Crystal Palace 3 - 2 Leicester

[Profondo Rosso]

Realist, I used to think like you. It was clear that given a close season Holloway is a superb manager. When Milan sacked him I thought it was a silly knee-jerk reaction.

I now realise that this is not realism and Milan was right. In getting rid of Holloway and bringing in Pearson Milan got rid of a lot of baggage. Holloway certainly bore some responsibility for the relegation. There were simple minded fans who quite simply say he was the manager when we went down put all the blame on him. There were more thoughtful fans (I would guess Realist that you are one) who put the the blame on a whole number of problems including but not primarily Holloway.

As it happened Holloway took with him all the negative history like the biblical scapegoat leaving Pearson a clean sheet which he used well.

It is pointless to use Blackpool's success as evidence to try and convince that given a closed season Holloway is a good manager. It is like showing dinosaur bones to a Jehovahs Witness. It just does not get through.

It is clear that Blackpool will have an incredibly difficult job staying in the Premiership.Let us hope Paulo and Leicester do the double over Ollie in 2011-2012 and that the games are in the Prem.

Simple minded? How horribly patronising and demeaning.

What people seem to ignore is that Holloway's record before Leicester is extremely mediocre. It's probable that he became a better manager due to his mistakes at Leicester or he may have just had one fantastic season, but either way the idea that "simple minded" people like myself are just ignoring facts like Johava's Witnesses could just as easily be said about the Holloway apologists.

Regardless of other factors, Holloway should have kept Leicester up with ease. He also essentially led Bristol Rovers to downfall, he relegated QPR then took 3 years to get them back up on the biggest budget in the division. Before Blackpool, his most notable achievement in management was taking Plymouth up 7 places in the league.

The only reason he could even get a job at a club like Leicester is because the English always overrate and sympathise sporting figures with "character" - just as they did and do with Brian Clough, Bill Shankly, Jose Mourinho, Muhammed Ali, Mike Tyson, Ian Botham, Andrew Flintoff and Geoffrey Boycott. The same thing is happening with Holloway. I can guarantee if he had the personality of Gary Megson people would no way defend him as much.

And Holloway has NOT been the "biblical scapegoat" by any means. More people seem to blame Martin Allen more than Holloway for some bizarre reason for singing a load of players who never played and had no impact on the season whatsoever.

 

[Blue Maniac]

Simple minded? How horribly patronising and demeaning.

What people seem to ignore is that Holloway's record before Leicester is extremely mediocre. It's probable that he became a better manager due to his mistakes at Leicester or he may have just had one fantastic season, but either way the idea that "simple minded" people like myself are just ignoring facts like Johava's Witnesses could just as easily be said about the Holloway apologists.

Regardless of other factors, Holloway should have kept Leicester up with ease. He also essentially led Bristol Rovers to downfall, he relegated QPR then took 3 years to get them back up on the biggest budget in the division. Before Blackpool, his most notable achievement in management was taking Plymouth up 7 places in the league.

The only reason he could even get a job at a club like Leicester is because the English always overrate and sympathise sporting figures with "character" - just as they did and do with Brian Clough, Bill Shankly, Jose Mourinho, Muhammed Ali, Mike Tyson, Ian Botham, Andrew Flintoff and Geoffrey Boycott. The same thing is happening with Holloway. I can guarantee if he had the personality of Gary Megson people would no way defend him as much.

And Holloway has NOT been the "biblical scapegoat" by any means. More people seem to blame Martin Allen more than Holloway for some bizarre reason for singing a load of players who never played and had no impact on the season whatsoever.

Agree entirely. Holloway had over six months with the team, if that was not time enough to get his message across to the players he was in the wrong job. As for his prior record, this is something some of us have always known.

 

[alex]

Love it when Prof gets steamy..

 

[escos66]

Simple minded? How horribly patronising and demeaning.

What people seem to ignore is that Holloway's record before Leicester is extremely mediocre. It's probable that he became a better manager due to his mistakes at Leicester or he may have just had one fantastic season, but either way the idea that "simple minded" people like myself are just ignoring facts like Johava's Witnesses could just as easily be said about the Holloway apologists.

Regardless of other factors, Holloway should have kept Leicester up with ease. He also essentially led Bristol Rovers to downfall, he relegated QPR then took 3 years to get them back up on the biggest budget in the division. Before Blackpool, his most notable achievement in management was taking Plymouth up 7 places in the league.

The only reason he could even get a job at a club like Leicester is because the English always overrate and sympathise sporting figures with "character" - just as they did and do with Brian Clough, Bill Shankly, Jose Mourinho, Muhammed Ali, Mike Tyson, Ian Botham, Andrew Flintoff and Geoffrey Boycott. The same thing is happening with Holloway. I can guarantee if he had the personality of Gary Megson people would no way defend him as much.

And Holloway has NOT been the "biblical scapegoat" by any means. More people seem to blame Martin Allen more than Holloway for some bizarre reason for singing a load of players who never played and had no impact on the season whatsoever.

Overrated??? Are you out of your ****ing mind?

 

[Blue Maniac]

Overrated??? Are you out of your ****ing mind?

He's right about Shankly and Flintoff. Wrong about the rest. Certainly wrong about Ali, Tyson, Boycott and Botham. But I understand his point if nobody else does :icon_wink

 

[Profondo Rosso]

They were all obviously great sports figures, but they are all overrated because of their personality, yes.

Clough - A genius at performing with the underdog, probably behind only Rehhagel and maybe Zubeldia or Ramsey. Could never keep his sides at the top though and was always found wanting when his side became genuinely big or he took over an already big side. He essentially had 5 years of genius management, about 7 years of good management and about 18 years of mediocrity in about a 30 year career. A world class manager in his day, one of the best in the history of English football, no doubt, but he gets romanticised about in England more than any other manager in history. Everyone always goes on about taking sides from the Second Division to the title, yet no one mentions, say the famously aloof and media-hating Alf Ramsey taking a side from the Third Division to the top. You don't get documentaries every other month on BBC, ITV, Sky and ESPN for any other manager in English football, not Alex Ferguson, Alf Ramsey, Herbert Chapman, Matt Busby any of them. And most of the documentaries are just banging on about his unfunny quotes and saying how he was apparently the best manager ever because of it. No one ever seems to mention him being a homophobic, xenophobic bully who hit his own fans either.

Bill Shankly - It is scandalous that there is a statue outside Anfield of Shankly, but there is not one of the shy, retiring Paisley. Shankly is romanticised about even over clearly better and more successful managers like Paisley, Ramsey, Chapman and Busby again simply because he made a few "funny" quotes and constantly went on about how working class he was.

Jose Mourinho - In the build up to the CL final earlier this year, several media outlets referred to him as the best manager ever - still has a long, long way to go yet. Also, if you ever see a list of English football's best ever managers he is always in the top 10 ahead of people like Cullis and Nicholson based on 2 years of success on an unlimited budget, ridiculous.

Ali - Ask the man in the street and he will tell you Ali was not only the greatest boxer ever, but the greatest sportsman ever. Ask the boxing enthusiast and he will tell you Ali would probably struggle to make the top 5 boxers ever - he was certainly no Sugar Ray Robinson. One of the greatest boxers ever? Yes. The greatest sportsman of all-time? Not by a long shot, and again, if he had the personality of Gary Megson, no one would even consider this.

Tyson - Similar to Ali.

Botham and Flintoff - It's true they did win games against the Aussies which helps, but both have very mediocre averages and neither should be labelled the best English cricketer ever, as Botham often is. Our centre-back should surely get that honour?

Boycott - Again, a very good player, not world class though and just in general he's a very spiteful and nasty man. Well, I'll admit this one is more me just hating the twat than anything.

 

[Profondo Rosso]

Love it when Prof gets steamy..

I like to entertain.

 

[escos66]

He's right about Shankly and Flintoff. Wrong about the rest. Certainly wrong about Ali, Tyson, Boycott and Botham. But I understand his point if nobody else does :icon_wink

I am too young to remember Shankly so only have reports to go on so I'll give you that one but we will have to disagree on Flintoff. Not for his best all rounder since Botham tag but for the fact he was one of the most economical and accurate bowlers this country has had in many a year.

 

[Blue Maniac]

Botham and Flintoff - It's true they did win games against the Aussies which helps, but both have very mediocre averages and neither should be labelled the best English cricketer ever, as Botham often is. Our centre-back should surely get that honour?

:icon_bigg

 

[Profondo Rosso]

I am too young to remember Shankly so only have reports to go on so I'll give you that one but we will have to disagree on Flintoff. Not for his best all rounder since Botham tag but for the fact he was one of the most economical and accurate bowlers this country has had in many a year.

I think Flintoff was a big match player. I wouldn't say he was any more accurate or economical (cba to look up their averages) than even Jimmy Anderson or Greame Swann and was probably a less intelligent bowler than either of them, but he did it against the Aussies in the 2005 Ashes which was basically the biggest thing in English cricket for decades, don't get me wrong, he was excellent in that series, but the person who was behind that victory (which was let's face it, a rather flukey one) was always going to get remembered above anyone else from that era.

Also, in my lifetime, English cricket has been in such a poor state that players who aren't really great get put as greats in comparison, this team we have now is probably our best side in living memory. Flintoff is probably the best English cricketer of the past 15 years, but that isn't saying much, he certainly isn't anywhere near a modern great in the way Warne or Tendulkar are.

 

[Profondo Rosso]

Incidentally, I just want to say, I'm not taking anything away from these people's achievements or saying they don't deserve credit for what they have done in sport, but I'm just saying that the English do have a tendency to elevate greats to all-time greats and all-time greats to the all-time great solely based on their personality and I honestly believe Holloway would not have got the Leicester job and so many Leicester fans would not be defending him if he didn't have such a personality (or at least in the media).

It's probably more evident in music than sport really (well, the NME to be precise), where mediocre, bland musicians like Noel Gallagher and Pete Doherty can be hailed as the best musicians of their generations when critics constantly site their "swagger" as a reason to why their music is great.

 

[Macky]

Seems to be a lot of cricket talk going on. Can we at least stick to sport?

 

[Ian Marshall]

Flintoff is probably the best English cricketer of the past 15 years, but that isn't saying much, he certainly isn't anywhere near a modern great in the way Warne or Tendulkar are.

I'd probably have to reluctantly agree with that.

Warne and Tendulkar managed huge amounts of cricket though - whereas England just didn't get the use out of Flintoff.

Flintoff was a fantastic cricketer. A real impact player - he's not on the same level as Warne, Tendulkar etc though. Its definitely true that his 'personality' and drunken antics (as well as the role of the English media) that have bigged him up further.

I'd still take him at Leicestershire though...

 

[Macky]

Cricket schmicket, stop with all this gay talk

 

[Ian Marshall]

Cricket schmicket, stop with all this gay talk

Sorry - got confused, I thought I was on my other forum.