[Devongone]

I wonder why we think the opinion of an owner desperate to sell would matter ........ Why would he have the say-so over GC's long-term future?

Could it be that the whole sale is ollocks? And everything that DA has done to us is simple exercise of power? Like our new stadium, it's another erection at our expense? This psychiatrist says the random exercise of power is a geriatric replacement for regular sex. (If only he could have a wank and get us out of his system.)

We're currently paying for Danny twice aren't we? Both financially AND with one in thirteen.

For the record I'd keep GC next season too, because we can't keep treating people like shit (I'll never get over us sacking a good bloke like Danny Wilson in that way and however much that decision is costing the club it is fully deserved). AND I'd play Ricky German on Saturday. I'd tell him I was asking the near-impossible of him and that he'd be in the team for the next match whatever happened. The lad would also need to be aware he'll need all his physique to hold his own against Wheater ...... but not every battle will be physical, if he can engage his brain and play his game chances can still come his way .......

[Dancingwilldoit]

Are you being serious Dev - keep GC next season??? If I was crap at my job I would be out of business and anybody who started a new job and wasn't up to it would be out on their ear pdq. The only thing GC has achieved in the last 3 months is to get the fans backs up by insulting them, drag us down to even lower depths than we were before he started and proved he knows sweet f*ck all about tactics and formations. If anybody deserves to be treated like shit then he does because that's exactly how he is treating the clubs supporters.

[Devongone]

We gave a man a shit job to do. He's making a shit job of it so far. And I don't like him. Fact I hate him! Ideally I'd like the Hump to be manager. If GC stays I think he'll sack the Hump come summer!

I don't really think even a Warnock would have saved us. And even if Danny had stayed and done it, DA would have had him sacked for finishing too close to the relegation zone. That's my opinion.

Eventually you do have to stand by what you've done (and not just because your own repeatedly mistaken staff recruitment policy has become too expensive!) We should make it clear to Caldwell that his own player recruitment policy so far is unacceptable to the club. All his loanees should immediately be returned to their clubs whether he likes it or not. We should also cancel Fulton and Anderson's loans with thanks as their continued presence is now pointless and certainly Raglan at least should be back at the club for our last six games. IF Caldwell did not like his authority undermined in this way he would have the option of resignation, but if he stayed he'd be assured recruitment would be his baby for next season.

I don't believe Caldwell knows nothing about tactics and how the game is played. I do believe he made some good decisions at Wigan, that a wave of success swept him and his team forward and success came easily. His decision-making both at Wigan and here when results didn't go his way became random and inexplicable even to those like Pooch, who wanted to give him a chance. I cannot but agree he deserves the sack, but if that is all we do as a club we'll definitely turn into a Leyton Orient. In the end we have to be better than that, and if he really wants to be better than that and wants to see Chesterfield flourish, he should stay.

Fortunately I'm pretty sure he won't stay. How likely is it that he's loving it? No one likes failing, especially in public .... at the one thing in life you're supposed to be able to do. He'll end up with a nice little job coaching at Hibs or St Mirren for family reasons or some other garbage.

But I want us to have standards. GC seems to have done little to deserve good treatment. That is precisely why we should give it to him. He's spent his time with us trying to kept a clean sheet. I really would let him wipe the memory of one win in nineteen and start again if he's man enough. Clean sheet Gary, can you handle it?

[spireitematt]

There was a rumour going around that if Wigan get relegated then they would like Caldwell to help them get back out of L1 and back into the Championship.

If we still had Boly, O'Shea and O'Neil I reckon we would have finished mid-table. Would not surprise me if a lot of the team we have is got rid of to try and reduce the wage bill. Out of curiosity how much would a L1 player earn per week? £5k?

I want to know why we sent Raglan on loan to Oxford and why German isn't getting a run out in the first team when he's scoring all these goals in the reserve/youth team.

[Devongone]

Your questions are right on the button Matt. We sent O'Shea to Sheffield before Caldwell arrived didn't we? I thought it was because he was a big earner and that would free us up to replace him with a good player who would put in the full 90 on a regular basis. Obviously I was wrong. Equally Gboly was having a poor season but I don't imagine ditching him was Caldwell's call. Certainly the departure of those two minimised our attacking capability.

Raglan's loan seemed strange anyway, but once our defence was decimated by injuries why did he stay away, especially when he clearly wasn't required at Oxford?

And German, our reluctance to play him, makes me suspect there's some sort of contractual reason. Are we about to do a Jordan Burrow on him and offer the worst contract in the universe so he leaves for Morecambe or somewhere? Have we said somewhere that if he played so many first team games by the end of this season he'd be entitled to certain things contractually? When you've got the most obviously powder-puff attack in the Football League and you've got this powerful young goal scorer and he can't even make the bench you begin to wonder. Does he have piles maybe? The long jumper Jade Johnson used to have an allergy to sand, is Ricky allergic to Division One?

So many daft things happen I begin to wonder is GC rubbish, or is he just a puppet? Is someone taking the proverbial?

[Dancingwilldoit]

Simples Dev, GC is rubbish. And I think he was here when O'Shea went, am sure he played against AFC Wimbledon which was GC's first game.

[Devongone]

You're right there Dancing. O'Shea was subbed in his last game after 70, our next game two weeks later saw the appearance of les boys and we lost to ten-man Oldham. Against Wimbledon we had 14 shots and 56% possession - a distant memory. Still, I was in favour of O'Shea going, because I thought we'd get a more reliable player instead - more fool me!

GC has been rubbish for us, but you don't win a division by chance. AND if it were only the level of investment that promoted Wigan then explain Orient, they had one the best sides in Division One, spent loads on improving it with Championship players, couldn't win, then sacked managers, went down and will shortly be out. That catastrophe for Orient started with the manager in charge who had almost got them promotion the previous season. Despite the Meercats, not much is simples.

GC took over a job with which a more experienced (and better!) manager had been struggling. That manager (DW) had taken it over from a man who knows football, but doesn't seem successful managerially (DS), who had in turn taken it over from a man who decided to walk away from it to take over a club in a lower division (PC). Your GC(se) question is Describe and Evaluate elements in this sequence that made it reasonable to suppose that GC would get off to anything but a disastrous start.

I can't answer it by the way. It sounds like taking over the controls over a Malaysian Airliner to me.

[Dancingwilldoit]

Malay Air - Malaise Air not a lot of difference.

[bluepooch]

I seem to remember AC saying the wheeling and dealing done in January saved us quite a bit off the wage bill .Hardly an easy task to improve the team while cutting the wage bill.
Having said that GC looks to have made a right hash of it .

[Devongone]

I'm sure you're right Pooch. I suppose GC thought four or five (promising?) young lads at much less than we were paying Jay and Gboly sounded like a deal. Unfortunately the deals waved bye bye to our last vestiges of inspiration and didn't replace them. And Dancing has been right all along that we appointed someone who had never been in anything like this situation. If we'd appointed say a Kevin Wilson or a Steve Chettle who'd run very cash-poor non-league teams at least that background would've been relevant. But Wigan? Where grandad has deep pockets? GC clearly wasn't prepared for us and has made some dreadful decisions.

(I must admit I'm still baffled by the thought that if a lower league side plays a cup match against a Premier or Championship team that fields several youngsters it thinks it has a chance and will often win. Yet that same lower league side when in relegation trouble is likely to follow the GC line and loan in those very same players it proved it could beat in a cup tie ............. Barmy!)

I don't think GC is necessarily rubbish. In other circumstances he could succeed, because he has in the past. Unfortunately by the end of this season it looks as though everyone will think he's rubbish. And when people think you are rubbish it is almost impossible to turn that round. But this is a situation the club started working its way towards during Paul Cook's successful season in Division One. That could have been a springboard, but we turned it into a broken duckboard.