned on the fans like he did the shitbag!

No one is immune. I well remember the Lever end chanting 'Lofthouse out' those many years ago. If a legend can get it,anyone can.

When the penny dropped that although Allardyce had done wonderfully well with his innovative idea of rescuing old quality players whose careers where on the slide, for one last hurrah in the Premier League, that the plan of paying massive wages to players at the end of their careers (and thus with no resale value) was completely financially unsustainable and would require a massive (and costly) rebuild of the squad.

Sam was smart enough to get out at the top but whoever had to follow him - Lee/Megson/Coyle - had to rebuild at short notice - and for players in their prime (in order to step into first team places) - which are expensive in terms of both transfer fees and/or wages paid!

I guess in retrospect the blame should be laid at Phil Gartside's door, as there doesn't seem to have been any planning ahead for what to do when the likes of Okocha, Djorkaeff, Hierro, Stelios, Campo, etc, had to hang up their boots.

It might be a harsh assessment from me but clearly the wheels came off not because Allardyce left but because we could no longer sustain the financial requirement to replace the quality of players that left for free around that time or thereabouts and also by that time we were starting to run up pretty big debts.

We lived the dream under Sam, I guess - and been paying for it ever since!

Little Sam was a huge mistake. Whoever took over would have problems,as you mention above Sluffy,but an old,experienced head was the order of the day.
I think Gartside gave the job to Lee in order to have one final dig at the big man.

Natasha Whittam wrote:Megson. Sucked the life out of BWFC. Reserve side in a fucking EUROPEAN game against Sporting!

He put a reserve side out against Bayern as well.

Hiring Megson who had always been a bore as had the football he had always played

Of course there is no ‘moment’ that defines it ALL going wrong but...Megson. Hull. 2-2. I have never recovered.

finlaymcdanger wrote:Of course there is no ‘moment’ that defines it ALL going wrong but...Megson. Hull. 2-2. I have never recovered.

Remember going to this game when we were 2 up.

Sluffy wrote:When the penny dropped that although Allardyce had done wonderfully well with his innovative idea of rescuing old quality players whose careers where on the slide, for one last hurrah in the Premier League, that the plan of paying massive wages to players at the end of their careers (and thus with no resale value) was completely financially unsustainable and would require a massive (and costly) rebuild of the squad.

Sam was smart enough to get out at the top but whoever had to follow him - Lee/Megson/Coyle - had to rebuild at short notice - and for players in their prime (in order to step into first team places) - which are expensive in terms of both transfer fees and/or wages paid!

I guess in retrospect the blame should be laid at Phil Gartside's door, as there doesn't seem to have been any planning ahead for what to do when the likes of Okocha, Djorkaeff, Hierro, Stelios, Campo, etc, had to hang up their boots.

It might be a harsh assessment from me but clearly the wheels came off not because Allardyce left but because we could no longer sustain the financial requirement to replace the quality of players that left for free around that time or thereabouts and also by that time we were starting to run up pretty big debts.

We lived the dream under Sam, I guess - and been paying for it ever since!

The question which maybe we should consider, was Sam's request for more money a solid idea?  Could we have achieved Championship League Football, which would have more than offset the additional cost.  I'm not sure if that was a good idea, but I'm more concerned with the overall financial stability that was lacking after BSA.  Some of these knuckleheads have made the worst decisions imaginable... with forgettable players making unimaginable salaries.  Perhaps the worst decision was not having relegation clauses in their contracts.  Those are top management decisions and I'm not sure PG let ED know what was really going on.  ED may have only found out when PG was seriously ill.  That may have forced his hand to abandon the club precipitously.  Whatever, I hope we survive this season... albeit one point above the bottom three will do for me.  Please don't let the Wolves run up our GD... or we could be relegated by that same GD.

karlypants wrote:

finlaymcdanger wrote:Of course there is no ‘moment’ that defines it ALL going wrong but...Megson. Hull. 2-2. I have never recovered.

Remember going to this game when we were 2 up.

A very poor ref decision cost us the game as I recall.

Simply not true that Allardyce was reliant on old quality players, we’d evolved since then. Diouf, Anelka, Davies, Faye, Ben Haim, Nolan, O’Brien, all big players 06/07 and all under 30.

For me it was the Holden injury, people tend to forget Uncle Owen was doing a decent job until that point. Then Holden was out and we had other injuries and then THAT semi-final. We never recovered from that spell and Coyle had no plan B the following season when things started to go wrong

Norpig wrote:For me it was the Holden injury, people tend to forget Uncle Owen was doing a decent job until that point. Then Holden was out and we had other injuries and then THAT semi-final. We never recovered from that spell and Coyle had no plan B the following season when things started to go wrong

Feel really bad for Holden. He had a great career ahead of him.