Reply To: Eastleigh

[Siderite]

Butler has made a rod for his own back, to an extent, with his snappy responses to criticism last season. Telling people to stay away if they don’t like it or going on about being happy about shutting doubters up after a win in a fairly unprompted manner. He seemed to treat anyone with constructive criticism as the enemy, but he did have a point that some seem to be dead against him in an irrational manner. In his first season we had assured promises we would be midtable because we lost Butterfield, partly due to Butler, tactics and used autumn poor form to show we would drop down, only for that to never happen.

People can bemoan us going up as playoff winners only, but he did get us up and it isn’t so easy to do so in that league. He then did well last season. Talk of getting rid right now is silly, but his grace period is coming to an end. He has made mistakes and it is his 3rd year, so he should have shown signs of learning. Yet, in key areas, he hasn’t demonstrated enough, except maybe for media interviews. His interviews so far this season haven’t been snappy at critics. However, that isn’t enough for the on field issues. Goalkeeping remains a problem and he doesn’t seem to have shown an ability to form a balanced squad. He prides his team on fitness, but little seems to have been made about having goalscorers, a midfield that can control a game and a defence that can work together to keep goals out. Fitness is important, but to do well we need more than a team that can get high bleep test scores. Fitting 5 right backs into their improper positions and having players that don’t fit a system will cost us.

I do worry that Butler’s stubbornness and self-assuredness could cost us this year because of this. It’s great that he previously looked after his team and stood by them from scrutiny, but loyalty to players can only go so far. It may be an admirable trait, but we have to be assured that we have the players to get out of this league to the one above and, while it’s admirable to see Butler place trust in Barrows after his injury and the goalies, sticking with players who are not the highest quality will harm us and so far his recruitment hasn’t been what we need.

Of course, so far this could all be teething problems, we are still early on (in 06/07 we took many games to win and look how that ended up), but there are many red flags that this could be a slog. The fans won’t stomach the thought of regionalised football again, so the board will need to show decisiveness if things don’t improve and Butler needs to put his thinking cap on, reflect on constructive criticism and maybe be more flexible. Show some understanding of the need for a game plan. Remember that not all of us who criticise do so in a reactionary manner and want to put effort to support too.