Does that mean we can criticise CR if we don't think he can keep us up? Or not? I'm confused...
You're entitled to criticise anyone you want, on whatever basis makes sense to you. You can boo who you like as far as I'm concerned. However, simply criticising someone for not being NP isn't likely to garner much respect after a while.
I praised NP for the positive things he did for the club such as the establishment of the U21 side, the massive improvement in sports science, physiotherapy and so on. His main attribute was in trusting Steve Walsh to do a largely excellent job of identifying good additions to the squad. NP oversaw these things very well indeed. He was a safe pair of hands as the club picked itself up from its worst position in history to put us back to where we should be. He had the great advantage of lots of money to build a squad compared to most of our rivals and he just about got an acceptable return for this investment over his five and a half years at the club.
I criticised NP for his tactical ineptitude, his utter ignorance of basic things like set pieces and his behavioural pig-headedness on many, many occasions and he absolutely deserved that too. I don't miss him and I'm glad he's gone and that was never going to change unless he had a brain transplant. Susan Whelan put this argument far more diplomatically yesterday.
I have no idea whether it will work out better with CR. I think he's miles superior to NP on all the things NP was bad at. But this season will be decided by the players, not CR. If they accept him, adapt to his ways and can combine this with their passion and endeavour, we will flourish. If we have a significant minority of players that get the grumps, or aren't intellectually capable of adapting, we will struggle. From his comments, CR already appears to have recognised this in stark contrast to someone like Peter Twatlor who chose to rip up the things that worked and ignore the advantages of a settled group.
So whilst NPs departure has left me feeling like I've taken off a tight pair of shoes after a long day, I'm only cautiously optimistic. All this talk of managers is largely irrelevant. It's the players that will make or break this decision.
