who is to blame here? board or lennon and players

That was a good read although i thought he was a little harsh on Lennon

 

lenny and board shoulder this one. we shoulda got someone into replace hooper. lenny's side was stagnant and he did not make the personnel changes that seemed necessary. he also played an untested pairing at CB but they were only culpable for the 1 goal (the other was truly lucky)

 

There was an element of luck to the finish but it was still self inflicted that they even had the ball anywhere near our goal in the first place. A mixture of Izaguirre giving the ball away stupidly, Mulgrew not covering izaguirre properly (have to partially blame Lennon here for playing him out of position) and Mouyokolo not dealing with a long ball very convincingly resulted in the goal.

 

I agree with the general consensus here...all 3 are to blame. Lenny for his tactics, board for lack of support, player for playing/being crap.

 

The guy is spot on about lawwell, the * is the highest paid person at the club and he receives increased bonus money win lose or draw, another question needs asked who ok's lawwells wages seeing as its him that runs the club

 

Everyone's to blame. The board, Neil Lennon and the players. The board are the main culprits for me though.

I've backed the board for years. I know money doesn't grow on trees and Scottish Football is a financial black hole. But the club has made so much money in this past year that on this occasion we could have spent. There was no reason for us to go into this tie without replacements for Gary Hooper and Kelvin Wilson. No reason at all. I bet the money men looked at the draw and thought 'we can get through that tie without opening the biscuit tin' and rubbed their chubby wee hands together. Well guess what? We might not get through it. They'll have a lot to answer for if we don't.

 

Lennon too pally with the team ?

But every last one of them are to blame from the board down

 

They are all to blame but I'd say while Lennon is to blame for last night the board are to blame for the state of our team in general. Last night Lennon got the tactics wrong but regardless of whether we go through next week or not, we are a team in decline. We have put making money before progress in the champions league which is so short sighted it is incredible.

We were poor against elfsborg and we got away with it and we were poor last night and we may or may not get away with it. But in any case watching a team decline while making more money than any other point in the clubs history is not acceptable.

 

I am actually inclined to agree with that. I think that applies to some players more than others though.

 

Like most I would say all 3. However when you look at it, we do have good enough players to have won or drawn last night. So while we could have got a new striker etc does that guarantee Lenny would have managed it better ? As been said what has Stokes to do , that was not the board nor players decision nor the actual team that was picked with the positions they had to play in. So out of the 3, in my opinion Lenny needs to take the largest portion of the blame.

 

Would you do that after that * performance. Probably thought they would have got lynched and probably, deservedly so.
Lennon's tactics were totally wrong.
They were warned about the long high ball as well as the long throw ins and were beaten because they * ignored it.
Playing players out of their best position was pathetic.
Knew that we were in for a long night the minute it showed Sammy as lone striker.
Stokes should have been on from the start. As should Zaluska.

 

I would give lennon a pass just, on last nights performance. He has had his best striker, midfielder and defender from last season took away from him and not replaced. Had wilson been playing I highly doubt we would of conceded those cheep goals last night and I'm pretty sure Hooper would of took at least 1 of those chances last night. The tactics weren't that bad we dominated the game poor finishing and poor defending let us down and that's all down to shooting our first 11 to bits and not getting them replaced, the boards fault for not backing Lennon on this occasion.

Shambolic taking a gamble on signing no replacements, very poor judgement by the board and it looks like it's about to back fire!

 

No, I think Stokes is good enough for that mob. I said earlier that they're no better than St Johnstone or Ross County.

 

Lack of Tactics, interest, motivation, desire & passion killed this game quickly enough.

 

The board and lennons tactics, they could do with the GB next week

 

Centre Half partnership should not of started in such an important game. Ambrose should have started. Too many "runners" in midfield,( we have two young Aussie midfielders, one now out on loan) need an attacking creative midfielder to play killer passes. Some players need a kick up the * and the Board should not have sold key players until replacements were lined up. Players attitude last night was poor, loads of the ball etc., but some did not attack the first ball or chase back. On the plus side, we can win second leg. Raging if we don't against a poor, predictable - long ball side. The players are the only ones who can turn it around.

 

I've avoided these threads since the game yesterday as I expected there would be a mini-meltdown.

Seriously, what did you expect? We've offloaded two of our best players, and one of our better players and haven't really replaced them.

In this modern era of football you get what you pay for. We haven't invested in the team, so we get a poor performance. Simple as that.

 

If Lennon plays the correct players in the correct positions last night, then we have more than enough to win the game in my opinion. I agree that we need to invest in the team, but that was not the problem last night I don't think. Had we looked out of our depth then I would say it was down to that, but we had players capable of winning, if set up correctly.

 

You think Shakhtar Karaganda has invested more in their team? That is a bad excuse, Celtic has ten times more firepower whether they have sold couple of players or not.

 

It's a collective responsibility. Balde and Stokes would have been perfect for this tie and then you setup defensively. We fell into a trap that was set for us, a team who blocked out the league and focussed down on this game.

Meanwhile we went up to Aberdeen and played the game like it was a title decider.

The fans say, rest the first team, it doesn't happen and players go into a game tired.

I thought Balde was signed for games like this against dirty defenders, guys who want to hold and bully people.

Stokes is the main striker right now, like it or not. Lenny has previous for dropping him from important games, but this one was perfect for him because he's suited to playing on the astroturf.

Then Kayal not playing, i thought he and Broony together was a good partnership so far this season, so Broony didn't have a partner in the center of the pitch.

So me personally, i blame the team selection which had an effect on the system.

The board, well i don't know who is on the board but we need some ex-players on the board. Someone like Tom Boyd, or even a few former players who have passion for the club. Quite how that would work i don't know. But if it's just filled with businessmen, then they aren't likely to be able to judge a player who we are looking to sign.

So it's decision making by committee. Or at least i'm guessing that's how it works.

On the subject of John Park, i think Lenny should be making the signing decisions and not John Park, if that is how it works.

My feeling is the board didn't do enough to keep the players happy, by offering them big bumper deals to stay. They all went off on holiday and nobody could sanction deals as soon as the transfer window opened. This is what happens when people get lazy, they think the job is done and because they aren't football people, they underestimated the importance of the players they sold.

So it's a collective responsibility, from the boardroom down.