Agent Fenlon.....in place
Operation bankrupt Shels and Bohs .....complete
Operation bankrupt the filth .... commencing
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Agent Fenlon.....in place
Operation bankrupt Shels and Bohs .....complete
Operation bankrupt the filth .... commencing
Croly says that Rovers has the 4th highest budget this season. If that is be be believed, then ourselves, Dundalk and Sligo spent more money. It is therefore reasonable to assume that a good bit of the Juventus/Europa League run money is gone and was spent on player large salaries and the large squad they have had over the last three seasons. Their crowds have certainly fallen, so maybe the novelty of the whole Tallaght thing starting to wear off. If Fenlon doesn't qualify for European football this season, there is no guarantee he'll be given the huge bugdet next season. If by the end of next season he is in Croly's situation whereby they can't win the league, I have no doubt their impatient supporters will have the knives out again.
I'd be surprised if any of our current squad that we want to hold onto leave for rovers. Our budget has been very competitive the last few seasons and I'd reckon we made more money from Europe this year than any other year. I'd also be surprised if Fahey hangs around beyond this season so that will free up a big chunk of wages.
In saying that if we don't make Europe this year things will be different
I'd be surprised if Fagan and Forrester signed for any other LOI club. They could well leave to go abroad but they'll stay if not. I'd reckon Bermo is one of our highest earners and we would match anything rovers would offer to keep him. Money is the main issue with all of them, if were offering a good wage along with European football and a starting place they'll stay.
Bolger would be a worry as I can't imagine hes too happy with the way this season has gone.
Fahey hasn't worked out as well as he or the club expected, he probably won't have options here that will pay the wages he wants so could well head elsewhere
I reckon Fats could struggle to get a gig- as you said, not many places would pay his wages and at his age (32 in January) he is unlikely to be in demand in the UK.
Bolger is a strange one - he had a good season with UCD, but for all intents and purposes has been a failure everywhere else. he had aon OK season in 2012 (most of us wuldnt have blinked if he left) and was great last year. I think he could regret a move to shams if it ever went that way.
As you said- we pay relatively good wages and treat the guys well. they play a good brand of football, and as a bunch of fans, we arent anywhere near as critical of failure as other fans.
it all boils down to what €€ we offer - but as I said, Fenlon doesnt manage team in irealnd simply to compete- he would not go back to Shams unless they gave him a very very healthy budget.
Even if he has money to throw around he can't simply follow his Shels/Bohs blueprint of cherry picking the biggest names from rival clubs and expect success. In lots of cases the gap in ability between a given player at a top club and his counterpart at a rival club is now negligible. When he poached Hawkins, Crowe and Ryan, for instance, he decimated Bohs because those players were a cut above any replacements they could possibly sign - not in terms of form or opinion, they just had far more ability.
Let's say Rovers signed Fagan and Forrester, two payers he has worked with before. Fagan has been a revelation this year after taking a step backwards last year, but leaving aside form, purely in terms of ability there's little to split him and at least half a dozen other strikers in the league. There weren't half a dozen strikers as good as Crowe or Byrne in the league a decade ago. Likewise with Forrester. For all his talent, he blows hot and cold, and looked at objectively someone like Billy Dennehy is probably a more effective footballer. Darren Meenan had a better season than him last year. Not that I'd want to see either of them leave.
The point is, personnel is not the be all and end all.
I agree that personnel isn't the be all and end all but Fenlon is a very good manager on top of that as well. I believe if you gave him our job, the Dundalk job or the Rovers job at the start of this season he still would have won the league without spending.
I dont think he is tactically that good at all. and i think his european performances have shown that ( apart from one very good year). In Europe he didnt have financial muscle or a team far superior to the competition and he failed. In Derry he had a mediocre team and could do nothing with them.
Okay he will have a the biggest budget etc, but i think Bucko's team will be technically better and technically better as a unit too. So it will come down to how superior his squad are, and i'm not sure it will be that much better. if you had two equal teams, i would take Bucko to manage them over the midget
I'd be very surprised if Bermos not one of the players who got a 2 year deal with us at the end of last season! Iv no worries about our players leaving as I believe we have who we want tied down
His record at Derry is blown way out of proportion. Only his second ever managerial job, 7 years ago, 11 games over 5 months, 4 loses. We lost 3 of or first 11 games last season for instance.
He will have the biggest budget for the next few years. In LOI terms it's the equivalent of Mourinho going to Man City. They'll walk the league next year.
Say what you want about Forrester but in the last 3 seasons hes scored 25 league goals which is a great return for a player who plays out wide
2012 - 6
2013 - 9
2014 - 10
Meenans having a good season this year but still no better than Forrester. Certainly was not better last season
I'm not criticising the chap. We all know what an exceptional talent he is. We all know he does blow hot and cold - that wasn't a criticism, it was an observation - and we all make allowances for his age.
My point was only about the margin in quality between the top players in the league, which I think is exceptionally narrow. We basically swapped Kavo for Greene last week, for example, and no-one can say with any certainty who got the better end of the deal.
Fenlon is to be watched obviously.
But as loads are saying he isn't the messiah. His record is fantastic in with Shels and Bohs but he did a pretty shite job at Hibs and an atrocious job at Derry.
The guy needs money to win, I'm not saying he won't get it, but how much I don't know. I don't think Rovers are stupid enough to give him the kind of money Shels and Bohs threw at him/he demanded. One to watch, but no need to shit ourselves. Our manager is a winner too.
put some ice on that fenlon boner would you!
He is a very good manager, among the best in the league. but as I said, he is not the fucking messiah. he has a horrific record in europe, has lost as many leagues as he has won (he has won a very good amount). He had the pick of the best players in the league for the guts of a decade - I dont think there is as big a gap between the best players as there was then.
Shams will be competitive next year, in fact I would be surprised if "on paper" they dont have the best squad come February. but this season we had the best squad (by some distance) and look how far off the pace we are (look at Kenny at Rovers, or even Fenlon himself at Shels in 2005, or how he bottled the league in 2010 - all these teams were teh "best on paper")
If we keep the same budget as we currently do, I would expect us to have as good a chance at winning the league in 2015 as Shams do.
His time at Bohs and Shels was when they had a far superior budget than anyone else (other than ourselves for 1 season) and it was impossible for the best players to turn them down, 3 or 4 clubs offer competitive wages now which makes it harder to get all the best players.
The best players other than rovers in this league are playing for ourselves, Dundalk, Cork and to a lesser extent Sligo and Derry. Cork and Derry are all local lads and its rare their players leave to sign for Dublin clubs. Ourselves and Dundalk will be able to match wages that rovers will offer for the players we really want. Sligo don't have much that will improve rovers enough to make them better than us or Dundalk.
Fenlon will probably end up bringing players in from the UK and that doesn't mean its gonna be a success.
Fenlon's success with Shels and Bohs is very similar to what Jim McLaughlin did with Rovers and Derry back in the late 80s. He developed a very good squad by outbidding everyone else in the League. When he busted Shels he found his way to Bohs and brought the pick of those players with him and then hoovered up the best of the rest. He was able to get Crowe, Byrne and Heary while we were signing O'Neill, Fitzpatrick and Rogers. McLaughlin did the same by bringing a lot of players he managed to Derry. It's so much easier to transfer success across two clubs when you are working with a core of players who you know and trust. He'll be starting from scratch this time as all the players he had are retired or past it. He may not have the funds to simply buy the best players in the League this time. I'm not panicking yet as Derry and Hibs are the two clubs he's found himself in where he has to manage without being the biggest spenders.
We got Rodgers from Derry and Fitzer from Drogs. We took O'Neill, Harris and Ndo from that Shels side.
Point was more that Fenlon was able to pick up the cream of that team while Johnny who was assistant to Fenlon at Shels ended up getting the second string.
Lads, the big picture here is Johnny Mac made some awful bleeding signings