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It was bad enough last year with the goalie situation, but to go into it again is criminal. Maybe if Butler didn’t treat any questioning as hostile, he might have got out of his locked in mindset and improved the defence and goalkeeper.
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Butterfield shouldn’t have been let go by Butler in first place.
Funny once he left many thought he wasn’t that good afterall, guess that’s Scunny fans for you.
For many, it wasn’t that he wasn’t good, more that he wasn’t so vital that we would fail without him or he couldn’t be replaced.
He will always be fondly remembered by me for his contribution to the crowd funder.
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Isn’t it called balance?
Just as some completely disregard anything PD says a lot of us ignore the constant negativity from the normal characters on and off here.
Giving gentle praise where it’s due and constructively point out inadequacies might work better such that opinions aren’t written off by others.
I agree that there are some who are far too critical and are just the opposite of the relentless positivity gang. Some don’t give any grace or credit to Butler or the club and find fault everywhere. However, from Butler and the club there has seemed to be little done to separate constructive criticism from the hyperbolic slamming and both seem to be treated as being against them. It has been this way from the beginning.
I think this attitude is more harmful to them than helpful because shutting yourself off from negativity can make you feel good in the short term, with endorphins from being around those only sugarcoating everything with affirmations, but it can cause you to miss issues which could then become too big to ignore.
Constructive criticism isn’t there to do the club down, those who want hard questions answered in good faith don’t want the club to fail. They just want to be assured of the club’s direction and push for any issues to be solved before they grow. Yet, at fans’ forums and elsewhere such questions get treated as being hostile and this only creates further worries.
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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.
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Why on Earth would they want us to go down to a league with lower revenue, with attendances dropping, potential sponsor loss, the potential for semi-pro status and hindered ability to get to the revenues we can get to now? Yes, that would mean lower player wages, but we’d not get the other benefits and have higher running costs on things like the stadium relative to the other teams there.
But that needs them to “speculate to accumulate”, something I don’t remember this club doing, or at least, doing well.
Grabbing the first offer for a promising player?
Not stretching the budget to sign a promising player, who went on to be worth £millions?
Accepting old seats as part of a transfer deal?
Directors coming forward announcing that work done was a loan and can I have that transfer cash?
None of that fills me with the idea that we AREN’T satisfied being a big fish in a little pond.
But you happy clappers go on turning a blind eye.In the past few days I have joked about how we have the misfortune of having 23 teams that will be ‘up there’ this season and about Butler’s pre-season strategies. I have little confidence we will make the playoffs and have concerns about a relegation battle given our lack of goalscoring and spine. That can hardly be called happy clapping.
The world is more complex than binaries where we have two tribes and you have to have the same opinion to be considered part of the right one. I just don’t think the directors would be happy with us going down a division, losing fans, losing sponsorship, losing any investment opportunity and getting sucked into possible semi-pro status. All of which would harm the club.
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Why on Earth would they want us to go down to a league with lower revenue, with attendances dropping, potential sponsor loss, the potential for semi-pro status and hindered ability to get to the revenues we can get to now? Yes, that would mean lower player wages, but we’d not get the other benefits and have higher running costs on things like the stadium relative to the other teams there.
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Such games would have intefered with runs around Laughton woods and configuring GPS data for players.
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Yeah apparently Yeovil are going to be “right up there” at the end of the season according to Butler and pretty much everyone on the FB group….so that’s them finishing up there with the likes of Hartlepool, Carlisle, Southend, Boreham Wood, Forest Green, Harrogate and Barrow who will all also “be right up there” so we shouldn’t worry if we look crap against any of those either I guess!
It’s unfortunate that this season looks like we will be up against 23 teams who will be right up there.
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This forum does trend towards the more negative, but the first two games have not been promising and we are a club that expects to get out of this league. We see the division above as our baseline and any worries of underperformance and regression at this level will get people antsy. I am sure many Southend fans would feel like this too, given we are both traditional league clubs.
Anyway, all the best with the season. Have a soft spot for Southend since we both went through the turmoil of bad owners and nearly going bust at the same time. Every Southend fan I have seen has always been sympathetic towards us for it and I saw some donate to our fundraiser at the lowest ebb.
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10th? I admire your optimism.
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bpg would prefer mandatory church service.
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As soon as someone dies we have to pretend the deceased was a venerable saint or we are bad people. I don’t mean we should rejoice in their death, we can have sympathy with them for being human and with their family, but criticising them for views and actions is seen as horrible. So we must pretend they were great people.
It happened with Widdecome, now it’s happening with Rod Liddle. The guy was a sexist boor and punched his pregnant girlfriend once, but any mention of this apparently makes you the bad guy for some, while glossing over it for a biased and rosy view is good. I am sure, like everyone, he had his good points, but the bad needs mentioning while many eulogise him as some great person.
There is something ironic in how he used to glory in offending others and his fans liked that, telling critics to not be so politically correct, and now they’re pearl clutching because critics think he might have been nasty.
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