Has there ever been a more telling, pivotal moment in Wednesday’s season than the return of Iain Turner to Everton?  Upon arriving on loan he helped the club to put together an 11-match unbeaten run including 5 wins in a row.  It was clear for all to see that the confidence gained from having a sound last line of defence was spreading throughout the team and they were beginning to take on the appearance of a club that would not be beaten and the players seemed to believe that they would win every time they went out on the field.

Sadly, the loan spell came to an end and Turner went back to Everton.  What we were left with was a goalkeeper who surely has to rate as the WORST keeper ever to make the grade as a professional.  Talking to a colleague on Tuesday I stated that we had no chance against Birmingham because Adamson was going to be in goal.  Sure enough, I turned the radio on midway through the second half and soon heard the words “Adamson went for the cross and dropped it leaving an open goal for Birmingham”.  Birmingham scored and we lost!  Far be it from me to say I told you so but I did!

I have watched this talentless waste of space warm up many times at Hillsborough and wondered how the hell he made it as a professional and who the f**k saw anything in him to warrant such status.  It is clear to anyone who has played in goal that Adamson is useless.  He has no agility, no positional sense, no confidence, his handling is dire, his presence non-existent and his athleticism leaves so much to be desired it is untrue.  It really does beggar belief that this man plies his trade as a footballer.  He inspires so little confidence in both supporters and players and he lacks so many of the fundamentals required to make a decent keeper that it was inevitable that our (slim) playoff hopes would disappear the moment this numbskull was restored to the side.  I have been quietly impressed so far with Laws’s management, but if he seriously thinks that Adamson has any value to our team whatsoever then I worry for our club’s future.  Adamson, and Adamson alone, has ended our hopes of making the playoffs and I for one hope that the supporters never forgive him for this.  He is an insult to anyone who has ever played the game and that he takes payment for his ineptitude is a disgrace.  I hereby call on all Owls fans to give this talentless nobody a real rough ride during the last home game of the season.  He needs to know that such mediocrity will not be tolerated at our club.

He goes, they start to play.  Now that's a surprise!

And so, as anyone with half a brain could tell you, the team’s fortunes pick up the moment Sturrock is shown the exit at Hillsborough.  It was obvious for all to see that he had lost the players; that he had no idea how to motivate them; that he no longer had the tactical knowledge necessary to alter games when things weren’t going our way; that he had no idea how to get the best out of players who were clearly not performing to their best abilities; and most damning of all, that he no longer had any real grasp of how serious our situation was and how limited his abilities were.  This is a man who genuinely thinks (still) that he had the capabilities to get us out of the mess that we were in.  This is the man who left Plymouth before they were elevated to the 2^nd tier of English football; the man who made such a pig’s ear of the job at Southampton that he was gone within a matter of months as the Premiership and a higher quality of player proved too much for this limited man to handle.  This is the man who was fortunate to get us out of the 3^rd tier of English football and was then found wanting at a higher level.  Dare I suggest that 3^rd and 4^th division football (for the younger ones out their ask your dads about a time when the divisions were correctly labelled and didn’t carry glitzy monikers to court publicity and money) is the level at which this imbecile is best suited?  That or Scottish football.  He could go and manage his beloved Dundee United and would probably, just, cope with that level of football.  Anything higher and he hasn’t got a clue.  That he prattles on about insisting on a clause in his next contract that allows him to return to Wednesday with no compensation due is insulting in the extreme.  Why would we want a manager back when he has failed so spectacularly at this limited level?  We’re better than that, or at least I hope we are.  He is arrogant and naïve if he really believes we would want him back.  Good riddance I say.

And then there are those oh so predictable people who will say ‘but we’re playing well now with a full-strength side and we should have allowed Sturrock time to work with a fully fit squad’.  It really is so predictable and so sad.  Sturrock wouldn’t have made any strides even with a fully fit squad.  Look at Tudgay.  He has been hopeless all season and never looked like a forward.  Now I’m not saying he’s going to decimate teams this season but since Sturrock left he’s been like a new man.  There is a fluidity and verve about our play since the dour Scot left.  We have an attitude that says we’re enjoying our football and want to entertain.  None of this has anything to do with a fully fit squad and everything to do with the attitude of the man in charge and the confidence he breeds in his players.  Sturrock couldn’t do this and it has been clear for the last 14 months that he was unable to generate the right belief and attitude in his players.  Once again I say good riddance.  Brian Laws may not be everyone’s first choice (myself included) but I am willing to state here and now that his Wednesday team will not be as dour, boring, limited and tedious as Sturrock’s.  And you can quote me on that!<

Sturrock Out?  About time!

There seems to have been an outcry over the recent sacking of Paul Sturrock as manager of Sheffield Wednesday Football Club.  The question I’d like to have answered is: Why?  Through the pages of Out of the Blue I have, for well over a year, been demanding the head of this dour, limited manager.  Two seasons ago he did reasonably well to get us promoted, especially when you consider that at no time were we one of the 6 best teams in that division.  Many times that season I left games wondering how the hell we had won.  You may say that’s the hallmark of a good team; I say bull.  Yes, if you have the odd performance where you win without deserving to that is the mark of a good team.  To win so many games without being the best team (as we did in that promotion season) is, at best, the mark of a very lucky team.

I often remarked to colleagues throughout season ’04-’05 that we were not up to scratch.  The trouble was that I, like so many others, chose to ignore the blatantly obvious signs of the troubles that were to come (and that we are now experiencing) and look instead at the improbable position we found ourselves in.  That season’s success owed so much to luck and so little to Sturrock’s ‘genius’.  Owe how foolish we all were to sing that tripe about not needing Mourinho.  You’re quite right though, we don’t need Mourinho we need a f*****g Messiah right now, someone who can actually walk on water such is the mire we are now in.  Forget for one minute the fortuitous nature of our elevation two seasons ago and look at the other miserable failings of Sturrock.

Craig Rocastle: Oh dear.  Truly, truly awful and yet Sturrock not only gave him the important central midfield role but then chose to question our behaviour when we stated the bleeding obvious by booing the 2-legged donkey off the field.  That it took so long for Sturrock to realise that this worthless player wasn’t up to it was a crime.

High tempo football: never been seen in S6 under Sturrock and yet he tried to build a reputation on, and constantly referred to, the need for high tempo football especially from the first whistle.  Could it be that Sturrock had no idea how to motivate a team to play high tempo?  He was responsible for training and yet all we got on a match day was naive, negative, boring bull.  For Christ’s sake we started running the ball into corners to waste time with 10 minutes remaining in games.  That’s right. 10 F*****G MINUTES!  Can you get more negative than that?

The quality of our football: this term and last has been nothing short of woeful.  I know we are playing in a higher division but come on.  There is nothing of any real quality in this division.  Our side churns out the most uninspired, turgid crap week after week and nothing changes.  From the start we lack pace, direction, desire, application and motivation.  All are things that should be instilled by the man in charge.  What we have been treated to this term and last is no better than the bull we watched under Yorath, Shreeves, Wilson or Jewell.  In fact I think several of those past managers actually produced far better sides than the one we’re currently watching.  Oh how we would laugh now if we could go back in time and listen to those whingers who hounded Francis out of a job.  I know it’s easy to say with hindsight but I feel it is fair to state that the people who should shoulder much of the blame for our current crises is in fact we, the fans.  Had we not hounded out the best manager at Hillsborough in the last 15 years (Francis) we would not be in this sorry state now where the vast majority see fit to revere a limited man who has risen to God-like status on the back of a great deal of good-fortune and a group of fans who have become so accustomed to failure that they are willing to ignore all the basic facts and refuse to acknowledge the truth.