The Burley Debate

George Burley has come in for a lot of stick recently, and I think that a reasoned argument in his defence needed to be written. In his time here, George has:

a) nurtured Surman, Jones and Baird into top players and therefore earned the club a lot of money. each one has in the past expressed their admiration for him and his loyalty in them.

b) stuck it out while the board squabbled like little children. being a football manager is difficult at the best of times but not knowing who you are working for and not being allowed to get settled must make it very hard indeed.

c)We are playing some good football (not in the 2 games this season admittedly) and a small improvement on last season may well be enough. THAT night at Pride Park was one of the proudest in my life.

d) Although some say he wasted the £7million, he has also done some sound business for less money. Viafara now looks a snip, Rasiak was a good buy, Hammill and Guthrie are excellent for loans, we made a profit on pele, Skacel’s form, although inconsistent, has been enough to convince me that he is good enough. not to mention Saga…

e) Changing the manager now would be disasterous for the current squad. So many players would want to jump ship and it would be years before we could think of challenging again, if we are lucky enough to avoid relegation in the transition period.

f) he’s only had 18 months. its no good saying ‘well Billy Davies did it in a year’ because at the end of the day, a penalty shootout is what divided us and them. if we can sign some good centre halves, we have a good chance this year. get rid of burley, and this season may as well be a write off.

g) There is nobody else that we could realistically target to take over who would do a better job. Dodd is far too inexperienced, Hoddle has failed miserably in his last two jobs and has all the man management skills of a flannell, Jewell has said he won’t take another job until next season, and Warnock is not the type of man we want leading out club through this difficult period.

We must stick this out, as if we support our manager, I for one really am confident that we can make this seaosn a successful one.