Thankful for the directors we have

[Morectalk]

My point is that, yes, Sammy has done a good job over the years, but he can't take it any further and IMO he should go. Call it by mutual consent if you want, but he should leave with our thanks, and give someone else a go. I seem to remember that we all thought Harvey couldn't be replaced and we were proved wrong back then. If we play like that again on Saturday then Wycombe will win 6, 7, 8 nil, and it will be embarrassing to say the least.

[Bryan]

Any manager is judged soley on results. They haven't been good enough. Simple as. Yep he's done a great job up until this season. But many fear that he's past his shelf life in terms of attracting players and motivating the side. Also no youth policy or faith in young players. Why? Lots of fans have said to me over the last few months they won't be renewing their season ticket if he stays. As for the Craig Stanley saga - do me a favour. Simply pure madness. Oh and we're not out the woods yet in this League. See the reserves had a nice win against Macc too!

[Keith]

Any manager is judged soley on results.

Agreed, but how many?

The last 3 results?
The last 30 results?
The last 300 results?

Time is running out.
The style of play has never been pretty to watch.
There are clearly more than enough players who are with us for the pay-packet, who don't give a toss about the club.

BUT

If Sammy McIlroy's judged purely on "results", then he's done enough in the past to suggest that he should be given a bit longer. This season has been a long, poor one, interspersed with occasional flashes of mediocrity. However, it's where we go from here. Hopefully, he'll recognise that what he's tried to do this season has been an abject failure, buffered entirely by two other clubs being worse. Hopefully Sammy Mac will decide to start building a team for next season that is based around entertaining and playing people who actually want to wear the shirt. I'm still saying Sammy Mac deserves a bit longer, based upon his results over the last five seasons... but the time for change is getting closer... either on the pitch or off it.

[George Dawes]

Kieth a good point you made here

Hopefully, he'll recognise that what he's tried to do this season has been an abject failure, buffered entirely by two other clubs being worse

i seriously doubt he will just going by his interviews alone this season.. it's always down to the players or bad luck or refereeing decisions or the weather etc

[LA1Shrimp]

Dont forget its down to the pitch dimensions being wrong and having to train on a state of the art all weather pitch, even though they train at Preston 3 days a week!

[marky]

The whole squad, staff and manager take the blame and priase for every performance. Sometimes a manager sets his stall perfect and players on the pitch let him down. Sometimes the manager gets tactcis wrong but players bail him out. Works both ways, but you've NEVER had a good thing to say about Sammy.
This is a manager who up until this season bettered his results year after year, that can only happen for so long. I saw a bad season coming a mile off because no way were we ever going to beat last seasons 4th, but if were still in the football league next season then what does it matter. We dont have the resources to go up, so if were not going down it doesn't matter where we finish as long as its not bottom 2. Infact the end to this season has been more exciting than most, now we have something to lose.

But even when we finished 4th you barely had a good word to say about Sammy, you let your personal issues with him cloud the fact that he's been the best manager at our club in recent history!

You have me all wrong, as do a number of people of here. What I have is strong opinions about a club I care about and I'm not afraid to air them, even though they may be unpopular at times. Other contributors to this site choose to use that to form some sort of incredibly sad group internet bullying drive but I remain ever hopeful that they will obtain the odd brain cell at some stage and grow out of it. It may surprise you to learn that I agree with you on a number of points. We vastly overachieved last season when a combination of astonishing team spirit, a never say die attitude and some laxity from other clubs saw us surge into the play-offs. I never expected us to realisitcally match that this season, but the manager himself created his own bed of knives by publically stating how fantastic he thought the squad was and how he wanted (and seemed to actually believe we could) better last season's final position.

I still don't believe we're ready as a club to first gain promotion to and then sustain a place in League 1. However, our squad should be far better than a fight against relegation and whilst players have to share some of the blame for that, it is Sammy who trains them, it is Sammy who picks the side, it is Sammy who chooses the tactics and it is Sammy who makes some bizarre substitutions. Indeed, it is Sammy who has brought nearly all of these players to the club in the first place. I also agree that he's the best manager we've had since I became a fan in the very early 90s (you must have missed the post I made regarding that). Nevertheless, none of this changes my belief that the time is nigh for a change (well, in May at least).

PS - I assume you totally ignored my relatively positive, long, 3 paragraph response to the Barnet game. When there is praise to give, I will give it. Just ask any of my 'customers'. This moron is passionate about helping people, takes great pride in providing great customer service and wants his football team to continue its steady progression. He merely hopes that future is without Sammy McIlroy, though he will always rightly be seen as a legend.

[Pobble]

Unbelievable rubbish, he is the worst Manager and tactitian I have seen in football in the last few decades.
Who takes a striker off straight after he scores.(last night)
Who takes a striker off and replaces with a midfielder five minutes from time when losing 1-0.(against Bradford)
Who makes substitutions three minutes from fulltime when 1-0 down,(against Bury) this is generally accepted as way of running down he clock, of course Irish clocks might be different.
Who brings in a player who Scottish football did not want and in his only game at Leeds was laughed off the pitch.(Guess who ?)

Before the fanatical Sammy gang start, I am just as much a supporter as any of you, Barnet and Chesterfield were fantastic results, my season ticket is renewed each year, whatever happens, but anyone with half a brain can see that the problem at the Globe comes from the top, and if it is not SM who is it?
Some of you should think about it instead of slagging some of us as negative.

I was wondering when you would show up again, obviously nowhere to be seen when we won the last couple of games. Yep Sammy is an awful amanger that took a tin pot team to league 2 beat the best teams in the league and finished 1 place off auto promotion.


No pobble it is infact you who knows nothing, but Sammy is clueless and clearly knows nothing about football management. Maybe you should be manager.

You are so blinkered that you are becoming hilarious. If you feel everything I wrote was rubbish you must therefore agree with all SM`s substitutions and his blind faith in Capaldi.
I did not know we had won the last two games, obviously Bradford and Macclesfield were just illusions.

[SupermarketShrimp]

Any manager is judged soley on results.

Agreed, but how many?

The last 3 results?
The last 30 results?
The last 300 results?

Time is running out.
The style of play has never been pretty to watch.
There are clearly more than enough players who are with us for the pay-packet, who don't give a toss about the club.

BUT

If Sammy McIlroy's judged purely on "results", then he's done enough in the past to suggest that he should be given a bit longer. This season has been a long, poor one, interspersed with occasional flashes of mediocrity. However, it's where we go from here. Hopefully, he'll recognise that what he's tried to do this season has been an abject failure, buffered entirely by two other clubs being worse. Hopefully Sammy Mac will decide to start building a team for next season that is based around entertaining and playing people who actually want to wear the shirt. I'm still saying Sammy Mac deserves a bit longer, based upon his results over the last five seasons... but the time for change is getting closer... either on the pitch or off it.

I see peoples points - everyone is allowed a shit season, so long as it's not that bad. Look at Moyes at Everton. He's allowed a crap season because the board know that it's a blip and the systems and structure at the club is sound - young players coming through, decent transfers brought in, etc etc.

My problem is that under Sammy this year, we've started badly and gone downhill with nothing in place underneath the first team, the youth team and the players he's bringing in are even worse. If I thought that he had 6 or 7 youthful targets on cheap wages sured up and a youth set up that actually produces something other than 3 first year pros that get fucked off after 12 months I could stomach this season.

Simply, we don't appear to have any direction on or off the field, I don't know what McIlroys job description is but there is no legacy for a new man to walk into and inherit should he go as expected at the end of the season unlike under Harvey.

The decision to replace Harvey with McIlroy was the right one and 12 months overdue. This decision is now 6 months overdue and the nettle needs to be grasped before the club is hurt further.

We need a young manager willing to work long hours setting up a legacy here. We pay good money, so I'm sure that there will be a lot of names interested. Peter Taylor, Iain Dowie, Martin Ling, managers with pedigree will look at us, and don't think otherwise, but we need to look past them and get the "unearthed gem"

What would be helpful too, is that should McIlroy be leaving at the end of the year for it to be said NOW. I think that the fans would wave him off and say thanks for the memories, rather than stick two fingers up and start picking up the pieces if a faceless decision is made over the summer.

I've never felt so angry in all my life of following football at the unmitigated disaster than my club is at the moment.

[ezz]

My point is that, yes, Sammy has done a good job over the years, but he can't take it any further and IMO he should go. Call it by mutual consent if you want, but he should leave with our thanks, and give someone else a go. I seem to remember that we all thought Harvey couldn't be replaced and we were proved wrong back then. If we play like that again on Saturday then Wycombe will win 6, 7, 8 nil, and it will be embarrassing to say the least.

I agree that if Sammy has lost the drive to run the team, then at the end of the season if he wants to leave and its the best decision on behalf of the club then he deserves a great send off. There has been something different about this season, my main defence of Sammy is that he is the best man for the job untill the end of the season and my main gripe was people calling for his head with 10 games left, thats potential league suicide.
No Pobble I dont agree with Sammy's substitutions, but subs arn't everything a manager does, you claim he's the worst tactitian ever......how does the worst tactician takes our tiny squad to 4th last year? With 2 mid-table finishes before, you claim is ridiculous. At first I liked tearing your opinions to pieces but now its boring, your clearly a WUM and don't deserve the time of day to be proven wrong.


FAO Marky, your correct I was one at the start of the season who was so excited about our sqaud, on paper it was miles better than anything before but the spirit of the team was lost in the process. The rest of the league has improved dramatically as well, you can see this as the league is so close from 12th downwards. I can't stand and will forever berate people who come on here AFTER the match claiming they would have done things diffferently after we've lost.
If we stay up this season then success, we get another crack at continuing to build for the future. If Sammy leaves i wont be sad, he's done a great job but all good things come to an end, if he stays then again I'll continue to support him for next season as he's our manager.

[alwaysright]

I put a post on here some weeks ago now asking if the Morecambe fc board would be all that bothered if the club did get relegated, and as usual the rose tinted glasses brigade had a go !!!! now i find it really interesting that the board of directors have stuck by the manager while attendances are falling, the team are playing shite football, and the manager doesnt have a motivating bone in his body and he plays someone that has no interest in the club and yet he lets Stanners go out on loan, i bet the directors are now wishing they had accepted his resignation when he offered to go ????

[ezz]

Your assuming a new manager would have made things better though, thats not even close to being guarenteed.......

[alwaysright]

The thing is ezz, its too late now too get a new manager in so we'll never know the answer to that 1.

[ezz]

It's not just that, it was around January when people really started to want him gone. Sacking him in my opinion wouldn't have helped,as we'd have struggled to get a 'better' replacement. No point in getting rid of him for the hell of it, if we'd only bring in a manager who may have done even worse.

[The Fury]

It's not just that, it was around January when people really started to want him gone. Sacking him in my opinion wouldn't have helped,as we'd have struggled to get a 'better' replacement. No point in getting rid of him for the hell of it, if we'd only bring in a manager who may have done even worse.

Absolutely. If we do appoint someone new in the summer, then that person needs the summer to work with the squad. Moreover, Sammy at least deserved the opportunity to put this season right. If we stay up, then he has succeeded, but I think after that we have reached a point where it is time to move in; in the same way it was with Jim Harvey.

[SupermarketShrimp]

What you don't realise is that Sammy has had us punching above our weight for years now, we came up through the play-offs as we were 'strong' enough to win the conference outright. First season in the league was always giong to be ok as its classed as the honeymoon period, we finished mid table....great result.

Please get that idea out of your head about "punching above our weight". Our budget given the rumoured wages and the agent fees we pay must be in the top 6 of this division, we lose money hand over fist that the directors write off out of their own pockets and to say that we have punched above our weight is quite simply false.

[steve mfc]

What you don't realise is that Sammy has had us punching above our weight for years now, we came up through the play-offs as we were 'strong' enough to win the conference outright. First season in the league was always giong to be ok as its classed as the honeymoon period, we finished mid table....great result.

Please get that idea out of your head about "punching above our weight". Our budget given the rumoured wages and the agent fees we pay must be in the top 6 of this division, we lose money hand over fist that the directors write off out of their own pockets and to say that we have punched above our weight is quite simply false.

That quote sums up the problem with this and most football forums, rumours and speculation, sometimes it only takes one person to make a post and it becomes gospel.

We don't know what our player budget is and we certainly don't know what the other teams in this league spend on their budget, a few weeks ago in the MBW Stand i heard someone say that we had the third highest budget in the league , the speculation is bad enough but when its used as a stick to beat the manager with then i personally find it unfair to say the least.

[Morectalk]

Why don't we let some of the stats speak for themselves -
1. 5 home wins - only Stockport & Hereford have won fewer games at home than us.
2. Only 3 other teams have scored less goals than us at home.
3. We have only won 3 of our last 15, including embarrassing home defeats to Bradford, Oxford & Macc.
4. Attendances are going to drop as we have nothing to play for - wasn't it great to see 2000+ every game earlier in the season.

If people are happy for the decline to continue, that's fine by me, but in my opinion, it is time for a change. There is no quick-fix & it is going to take time for someone new to bed in. I'll continue to support the lads as I have done for the last 30 odd years, but the manager has lost it for me.

[LA1Shrimp]

We don't know what our player budget is and we certainly don't know what the other teams in this league spend on their budget

We have 31 players, all of which have considerable league experience. I think you can read into that what you will about the size of our budget. Do the maths.

This year 442 magazine, had us down to come 3rd based on the development, size and infrastructure at the club, this idea that we are tin pot is perpetuated by some fans and used as a get out clause for why we are doing so poorly.

[Shrimpy]

Torquay United
17 contracted players + 5 on loan
4th in the league

Morecambe
26 contracted players + 4 on loan
19th in the league

Both clubs have very similar average attendances so it's not difficult to see that we are spending far more than they are and getting considerably worse results.

[SupermarketShrimp]

Lets also remember that if we were in the Premier League that squad would actually be too big!

[ezz]

We have a small fan base, we have a small catchment area for players, we have a lower budget than 'most' clubs and we were not exactly a 'big' name in this league in terms of chance of winning things.
Therefore we are one of the smaller teams in this league, even when are attendances were in the 2000's thats still a lot lower than the majority of clubs attact.
We came up with a good team spirit and work rate and it works in a league like this, we've brought in my players who are supposed to have more 'quality', this may be true but we've lost the spirit and the work rate in the progress.
Anyone who doesn't think we're punching above our weight is seriously deluded.
Our wages may be high.....nobody knows but we only really sign players on loan and for free, very little do we ever pay a large transfer fee as we don't have the money.

[Posh]

We have a large squad out of necessity not choice. If we'd stuck with what we had we'd be down by now.

Here's some more stats:

Out of 8 summer signings only Andy Fleming has started more than half the games.

Our top scorer has scored just 7 goals with three of those coming in one game. Stewart Drummond, who some people want to pension off, is second highest in the goals tally again.

Our player with most assists is at Scunthorpe and the player with the second highest is at Torquay United.

Our left back thinks he plays for a 'pub team'

Funny or depressing?

[LA1Shrimp]

Very few people pay money for players in this day and age and at this level, signing on fees and improved contracts make up for that.

Squad size only a necessity due to the lack of quality we signed in the closed season. We have picked up players as the season has gone along due to the fact what was brought in has been nowhere near good enough. If we had properly scouted and signed 3 or 4 good players we wouldt have needed the army of second rate short termers like Capaldi, Holdsworth, Charnock etc who lets be honest nobody else wanted.

You would expect towards the end of last season a list of areas needing cover/added quality would have been drawn up and a search for players in those areas to begin. From the sheer quantity of garbage we have signed and the constant replacing of players who aren't good enough throughout the season you have to assume this wasn't done.

[Posh]

We have a small fan base, we have a small catchment area for players, we have a lower budget than 'most' clubs and we were not exactly a 'big' name in this league in terms of chance of winning things.

Sorry Ezz but bizarely you're being negative to be positive and, in my view, it just doesn't work.

Small fan base. Hard core maybe but we've built that year on year. 10,000 came to Wembley; 6,000 plus to games against Aldershot and Dagenham only a year ago.

Small catchment area for fans. Carlisle population 71,000 within ten miles of centre 101,000. Morecambe and Lancaster population 150,000.

Small catchment area for players. Nonsense. Over 17 million people within 90 minutes drive. Thompson, Baker, Perkins, Duffy, Drummond and Curtis to name a few all brought up within an hour's drive. Stanley, Blackburn, Roche and many others all more than happy to move here.

Small budget. That wasn't the plan when we moved to The Globe and it wasn't the plan when PMG said the next task was promotion to League 1.

[SupermarketShrimp]

We have a small fan base, we have a small catchment area for players, we have a lower budget than 'most' clubs and we were not exactly a 'big' name in this league in terms of chance of winning things.

Utter bollocks, why is Capaldi driving from Brum, people from Liverpool, Manchester, and beyond in years gone back. Why? We pay good money that's why. At this level it matters little who the name is the value on the pay cheque.

Therefore we are one of the smaller teams in this league, even when are attendances were in the 2000's thats still a lot lower than the majority of clubs attact.

Correct. We still pay top whack though. The fact the club has been poorly marketed for over a decade doesn't help

We came up with a good team spirit and work rate and it works in a league like this, we've brought in my players who are supposed to have more 'quality', this may be true but we've lost the spirit and the work rate in the progress.

We came up with a League 2 squad on League 2 wages and played League 2 football. We now have an average conference squad on League 1 wages. This is the fault of the management.

Anyone who doesn't think we're punching above our weight is seriously deluded.
Our wages may be high.....nobody knows but we only really sign players on loan and for free, very little do we ever pay a large transfer fee as we don't have the money.

We spent the 4th largest amount on agent fees (and probably signing on fees as a result) the value of your squad at this level isn't measured by the amount of players you sign for a fee, its the wages you pay them. We are rumoured to pay one of our players more than the Prime Minister for example. No one in this league with the exception of Notts County go throwing money around and to be frank, giving Southport 50k for Baker and 30k for duffy is fairly top whack spending in this division. We also paid fees for Fleming and no doubt loan fees for some of the players brought in.