Roeder's degree of responsibility for our recent run

Not high, certainly. In a nutshell, you can't judge him until he's had the time to build his own squad, ie. by around this time next year, and even that's being harsh! It's not his fault we have so little money, and not his fault he inherited a poor, thin squad.

So he was essentially forced into making the loan signings - but this is where, I think, he's got it very wrong. Not so much in terms of who he brought in - there's always an element of gamble in all of this, and we were hardly in a strong bargaining position in the first place - but the conditions attached. To my mind, this quote from him is arguably the most worrying since he took charge:

"We will have to hit the loan system next year as well to make up the numbers - I am very lucky. I have enough friends in the Premiership to lend me some of their players because they know I'll play them. They don't sit in the stand."

And I'm sorry - but if he has agreed to bring in players on the condition that they're regularly picked (and what would be in it for Wenger, Coppell etc if they weren't?), he's made a hell of a blunder. It completely screws team morale: how can you give your all in training etc if you know a loanee is likely to be picked in front of you regardless? And things have been going wrong since.

Again, it's not his fault that the club's in such a mess that he's had to make so many loan signings - but it IS his fault if team spirit and cohesion has been undermined as a result. And if we go down, even allowing for the wondrous job he did in the first place, I'd suggest he'll have to bear at least some of the responsibility.

Posted By: thebigfeller on March 12th 2008 at 15:33:10

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