Pressure released on appointment
Posted by JamesB in Glenn Roeder, Newcastle | 9 March 2006
Following Souness' sacking I for one was pleased to see us put Glenn Roeder in charge. Despite West Ham fans using him as a scapegoat for their relegation campaign, I thought he did a good job at Upton Park and guiding his team to 7th place was no mean feat.
It would be fair to say Shepherd has made some managerial appointments without much thought behind them before. Souness for one can not have been top of Freddy's list, but with pressure on the chairman to make an immediate appointment as there was noone with enough credentials to do even a temporary job, he was forced in to appointing the Scot. That same appointment got us where we are now sadly, even though I backed and supported Souness until the end and thought he was unlucky with injuries.
With Roeder in the clubs ranks however, we had a man capable of restoring order and confidence to the squad, with the experience and know-how to possibly save our season to something respectable. Indeed he has proved me and other believers to be right, by winning 5 out of 6 games, and making our defence look more like a £13million pairing as opposed to a comedy duo. We are scoring goals in freeflow once again as well. True, some of the home games we have had would be labelled as "winnable" but with the squad in the state it was in when he took over, there were no guarantees. There never are in football.
Roeder has done exactly what we needed and taken the pressure of Shepherd to make an appointment. The chairman will now have time to think, go about things properly over time without worrying about how the team are going to do without a permanent manager. Hopefully, if we get the world class manager the fans desire (Hitzfeld for me, see previous article), we will be able to look back and thank Roeder for easing the pressure from Shepherd, and giving him the time and space he clearly needs to make the right appointment.
Next up Old Trafford, a pit stop Roeder once won twice at in one season (one FA cup, one league), so lets see how he fares with the odds stacked against him.
Comments
Im afraid you are being short sighted if you think the fact Roeder got West Ham to 7th in his first season at West Ham makes him a good manager, I was always behind him, as i try to be behind anyone in charge of our club.
However there is an ego which hides behind the man, see how he is now trying to tell all, how well he did at West Ham (7th 1st season, relegated with 42pts). The fact is he took West Ham down with all their superstars (J.Cole, J.Defoe, M.Carrick, F.Kanoute, Di Canio etc) and regardless of how many points we got that season we still ended up in the championship. All I see now is the same early confidence with Newcastle fans, if you are really serious you know you need to get a proven manager and not get carried away with short term results. West hams last 8 games have produced 6 wins 2 draws, the previous 6 were 5 defeats 1 draw, things change very quickly!
This is not anti-roeder, he is a good(great) coach, but not a manager im afraid.
PLEASE ROEDER YOU MUST BE DESPERATE ,GLENN IS A GREAT COACH, BUT MANAGER HE HASNT GOT A CLUE REMEMBER THE PLAYERS AT WEST HAM AT THAT TIME AND WE STILL GOT RELEGATED BUT IF YOU INSIST GOOD LUCK YOU WILL NEED IT!!!!!
Like you said (and I said in my article), we do need to get a proven manager.
In the short term however we needed stability after Souness left, and some confidence restored. Someone like Roeder, who has been in the Premiership before towards the top end (regardless of what happened after that) was just the trick.
My point was, we should be grateful that we had him in the ranks or else Shepherd may have made a rash appointment, and look where that got us last time.
If we didn't have Roeder with us, Tommy Craig (a goalkeeping coach) was our next best qualified. I'm not sure the fans would have believed in him to steer us clear of relegation and back up the table, nor the players, possibly not even Craig himself.
In the long term I, and most fans, and himself, want Roeder to return to the academy. But I do think that as a short term replacement and caretaker, he is exactly who we needed. We have the players, we needed the coaching to restore belief and confidence, and Roeder has done that.
Thanks to him, Shepherd has a big opportunity to get the managerial appointment right, and work towards something in the long term.
