Wilder Gone

[Kernow Yellow]

For someone who prides himself on his professional conduct, he has, and is, acting like a complete arse. He's let himself and a lot of people down. One thing's for sure, he never did connect with our supporters. His actions today are contempt for them and the club.

It certainly looks like this at first glance, but I have a feeling there might be more to the situation than meets the eye. IL claims that CW told him he was going to resign after the game, but that doesn't sound very likely to me - CW must surely be aware of the implications of resigning rather than having his contract terminated.

Could it be that CW thought that IL had agreed to terminate his contract after the game, but that during Saturday IL refused to play ball? CW therefore said goodbye to the players but couldn't say anything publically because IL wasn't doing what had been expected of him? IL then announces that CW has resigned, which wasn't really the case, so CW denies it.

When ML spoke to RadOx after the game he said he expected CW to be in charge at Exeter as he hadn't heard anything different, but a few minutes later IL says that ML has agreed to take charge for Tuesday's game!

I feel sorry for Mickey Lewis in all this, and don't blame him for not telling us what was going on. And I'm not happy with CW for not seeing the job through. But I'm not convinced that IL is being straight with us either. CW's statement last night might have been rather a surprise, but at least he's saying something publically. The silence from OUFC has been deafening since the story first broke on Thursday. Us fans deserve better from ALL parties.

[Dr Bob]

[quote="Kernow Yellow
I feel sorry for Mickey Lewis in all this, and don't blame him for not telling us what was going on. And I'm not happy with CW for not seeing the job through. But I'm not convinced that IL is being straight with us either. CW's statement last night might have been rather a surprise, but at least he's saying something publically. The silence from OUFC has been deafening since the story first broke on Thursday. Us fans deserve better from ALL parties.[/quote]

We are but mushrooms on the great farm of life.

[JoeyBeauchamp]

CW's statement last night might have been rather a surprise, but at least he's saying something publically. The silence from OUFC has been deafening since the story first broke on Thursday. Us fans deserve better from ALL parties.

Completely agree - for all the good the club does they are incredibly slow in letting the fans know what is going on. It has been about 18 hours since the 'news' broke and we have no idea what is going on. A friend of mine asked what the hell is going on at Oxford and I had to say I've no idea. That is crazy - we have a game on Tuesday and have no idea who will be in charge. I wouldn't be so surprised to see CW in charge.

[Mr T]

Apart from the obvious confusion caused by a lack of communication from all concerned, I am puzzled by why CW would want to go to Northampton. I presumed that he would only be tempted by a 'higher' club or one nearer to 'home'. If he does move to 6fields then it will be ironic if we get promoted &/or the Cobblers move to the Conference, especially as our last game of this season is away at Northampton!
If Fleetwood draw at Scunthorpe in the televised game on SKY tomorrow night, then we will be top on potential points ahead of the visit to Exeter (another ironic twist, visiting the home of the other long time boss Paul Tisdale).
Looking forward to some positive statements in the next 24 hours confirming that CW is staying and that IL is happy with carrying on as before...

PS Fed up with all the media time being given to Mata going to Old Trafford

[Matt D]

CW's statement last night might have been rather a surprise, but at least he's saying something publically. The silence from OUFC has been deafening since the story first broke on Thursday. Us fans deserve better from ALL parties.

Completely agree - for all the good the club does they are incredibly slow in letting the fans know what is going on. It has been about 18 hours since the 'news' broke and we have no idea what is going on. A friend of mine asked what the hell is going on at Oxford and I had to say I've no idea. That is crazy - we have a game on Tuesday and have no idea who will be in charge. I wouldn't be so surprised to see CW in charge.

i agree that better communication is desireable. i can't see it improving in the near future though, as it seems fairly clear to me that there's some kind of legal discussion going on, or at the very least people worrying about what that might be.

that to me is the sad thing about all this. chris wilder is the best manager we've had in, what, the last twenty years or so? i think our chances of getting promotion this season reduce without wilder as manager (just look at what happens in that twenty years when we change manger mid-season. how often have we improved? only once i'd say: when wilder arrived., wilder surely wants another promotion on his cv, and ian lenagan had said he wanted wilder as manager. i expected this to be a 'transition' season to get us to the kind of club lenagan wants us to be, but it had gone far better than expected with the development squad and the investment in sports science showing what benefits it could deliver.

so how do we get to this impasse where no-one seems to be happy (as i can't believe that in other circumstances wilder wants to go to northampton)?

i doubt anyone concerned wants this laundry washed in public, but now that's what's happened, i can only see it getting sorted out when someone decides there's too much to lose. so who will that be? surely the sensible thing for all concerned is to sit down and agree a resolution today and announce it a.s.a.p.

[Old Abingdonian]

Surely we all know that there is an irreconcilable tension between 'letting the fans know what's going on' on the one hand, and the demands of secrecy or discretion when various parties are - at least potentially - at odds, or trying to gain some advantage at the expense of the other. You can't expect that Lenagan will say anything which would compromise the club's position either with respect to CW, or NTFC. In fact, I am surprised he said anything yesterday, and I think he did speak only to try to claim the moral high ground. Whether it's his to claim is another matter.........

[YF Dan]

This doesn't reflect badly on the club in my opinion, but it reveals that Wilder has acted contemptuously to a club who has treated him very well for four years, and as Neil rightly pointed out, it shows he's an utter bottle job.

Looking at the little evidence available, I would suggest that Northampton approached the club (presumably they made contact with CW too at some point in order to let him know of their interest, potential contract details etc), IL said they couldn't speak to WIlder, and Wilder spat his dummy out and told the players he was off. This appears to be accepted, as both IL and BBC Oxford reported it.

The rest is speculation, but maybe his agent presumably found out about this 'resignation', and pointed out that by doing so, he was breaching his contract and is therefore in danger of having to pay us compensation. Worse, he could be stuck on gardening leave until the end of the season, which presumably Northampton wouldn't be that keen on, given their situation.

This might explain the rapid backtracking of the 'resignation'.

If this is the case, we can presumably will, sack him. Which presumably suits CW because he will be free to pop off to manage the team who are currently 92nd in the football league, which is seemingly what he wants. This says much about his own deepdown insecurities and his inner belief in being able to sustain our promotion push.

Personally, I am not in the slightest bit surprised that he's gone, and, given how's he's behaved, nor do I care. He was an OK manager who took over at the right time for both parties but for me he stayed too long. Thanks for Wembley (although I would have prefered it had he stuck to the winning formula and we'd won the league instead of having that crazy January, February, March loanathon), but, really, really wish nothing but relegation on him now though.

What a bottler. What a spoilt child. Goodbye.

----

Let's move on and give the next man (or woman) our full support.

[Paul Cooper]

I think that CW should have gone in the summer.

The situation for the past few months has been far from ideal. You can understand CW wanting some security as his contract is winding down. He will be aware of the hostility to him by some of the supporters and considering what he has achieved he has remained less popular than you would expect.

IL hardly wants to give CW an extension and find that w don't go up. He will be more than aware of the poor crowds which has to in some way be due to the poor fare at home.

I think that CW's position is now untenable and so assume that ML will be in charge on Tuesday. The timing of all of this is terrible as we are actually in a very strong position in the league, with the next 2 games very winnable

[GodalmingYellow]

CW, or his agent, is clearly trying to find some wriggle room now that CW has put himself in a very difficult position.

As I said earlier, CW could very easily find himself out of a job having a) informed IL of his intentions and b) informed the players of his decision, to leave.

In my view, he was trying to engineer a way out of his contract without Cobblers have to stump up compensation. He cocked it up badly.

His reason for wanting to leave is presumably for long term security, that OUFC cannot give him, given his previous failures with the budget, until he has proven he is worth an extension by getting us promoted.

According to IL, CW's contract specifies the date by which an extension must be offered and that point hasn't been reached, but clearly that is now inconvenient for CW given Cobblers interest. Well tough. If you sign a contract, you stick to it or suffer the consequences. It strikes me that Cobblers or CW need to agree to pay off the remainder of CW's contract if they wish to appoint Wilder. It can't be that much in all honesty, certainly no more than a few tens of thousands at the very most.

[amershamwrighty]

I'll say he's cocked up badly - firstly, I see no way back for him at OUFC, secondly it could take time to sort the contractual stuff out, by which time the NTFC job may well have gone to someone else and thirdly his personal reputation in the eyes of prospective future employers is quite badly damaged because he has alienated a significant proportion of fans.

[theox]

It is worth noting that we currently only have IL's version of events to go on and personally I think he made himself sound a bit of a prat yesterday.

Coming out and saying 'I think my manager has resigned but I'm not really sure' isn't really what you want to hear from a man who is supposed to be a competent business owner. Surely he would have been better to say that something had happened but he couldn't really comment until he had spoken to Wilder.

Then, even if Wilder did want to resign they could sort it out behind closed doors and come to whatever agreement was necessary without making the club look amateur with stories about a manager who may or may not have resigned and a chairman who doesn't have a clue either way.

Stretching the point slightly but IL has possibly opened himself up to a constructive dismissal claim if Wilder really wanted to twist the knife. If Wilder really didn't resign and, let's face it, I expect his contract says he must give written notice to his superior to resign, then Wilder could now argue that IL has made Wilder's position untenable with the story he told to Radio Oxford. Hence he now has to quit and has a constructive dismissal claim. I'm pretty sure that Wilder wouldn't do this but IL should have used a bit more discretion rather than making a statement he wasn't certain of.

[SWA]

All done and dusted
Wilder will be unveiled as Northampton gaffer tomorrow

[neilw]

Wilder back in his comfort zone, battling for survival in adversity ..... Preferably back in that "poxy league". Expectations beyond that are clearly beyond him.

[Kernow Yellow]

Yep, we know where we stand now - in relation to Chris Wilder at least. Where it leaves Us as a club chasing promotion, only time will tell.

See you at Exeter...

[OUFC4eva]

What is the weather like in the south west?

Could be in doubt possibly?