Compare and Contrast

[Johnny King is God]

Brian Little October 2005
"We are not going to wipe the floor with teams"

Ronnie Moore August 2006
"Its only a matter of time before we give a team a hiding"

God love him.

 

[Ian]

Ha, an excellent comparison there JKIG.
I was just thinking about Ronnie and the belief he now gives us.

Reading on the official site about the emphasis he's putting on the strikers in training, it just makes you feel positive even if we lose/draw.

The difference with Ronnie is that he'll spot the weaknesses, addresses them and work on them. Whereas Little would willingly accept the weaknesses and do nothing about them.

Classic example you gave there.
"We are not going to wipe the floor with teams"

That would never come out of Ronnie's mouth.

Even if Ronnie doesn't produce the results, and I'm not saying he will or wont, I'm just saying if, then at least he has us believe in him and the team. That makes one hell of a difference.

Look at a few of his recent quotes:

"There's a lot to work on and I think it's just a matter of time before we give someone a hiding."

"We're passing the buck at times when really we should be hungry. If you don't shoot, you don't score."

"The crowd were good again on Saturday for us. We need to light the blue touch paper to get them going. Hopefully we'll get a big crowd on Saturday and we can get the vocal support we need from them."

This is the kind of stuff we want to hear. It gives us belief that Ronnie knows what areas to work on and we look forward to the next game.

He's been such a breath of fresh air since he took over.

 

[NeverBeatDaveHiggins]

The difference is that Ronnie gives the impression of someone who will look you in the eye and tell you what's wrong and how he's going to fix it, whereas Brian would always come out with some waffle about how he did everything right, amounting to an endless stream of excuses. The negativity around the club filtered down and out from the manager, in exactly the same way that the opposite is now true, the positivity bubbling from the manager lifts everyone up.

Brian was the problem, Ronnie is the solution. That's how I feel about it.

 

[Griff]

I think one of the magor differences is that Little had a system that he beleived in and when it didnt work he prefered to defend his position rather then admit any tactical mistakes. Its right that he should be confident in his own decisions, even in defeat, but he underestimated the ill feeling of the fans. If he had just come out a couple of times and said "we/! made mistakes" or " we werent good enough and we will work to fix it" it would have raised his stock with many of the fans.

Moore seems to have a greater understanding of the fans frustration at seeing a poor display. Even if he though this tactics were right I think he would say "I believe in the system, but we have to work harder at it to get the win" were as Little would say " the system is right, "we were unlucky not to get a draw"

Little lost me last season when he started bigging up every side we played. Even the ones that were down near the bottom with us. I'm not sure what possessed him to claim before some matches that we would be lucky to get a draw !! He could have just said "It will be a difficult game"

 

[DixieDean]

Little had a system that he beleived in

which system was that? the 4-4-2, the 5-3-2 or his occasional 8-0-2?
:whistle: #-o

Little was dire and that is already being underlined by the attitude of Ronnie Moore.

It just may take time for us all to get used to the transition from Mr Negative to Mr Positive.

 

[nomur]

And the fact that we've already seen Ronnie making a couple of little switches in a game to great effect shows that he's not playing safe and he's quite willing to put a result on the line to at least try and attack a team.

I think we can easily get a couple in against Yeovil this Saturday. After that if we can get even a draw against Chesterfield away, we've got Leyton Orient and then our first Friday Nighter against Bristol City. I'm not great at predictions but I would hope that we would be near if not in the top 6 or 8 after these games.

=D>=D>

 

[Ally]

Hello again lads, I'm back from being away for a while (no, I didn't do any bird, just a big holiday).

There's a common thread to what most of you are saying, and that's that RM is showing the fans and players what the team's been missing for ages, and that's a bit of passion. Rather than being the Sven-esque type of manager (like BL) who rather than showing some emotion would stick to his guns and make excuses, at least RM admits where our failings are and is trying to instil some belief and confidence in the players. Last season half of them looked like they weren't sure what their role was or didn't even want to be there. At Donny, I saw a new team playing with some pride. Long may it continue. Even if we don't make the play-offs, you have to respect the attitude of the manager and the new players.

 

[Ian]

Little lost me last season when he started bigging up every side we played. Even the ones that were down near the bottom with us. I'm not sure what possessed him to claim before some matches that we would be lucky to get a draw !! He could have just said "It will be a difficult game"

The reason I believed he did this before every game, not matter who we played was so that he had covered his tracks, so if the game did go the other way (and that was a lot of the time!) then he could turn around and say, "told you they were a decent side".. #-o