So.............who is to blame for our current woes?

[theonlywayisup]

Lots of views on the forum of who is to blame for our current woes. Is it the players, Petrie, Farmer, Butcher etc?

Well this is you chance to vote

You can select more that one

[cabbageandribs1875]

not voting due to not knowing exactly who to blame :( but it's been rumoured on here it's all the fault of the fans :)

[James70]

You missed out Craig Thomson

Seriously it could be said that each and every one of the above could be faulted to a greater or lesser extent. However apathy comes from the very top and if there is no fire or ambition being generated there then it may be that managers and players feel less motivated.

Calderwood didn't care, Fenlon did care but was out of his depth and Butcher is using his own tactics with players that he didn't sign.

There seems to be a serious lack of leadership from the very top as clubs with presumably much lower budgets than ours are constantly outperforming us.

[The Sea-gull]

I voted players, Calderwood, Fenlon, Butcher, STF and Petrie. Petrie has to take overall responsibility for the general state of the club as he has been there a while now and he is head of organisation and that's how it works accross all businesses.

[hibee19]

A massive turnover of players hasn't worked, many of whom who have been successful at other clubs.

Changing managers hasn't worked.

The blame quite clearly lies higher up the food chain.

[GreenLake]

Collective mental negativity is the cause and the board, managers, players and fans have all made a contribution. We need some green sunshine and a magnetic attraction for Hibs class football to reappear.

[Keith_M]

I voted for the Fans. I've read it so many times I'm now convinced.


I think if we play our remaining matches at East Mains we'll be fine.

[mutley]

Match officials and poor reffereeing should have been an option too

[Captain Trips]

The manager after Calderwood should have fixed his errors he didn't properly. At this juncture it is a Petrie.Butcher and Fenlon production.

[NatureBoy]

A combination of STF and Petrie for me, no passion, no drive, no ambition! This attitude is slowly and very painfully killing us as a club!

I noticed yesterday during the warm up all the Hearts players went over to their fans and they were all pumping each other up for it. You think we'd ever see that win at all costs attitude and unity at ER? Sadly not under RP!

[PeterboroHibee]

For the specific on field situation at the moment, the players and Butcher have to take responsibility. So many of them appear to have given up, and it doesnt appear that Butcher has a clue how to turn it around. Theres absolutely no excuse for so many players in that squad to be playing the way they are.

Bigger picture the majority of the blame seems to be at board level. Weve seen numerous managers fail, lots of transfer targets missed out on, and there are more and more stories coming out about how we are quite badly run from a footballing point of view. Despite that, no one ever seems to be held responsible for our failings (other than the manager).

[sesoim]

Everyone has a part to blame, but Petrie seems to have a job for life no matter how badly the team does and how badly his managerial appointments do. And I really don't understand why STF can stand back and watch the club, his investment, deteriorate year by year. We were getting 14500+ average crowds a few years ago and could have been getting more now if we had been appointing the right managers and doing what we should be on the park.

As it is, I supported the appointment of Butcher but I think he has totally underestimated what needed done here. He had a poor January window and his tactics have been poor. I still think he will do a good job once he gets players in that suit his style, but it doesn't say much for his tactical know-how if he can't at least partially adapt his tactics to suit the players he currently has.

[dangermouse]

I've gone for Butcher and the players. It's Butcher's job to develop the players, make them better, identify weaknesses in the team and if possible replace them with others who are performing better in training or U20 matches. He seems to be out of his depth with all of this.

The players are just as culpable as they are being paid to do a job and that job is to win football matches. It seems plain to me that some of them are doing their best and others have a holiday to sunnier climes on their mind and not bothering a leg.

Has Butcher, in his short tenure, "lost the dressing room"? Are his training methods worse than previous incumbents of his post? Is he crap at motivating?

Do the players respect the manager? Are they doing it in training but freezing on matchday?

Something has gone badly wrong and you can see it in the style of play. When Butcher first arrived his philosophy was to quickly close down the opposition, win back the ball and get it quickly into the box. Now we spend more time hoofing the ball up in the air or passing it straight to the opposition. No quick closing down, teams are doing this to us instead.

What the hell has happened to our team? Terry must know and it's up to him to fix it. Will he be here next season? For me, only if he can perform miracles.

[Hibernia&Alba]

There plenty of blame to go around:

Tom Farmer and Petrie for long term decline
Fenlon for some of his signings
Butcher for blatantly failing to improve us.

Constant loan signings which undermine the concept of developing a team and creating a rapport with the support.

Right now I feel we need a new board, a new manager and a new squad. In other words, it couldn't be much worse.

[trev the hat]

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Lots of views on the forum of who is to blame for our current woes. Is it the players, Petrie, Farmer, Butcher etc?

Well this is you chance to vote

You can select more that one

Not the time for blame IMO stakes are too high, games still to be played.

[Hibby70]

God.

[SouthamptonHibs]

Pat Fenlon

[Beefster]

Mental that folk are still blaming Calderwood for what's happening now and that Fenlon is only blamed by <25% of voters. He signed them all.

[#2 Double Tap]

Petrie; makes the big decisions. Butcher; makes the other decisions. Players;do what they are told :P

[greenlex]

I hate blame cultures. Recognise there is a problem. Solve whatever it is and move forward.

[Eyrie]

Calderwood and Fenlon for the current squad, Petrie for appointing so many duds, the players for not being good enough and it's a .net FACT that the fans are to blame.

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I hate blame cultures. Recognise there is a problem. Solve whatever it is and move forward.

You have to recognise the problem to be able to solve it, and in our case Petrie is part of the problem. Managers and players have moved on because they were part of the problem, so why not the chairman?

[Viva_Palmeiras]

It all stems from the "butterfly effect" caused by Gretna being allowed into the league.

[LioNeilMessi]

East Stand for me. We've been in decline ever since it was built

[#FromTheCapital]

Tam McCourt

[theonlywayisup]

Interesting to see that after Rod, the next most common response is THE PLAYERS.

Well, if true, they got us into this mess, they can get us out of it. I prey

My view, it is down to the managers and we, the fans.

We, the fans, are far too quick to get on the backs of certain players, as stated so many times on the Spoony thread.

However, in our defence, we have had to watch an increasingly depressing and mind-numbing style of football, it is not surprising that we (a renowned loyal support) have turned on our own. Not since Mowbray have we had a manager that played the style of football we enjoy to watch. Yes, Yogi and JC, delivered it in some matches too, but we have been on a downward trend since Tony' s departure.

New managers arrive, but they seem incapable of fixing what is so apparent to us all. Our full-backs historically offer very little in attack nor defence, our midfields are often devoid of creativity nor defensive resolve, we never have wingers that consistently get to the byeline and get crosses in, we rarely have commanding centre-backs and there is a lack of pace across the whole team for many a season. And, with the exception of Stokes, Deeks and Sparky, we rarely have players that put the ball in the net often enough.

If someone like me, who knows nothing about football apart from watching my beloved Hibs for forty years, then why can't our managers (plural) see that. Why?

[Spike Mandela]

Whomever has had overall responsibility for our footballing operations in the last seven years. Epic Fail.

[theonlywayisup]

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Whomever has had overall responsibility for our footballing operations in the last seven years. Epic Fail.

Easy option and after so many failed managers not a surprise. I am not sure though.

[yeezus.]

Petrie made a few very poor decisions in regards to appointing managers and I feel his tight arse approach has denied us good players we could've had.

[Captain Trips]

As it is current woes then Butcher and the dross he has mismanaged to brink of disaster.

Grand orchestra though conducted by R.Petrie.

[ScottB]

We've been in a perfect storm of decline for years.

For me it start's with us losing Donald Park. Our youth system stalled after the golden generation. At the time we were cutting expenditure and increased our outgoings with East Mains, and then the East Stand.

I can only assume our master plan was to have a team based on youth, which could then be sold on, supported by a few experienced signings. With no youth coming through we had to spend the same amount of money on more players, which resulted in a lot of crap signings, which then had to be paid off and replaced, all without anymore youngsters to sell off either. So each required set of journeymen further shrunk the pot to replace them, leading to us getting worse and worse.

Which leaves us here, now teetering on the brink of relegation. At least we seem to be finally sorting things out behind the scenes, the youth system has started to improve, and apparently will be reorganised. But to me, we either need to accept that we need to temporarily spend more to get back up to a decent level, or just accept we'll continue to be crap until we can start churning out half a squad of first team worthy players from the youth system, allowing our resources to be focused on signing only a few quality pros.