Strange Managerial Decisions

Breaking up our solid defence last night and leaving Ricketts out is, for me, one of the weirdest team selections in a long time. It simply didn't make any sense.

But we've had our fair share of idiot managers over the years, can you think of any other weird, strange or downright daft team selections?

The obvious one is Owen Coyle paying £4m for Marvin Sordell and not playing him. A less obvious one is Fat Sam's decision to continually leave Jared Borgetti on the bench when he was the only player scoring goals.

I never understood why, when we were clearly struggling for goals, Megson didn't use Smolarek allot more. He was a proven goalscorer.

Playing Dean Holdsworth always puzzled me.

"It gets up my ooter when they say Megson Megson sign him up and who they thought brought here in the first place"

Megsons treatment of Klasnic was odd.

we've had a lot of loans in recent years that didn't seem to get a fair shake as well, especially under Coyle.

I can't understand why it took so long to realise SKD was passed his sell by?

Julian Darby was the original strange managerial decision. Phil Neal picked him week after week despite week after week of shocking performances.

He wasn't fully fit according to radio last night.

Swintonwhite89 wrote:He wasn't fully fit according to radio last night.

Did you actually hear that yourself or as someone just made that up? - because he played for half an hour as a sub last night!

Obviously not that unfit then!

The fact he played half an hour doesn't mean he was fit enough to start though does it?

It just means Dougie realised a semi fit Ricketts couldn't possibly do worse than Butterfield was.

bwfc1874 wrote:The fact he played half an hour doesn't mean he was fit enough to start though does it?

It just means Dougie realised a semi fit Ricketts couldn't possibly do worse than Butterfield was.

We listened to the whole match commentary last night via the Chatbox and no mention was made of Ricketts being unfit.

If Swinton heard the comment, then fair enough but I suspect he simply read a comment somewhere that someone had simply made up to justify Butterfield starting.

Sluffy wrote:

bwfc1874 wrote:The fact he played half an hour doesn't mean he was fit enough to start though does it?

It just means Dougie realised a semi fit Ricketts couldn't possibly do worse than Butterfield was.

We listened to the whole match commentary last night via the Chatbox and no mention was made of Ricketts being unfit.

If Swinton heard the comment, then fair enough but I suspect he simply read a comment somewhere that someone had simply made up to justify Butterfield starting.

Who knows, it's possible whoever relayed the commentary onto chatbox missed it, it's also possible Swinton misheard it.

If he was fit he should have started.

Natasha Whittam wrote:Breaking up our solid defence

Not a phrase I expected to hear this season after the start we had.

bwfc1874 wrote:

Sluffy wrote:

bwfc1874 wrote:The fact he played half an hour doesn't mean he was fit enough to start though does it?

It just means Dougie realised a semi fit Ricketts couldn't possibly do worse than Butterfield was.

We listened to the whole match commentary last night via the Chatbox and no mention was made of Ricketts being unfit.

If Swinton heard the comment, then fair enough but I suspect he simply read a comment somewhere that someone had simply made up to justify Butterfield starting.

Who knows, it's possible whoever relayed the commentary onto chatbox missed it, it's also possible Swinton misheard it.

If he was fit he should have started.

Maybe - but we had at least three people doing the commentary from their radio's - so I doubt they all would have missed it.

As for if Ricketts was fit he should have started - well that is the point nearly everybody agrees on - hence why I suspect the radio 'excuse' as simply been made up by someone to justify why he wasn't.

Please can someone give sluffy a 24 hour ban for hijacking my thread. Arsehole.

According to comms on Tower FM, Dougie benched Ricketts because he thought Butterfield was more defensive minded. I suspect he wanted him to negate the threat of Dyer and Slurp. Unfortunately, his cunning plan backfired.

(Butterfield = slower than KD) -V- (Dyer = possibly quickest in the league).

If the above was a tactical decision made my our management they deserve a one match ban.

I think Ricketts getting sent off the other week may have influenced Dougie's decision.

In fairness, I think Ricketts has been poor lately too.
Not enough to justify the decision, but Bolton fans were singing his name when he came on as though he was a saviour. He is also substandard at present.

I don't think he suits playing with eagles. They have both appeared to be disinterested for large parts of this season. Strange because I really rated Ricketts last season and thought he was one of our best defenders before he got injured.

Selling Habsi.