Sorry for long post
In my opinion it started to go wrong when we appointed Roy Keane. I know it’s all easily said and done with the benefit of hindsight, and I be honest we were thrilled at the time. However It quickly fell apart as Keane’s shortcomings as a manager became apparent. Some strange transfer dealings (Jordan Rhodes’ departure is a particularly painful example) coupled with some even stranger on-pitch tactics and selections. He also spent a huge wedge of money & hooked us into big contracts.
We then got Paul Jewell in but i feel he messed up almost immediately by bringing some players who were well past their best (ie Jimmy Bullard and Lee Bowyer) & we never could get any momentum going last season.
In the summer we lost a lot of players who were out of contract & in turn we struggled to bring players in for one reason or another. Mostly because the club were unwilling to pay new players big wages and this left our squad looking incredibly thin. So we looked at the loan market and brought in 8 players on loan and a couple of short term contracts including people like D.J Campbell, Daryl Murphy, Richie Wellens, Danny Higginbotham, Stephen Henderson etc as well as having Nigel Reo-Coker on a three month short term contract.
This seem to leave us with a team on the field who lack passion and sadly it started to effect the crowd. Attendences started to drop and the atmosphere is the worse I have known it to be in 35 years i have been supporting Town.
Sadly some of the contracted players we do have at the club have ended up arguing with the fans via twitter(Chopra, Loach, Emmanuel-Thomas, Carson) and this has left the fans not warming to the contracted players or the loanees. I could go on but basically the place is falling apart at the seams :(
As for our next manager think it will be someone who is not in a job as I do not think the club would want to pay compensation. As for the Burley Butcher combo I cannot see this happening myself. Maybe i am wrong but feel George Burley has not got the same hunger he once had to suceed to become a good manager. Just my opinion though.
Hope your all well & all