Joe_Citrone Totally agree with you on this, Joe.
Manning’s start to the season pretty much laid a trap for Des. We were absolutely in a false position at that time, and a slide backwards was almost inevitable. As Grant Ferguson recognised on The Dub, we have still made a big step forward compared to last season.
I also think the club screwed up the transition with the issues over appointing an assistant and analyst making what was clearly going to be a disrupted period even worse. This goes hand-in-hand with a feeling that there is something rotten at the heart of the club right now. Of course, staff come and go, but when a number of long-standing and/or well-respected staff members leave in a relatively short period of time, that’s a sign of things not being well. This just leads to a feeling of turmoil and that almost certainly transfers to the pitch too.
That said, I’m concerned that Des is simply too nice. Does he have the respect of the players and the ability to bawl them out when they screw up as badly as they have been doing? I was talking to someone last night and mentioned that the straw I am clutching too is that the first season under Appleton was pretty dreadful, and we could see the same here. They retorted that with Appleton you always had the fear that he could put you through a wall…
On the issue of respect, I wonder if there is a cultural challenge here which Des needs to overcome too. Were players at Mumbai more inherently respectful of the coach, especially an English one, whereas here the culture is much more “Show me your medals…”? I recognise that may be veering into racial stereotyping, but is also based on my own experience of working with the Indian branch of a large multinational.
As Joe suggests, I think if we lost on Saturday, then we are probably past the point of no return. And, to be brutally honest, I would struggle to argue against sacking him if that were to happen.
