robbiefrom13

funny that it doesn't appear to have done so, then, if it "can only improve us". Difficult to see how anyone can describe our trajectory at this stage as "improvement".

Montgomery was revered by his men, loved even.

Not exactly enjoying it, but you are close, at least as far as I am concerned. I am confused by what is going on, but I have some tentative ideas about what it may be all about. There is a kind of satisfaction in discovering that you do have some sense of the pattern - it's not enjoyable, but it's better than being totally and unhappily in the dark. If i can see what is the problem, I am better off than I was before there was any diagnosis. Not to be able to say "I told you so" - more for myself, in that we are wired to want to understand. Making the whole experience of being a Melbourne supporter far worse at the moment is that, in addition to the pain of what's happening to our team, there are also a whole lot of very assertive fellow-supporters telling you in no uncertain terms that you are clueless and stupid. Insult to injury. They are all sincere and passionate, but there they are, contradicting you, whatever your thoughts might be. I suspect that if we all swapped positions and then continued the discussion, none of us would find it helped one iota. The problem for us is that we aren't seeing the club doing well; we want to, but we aren't, and it isn't clear what change will bring that about. "Wait, and trust" is up against things continuing unacceptably bad. The floundering represents some possible hope, in that enough and deep enough floundering must sooner or later precipitate change - and if the present is unacceptable, and the hoped/believed-for future improvement just doesn't appear to be getting any closer, then change has the attraction of breaking an awful impasse. It's not "bizarre satisfaction" so much as desperation. Guilty, your honour.

Plenty of stories sourced from Demonland, yes - but I live in Tasmania and have heard stuff being talked about too. There are players with connections to someone you know, and things are talked about as though it is common knowledge. Robbie Flower was quoted to me. Do I know he said it? No, I don't, but what I was told fits with other things I have read on Demonland. Neeld was quoted, during a chance encounter on a plane, and the quote sounded very plausible and fitted with known facts. It was pretty disturbing, and I will not repeat it - threats of legal action have been made, in relation to criticism of Neeld. My daughter's friend employed at the club changed his story in a most disturbing and disappointing way this year. I certainly believe my daughter. People with connections to other clubs have heard the same sort of stories about Melbourne - some quoted on Demonland. Should we doubt all these posters too? Maybe everyone is hearing stuff like this - it seems from reading Demonland, and from going to work and hearing people who don't read Demonland, that this is so. You asked for the source of "reliable leaks", and I can't answer that. I wouldn't describe these stories as "leaks", but rather as examples of "common knowledge". Where does "common knowledge" come from? I remember "everyone" commenting on the steroid use at West Coast when they were suddenly so much more physical than anyone else. That was "common knowledge" - did someone start the story? A thousand someones maybe, in front of a thousand TV's? Like the story that Melbourne tanked - we can't really blame it on Brock can we? But your expression "reliable leaks" implies that the information being "leaked" is normally well held in, and an individual or individuals is breaking that pattern. An individual we can identify, and cross-examine. I think trouble at Melbourne is so widely disseminated a story, and with so many particulars, that it is under no wraps at all, so that you would not describe the emergence of the story as a "leak". As with the tanking investigation, nailing who said what and what evidence can be tied down is not really the point: the half mill fine was imposed anyway, because everyone really knew. Far from suggesting that it's time for chapter and verse on the negative stories, it seems to me the greater need is for evidence to show that these stories are untrue. The narrative looking increasingly unbelievable is that the players bought in long ago, of course they did, and almost all are happy under Neeld, except for being mystified as to where all their good training form and energy went to come game-day... Of course, if the stories are an urban myth, then whatever is the matter with the club that they are doing nothing to dispel this untruth? How come they allow their employee to be torn by a thousand cuts, and do nothing to defend him? How come there is no response (other than the dutiful and unenthusiastic endorsements from those dependent on him for their jobs)? Can't anyone come out with anything substantial? Because, with the negatives proliferating as they are, the onus in not on the negative story-tellers to justify their position, but rather for the beleagured Neeld camp to somehow show they hold some cards.

couldn't agree more. But, why isn't MFC seen establishing the facts and acting on them? Does Neeld have basic problems in his people management? If so, better get it sorted one way or the other, immediately. Are there players, or ex-Board members, or whoever else, white-anting the club and its reputation? Well, let's get it out in the open, and clear it up. Or whatever - but what is happening - the rumours/innuendo/etc - is a cancer n its own right. Sitting on your hands when the house appears to be burning down is not professional either.

yes - the trouble is, there ARE too many stories leaking out about how the players feel about what's going on, or quoting Neeld saying stuff that just wouldn't be helping, etc etc. Is all this a conspiracy? Your denial that the players are bleeding is a bit thin, opposed by such widespread claims otherwise. I want to know how come the club, which must surely be aware of all the negative talk, just allows market forces to go along as though no harm is being done. Is there nothing that can be done to clear this up? Win, I suppose, but then... I can't see how a Melbourne supporter can react to anything related to this by saying "LoL".

I think the team is clearly bleeding, and our immediate need is for First Aid. Removing Neeld may be now badly needed First Aid. Without it, attempting any other rehabilitation and restoration may be impossible, at least with these players.

no, I distance myself from you, Sh. your answer was not funny. I actually don't think your original funniness was as intentional as you say either, though of course I can't know. Ridiculing the club's predicament as you did is using this forum to service your own self-admiration. Reductio ad absurdum? No - you are just trading in straw men, and the distance between your straw men and the ideas you comment on is too great. Talking down to others all the time is just boorish. Shifting tack as soon as you are challenged makes your contributing weak, not clever, and telling us all to ignore you doesn't absolve you of the essential incivility of your posting. Yes, ok, we'll ignore you, but who do you think you are talking to? Oh yes - for your own entertainment...

Allowing 15 months to turn things around isn't necessarily such a bad idea. Maybe that's where we need to be. I dismiss your allegedly acknowledged condemnation of the list, on the grounds that it is not proven - it is part of the defend-Neeld argument, but who is to blame - coach or players - is one of the big debatable issues; and surely regardless of everything we need to have a coach who sees good in and has faith in the players.... We need to get the best out of them, end of story, for me. If the reality bus is already pulling out and about to be on its way, we may at this moment actually need a coach (Neeld, or someone else) who will back himself to get things well and truly moving inside of a 15 month time-frame.

This is an important point I think: the players may well be giving it their all, having made the mental commitment of "buying in", but still not go out inspired and enlivened by the coach. Which will make a difference. The coach has to bring something to this connection too - and if he fails to uphold his side of the bargain, no amount of buy-in and commitment and sincere effort is going to see the team playing as well as another team where the players' buy-in and commitment and sincere effort is joined to a vision and energy spread through them by the coach. Put simply, if you yoke yourself to a lame duck, you are not going to make great progress. The coach may not run out onto the field, but what he has put into the players is out there.

"cerebral"? now that WAS funny

yes - passion would be a good thing to see at MFC.

so much bad arguing! Neeld did not pick all those players, no, but he came to coach them. He was the midfield wizard at Collingwood. Why have our backs gone backwards? Because our midfield has also gone backwards - our backs were playing better than this, with (mostly) the same midfielders... The ridiculous ease comes largely from our midfield positioning, lack of chasing, etc - things not entirely dependent on talent. The correct positioning and hard work that are lacking are things the coach should be addressing. "Lost the playing group" is a serious suggestion, not to be dismissed with a flippant "Where did they go?" Your criticism of the players ignores the distinction being drawn on this board between the players' talent/desire and the players' performances; a distinction that allows for the coach to be at least partly instrumental in causing the outcomes. In condemning the players, you are "begging the question" - advancing as an argument the very point that was up for debate: using as a proof the very point that the whole debate was trying to determine one way or the other. In such a discussion, a post arguing the way you do here is worthless, and only frustrates readers and clouds the issue. As for who would coach us if Neeld went, the answer obviously is that we would be coached by the successful applicant for the job. None of us knows who that would be, but there would be applicants, obviously. Presumably, someone who has been watching and forming ideas about what could be done differently. One day, there will be another coach at Melbourne. The point of the current debate is that, for many observers, it's not going to be hard to improve on Neeld. Surely the important question is to identify somehow how much of our current predicament is down to Neeld himself. Your post is not helping clarify that, and certainly doesn't justify your opening claim that "we can't sack him now".

um. who's wasting whose? Both of us I suppose. If you check you'll see that I didn't say another coach would necessarily be better, or worse - just inevitably different, and therefore presumably likely to be either better or worse. I appreciate your thoguhts on what would be likely to happen; I can't answer your questions, not being a coach or a football administrator. I only really commented on the logical flaws in your post. You may be right in many of the points made here, but your earlier post was "argument by assertion" and therefore to be rebutted, even by an interested ignoramus like me. Somebody says the trouble with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubt, the stupid people full of confidence; to argue by assertion is to look like you are one of the stupid. Which I admit, in light of your previous posts and this one, was probably pretty wrong and stupid of me. Thing is, I like Demonland, come here to learn, but boy do I get frustrated by some of the bar-style presentation of opinions. I'll try to avoid wasting more of your time - though, why you'd be on Demonland if the views of others strikes you as a waste of your time, I don't know. Thought about running a blog? Sorry - don't answer - that IS a time-wasting observation...

"In all seriousness", do you suppose asserting something is an argument? It seems fairly likely that a different coach would do differently, and therefore to deny either "better or worse" is to take up what is at the very least a doubtful position. Your opinion here would need some sort of supporting arguments to warrant anyone taking it seriously...

ok. what he understands a zone to be must be something different to what those watching the games understand a zone to be. Call it what you like, whatever it is called, it is there to be seen - and it doesn't work. The Oxford Dictionary is a dictionary of "received standard English" - the meanings of words and terms is derived from usage. Plenty of supporters think that bad strategy is a zone, and they call it one. You, along with everyone else, know perfectly well what they are talking about, and citing somebody else's understanding of the term does not invalidate the supporters' usage of the term, nor the point they are making. Pseudo intellectualism, bingo.

I know next to nothing, but I've followed Melbourne since the 50's. Recently I had lost my nerve, and was convinced that Neeld was not getting the players firing, and he had to go. But an in-the-end great win on Sunday finds me seeing it all differently, suddenly seeing the value in the good off-field stuff Neeld is putting in place, all that unseen stuff, and thinking maybe the players actually do want to play under him, no matter what personality issues anybody may say he has. So that I am backing off, admitting I haven't got a clue. Sit down and shuttup - how could any spectator really know? The confidence we had against Sydney a couple of years ago was wonderful. Fitness etc were non-issues that day. I'm not convinced that any of the truths we tell each other on Demonland are really so clear-cut and certain. Confidence broke out on Sunday - even though it was against a team that had entirely run out of puff - and it was wonderful and showed that we have got a lot going for us (even without Clark, Viney, Dawes, Hogan and just about Watts). Who knows what next? What a ride! I have typed out my opinions, in ignorance, rattled and disappointed, but I don't want to any more. Back to the pre-web-forum days for me, when you took it all in and had nowhere to be shooting your mouth off. (Because shooting your mouth off doesn't make it feel any better anyway...) Back to the engrossing heart-in-your-mouth thing of being a Melbourne supporter! Shout yourself stupid at the game, and then batten down to wait for the next chance - that's supporting, it seems to me. How much more we get out of our wins that the poor sods who are so used to it they are blase! How unpredictable the whole thing is, how intense the stress! Go, boys, go Neeldy, carna Dees!

I'm with Webber - some of the positions taken by regular posters on Demonland are not discussion, they are really dumb and offensive abuse. Tedious. I know - just don't read it. Well, we are all supporters of the MFC, and we ought to be able to discuss, and hear what others with views different from our own have to say. Genuine interest is frustrated here, among fellow supporters, by these posters with their relentless and obdurate refusal to engage within the parameters of what is generally understood by "discussion".

nice posturing Ron - you look real cool! (Because it's certainly not any critique, is it? If you have something specific to say about something specific someone else said, then say it. Although preferably not by analogy or whatever that was, in admiring terms of something from a stupid war we lost.) Well, dump on me, I deserve it - but it's about as productive and pertinent as your post...

never mind the details of what was done right or wrong in any of these matters - the club is burning down, and we need someone who can put out the fire. Step aside spectators/fools/whatever, and make room for the people we need. comparisons with any other club or any other spectators is pretty much just the fashion reporter's take on the mess, at this stage. The management of the club, all its staff, have been useless while this fire got going, and with more flames leaping out of one crack after another, it threatens to engulf us altogether. We desperately need some decisive people here who can stop this stuff happening!

This thread is polarising to the point where when you see who it is posting, you pretty much know what they are going to say. Some of us are entirely for Neeld, and blame the cattle, while others are entirely against Neeld and lament the wasted/undeveloped cattle. There's probably some nuanced positions, but overall we have polarised and neither side is persuading the other. I wonder what would it take for a poster here to revise their thoughts on this question? What player performance would cause the pro-Neeld posters to see good in the players? (And a fair answer can't be a in terms of one of those broad-brush dismissive remarks like "showing some heart" - I mean something objective and measurable.) What would the anti-Neeld posters think was a coaching pass-mark? (And similarly, not something that is entirely subjective or depends on sustained success). I asked myself, and struggle to get an answer. Is it possible that either side of this polarised thread will give ground as a result of anything that could happen this weekend?

pity Jack Watts isn't doing law. I deleted my post - you have it still up; read it, and see if I stated or implied things as factual, or if I offered my thoughts repeatedly saying "I think". On April 10 you wrote "Your opinion that he is the wrong choice, my opinion I don't know whether he is or not, coz I don't know what the issue with the players is, do you?, have you asked them, I did - they didn't know either, but they want Neeld as coach, so assume they are lying to me." Your assumption was sarcastic, right? Like Connolly's "joking". Like you, I don't know. I care, and I figured that Demonland was a forum for people to discuss what matters to us. You want just facts, but when you try to get them, the answers don't fit the facts. We are all trying to understand - it appears you prefer to just wait till you know; fair enough, but can't you allow others to discuss on a different basis?

look up "constructive dismissal"

Sorry to upset you. I do not have the facts you speak of. Just looking on. Can't agree with you, but I have deleted my rubbish post. Not sure that Neeld could or would have sued me, all the same. My view is that the central fact was we lost valuable players, and that at a time when on non-football issues I'd have hoped we would be extending everything to support them. Prior to their leaving, and prior to the disasters that overtook them, I did not like what I saw of their treatment. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I'm wrong now. If so, as you suggest, then I withdraw unreservedly.

Ok, self belief comes from within the player himself. Yep - thing is, they all had it... I say self belief can be destroyed by others, and this is what I suspect has been going on at Melbourne for some time. Look at the loss of self belief in grown-up victims of child sex abuse. And please don't trash this board by swooping in triumphantly declaring "he calls Neeld a pedophile!" - I don't. I use the extreme example to establish the connection between abuse or long-term denigration and a loss of self belief, and simply say that the loss of self belief in our players since the 2011 (2010?) Sydney game, or after half time last Saturday, may well be because they have been in effect being undermined for some time. Abuse can erode self belief. Here is my speculative reconstruction, in an attempt to fit the visible with the scraps of explanation that can be gleaned at present: We know that the interfering Schwab and coach Bailey were diametrically opposed to each other over something to do with the players' performances. Bailey no doubt was too nice to the players - and Schwab had some very different ideas to Bailey. The players were pretty resentful of Schwab's interference and went out on a limb criticising (when asked), only to find themselves stranded out there. The 186 loss ensued, costing Bailey his job. Why were the players so pathetic that day against Geelong? I suspect the real issue undermining the players' focus that day was to do with the way they had exposed themselves to risk by speaking up when asked just a few days before. The timing is too suggestive to ignore. So what exactly was it that Schwab was doing or saying to them? The question in my mind is whether Schwab was making comments designed to push the players towards training properly and showing accountability on match day, or whether he was making personal comments about their characters (along the lines of a lot of the frustration aired on this forum), which came across to the players as undermining negativity directed in a personal way at them. If the latter, Schwab was directing at the players what he really meant to direct at the coach - was using the players to get at the coach, and it would be seriously undermining. And I suspect this must have been what was going on - I doubt that senior players like Brad Green would have shirked a proper training regime, or imagined that they could "dob in" (when asked) a CEO insisting they should develop proper fitness levels and show accountability on match-day. But, after the players spoke, the scale of the political forces at work sunk in with every day of silence about what they had said. What could they have been expected to believe about what they had done when they spoke up? If this reconstruction is anything like what did happen, then Neeld in effect picked up where Schwab left off. With Schwab removed from interfering, Neeld came in with his sterner approach to coaching the team (necessary for them to be competitive, no question), but in doing so he took on already fearful players and simply replaced the undermining effect of Schwab with the undermining effect of Neeld. Special circumstances, post-186, and requiring careful handling. Only that Neeld with admirable determination set about the rebuild, relying on all he had ever learned in other places - none of which had ever had the sort of problems Melbourne had when he arrived. Perhaps the tone of voice he used, and the up-front personal remarks he made to the media - and presumably in private too - hit on raw nerves. He spent months chatting with Brad Green about his impending retirement. It seems likely to me that the players recognised that Neeld and Schwab were on a wave-length - especially when Neeld was so publicly disrespectful of Bailey, and as time went on the Schwab-dobbing players one by one steadily disappeared. Today, the players appear scared... "lacking self belief"! Maybe from their point of view they still are in a war zone, with everyone outside pretending it isn't so: maybe what is needed above all else is for them to be convinced that they are on "our" side. Surely in the coach v CEO war, with the club swinging in its support now to one side, now the other, and dragging the players into it, the players must have wondered what their role was meant to be. At the end of last year, I suggested a big "clean-out" would be far too destructive of player morale. You could dispute the connection I claimed, but you could hardly doubt the subsequent collapse of morale. Yelling at the players now, and threatening more player sackings ASAP, or demanded they grow up and fix their self belief - I wonder if that isn't just reprising the preparation for that Geelong game...