We haven't had good enough players or Managers for a while now. It's mostly down to money IMHO
It’s due to poor spending of money. Our budget hasn’t really been a problem other than in 2022/23 when Sandgaard had given up. I suspect that would have been our lowest budget of recent times and we actually finished higher up the league
Poor recruitment is our problem, until that changes we are just going to keep cycling through managers that get an initial performance bounce but then trail off
I just look at the players we've signed for what most people would count as significant fees for this league over the past few years and barely any of them have been a success.
Recruitment needs to be significantly overhauled and I wouldn't trust another transfer window to Andy Scott.
Whoever replaces Jones will have to try and get a tune out of basically the same squad with a couple of January window signings of their choosing and then we'll be sitting here in the summer making another 8-10 signings because the new manager wants their own players.
Feels like a never ending merry-go-round of poor recruitment leading to poor results.
Which is why we need to stick with a manager and/or style. I’d rather not get rid of Jones, but if it does need to happen we will probably be stupid again and jump to a completely different style of football with a manager that will want to rid of most of the squad (which won’t be possible) and we go round the cycle again
One advantage this time is that the players dont fit into the Jones system so trying a different one isn't quite the problem it would have been. The problem is more finding a system in which a group of midfielders with almost identical mid range skills and no real creativity can be moulded into an attacking force to be feared.
Overall I agree with those who look past Jones. I cannot see Jones getting any better and he seems to have some really didgy ideas in his locker as well as a pig headed refusal to change. But the overrriding problem seems to be the recruitment. Someone posted a list of all the players we have off loaded in the last few years, and the vast majority are playing at a lower level than ourselves, which suggests an ongoing failure by whoever is doing the scouting. If this is Scott, he at least should be moved out before january and we should be looking at developing a better recruitment personel.
As for Jones, I think he's a busted flush now. Getting outplayed at home by Crawley and Orient successively says a lot about where we are and we need to change at some point, but how many managerts would fancy the gig is a real problem. The halt, the sick and the lame.
Most of our players have been bought to play Jones style of high intensity direct football. We aren’t playing it well at all and it is quite often not even evident that we are trying it. But you can’t then just expect the same players to play a different style that doesn’t suit them. If we get a new manager Alex Mitchell isn’t suddenly going to be able to play it out from back, Ahadme isn’t suddenly going to be able to control a pass into his feet and lay it off to a team mate. We’d still only have 1 winger and that winger doesn’t have a good enough end product
I think Jones may need to go, I’m prepared to see if he can get a reaction on Saturday but I’m not massively confident he will. But if he does go we can’t just flip back to a completely different style. We are more likely to get relegated trying to do that mid-season with these players than we are by keeping Jones
If we go for a younger appointment that wants to completely change style and try to play nice football, with this squad it could be disastrous, especially mid-season. If Jones does go then we need to be looking at an Alex Neil, Darren Moore etc type manager
Fundamentally disagree with this.
Whilst I think the recruitment has been a disaster, I also think the group is much better than they have been showing and aside from the fact they’re not great, a large part of the reason for their pitiful output is the abysmal “tactics” (I struggle to even use that word as tactics to me intimates some kind of thought to opponents, in game situations and scenarios and altogether something more mindful and considered than what Jones does).
The players look completely bemused now and clearly have no belief themselves in how they’re being told to execute their duties. My opinion is that a more outward looking, sensible manager could “reasonably” easily get this group delivering at least better performances and results than the relegation results, and relegated performances they have been delivering since the first couple of weeks.
One of the key skills of a “manager” (everyone will recall that Jones insisted on that title to the board as opposed to the head coach role of some of his predecessors), is being able to recognise the strengths, weaknesses and abilities of the resources you do have and get the best out of them rather than stubbornly coaching them a single inflexible style.
we dont necessarily want or need a philosophy tiki taka football coach who plays pretty football. We just need somebody who has the above ability, the mindset to play both attacking (can be direct at times) and ugly / defensive football where the situation requires and, crucially, actually tries to win football matches by controlling them in some form and create moments of football which endanger our opponents.
What we definitely don’t want is a manager who actively wants the opposition to have the ball in the hope of them making a mistake and that is his sole plan come rain or shine, hailstones or heat warnings.
Powell’s teams were often direct and also often robust when needed. But it was flexible, attempted to work with the strengths of the resources we had; you’ve got Kermogant, so sign and play direct wingers. We now have Ahadme… and we don’t have a winger in our squad (well, just the one, but let’s play him centre forward instead).
We might well end up beating Mansfield on Saturday. But Jones ain’t for the future, he needs to go.
So you don’t fundamentally disagree at all then. The point I was making was that people have been calling for a younger manager that plays attractive football, but I think that could be disastrous and we instead need a more pragmatic manager like an Alex Neil or a Darren Moore if we are to get rid of Jones
I’m not sure another manager would get better results. How good do you think this squad is? For me it’s a top half league 1 squad, the hope at the start of the season was that Jones would be a good enough manager to over-achieve with it and get in the play offs. We’ve had some key players out injured so are now down to 12th, not great obviously, but without the injuries we’d probably be around where our squad should be
Sorry - should’ve clarified realise thst was a little unclear.
Fundamentally disagreed with the bits about not playing a different style with these players, they have been bought to play his style and we’re more likely to get relegated trying something else / we need a robust manager for this group.
they Can’t play his style which is why we are in catastrophic relegation form for the last 3 months.
I agree, the squad should certainly be capable of 7-12 with any vaguely adept manager and any attempt to win matches
the style is wrong, the manager is wrong
Change both and we shouldn’t be anywhere near relegation
the manager doesn’t need to play robust football they just need to be able to understand and respond to the players abilities / qualities
We are 12th though, and that’s with the injuries we’ve had recently. Without those we’d probably be just about where this squad should be, around 8th-10th
Clutching a bit there. 8 points form 6th, 4 from 21st, 10 points from our last 12 games and arguably fortunate with a lot of the points gained prior
every club gets injuries, we haven’t been that badly done by on them. No excuse.
I’m not sure the top 4 budget is a stick you can beat Jones with. REG, Gillesphey, Aneke, Edun, Watson. That’s 5 players eating up quite a bit of that top 4 budget. All will be on good money as they were signed to be top players at this level, and they were all here before Jones was
Jones has added some poor players to this list himself. Ahadme and Docherty the big ones because of their contracts meaning we are probably stuck with them like we’ve been stuck with many over the past few years. The rest of his poor signings we aren’t tied down too. But he has also brought us Ramsay, Edwards, Small, Mannion, Godden, A.Mitchell that are good signings
Jones chose not to sign technical/creative midfielders and wingers though. He purposely filled the squad with defensive battling CMs. It's not surprising we're struggling when the only way we can win games is to defend better, run further and be more aggressive than the opposition.
That’s definitely a fair criticism. Berry hasn’t been as good as we hoped/expected because he does have that extra bit of quality in the middle of the park. I think having no right wing backs fit has also not helped in terms of supply
I’m not arguing that it’s been good, and it definitely hasn’t been good to watch. But we were 16th last season, our defence was a complete mess. We are a work in progress, Jones has sorted out the defence but on the ball we are terrible. We’ve gone from one of the worst defences in the league to one of the better ones, maybe he deserves more time to see if he can sort the other side of the game out
It may well be time for NJ to go - but I suspect the real issue is the senior management team which make long term success by any manager well nigh impossible.
We haven't had good enough players or Managers for a while now. It's mostly down to money IMHO
It’s due to poor spending of money. Our budget hasn’t really been a problem other than in 2022/23 when Sandgaard had given up. I suspect that would have been our lowest budget of recent times and we actually finished higher up the league
Poor recruitment is our problem, until that changes we are just going to keep cycling through managers that get an initial performance bounce but then trail off
I just look at the players we've signed for what most people would count as significant fees for this league over the past few years and barely any of them have been a success.
Recruitment needs to be significantly overhauled and I wouldn't trust another transfer window to Andy Scott.
Whoever replaces Jones will have to try and get a tune out of basically the same squad with a couple of January window signings of their choosing and then we'll be sitting here in the summer making another 8-10 signings because the new manager wants their own players.
Feels like a never ending merry-go-round of poor recruitment leading to poor results.
Which is why we need to stick with a manager and/or style. I’d rather not get rid of Jones, but if it does need to happen we will probably be stupid again and jump to a completely different style of football with a manager that will want to rid of most of the squad (which won’t be possible) and we go round the cycle again
One advantage this time is that the players dont fit into the Jones system so trying a different one isn't quite the problem it would have been. The problem is more finding a system in which a group of midfielders with almost identical mid range skills and no real creativity can be moulded into an attacking force to be feared.
Overall I agree with those who look past Jones. I cannot see Jones getting any better and he seems to have some really didgy ideas in his locker as well as a pig headed refusal to change. But the overrriding problem seems to be the recruitment. Someone posted a list of all the players we have off loaded in the last few years, and the vast majority are playing at a lower level than ourselves, which suggests an ongoing failure by whoever is doing the scouting. If this is Scott, he at least should be moved out before january and we should be looking at developing a better recruitment personel.
As for Jones, I think he's a busted flush now. Getting outplayed at home by Crawley and Orient successively says a lot about where we are and we need to change at some point, but how many managerts would fancy the gig is a real problem. The halt, the sick and the lame.
Most of our players have been bought to play Jones style of high intensity direct football. We aren’t playing it well at all and it is quite often not even evident that we are trying it. But you can’t then just expect the same players to play a different style that doesn’t suit them. If we get a new manager Alex Mitchell isn’t suddenly going to be able to play it out from back, Ahadme isn’t suddenly going to be able to control a pass into his feet and lay it off to a team mate. We’d still only have 1 winger and that winger doesn’t have a good enough end product
I think Jones may need to go, I’m prepared to see if he can get a reaction on Saturday but I’m not massively confident he will. But if he does go we can’t just flip back to a completely different style. We are more likely to get relegated trying to do that mid-season with these players than we are by keeping Jones
If we go for a younger appointment that wants to completely change style and try to play nice football, with this squad it could be disastrous, especially mid-season. If Jones does go then we need to be looking at an Alex Neil, Darren Moore etc type manager
Fundamentally disagree with this.
Whilst I think the recruitment has been a disaster, I also think the group is much better than they have been showing and aside from the fact they’re not great, a large part of the reason for their pitiful output is the abysmal “tactics” (I struggle to even use that word as tactics to me intimates some kind of thought to opponents, in game situations and scenarios and altogether something more mindful and considered than what Jones does).
The players look completely bemused now and clearly have no belief themselves in how they’re being told to execute their duties. My opinion is that a more outward looking, sensible manager could “reasonably” easily get this group delivering at least better performances and results than the relegation results, and relegated performances they have been delivering since the first couple of weeks.
One of the key skills of a “manager” (everyone will recall that Jones insisted on that title to the board as opposed to the head coach role of some of his predecessors), is being able to recognise the strengths, weaknesses and abilities of the resources you do have and get the best out of them rather than stubbornly coaching them a single inflexible style.
we dont necessarily want or need a philosophy tiki taka football coach who plays pretty football. We just need somebody who has the above ability, the mindset to play both attacking (can be direct at times) and ugly / defensive football where the situation requires and, crucially, actually tries to win football matches by controlling them in some form and create moments of football which endanger our opponents.
What we definitely don’t want is a manager who actively wants the opposition to have the ball in the hope of them making a mistake and that is his sole plan come rain or shine, hailstones or heat warnings.
Powell’s teams were often direct and also often robust when needed. But it was flexible, attempted to work with the strengths of the resources we had; you’ve got Kermogant, so sign and play direct wingers. We now have Ahadme… and we don’t have a winger in our squad (well, just the one, but let’s play him centre forward instead).
We might well end up beating Mansfield on Saturday. But Jones ain’t for the future, he needs to go.
So you don’t fundamentally disagree at all then. The point I was making was that people have been calling for a younger manager that plays attractive football, but I think that could be disastrous and we instead need a more pragmatic manager like an Alex Neil or a Darren Moore if we are to get rid of Jones
I’m not sure another manager would get better results. How good do you think this squad is? For me it’s a top half league 1 squad, the hope at the start of the season was that Jones would be a good enough manager to over-achieve with it and get in the play offs. We’ve had some key players out injured so are now down to 12th, not great obviously, but without the injuries we’d probably be around where our squad should be
Sorry - should’ve clarified realise thst was a little unclear.
Fundamentally disagreed with the bits about not playing a different style with these players, they have been bought to play his style and we’re more likely to get relegated trying something else / we need a robust manager for this group.
they Can’t play his style which is why we are in catastrophic relegation form for the last 3 months.
I agree, the squad should certainly be capable of 7-12 with any vaguely adept manager and any attempt to win matches
the style is wrong, the manager is wrong
Change both and we shouldn’t be anywhere near relegation
the manager doesn’t need to play robust football they just need to be able to understand and respond to the players abilities / qualities
We are 12th though, and that’s with the injuries we’ve had recently. Without those we’d probably be just about where this squad should be, around 8th-10th
Clutching a bit there. 8 points form 6th, 4 from 21st, 10 points from our last 12 games and arguably fortunate with a lot of the points gained prior
every club gets injuries, we haven’t been that badly done by on them. No excuse.
Jones is an idiot and has to go.
We had games recently where we had 10+ players unavailable. I don’t think other clubs have had it that bad. Jones and Ramsay are our 2 best players too, and the problem is our replacements for them are nowhere near good enough, and they are players that Jones was stuck with because Scott spent money on them last year
We can’t just keep sacking managers at the first sign of bad form
We've got players back now, maybe nothing will change but I think we’re better off trying to give managers time rather than being a club that sacks a manager at the first sign of bad form. Powell would never have got his 2011/12 season with this kind of attitude
I’m not sure the top 4 budget is a stick you can beat Jones with. REG, Gillesphey, Aneke, Edun, Watson. That’s 5 players eating up quite a bit of that top 4 budget. All will be on good money as they were signed to be top players at this level, and they were all here before Jones was
Jones has added some poor players to this list himself. Ahadme and Docherty the big ones because of their contracts meaning we are probably stuck with them like we’ve been stuck with many over the past few years. The rest of his poor signings we aren’t tied down too. But he has also brought us Ramsay, Edwards, Small, Mannion, Godden, A.Mitchell that are good signings
Jones chose not to sign technical/creative midfielders and wingers though. He purposely filled the squad with defensive battling CMs. It's not surprising we're struggling when the only way we can win games is to defend better, run further and be more aggressive than the opposition.
That’s definitely a fair criticism. Berry hasn’t been as good as we hoped/expected because he does have that extra bit of quality in the middle of the park. I think having no right wing backs fit has also not helped in terms of supply
I’m not arguing that it’s been good, and it definitely hasn’t been good to watch. But we were 16th last season, our defence was a complete mess. We are a work in progress, Jones has sorted out the defence but on the ball we are terrible. We’ve gone from one of the worst defences in the league to one of the better ones, maybe he deserves more time to see if he can sort the other side of the game out
the only problem with that is that NJ appears intellectually exhausted and has run out of ideas.
All managers get dips in ideas and performance in whatever industry they function - but that is where a good SMT help to revitalise the manager. our current lot have repeatedly demonstrated they have no such ability, and should not be allowed another go on a poor victim.
We haven't had good enough players or Managers for a while now. It's mostly down to money IMHO
It’s due to poor spending of money. Our budget hasn’t really been a problem other than in 2022/23 when Sandgaard had given up. I suspect that would have been our lowest budget of recent times and we actually finished higher up the league
Poor recruitment is our problem, until that changes we are just going to keep cycling through managers that get an initial performance bounce but then trail off
I just look at the players we've signed for what most people would count as significant fees for this league over the past few years and barely any of them have been a success.
Recruitment needs to be significantly overhauled and I wouldn't trust another transfer window to Andy Scott.
Whoever replaces Jones will have to try and get a tune out of basically the same squad with a couple of January window signings of their choosing and then we'll be sitting here in the summer making another 8-10 signings because the new manager wants their own players.
Feels like a never ending merry-go-round of poor recruitment leading to poor results.
Which is why we need to stick with a manager and/or style. I’d rather not get rid of Jones, but if it does need to happen we will probably be stupid again and jump to a completely different style of football with a manager that will want to rid of most of the squad (which won’t be possible) and we go round the cycle again
One advantage this time is that the players dont fit into the Jones system so trying a different one isn't quite the problem it would have been. The problem is more finding a system in which a group of midfielders with almost identical mid range skills and no real creativity can be moulded into an attacking force to be feared.
Overall I agree with those who look past Jones. I cannot see Jones getting any better and he seems to have some really didgy ideas in his locker as well as a pig headed refusal to change. But the overrriding problem seems to be the recruitment. Someone posted a list of all the players we have off loaded in the last few years, and the vast majority are playing at a lower level than ourselves, which suggests an ongoing failure by whoever is doing the scouting. If this is Scott, he at least should be moved out before january and we should be looking at developing a better recruitment personel.
As for Jones, I think he's a busted flush now. Getting outplayed at home by Crawley and Orient successively says a lot about where we are and we need to change at some point, but how many managerts would fancy the gig is a real problem. The halt, the sick and the lame.
Most of our players have been bought to play Jones style of high intensity direct football. We aren’t playing it well at all and it is quite often not even evident that we are trying it. But you can’t then just expect the same players to play a different style that doesn’t suit them. If we get a new manager Alex Mitchell isn’t suddenly going to be able to play it out from back, Ahadme isn’t suddenly going to be able to control a pass into his feet and lay it off to a team mate. We’d still only have 1 winger and that winger doesn’t have a good enough end product
I think Jones may need to go, I’m prepared to see if he can get a reaction on Saturday but I’m not massively confident he will. But if he does go we can’t just flip back to a completely different style. We are more likely to get relegated trying to do that mid-season with these players than we are by keeping Jones
If we go for a younger appointment that wants to completely change style and try to play nice football, with this squad it could be disastrous, especially mid-season. If Jones does go then we need to be looking at an Alex Neil, Darren Moore etc type manager
Fundamentally disagree with this.
Whilst I think the recruitment has been a disaster, I also think the group is much better than they have been showing and aside from the fact they’re not great, a large part of the reason for their pitiful output is the abysmal “tactics” (I struggle to even use that word as tactics to me intimates some kind of thought to opponents, in game situations and scenarios and altogether something more mindful and considered than what Jones does).
The players look completely bemused now and clearly have no belief themselves in how they’re being told to execute their duties. My opinion is that a more outward looking, sensible manager could “reasonably” easily get this group delivering at least better performances and results than the relegation results, and relegated performances they have been delivering since the first couple of weeks.
One of the key skills of a “manager” (everyone will recall that Jones insisted on that title to the board as opposed to the head coach role of some of his predecessors), is being able to recognise the strengths, weaknesses and abilities of the resources you do have and get the best out of them rather than stubbornly coaching them a single inflexible style.
we dont necessarily want or need a philosophy tiki taka football coach who plays pretty football. We just need somebody who has the above ability, the mindset to play both attacking (can be direct at times) and ugly / defensive football where the situation requires and, crucially, actually tries to win football matches by controlling them in some form and create moments of football which endanger our opponents.
What we definitely don’t want is a manager who actively wants the opposition to have the ball in the hope of them making a mistake and that is his sole plan come rain or shine, hailstones or heat warnings.
Powell’s teams were often direct and also often robust when needed. But it was flexible, attempted to work with the strengths of the resources we had; you’ve got Kermogant, so sign and play direct wingers. We now have Ahadme… and we don’t have a winger in our squad (well, just the one, but let’s play him centre forward instead).
We might well end up beating Mansfield on Saturday. But Jones ain’t for the future, he needs to go.
So you don’t fundamentally disagree at all then. The point I was making was that people have been calling for a younger manager that plays attractive football, but I think that could be disastrous and we instead need a more pragmatic manager like an Alex Neil or a Darren Moore if we are to get rid of Jones
I’m not sure another manager would get better results. How good do you think this squad is? For me it’s a top half league 1 squad, the hope at the start of the season was that Jones would be a good enough manager to over-achieve with it and get in the play offs. We’ve had some key players out injured so are now down to 12th, not great obviously, but without the injuries we’d probably be around where our squad should be
Sorry - should’ve clarified realise thst was a little unclear.
Fundamentally disagreed with the bits about not playing a different style with these players, they have been bought to play his style and we’re more likely to get relegated trying something else / we need a robust manager for this group.
they Can’t play his style which is why we are in catastrophic relegation form for the last 3 months.
I agree, the squad should certainly be capable of 7-12 with any vaguely adept manager and any attempt to win matches
the style is wrong, the manager is wrong
Change both and we shouldn’t be anywhere near relegation
the manager doesn’t need to play robust football they just need to be able to understand and respond to the players abilities / qualities
We are 12th though, and that’s with the injuries we’ve had recently. Without those we’d probably be just about where this squad should be, around 8th-10th
Clutching a bit there. 8 points form 6th, 4 from 21st, 10 points from our last 12 games and arguably fortunate with a lot of the points gained prior
every club gets injuries, we haven’t been that badly done by on them. No excuse.
Jones is an idiot and has to go.
We had games recently where we had 10+ players unavailable. I don’t think other clubs have had it that bad. Jones and Ramsay are our 2 best players too, and the problem is our replacements for them are nowhere near good enough, and they are players that Jones was stuck with because Scott spent money on them last year
We can’t just keep sacking managers at the first sign of bad form
We've got players back now, maybe nothing will change but I think we’re better off trying to give managers time rather than being a club that sacks a manager at the first sign of bad form. Powell would never have got his 2011/12 season with this kind of attitude
I'm not sure how much of a defense injuries are, either. We have good depth and it wasn't like NJ was forced to play youngsters. For many years we didn't even build a squad by the time the season started. I remember the first game against Sunderland at home and playing with a midfield or Levitt, Oztumer and Vennings. In previous seasons we've been stuck playing the likes of Ness and Josh Davison.
By comparison, NJ has been set up for success. A full squad at pre-season and senior cover in practically every position.
A lot of the expectations around us at the start of the season wasn’t due to the strength of our squad, it was because we had Jones as manager that people were tipping us for the top 6. People were expecting him to over-achieve, instead he has slightly underachieved
This squad is probably a top 10 squad for this league. We’ve had injuries, and that has definitely cost us points. So we are now 12th. Without as many injuries we’d probably be around about where this squad should be. The football is dire but results-wise I think people are making it out to be a lot worse than it is
Is that not just accepting mediocrity? The squad isn't supposed to be a 'top 10' squad. It's supposedly built on a top four budget, so at the moment we are dramatically underperforming.
The only reason you can say it's top 10 or worse is because the recruitment was so poor. But we shouldn't just accept that.
Going from 16th to top 6 isn’t a quick and easy fix. The recruitment was poor, and it has been for ages, we shouldn’t just accept that. I’m not sure sacking another manager solves that though, maybe they gave Jones too much power in the summer (though I seem to remember a lot of fans calling for that kind of set up). What we need is a complete overhaul on recruitment, starting with Andy Scott’s removal.
Sacking Jones might be the right thing to do, but it will make no difference to our long term success unless the recruitment setup is completely re-done
I'm not getting into whether Jones should be sacked or not, but I do think it's flawed to tier the squad as 'top 10 at best' and then use that as the measure for acceptable results. Yes, the squad isn't good enough, but that's largely down to the manager's recruitment decisions. The fact that the squad is limited doesn't automatically make the current performances or results acceptable.
This squad was assembled on a supposed top 4 budget, so even with recruitment issues, the expectations should be far higher than 'top 10.' Framing it this way feels like mediocrity is being normalised, and the fans frustrations are being dismissed as overreactions when they're totally legitimate.
Jones is obviously partly to blame here, but I think overall his recruitment has been ok. Small, Ramsay, Godden, Mitchell, Edwards, Mannion are all good signings. Docherty and Ahadme look like terrible buys with their long contracts so there were obviously mistakes made. We need a better recruitment set up, but removing Jones doesn’t achieve that
Campbell hasn’t worked at all, but a loan for the player he could have been was probably worth the risk. Easy to say it wasn’t in hindsight but we were potentially signing a championship level player
What damages us more is the chunk of the budget spent on Gillesphey, REG, Watson, Aneke and Edun. That’s 5 good wages that could be spent on first team regulars
I’m not sure the top 4 budget is a stick you can beat Jones with. REG, Gillesphey, Aneke, Edun, Watson. That’s 5 players eating up quite a bit of that top 4 budget. All will be on good money as they were signed to be top players at this level, and they were all here before Jones was
Jones has added some poor players to this list himself. Ahadme and Docherty the big ones because of their contracts meaning we are probably stuck with them like we’ve been stuck with many over the past few years. The rest of his poor signings we aren’t tied down too. But he has also brought us Ramsay, Edwards, Small, Mannion, Godden, A.Mitchell that are good signings
Jones chose not to sign technical/creative midfielders and wingers though. He purposely filled the squad with defensive battling CMs. It's not surprising we're struggling when the only way we can win games is to defend better, run further and be more aggressive than the opposition.
That’s definitely a fair criticism. Berry hasn’t been as good as we hoped/expected because he does have that extra bit of quality in the middle of the park. I think having no right wing backs fit has also not helped in terms of supply
I’m not arguing that it’s been good, and it definitely hasn’t been good to watch. But we were 16th last season, our defence was a complete mess. We are a work in progress, Jones has sorted out the defence but on the ball we are terrible. We’ve gone from one of the worst defences in the league to one of the better ones, maybe he deserves more time to see if he can sort the other side of the game out
the only problem with that is that NJ appears intellectually exhausted and has run out of ideas.
This is a big concern. His press conferences are not a good sign. Shows he hasn’t learnt at all from where it went wrong at Southampton and is probably a big contributor in him already losing most of the fanbase here
We haven't had good enough players or Managers for a while now. It's mostly down to money IMHO
It’s due to poor spending of money. Our budget hasn’t really been a problem other than in 2022/23 when Sandgaard had given up. I suspect that would have been our lowest budget of recent times and we actually finished higher up the league
Poor recruitment is our problem, until that changes we are just going to keep cycling through managers that get an initial performance bounce but then trail off
I just look at the players we've signed for what most people would count as significant fees for this league over the past few years and barely any of them have been a success.
Recruitment needs to be significantly overhauled and I wouldn't trust another transfer window to Andy Scott.
Whoever replaces Jones will have to try and get a tune out of basically the same squad with a couple of January window signings of their choosing and then we'll be sitting here in the summer making another 8-10 signings because the new manager wants their own players.
Feels like a never ending merry-go-round of poor recruitment leading to poor results.
Which is why we need to stick with a manager and/or style. I’d rather not get rid of Jones, but if it does need to happen we will probably be stupid again and jump to a completely different style of football with a manager that will want to rid of most of the squad (which won’t be possible) and we go round the cycle again
One advantage this time is that the players dont fit into the Jones system so trying a different one isn't quite the problem it would have been. The problem is more finding a system in which a group of midfielders with almost identical mid range skills and no real creativity can be moulded into an attacking force to be feared.
Overall I agree with those who look past Jones. I cannot see Jones getting any better and he seems to have some really didgy ideas in his locker as well as a pig headed refusal to change. But the overrriding problem seems to be the recruitment. Someone posted a list of all the players we have off loaded in the last few years, and the vast majority are playing at a lower level than ourselves, which suggests an ongoing failure by whoever is doing the scouting. If this is Scott, he at least should be moved out before january and we should be looking at developing a better recruitment personel.
As for Jones, I think he's a busted flush now. Getting outplayed at home by Crawley and Orient successively says a lot about where we are and we need to change at some point, but how many managerts would fancy the gig is a real problem. The halt, the sick and the lame.
Most of our players have been bought to play Jones style of high intensity direct football. We aren’t playing it well at all and it is quite often not even evident that we are trying it. But you can’t then just expect the same players to play a different style that doesn’t suit them. If we get a new manager Alex Mitchell isn’t suddenly going to be able to play it out from back, Ahadme isn’t suddenly going to be able to control a pass into his feet and lay it off to a team mate. We’d still only have 1 winger and that winger doesn’t have a good enough end product
I think Jones may need to go, I’m prepared to see if he can get a reaction on Saturday but I’m not massively confident he will. But if he does go we can’t just flip back to a completely different style. We are more likely to get relegated trying to do that mid-season with these players than we are by keeping Jones
If we go for a younger appointment that wants to completely change style and try to play nice football, with this squad it could be disastrous, especially mid-season. If Jones does go then we need to be looking at an Alex Neil, Darren Moore etc type manager
Fundamentally disagree with this.
Whilst I think the recruitment has been a disaster, I also think the group is much better than they have been showing and aside from the fact they’re not great, a large part of the reason for their pitiful output is the abysmal “tactics” (I struggle to even use that word as tactics to me intimates some kind of thought to opponents, in game situations and scenarios and altogether something more mindful and considered than what Jones does).
The players look completely bemused now and clearly have no belief themselves in how they’re being told to execute their duties. My opinion is that a more outward looking, sensible manager could “reasonably” easily get this group delivering at least better performances and results than the relegation results, and relegated performances they have been delivering since the first couple of weeks.
One of the key skills of a “manager” (everyone will recall that Jones insisted on that title to the board as opposed to the head coach role of some of his predecessors), is being able to recognise the strengths, weaknesses and abilities of the resources you do have and get the best out of them rather than stubbornly coaching them a single inflexible style.
we dont necessarily want or need a philosophy tiki taka football coach who plays pretty football. We just need somebody who has the above ability, the mindset to play both attacking (can be direct at times) and ugly / defensive football where the situation requires and, crucially, actually tries to win football matches by controlling them in some form and create moments of football which endanger our opponents.
What we definitely don’t want is a manager who actively wants the opposition to have the ball in the hope of them making a mistake and that is his sole plan come rain or shine, hailstones or heat warnings.
Powell’s teams were often direct and also often robust when needed. But it was flexible, attempted to work with the strengths of the resources we had; you’ve got Kermogant, so sign and play direct wingers. We now have Ahadme… and we don’t have a winger in our squad (well, just the one, but let’s play him centre forward instead).
We might well end up beating Mansfield on Saturday. But Jones ain’t for the future, he needs to go.
So you don’t fundamentally disagree at all then. The point I was making was that people have been calling for a younger manager that plays attractive football, but I think that could be disastrous and we instead need a more pragmatic manager like an Alex Neil or a Darren Moore if we are to get rid of Jones
I’m not sure another manager would get better results. How good do you think this squad is? For me it’s a top half league 1 squad, the hope at the start of the season was that Jones would be a good enough manager to over-achieve with it and get in the play offs. We’ve had some key players out injured so are now down to 12th, not great obviously, but without the injuries we’d probably be around where our squad should be
Sorry - should’ve clarified realise thst was a little unclear.
Fundamentally disagreed with the bits about not playing a different style with these players, they have been bought to play his style and we’re more likely to get relegated trying something else / we need a robust manager for this group.
they Can’t play his style which is why we are in catastrophic relegation form for the last 3 months.
I agree, the squad should certainly be capable of 7-12 with any vaguely adept manager and any attempt to win matches
the style is wrong, the manager is wrong
Change both and we shouldn’t be anywhere near relegation
the manager doesn’t need to play robust football they just need to be able to understand and respond to the players abilities / qualities
We are 12th though, and that’s with the injuries we’ve had recently. Without those we’d probably be just about where this squad should be, around 8th-10th
Clutching a bit there. 8 points form 6th, 4 from 21st, 10 points from our last 12 games and arguably fortunate with a lot of the points gained prior
every club gets injuries, we haven’t been that badly done by on them. No excuse.
Jones is an idiot and has to go.
We had games recently where we had 10+ players unavailable. I don’t think other clubs have had it that bad. Jones and Ramsay are our 2 best players too, and the problem is our replacements for them are nowhere near good enough, and they are players that Jones was stuck with because Scott spent money on them last year
We can’t just keep sacking managers at the first sign of bad form
We've got players back now, maybe nothing will change but I think we’re better off trying to give managers time rather than being a club that sacks a manager at the first sign of bad form. Powell would never have got his 2011/12 season with this kind of attitude
I'm not sure how much of a defense injuries are, either. We have good depth and it wasn't like NJ was forced to play youngsters. For many years we didn't even build a squad by the time the season started. I remember the first game against Sunderland at home and playing with a midfield or Levitt, Oztumer and Vennings. In previous seasons we've been stuck playing the likes of Ness and Josh Davison.
By comparison, NJ has been set up for success. A full squad at pre-season and senior cover in practically every position.
I’d disagree that we have good depth. We have depth but it isn’t good
A lot of the expectations around us at the start of the season wasn’t due to the strength of our squad, it was because we had Jones as manager that people were tipping us for the top 6. People were expecting him to over-achieve, instead he has slightly underachieved
This squad is probably a top 10 squad for this league. We’ve had injuries, and that has definitely cost us points. So we are now 12th. Without as many injuries we’d probably be around about where this squad should be. The football is dire but results-wise I think people are making it out to be a lot worse than it is
Is that not just accepting mediocrity? The squad isn't supposed to be a 'top 10' squad. It's supposedly built on a top four budget, so at the moment we are dramatically underperforming.
The only reason you can say it's top 10 or worse is because the recruitment was so poor. But we shouldn't just accept that.
Going from 16th to top 6 isn’t a quick and easy fix. The recruitment was poor, and it has been for ages, we shouldn’t just accept that. I’m not sure sacking another manager solves that though, maybe they gave Jones too much power in the summer (though I seem to remember a lot of fans calling for that kind of set up). What we need is a complete overhaul on recruitment, starting with Andy Scott’s removal.
Sacking Jones might be the right thing to do, but it will make no difference to our long term success unless the recruitment setup is completely re-done
I'm not getting into whether Jones should be sacked or not, but I do think it's flawed to tier the squad as 'top 10 at best' and then use that as the measure for acceptable results. Yes, the squad isn't good enough, but that's largely down to the manager's recruitment decisions. The fact that the squad is limited doesn't automatically make the current performances or results acceptable.
This squad was assembled on a supposed top 4 budget, so even with recruitment issues, the expectations should be far higher than 'top 10.' Framing it this way feels like mediocrity is being normalised, and the fans frustrations are being dismissed as overreactions when they're totally legitimate.
Jones is obviously partly to blame here, but I think overall his recruitment has been ok. Small, Ramsay, Godden, Mitchell, Edwards, Mannion are all good signings. Docherty and Ahadme look like terrible buys with their long contracts so there were obviously mistakes made. We need a better recruitment set up, but removing Jones doesn’t achieve that
Campbell hasn’t worked at all, but a loan for the player he could have been was probably worth the risk. Easy to say it wasn’t in hindsight but we were potentially signing a championship level player
What damages us more is the chunk of the budget spent on Gillesphey, REG, Watson, Aneke and Edun. That’s 5 good wages that could be spent on first team regulars
You might be right, but that's still not enough reason to be OK with the performances/results. NJ has been given more to work with than any manager we've had in a good while.
We haven't had good enough players or Managers for a while now. It's mostly down to money IMHO
It’s due to poor spending of money. Our budget hasn’t really been a problem other than in 2022/23 when Sandgaard had given up. I suspect that would have been our lowest budget of recent times and we actually finished higher up the league
Poor recruitment is our problem, until that changes we are just going to keep cycling through managers that get an initial performance bounce but then trail off
I just look at the players we've signed for what most people would count as significant fees for this league over the past few years and barely any of them have been a success.
Recruitment needs to be significantly overhauled and I wouldn't trust another transfer window to Andy Scott.
Whoever replaces Jones will have to try and get a tune out of basically the same squad with a couple of January window signings of their choosing and then we'll be sitting here in the summer making another 8-10 signings because the new manager wants their own players.
Feels like a never ending merry-go-round of poor recruitment leading to poor results.
Which is why we need to stick with a manager and/or style. I’d rather not get rid of Jones, but if it does need to happen we will probably be stupid again and jump to a completely different style of football with a manager that will want to rid of most of the squad (which won’t be possible) and we go round the cycle again
One advantage this time is that the players dont fit into the Jones system so trying a different one isn't quite the problem it would have been. The problem is more finding a system in which a group of midfielders with almost identical mid range skills and no real creativity can be moulded into an attacking force to be feared.
Overall I agree with those who look past Jones. I cannot see Jones getting any better and he seems to have some really didgy ideas in his locker as well as a pig headed refusal to change. But the overrriding problem seems to be the recruitment. Someone posted a list of all the players we have off loaded in the last few years, and the vast majority are playing at a lower level than ourselves, which suggests an ongoing failure by whoever is doing the scouting. If this is Scott, he at least should be moved out before january and we should be looking at developing a better recruitment personel.
As for Jones, I think he's a busted flush now. Getting outplayed at home by Crawley and Orient successively says a lot about where we are and we need to change at some point, but how many managerts would fancy the gig is a real problem. The halt, the sick and the lame.
Most of our players have been bought to play Jones style of high intensity direct football. We aren’t playing it well at all and it is quite often not even evident that we are trying it. But you can’t then just expect the same players to play a different style that doesn’t suit them. If we get a new manager Alex Mitchell isn’t suddenly going to be able to play it out from back, Ahadme isn’t suddenly going to be able to control a pass into his feet and lay it off to a team mate. We’d still only have 1 winger and that winger doesn’t have a good enough end product
I think Jones may need to go, I’m prepared to see if he can get a reaction on Saturday but I’m not massively confident he will. But if he does go we can’t just flip back to a completely different style. We are more likely to get relegated trying to do that mid-season with these players than we are by keeping Jones
If we go for a younger appointment that wants to completely change style and try to play nice football, with this squad it could be disastrous, especially mid-season. If Jones does go then we need to be looking at an Alex Neil, Darren Moore etc type manager
Fundamentally disagree with this.
Whilst I think the recruitment has been a disaster, I also think the group is much better than they have been showing and aside from the fact they’re not great, a large part of the reason for their pitiful output is the abysmal “tactics” (I struggle to even use that word as tactics to me intimates some kind of thought to opponents, in game situations and scenarios and altogether something more mindful and considered than what Jones does).
The players look completely bemused now and clearly have no belief themselves in how they’re being told to execute their duties. My opinion is that a more outward looking, sensible manager could “reasonably” easily get this group delivering at least better performances and results than the relegation results, and relegated performances they have been delivering since the first couple of weeks.
One of the key skills of a “manager” (everyone will recall that Jones insisted on that title to the board as opposed to the head coach role of some of his predecessors), is being able to recognise the strengths, weaknesses and abilities of the resources you do have and get the best out of them rather than stubbornly coaching them a single inflexible style.
we dont necessarily want or need a philosophy tiki taka football coach who plays pretty football. We just need somebody who has the above ability, the mindset to play both attacking (can be direct at times) and ugly / defensive football where the situation requires and, crucially, actually tries to win football matches by controlling them in some form and create moments of football which endanger our opponents.
What we definitely don’t want is a manager who actively wants the opposition to have the ball in the hope of them making a mistake and that is his sole plan come rain or shine, hailstones or heat warnings.
Powell’s teams were often direct and also often robust when needed. But it was flexible, attempted to work with the strengths of the resources we had; you’ve got Kermogant, so sign and play direct wingers. We now have Ahadme… and we don’t have a winger in our squad (well, just the one, but let’s play him centre forward instead).
We might well end up beating Mansfield on Saturday. But Jones ain’t for the future, he needs to go.
So you don’t fundamentally disagree at all then. The point I was making was that people have been calling for a younger manager that plays attractive football, but I think that could be disastrous and we instead need a more pragmatic manager like an Alex Neil or a Darren Moore if we are to get rid of Jones
I’m not sure another manager would get better results. How good do you think this squad is? For me it’s a top half league 1 squad, the hope at the start of the season was that Jones would be a good enough manager to over-achieve with it and get in the play offs. We’ve had some key players out injured so are now down to 12th, not great obviously, but without the injuries we’d probably be around where our squad should be
Sorry - should’ve clarified realise thst was a little unclear.
Fundamentally disagreed with the bits about not playing a different style with these players, they have been bought to play his style and we’re more likely to get relegated trying something else / we need a robust manager for this group.
they Can’t play his style which is why we are in catastrophic relegation form for the last 3 months.
I agree, the squad should certainly be capable of 7-12 with any vaguely adept manager and any attempt to win matches
the style is wrong, the manager is wrong
Change both and we shouldn’t be anywhere near relegation
the manager doesn’t need to play robust football they just need to be able to understand and respond to the players abilities / qualities
We are 12th though, and that’s with the injuries we’ve had recently. Without those we’d probably be just about where this squad should be, around 8th-10th
Clutching a bit there. 8 points form 6th, 4 from 21st, 10 points from our last 12 games and arguably fortunate with a lot of the points gained prior
every club gets injuries, we haven’t been that badly done by on them. No excuse.
Jones is an idiot and has to go.
We had games recently where we had 10+ players unavailable. I don’t think other clubs have had it that bad. Jones and Ramsay are our 2 best players too, and the problem is our replacements for them are nowhere near good enough, and they are players that Jones was stuck with because Scott spent money on them last year
We can’t just keep sacking managers at the first sign of bad form
We've got players back now, maybe nothing will change but I think we’re better off trying to give managers time rather than being a club that sacks a manager at the first sign of bad form. Powell would never have got his 2011/12 season with this kind of attitude
I'm not sure how much of a defense injuries are, either. We have good depth and it wasn't like NJ was forced to play youngsters. For many years we didn't even build a squad by the time the season started. I remember the first game against Sunderland at home and playing with a midfield or Levitt, Oztumer and Vennings. In previous seasons we've been stuck playing the likes of Ness and Josh Davison.
By comparison, NJ has been set up for success. A full squad at pre-season and senior cover in practically every position.
Quite. Holden was blooding Asiimwe and Anderson and AMB and Kanu at the beginning of last season. He had far, far more defence for being given time and not being sacked at the first sign of poor form than Jones.
Very few players go through a full season without missing a few games. Ramsay and Jones have both played well over half our games this season. Their backups are “adequate” senior players and their absence didn’t suddenly change the outcomes , we were shite with them in the team. No excuse.
Thats 2 players. Ahadme was out for a bit, he’s terrible anyway. Kanu, but he’s in theory our last choice striker. Mannion, but again the backup was essentially our first choice goalie that the others were dealing with last season.
injuries not been great but far from a crisis , no defence for Jones your honour
A lot of the expectations around us at the start of the season wasn’t due to the strength of our squad, it was because we had Jones as manager that people were tipping us for the top 6. People were expecting him to over-achieve, instead he has slightly underachieved
This squad is probably a top 10 squad for this league. We’ve had injuries, and that has definitely cost us points. So we are now 12th. Without as many injuries we’d probably be around about where this squad should be. The football is dire but results-wise I think people are making it out to be a lot worse than it is
Is that not just accepting mediocrity? The squad isn't supposed to be a 'top 10' squad. It's supposedly built on a top four budget, so at the moment we are dramatically underperforming.
The only reason you can say it's top 10 or worse is because the recruitment was so poor. But we shouldn't just accept that.
Going from 16th to top 6 isn’t a quick and easy fix. The recruitment was poor, and it has been for ages, we shouldn’t just accept that. I’m not sure sacking another manager solves that though, maybe they gave Jones too much power in the summer (though I seem to remember a lot of fans calling for that kind of set up). What we need is a complete overhaul on recruitment, starting with Andy Scott’s removal.
Sacking Jones might be the right thing to do, but it will make no difference to our long term success unless the recruitment setup is completely re-done
I'm not getting into whether Jones should be sacked or not, but I do think it's flawed to tier the squad as 'top 10 at best' and then use that as the measure for acceptable results. Yes, the squad isn't good enough, but that's largely down to the manager's recruitment decisions. The fact that the squad is limited doesn't automatically make the current performances or results acceptable.
This squad was assembled on a supposed top 4 budget, so even with recruitment issues, the expectations should be far higher than 'top 10.' Framing it this way feels like mediocrity is being normalised, and the fans frustrations are being dismissed as overreactions when they're totally legitimate.
Jones is obviously partly to blame here, but I think overall his recruitment has been ok. Small, Ramsay, Godden, Mitchell, Edwards, Mannion are all good signings. Docherty and Ahadme look like terrible buys with their long contracts so there were obviously mistakes made. We need a better recruitment set up, but removing Jones doesn’t achieve that
Campbell hasn’t worked at all, but a loan for the player he could have been was probably worth the risk. Easy to say it wasn’t in hindsight but we were potentially signing a championship level player
What damages us more is the chunk of the budget spent on Gillesphey, REG, Watson, Aneke and Edun. That’s 5 good wages that could be spent on first team regulars
You might be right, but that's still not enough reason to be OK with the performances/results. NJ has been given more to work with than any manager we've had in a good while.
I’m definitely not ok with them. But I also don’t think that every time we are not ok with the results the manager should be sacked
I think there are enough reasons to give Jones at least a few more games now that we have some players back. If things don’t improve then we act before the January window. If we lose and don’t play well on Saturday then I will probably jump into the Jones out camp, but I do think it’s unlikely the owners will sack him yet
We haven't had good enough players or Managers for a while now. It's mostly down to money IMHO
It’s due to poor spending of money. Our budget hasn’t really been a problem other than in 2022/23 when Sandgaard had given up. I suspect that would have been our lowest budget of recent times and we actually finished higher up the league
Poor recruitment is our problem, until that changes we are just going to keep cycling through managers that get an initial performance bounce but then trail off
I just look at the players we've signed for what most people would count as significant fees for this league over the past few years and barely any of them have been a success.
Recruitment needs to be significantly overhauled and I wouldn't trust another transfer window to Andy Scott.
Whoever replaces Jones will have to try and get a tune out of basically the same squad with a couple of January window signings of their choosing and then we'll be sitting here in the summer making another 8-10 signings because the new manager wants their own players.
Feels like a never ending merry-go-round of poor recruitment leading to poor results.
Which is why we need to stick with a manager and/or style. I’d rather not get rid of Jones, but if it does need to happen we will probably be stupid again and jump to a completely different style of football with a manager that will want to rid of most of the squad (which won’t be possible) and we go round the cycle again
One advantage this time is that the players dont fit into the Jones system so trying a different one isn't quite the problem it would have been. The problem is more finding a system in which a group of midfielders with almost identical mid range skills and no real creativity can be moulded into an attacking force to be feared.
Overall I agree with those who look past Jones. I cannot see Jones getting any better and he seems to have some really didgy ideas in his locker as well as a pig headed refusal to change. But the overrriding problem seems to be the recruitment. Someone posted a list of all the players we have off loaded in the last few years, and the vast majority are playing at a lower level than ourselves, which suggests an ongoing failure by whoever is doing the scouting. If this is Scott, he at least should be moved out before january and we should be looking at developing a better recruitment personel.
As for Jones, I think he's a busted flush now. Getting outplayed at home by Crawley and Orient successively says a lot about where we are and we need to change at some point, but how many managerts would fancy the gig is a real problem. The halt, the sick and the lame.
Most of our players have been bought to play Jones style of high intensity direct football. We aren’t playing it well at all and it is quite often not even evident that we are trying it. But you can’t then just expect the same players to play a different style that doesn’t suit them. If we get a new manager Alex Mitchell isn’t suddenly going to be able to play it out from back, Ahadme isn’t suddenly going to be able to control a pass into his feet and lay it off to a team mate. We’d still only have 1 winger and that winger doesn’t have a good enough end product
I think Jones may need to go, I’m prepared to see if he can get a reaction on Saturday but I’m not massively confident he will. But if he does go we can’t just flip back to a completely different style. We are more likely to get relegated trying to do that mid-season with these players than we are by keeping Jones
If we go for a younger appointment that wants to completely change style and try to play nice football, with this squad it could be disastrous, especially mid-season. If Jones does go then we need to be looking at an Alex Neil, Darren Moore etc type manager
Fundamentally disagree with this.
Whilst I think the recruitment has been a disaster, I also think the group is much better than they have been showing and aside from the fact they’re not great, a large part of the reason for their pitiful output is the abysmal “tactics” (I struggle to even use that word as tactics to me intimates some kind of thought to opponents, in game situations and scenarios and altogether something more mindful and considered than what Jones does).
The players look completely bemused now and clearly have no belief themselves in how they’re being told to execute their duties. My opinion is that a more outward looking, sensible manager could “reasonably” easily get this group delivering at least better performances and results than the relegation results, and relegated performances they have been delivering since the first couple of weeks.
One of the key skills of a “manager” (everyone will recall that Jones insisted on that title to the board as opposed to the head coach role of some of his predecessors), is being able to recognise the strengths, weaknesses and abilities of the resources you do have and get the best out of them rather than stubbornly coaching them a single inflexible style.
we dont necessarily want or need a philosophy tiki taka football coach who plays pretty football. We just need somebody who has the above ability, the mindset to play both attacking (can be direct at times) and ugly / defensive football where the situation requires and, crucially, actually tries to win football matches by controlling them in some form and create moments of football which endanger our opponents.
What we definitely don’t want is a manager who actively wants the opposition to have the ball in the hope of them making a mistake and that is his sole plan come rain or shine, hailstones or heat warnings.
Powell’s teams were often direct and also often robust when needed. But it was flexible, attempted to work with the strengths of the resources we had; you’ve got Kermogant, so sign and play direct wingers. We now have Ahadme… and we don’t have a winger in our squad (well, just the one, but let’s play him centre forward instead).
We might well end up beating Mansfield on Saturday. But Jones ain’t for the future, he needs to go.
So you don’t fundamentally disagree at all then. The point I was making was that people have been calling for a younger manager that plays attractive football, but I think that could be disastrous and we instead need a more pragmatic manager like an Alex Neil or a Darren Moore if we are to get rid of Jones
I’m not sure another manager would get better results. How good do you think this squad is? For me it’s a top half league 1 squad, the hope at the start of the season was that Jones would be a good enough manager to over-achieve with it and get in the play offs. We’ve had some key players out injured so are now down to 12th, not great obviously, but without the injuries we’d probably be around where our squad should be
Sorry - should’ve clarified realise thst was a little unclear.
Fundamentally disagreed with the bits about not playing a different style with these players, they have been bought to play his style and we’re more likely to get relegated trying something else / we need a robust manager for this group.
they Can’t play his style which is why we are in catastrophic relegation form for the last 3 months.
I agree, the squad should certainly be capable of 7-12 with any vaguely adept manager and any attempt to win matches
the style is wrong, the manager is wrong
Change both and we shouldn’t be anywhere near relegation
the manager doesn’t need to play robust football they just need to be able to understand and respond to the players abilities / qualities
We are 12th though, and that’s with the injuries we’ve had recently. Without those we’d probably be just about where this squad should be, around 8th-10th
Clutching a bit there. 8 points form 6th, 4 from 21st, 10 points from our last 12 games and arguably fortunate with a lot of the points gained prior
every club gets injuries, we haven’t been that badly done by on them. No excuse.
Jones is an idiot and has to go.
We had games recently where we had 10+ players unavailable. I don’t think other clubs have had it that bad. Jones and Ramsay are our 2 best players too, and the problem is our replacements for them are nowhere near good enough, and they are players that Jones was stuck with because Scott spent money on them last year
We can’t just keep sacking managers at the first sign of bad form
We've got players back now, maybe nothing will change but I think we’re better off trying to give managers time rather than being a club that sacks a manager at the first sign of bad form. Powell would never have got his 2011/12 season with this kind of attitude
I'm not sure how much of a defense injuries are, either. We have good depth and it wasn't like NJ was forced to play youngsters. For many years we didn't even build a squad by the time the season started. I remember the first game against Sunderland at home and playing with a midfield or Levitt, Oztumer and Vennings. In previous seasons we've been stuck playing the likes of Ness and Josh Davison.
By comparison, NJ has been set up for success. A full squad at pre-season and senior cover in practically every position.
Quite. Holden was blooding Asiimwe and Anderson and AMB and Kanu at the beginning of last season. He had far, far more defence for being given time and not being sacked at the first sign of poor form than Jones.
Very few players go through a full season without missing a few games. Ramsay and Jones have both played well over half our games this season. Their backups are “adequate” senior players and their absence didn’t suddenly change the outcomes , we were shite with them in the team. No excuse.
Thats 2 players. Ahadme was out for a bit, he’s terrible anyway. Kanu, but he’s in theory our last choice striker. Mannion, but again the backup was essentially our first choice goalie that the others were dealing with last season.
injuries not been great but far from a crisis , no defence for Jones your honour
I’d have given Holden more time too. But he did lose 5 in a row and was in the relegation zone
When Ramsay and Jones were injured we were just outside the play offs. Their replacements are much worse and is why our defence has looked terrible until Saturday when Jones returned to it. To say their absence didn’t change the outcomes is just silly, we’ve only won 1 game since and it was against bottom of the league
We haven't had good enough players or Managers for a while now. It's mostly down to money IMHO
It’s due to poor spending of money. Our budget hasn’t really been a problem other than in 2022/23 when Sandgaard had given up. I suspect that would have been our lowest budget of recent times and we actually finished higher up the league
Poor recruitment is our problem, until that changes we are just going to keep cycling through managers that get an initial performance bounce but then trail off
I just look at the players we've signed for what most people would count as significant fees for this league over the past few years and barely any of them have been a success.
Recruitment needs to be significantly overhauled and I wouldn't trust another transfer window to Andy Scott.
Whoever replaces Jones will have to try and get a tune out of basically the same squad with a couple of January window signings of their choosing and then we'll be sitting here in the summer making another 8-10 signings because the new manager wants their own players.
Feels like a never ending merry-go-round of poor recruitment leading to poor results.
Which is why we need to stick with a manager and/or style. I’d rather not get rid of Jones, but if it does need to happen we will probably be stupid again and jump to a completely different style of football with a manager that will want to rid of most of the squad (which won’t be possible) and we go round the cycle again
One advantage this time is that the players dont fit into the Jones system so trying a different one isn't quite the problem it would have been. The problem is more finding a system in which a group of midfielders with almost identical mid range skills and no real creativity can be moulded into an attacking force to be feared.
Overall I agree with those who look past Jones. I cannot see Jones getting any better and he seems to have some really didgy ideas in his locker as well as a pig headed refusal to change. But the overrriding problem seems to be the recruitment. Someone posted a list of all the players we have off loaded in the last few years, and the vast majority are playing at a lower level than ourselves, which suggests an ongoing failure by whoever is doing the scouting. If this is Scott, he at least should be moved out before january and we should be looking at developing a better recruitment personel.
As for Jones, I think he's a busted flush now. Getting outplayed at home by Crawley and Orient successively says a lot about where we are and we need to change at some point, but how many managerts would fancy the gig is a real problem. The halt, the sick and the lame.
Most of our players have been bought to play Jones style of high intensity direct football. We aren’t playing it well at all and it is quite often not even evident that we are trying it. But you can’t then just expect the same players to play a different style that doesn’t suit them. If we get a new manager Alex Mitchell isn’t suddenly going to be able to play it out from back, Ahadme isn’t suddenly going to be able to control a pass into his feet and lay it off to a team mate. We’d still only have 1 winger and that winger doesn’t have a good enough end product
I think Jones may need to go, I’m prepared to see if he can get a reaction on Saturday but I’m not massively confident he will. But if he does go we can’t just flip back to a completely different style. We are more likely to get relegated trying to do that mid-season with these players than we are by keeping Jones
If we go for a younger appointment that wants to completely change style and try to play nice football, with this squad it could be disastrous, especially mid-season. If Jones does go then we need to be looking at an Alex Neil, Darren Moore etc type manager
Fundamentally disagree with this.
Whilst I think the recruitment has been a disaster, I also think the group is much better than they have been showing and aside from the fact they’re not great, a large part of the reason for their pitiful output is the abysmal “tactics” (I struggle to even use that word as tactics to me intimates some kind of thought to opponents, in game situations and scenarios and altogether something more mindful and considered than what Jones does).
The players look completely bemused now and clearly have no belief themselves in how they’re being told to execute their duties. My opinion is that a more outward looking, sensible manager could “reasonably” easily get this group delivering at least better performances and results than the relegation results, and relegated performances they have been delivering since the first couple of weeks.
One of the key skills of a “manager” (everyone will recall that Jones insisted on that title to the board as opposed to the head coach role of some of his predecessors), is being able to recognise the strengths, weaknesses and abilities of the resources you do have and get the best out of them rather than stubbornly coaching them a single inflexible style.
we dont necessarily want or need a philosophy tiki taka football coach who plays pretty football. We just need somebody who has the above ability, the mindset to play both attacking (can be direct at times) and ugly / defensive football where the situation requires and, crucially, actually tries to win football matches by controlling them in some form and create moments of football which endanger our opponents.
What we definitely don’t want is a manager who actively wants the opposition to have the ball in the hope of them making a mistake and that is his sole plan come rain or shine, hailstones or heat warnings.
Powell’s teams were often direct and also often robust when needed. But it was flexible, attempted to work with the strengths of the resources we had; you’ve got Kermogant, so sign and play direct wingers. We now have Ahadme… and we don’t have a winger in our squad (well, just the one, but let’s play him centre forward instead).
We might well end up beating Mansfield on Saturday. But Jones ain’t for the future, he needs to go.
So you don’t fundamentally disagree at all then. The point I was making was that people have been calling for a younger manager that plays attractive football, but I think that could be disastrous and we instead need a more pragmatic manager like an Alex Neil or a Darren Moore if we are to get rid of Jones
I’m not sure another manager would get better results. How good do you think this squad is? For me it’s a top half league 1 squad, the hope at the start of the season was that Jones would be a good enough manager to over-achieve with it and get in the play offs. We’ve had some key players out injured so are now down to 12th, not great obviously, but without the injuries we’d probably be around where our squad should be
Sorry - should’ve clarified realise thst was a little unclear.
Fundamentally disagreed with the bits about not playing a different style with these players, they have been bought to play his style and we’re more likely to get relegated trying something else / we need a robust manager for this group.
they Can’t play his style which is why we are in catastrophic relegation form for the last 3 months.
I agree, the squad should certainly be capable of 7-12 with any vaguely adept manager and any attempt to win matches
the style is wrong, the manager is wrong
Change both and we shouldn’t be anywhere near relegation
the manager doesn’t need to play robust football they just need to be able to understand and respond to the players abilities / qualities
We are 12th though, and that’s with the injuries we’ve had recently. Without those we’d probably be just about where this squad should be, around 8th-10th
Clutching a bit there. 8 points form 6th, 4 from 21st, 10 points from our last 12 games and arguably fortunate with a lot of the points gained prior
every club gets injuries, we haven’t been that badly done by on them. No excuse.
Jones is an idiot and has to go.
We had games recently where we had 10+ players unavailable. I don’t think other clubs have had it that bad. Jones and Ramsay are our 2 best players too, and the problem is our replacements for them are nowhere near good enough, and they are players that Jones was stuck with because Scott spent money on them last year
We can’t just keep sacking managers at the first sign of bad form
We've got players back now, maybe nothing will change but I think we’re better off trying to give managers time rather than being a club that sacks a manager at the first sign of bad form. Powell would never have got his 2011/12 season with this kind of attitude
I'm not sure how much of a defense injuries are, either. We have good depth and it wasn't like NJ was forced to play youngsters. For many years we didn't even build a squad by the time the season started. I remember the first game against Sunderland at home and playing with a midfield or Levitt, Oztumer and Vennings. In previous seasons we've been stuck playing the likes of Ness and Josh Davison.
By comparison, NJ has been set up for success. A full squad at pre-season and senior cover in practically every position.
Quite. Holden was blooding Asiimwe and Anderson and AMB and Kanu at the beginning of last season. He had far, far more defence for being given time and not being sacked at the first sign of poor form than Jones.
Very few players go through a full season without missing a few games. Ramsay and Jones have both played well over half our games this season. Their backups are “adequate” senior players and their absence didn’t suddenly change the outcomes , we were shite with them in the team. No excuse.
Thats 2 players. Ahadme was out for a bit, he’s terrible anyway. Kanu, but he’s in theory our last choice striker. Mannion, but again the backup was essentially our first choice goalie that the others were dealing with last season.
injuries not been great but far from a crisis , no defence for Jones your honour
I’d have given Holden more time too. But he did lose 5 in a row and was in the relegation zone
When Ramsay and Jones were injured we were just outside the play offs. Their replacements are much worse and is why our defence has looked terrible until Saturday when Jones returned to it. To say their absence didn’t change the outcomes is just silly, we’ve only won 1 game since and it was against bottom of the league
I think it’s silly to suggest it has changed the outcome…
They both played at Stevenage. They both played at Shrewsbury, which was abysmal and a mirror image of the pathetic win at Burton. Jones played at Bristol R, at the time (since arguably matched) lauded by many as the worst showing in the clubs history.
We were fucking dreadful with them in the team, we’re fucking dreadful without.
We haven't had good enough players or Managers for a while now. It's mostly down to money IMHO
It’s due to poor spending of money. Our budget hasn’t really been a problem other than in 2022/23 when Sandgaard had given up. I suspect that would have been our lowest budget of recent times and we actually finished higher up the league
Poor recruitment is our problem, until that changes we are just going to keep cycling through managers that get an initial performance bounce but then trail off
I just look at the players we've signed for what most people would count as significant fees for this league over the past few years and barely any of them have been a success.
Recruitment needs to be significantly overhauled and I wouldn't trust another transfer window to Andy Scott.
Whoever replaces Jones will have to try and get a tune out of basically the same squad with a couple of January window signings of their choosing and then we'll be sitting here in the summer making another 8-10 signings because the new manager wants their own players.
Feels like a never ending merry-go-round of poor recruitment leading to poor results.
Which is why we need to stick with a manager and/or style. I’d rather not get rid of Jones, but if it does need to happen we will probably be stupid again and jump to a completely different style of football with a manager that will want to rid of most of the squad (which won’t be possible) and we go round the cycle again
One advantage this time is that the players dont fit into the Jones system so trying a different one isn't quite the problem it would have been. The problem is more finding a system in which a group of midfielders with almost identical mid range skills and no real creativity can be moulded into an attacking force to be feared.
Overall I agree with those who look past Jones. I cannot see Jones getting any better and he seems to have some really didgy ideas in his locker as well as a pig headed refusal to change. But the overrriding problem seems to be the recruitment. Someone posted a list of all the players we have off loaded in the last few years, and the vast majority are playing at a lower level than ourselves, which suggests an ongoing failure by whoever is doing the scouting. If this is Scott, he at least should be moved out before january and we should be looking at developing a better recruitment personel.
As for Jones, I think he's a busted flush now. Getting outplayed at home by Crawley and Orient successively says a lot about where we are and we need to change at some point, but how many managerts would fancy the gig is a real problem. The halt, the sick and the lame.
Most of our players have been bought to play Jones style of high intensity direct football. We aren’t playing it well at all and it is quite often not even evident that we are trying it. But you can’t then just expect the same players to play a different style that doesn’t suit them. If we get a new manager Alex Mitchell isn’t suddenly going to be able to play it out from back, Ahadme isn’t suddenly going to be able to control a pass into his feet and lay it off to a team mate. We’d still only have 1 winger and that winger doesn’t have a good enough end product
I think Jones may need to go, I’m prepared to see if he can get a reaction on Saturday but I’m not massively confident he will. But if he does go we can’t just flip back to a completely different style. We are more likely to get relegated trying to do that mid-season with these players than we are by keeping Jones
If we go for a younger appointment that wants to completely change style and try to play nice football, with this squad it could be disastrous, especially mid-season. If Jones does go then we need to be looking at an Alex Neil, Darren Moore etc type manager
Fundamentally disagree with this.
Whilst I think the recruitment has been a disaster, I also think the group is much better than they have been showing and aside from the fact they’re not great, a large part of the reason for their pitiful output is the abysmal “tactics” (I struggle to even use that word as tactics to me intimates some kind of thought to opponents, in game situations and scenarios and altogether something more mindful and considered than what Jones does).
The players look completely bemused now and clearly have no belief themselves in how they’re being told to execute their duties. My opinion is that a more outward looking, sensible manager could “reasonably” easily get this group delivering at least better performances and results than the relegation results, and relegated performances they have been delivering since the first couple of weeks.
One of the key skills of a “manager” (everyone will recall that Jones insisted on that title to the board as opposed to the head coach role of some of his predecessors), is being able to recognise the strengths, weaknesses and abilities of the resources you do have and get the best out of them rather than stubbornly coaching them a single inflexible style.
we dont necessarily want or need a philosophy tiki taka football coach who plays pretty football. We just need somebody who has the above ability, the mindset to play both attacking (can be direct at times) and ugly / defensive football where the situation requires and, crucially, actually tries to win football matches by controlling them in some form and create moments of football which endanger our opponents.
What we definitely don’t want is a manager who actively wants the opposition to have the ball in the hope of them making a mistake and that is his sole plan come rain or shine, hailstones or heat warnings.
Powell’s teams were often direct and also often robust when needed. But it was flexible, attempted to work with the strengths of the resources we had; you’ve got Kermogant, so sign and play direct wingers. We now have Ahadme… and we don’t have a winger in our squad (well, just the one, but let’s play him centre forward instead).
We might well end up beating Mansfield on Saturday. But Jones ain’t for the future, he needs to go.
So you don’t fundamentally disagree at all then. The point I was making was that people have been calling for a younger manager that plays attractive football, but I think that could be disastrous and we instead need a more pragmatic manager like an Alex Neil or a Darren Moore if we are to get rid of Jones
I’m not sure another manager would get better results. How good do you think this squad is? For me it’s a top half league 1 squad, the hope at the start of the season was that Jones would be a good enough manager to over-achieve with it and get in the play offs. We’ve had some key players out injured so are now down to 12th, not great obviously, but without the injuries we’d probably be around where our squad should be
Sorry - should’ve clarified realise thst was a little unclear.
Fundamentally disagreed with the bits about not playing a different style with these players, they have been bought to play his style and we’re more likely to get relegated trying something else / we need a robust manager for this group.
they Can’t play his style which is why we are in catastrophic relegation form for the last 3 months.
I agree, the squad should certainly be capable of 7-12 with any vaguely adept manager and any attempt to win matches
the style is wrong, the manager is wrong
Change both and we shouldn’t be anywhere near relegation
the manager doesn’t need to play robust football they just need to be able to understand and respond to the players abilities / qualities
We are 12th though, and that’s with the injuries we’ve had recently. Without those we’d probably be just about where this squad should be, around 8th-10th
Clutching a bit there. 8 points form 6th, 4 from 21st, 10 points from our last 12 games and arguably fortunate with a lot of the points gained prior
every club gets injuries, we haven’t been that badly done by on them. No excuse.
Jones is an idiot and has to go.
We had games recently where we had 10+ players unavailable. I don’t think other clubs have had it that bad. Jones and Ramsay are our 2 best players too, and the problem is our replacements for them are nowhere near good enough, and they are players that Jones was stuck with because Scott spent money on them last year
We can’t just keep sacking managers at the first sign of bad form
We've got players back now, maybe nothing will change but I think we’re better off trying to give managers time rather than being a club that sacks a manager at the first sign of bad form. Powell would never have got his 2011/12 season with this kind of attitude
I'm not sure how much of a defense injuries are, either. We have good depth and it wasn't like NJ was forced to play youngsters. For many years we didn't even build a squad by the time the season started. I remember the first game against Sunderland at home and playing with a midfield or Levitt, Oztumer and Vennings. In previous seasons we've been stuck playing the likes of Ness and Josh Davison.
By comparison, NJ has been set up for success. A full squad at pre-season and senior cover in practically every position.
Quite. Holden was blooding Asiimwe and Anderson and AMB and Kanu at the beginning of last season. He had far, far more defence for being given time and not being sacked at the first sign of poor form than Jones.
Very few players go through a full season without missing a few games. Ramsay and Jones have both played well over half our games this season. Their backups are “adequate” senior players and their absence didn’t suddenly change the outcomes , we were shite with them in the team. No excuse.
Thats 2 players. Ahadme was out for a bit, he’s terrible anyway. Kanu, but he’s in theory our last choice striker. Mannion, but again the backup was essentially our first choice goalie that the others were dealing with last season.
injuries not been great but far from a crisis , no defence for Jones your honour
I’d have given Holden more time too. But he did lose 5 in a row and was in the relegation zone
When Ramsay and Jones were injured we were just outside the play offs. Their replacements are much worse and is why our defence has looked terrible until Saturday when Jones returned to it. To say their absence didn’t change the outcomes is just silly, we’ve only won 1 game since and it was against bottom of the league
I think it’s silly to suggest it has changed the outcome…
They both played at Stevenage. They both played at Shrewsbury, which was abysmal and a mirror image of the pathetic win at Burton. Jones played at Bristol R, at the time (since arguably matched) lauded by many as the worst showing in the clubs history.
We were fucking dreadful with them in the team, we’re fucking dreadful without.
Jones is an idiot.
So before the injuries to Jones and Ramsay we were 8th in the table (level with 6th and 4pts off 2nd) with 5 wins, 1 draw and 4 losses
Since they both got injured, up until Jones returned against Lincoln (where we immediately got a clean sheet): we won 1 game, drew 3 and lost 3
And you are saying their injuries didn’t change the outcomes!
We haven't had good enough players or Managers for a while now. It's mostly down to money IMHO
It’s due to poor spending of money. Our budget hasn’t really been a problem other than in 2022/23 when Sandgaard had given up. I suspect that would have been our lowest budget of recent times and we actually finished higher up the league
Poor recruitment is our problem, until that changes we are just going to keep cycling through managers that get an initial performance bounce but then trail off
I just look at the players we've signed for what most people would count as significant fees for this league over the past few years and barely any of them have been a success.
Recruitment needs to be significantly overhauled and I wouldn't trust another transfer window to Andy Scott.
Whoever replaces Jones will have to try and get a tune out of basically the same squad with a couple of January window signings of their choosing and then we'll be sitting here in the summer making another 8-10 signings because the new manager wants their own players.
Feels like a never ending merry-go-round of poor recruitment leading to poor results.
Which is why we need to stick with a manager and/or style. I’d rather not get rid of Jones, but if it does need to happen we will probably be stupid again and jump to a completely different style of football with a manager that will want to rid of most of the squad (which won’t be possible) and we go round the cycle again
One advantage this time is that the players dont fit into the Jones system so trying a different one isn't quite the problem it would have been. The problem is more finding a system in which a group of midfielders with almost identical mid range skills and no real creativity can be moulded into an attacking force to be feared.
Overall I agree with those who look past Jones. I cannot see Jones getting any better and he seems to have some really didgy ideas in his locker as well as a pig headed refusal to change. But the overrriding problem seems to be the recruitment. Someone posted a list of all the players we have off loaded in the last few years, and the vast majority are playing at a lower level than ourselves, which suggests an ongoing failure by whoever is doing the scouting. If this is Scott, he at least should be moved out before january and we should be looking at developing a better recruitment personel.
As for Jones, I think he's a busted flush now. Getting outplayed at home by Crawley and Orient successively says a lot about where we are and we need to change at some point, but how many managerts would fancy the gig is a real problem. The halt, the sick and the lame.
Most of our players have been bought to play Jones style of high intensity direct football. We aren’t playing it well at all and it is quite often not even evident that we are trying it. But you can’t then just expect the same players to play a different style that doesn’t suit them. If we get a new manager Alex Mitchell isn’t suddenly going to be able to play it out from back, Ahadme isn’t suddenly going to be able to control a pass into his feet and lay it off to a team mate. We’d still only have 1 winger and that winger doesn’t have a good enough end product
I think Jones may need to go, I’m prepared to see if he can get a reaction on Saturday but I’m not massively confident he will. But if he does go we can’t just flip back to a completely different style. We are more likely to get relegated trying to do that mid-season with these players than we are by keeping Jones
If we go for a younger appointment that wants to completely change style and try to play nice football, with this squad it could be disastrous, especially mid-season. If Jones does go then we need to be looking at an Alex Neil, Darren Moore etc type manager
Fundamentally disagree with this.
Whilst I think the recruitment has been a disaster, I also think the group is much better than they have been showing and aside from the fact they’re not great, a large part of the reason for their pitiful output is the abysmal “tactics” (I struggle to even use that word as tactics to me intimates some kind of thought to opponents, in game situations and scenarios and altogether something more mindful and considered than what Jones does).
The players look completely bemused now and clearly have no belief themselves in how they’re being told to execute their duties. My opinion is that a more outward looking, sensible manager could “reasonably” easily get this group delivering at least better performances and results than the relegation results, and relegated performances they have been delivering since the first couple of weeks.
One of the key skills of a “manager” (everyone will recall that Jones insisted on that title to the board as opposed to the head coach role of some of his predecessors), is being able to recognise the strengths, weaknesses and abilities of the resources you do have and get the best out of them rather than stubbornly coaching them a single inflexible style.
we dont necessarily want or need a philosophy tiki taka football coach who plays pretty football. We just need somebody who has the above ability, the mindset to play both attacking (can be direct at times) and ugly / defensive football where the situation requires and, crucially, actually tries to win football matches by controlling them in some form and create moments of football which endanger our opponents.
What we definitely don’t want is a manager who actively wants the opposition to have the ball in the hope of them making a mistake and that is his sole plan come rain or shine, hailstones or heat warnings.
Powell’s teams were often direct and also often robust when needed. But it was flexible, attempted to work with the strengths of the resources we had; you’ve got Kermogant, so sign and play direct wingers. We now have Ahadme… and we don’t have a winger in our squad (well, just the one, but let’s play him centre forward instead).
We might well end up beating Mansfield on Saturday. But Jones ain’t for the future, he needs to go.
So you don’t fundamentally disagree at all then. The point I was making was that people have been calling for a younger manager that plays attractive football, but I think that could be disastrous and we instead need a more pragmatic manager like an Alex Neil or a Darren Moore if we are to get rid of Jones
I’m not sure another manager would get better results. How good do you think this squad is? For me it’s a top half league 1 squad, the hope at the start of the season was that Jones would be a good enough manager to over-achieve with it and get in the play offs. We’ve had some key players out injured so are now down to 12th, not great obviously, but without the injuries we’d probably be around where our squad should be
Sorry - should’ve clarified realise thst was a little unclear.
Fundamentally disagreed with the bits about not playing a different style with these players, they have been bought to play his style and we’re more likely to get relegated trying something else / we need a robust manager for this group.
they Can’t play his style which is why we are in catastrophic relegation form for the last 3 months.
I agree, the squad should certainly be capable of 7-12 with any vaguely adept manager and any attempt to win matches
the style is wrong, the manager is wrong
Change both and we shouldn’t be anywhere near relegation
the manager doesn’t need to play robust football they just need to be able to understand and respond to the players abilities / qualities
We are 12th though, and that’s with the injuries we’ve had recently. Without those we’d probably be just about where this squad should be, around 8th-10th
Clutching a bit there. 8 points form 6th, 4 from 21st, 10 points from our last 12 games and arguably fortunate with a lot of the points gained prior
every club gets injuries, we haven’t been that badly done by on them. No excuse.
Jones is an idiot and has to go.
We had games recently where we had 10+ players unavailable. I don’t think other clubs have had it that bad. Jones and Ramsay are our 2 best players too, and the problem is our replacements for them are nowhere near good enough, and they are players that Jones was stuck with because Scott spent money on them last year
We can’t just keep sacking managers at the first sign of bad form
We've got players back now, maybe nothing will change but I think we’re better off trying to give managers time rather than being a club that sacks a manager at the first sign of bad form. Powell would never have got his 2011/12 season with this kind of attitude
I'm not sure how much of a defense injuries are, either. We have good depth and it wasn't like NJ was forced to play youngsters. For many years we didn't even build a squad by the time the season started. I remember the first game against Sunderland at home and playing with a midfield or Levitt, Oztumer and Vennings. In previous seasons we've been stuck playing the likes of Ness and Josh Davison.
By comparison, NJ has been set up for success. A full squad at pre-season and senior cover in practically every position.
Quite. Holden was blooding Asiimwe and Anderson and AMB and Kanu at the beginning of last season. He had far, far more defence for being given time and not being sacked at the first sign of poor form than Jones.
Very few players go through a full season without missing a few games. Ramsay and Jones have both played well over half our games this season. Their backups are “adequate” senior players and their absence didn’t suddenly change the outcomes , we were shite with them in the team. No excuse.
Thats 2 players. Ahadme was out for a bit, he’s terrible anyway. Kanu, but he’s in theory our last choice striker. Mannion, but again the backup was essentially our first choice goalie that the others were dealing with last season.
injuries not been great but far from a crisis , no defence for Jones your honour
I’d have given Holden more time too. But he did lose 5 in a row and was in the relegation zone
When Ramsay and Jones were injured we were just outside the play offs. Their replacements are much worse and is why our defence has looked terrible until Saturday when Jones returned to it. To say their absence didn’t change the outcomes is just silly, we’ve only won 1 game since and it was against bottom of the league
I think it’s silly to suggest it has changed the outcome…
They both played at Stevenage. They both played at Shrewsbury, which was abysmal and a mirror image of the pathetic win at Burton. Jones played at Bristol R, at the time (since arguably matched) lauded by many as the worst showing in the clubs history.
We were fucking dreadful with them in the team, we’re fucking dreadful without.
Jones is an idiot.
So before the injuries to Jones and Ramsay we were 8th in the table (level with 6th and 4pts off 2nd) with 5 wins, 1 draw and 4 losses
Since they both got injured, up until Jones returned against Lincoln (where we immediately got a clean sheet): we won 1 game, drew 3 and lost 3
And you are saying their injuries didn’t change the outcomes!
We haven't had good enough players or Managers for a while now. It's mostly down to money IMHO
It’s due to poor spending of money. Our budget hasn’t really been a problem other than in 2022/23 when Sandgaard had given up. I suspect that would have been our lowest budget of recent times and we actually finished higher up the league
Poor recruitment is our problem, until that changes we are just going to keep cycling through managers that get an initial performance bounce but then trail off
I just look at the players we've signed for what most people would count as significant fees for this league over the past few years and barely any of them have been a success.
Recruitment needs to be significantly overhauled and I wouldn't trust another transfer window to Andy Scott.
Whoever replaces Jones will have to try and get a tune out of basically the same squad with a couple of January window signings of their choosing and then we'll be sitting here in the summer making another 8-10 signings because the new manager wants their own players.
Feels like a never ending merry-go-round of poor recruitment leading to poor results.
Which is why we need to stick with a manager and/or style. I’d rather not get rid of Jones, but if it does need to happen we will probably be stupid again and jump to a completely different style of football with a manager that will want to rid of most of the squad (which won’t be possible) and we go round the cycle again
One advantage this time is that the players dont fit into the Jones system so trying a different one isn't quite the problem it would have been. The problem is more finding a system in which a group of midfielders with almost identical mid range skills and no real creativity can be moulded into an attacking force to be feared.
Overall I agree with those who look past Jones. I cannot see Jones getting any better and he seems to have some really didgy ideas in his locker as well as a pig headed refusal to change. But the overrriding problem seems to be the recruitment. Someone posted a list of all the players we have off loaded in the last few years, and the vast majority are playing at a lower level than ourselves, which suggests an ongoing failure by whoever is doing the scouting. If this is Scott, he at least should be moved out before january and we should be looking at developing a better recruitment personel.
As for Jones, I think he's a busted flush now. Getting outplayed at home by Crawley and Orient successively says a lot about where we are and we need to change at some point, but how many managerts would fancy the gig is a real problem. The halt, the sick and the lame.
Most of our players have been bought to play Jones style of high intensity direct football. We aren’t playing it well at all and it is quite often not even evident that we are trying it. But you can’t then just expect the same players to play a different style that doesn’t suit them. If we get a new manager Alex Mitchell isn’t suddenly going to be able to play it out from back, Ahadme isn’t suddenly going to be able to control a pass into his feet and lay it off to a team mate. We’d still only have 1 winger and that winger doesn’t have a good enough end product
I think Jones may need to go, I’m prepared to see if he can get a reaction on Saturday but I’m not massively confident he will. But if he does go we can’t just flip back to a completely different style. We are more likely to get relegated trying to do that mid-season with these players than we are by keeping Jones
If we go for a younger appointment that wants to completely change style and try to play nice football, with this squad it could be disastrous, especially mid-season. If Jones does go then we need to be looking at an Alex Neil, Darren Moore etc type manager
Fundamentally disagree with this.
Whilst I think the recruitment has been a disaster, I also think the group is much better than they have been showing and aside from the fact they’re not great, a large part of the reason for their pitiful output is the abysmal “tactics” (I struggle to even use that word as tactics to me intimates some kind of thought to opponents, in game situations and scenarios and altogether something more mindful and considered than what Jones does).
The players look completely bemused now and clearly have no belief themselves in how they’re being told to execute their duties. My opinion is that a more outward looking, sensible manager could “reasonably” easily get this group delivering at least better performances and results than the relegation results, and relegated performances they have been delivering since the first couple of weeks.
One of the key skills of a “manager” (everyone will recall that Jones insisted on that title to the board as opposed to the head coach role of some of his predecessors), is being able to recognise the strengths, weaknesses and abilities of the resources you do have and get the best out of them rather than stubbornly coaching them a single inflexible style.
we dont necessarily want or need a philosophy tiki taka football coach who plays pretty football. We just need somebody who has the above ability, the mindset to play both attacking (can be direct at times) and ugly / defensive football where the situation requires and, crucially, actually tries to win football matches by controlling them in some form and create moments of football which endanger our opponents.
What we definitely don’t want is a manager who actively wants the opposition to have the ball in the hope of them making a mistake and that is his sole plan come rain or shine, hailstones or heat warnings.
Powell’s teams were often direct and also often robust when needed. But it was flexible, attempted to work with the strengths of the resources we had; you’ve got Kermogant, so sign and play direct wingers. We now have Ahadme… and we don’t have a winger in our squad (well, just the one, but let’s play him centre forward instead).
We might well end up beating Mansfield on Saturday. But Jones ain’t for the future, he needs to go.
So you don’t fundamentally disagree at all then. The point I was making was that people have been calling for a younger manager that plays attractive football, but I think that could be disastrous and we instead need a more pragmatic manager like an Alex Neil or a Darren Moore if we are to get rid of Jones
I’m not sure another manager would get better results. How good do you think this squad is? For me it’s a top half league 1 squad, the hope at the start of the season was that Jones would be a good enough manager to over-achieve with it and get in the play offs. We’ve had some key players out injured so are now down to 12th, not great obviously, but without the injuries we’d probably be around where our squad should be
Sorry - should’ve clarified realise thst was a little unclear.
Fundamentally disagreed with the bits about not playing a different style with these players, they have been bought to play his style and we’re more likely to get relegated trying something else / we need a robust manager for this group.
they Can’t play his style which is why we are in catastrophic relegation form for the last 3 months.
I agree, the squad should certainly be capable of 7-12 with any vaguely adept manager and any attempt to win matches
the style is wrong, the manager is wrong
Change both and we shouldn’t be anywhere near relegation
the manager doesn’t need to play robust football they just need to be able to understand and respond to the players abilities / qualities
We are 12th though, and that’s with the injuries we’ve had recently. Without those we’d probably be just about where this squad should be, around 8th-10th
Clutching a bit there. 8 points form 6th, 4 from 21st, 10 points from our last 12 games and arguably fortunate with a lot of the points gained prior
every club gets injuries, we haven’t been that badly done by on them. No excuse.
Jones is an idiot and has to go.
We had games recently where we had 10+ players unavailable. I don’t think other clubs have had it that bad. Jones and Ramsay are our 2 best players too, and the problem is our replacements for them are nowhere near good enough, and they are players that Jones was stuck with because Scott spent money on them last year
We can’t just keep sacking managers at the first sign of bad form
We've got players back now, maybe nothing will change but I think we’re better off trying to give managers time rather than being a club that sacks a manager at the first sign of bad form. Powell would never have got his 2011/12 season with this kind of attitude
I'm not sure how much of a defense injuries are, either. We have good depth and it wasn't like NJ was forced to play youngsters. For many years we didn't even build a squad by the time the season started. I remember the first game against Sunderland at home and playing with a midfield or Levitt, Oztumer and Vennings. In previous seasons we've been stuck playing the likes of Ness and Josh Davison.
By comparison, NJ has been set up for success. A full squad at pre-season and senior cover in practically every position.
Quite. Holden was blooding Asiimwe and Anderson and AMB and Kanu at the beginning of last season. He had far, far more defence for being given time and not being sacked at the first sign of poor form than Jones.
Very few players go through a full season without missing a few games. Ramsay and Jones have both played well over half our games this season. Their backups are “adequate” senior players and their absence didn’t suddenly change the outcomes , we were shite with them in the team. No excuse.
Thats 2 players. Ahadme was out for a bit, he’s terrible anyway. Kanu, but he’s in theory our last choice striker. Mannion, but again the backup was essentially our first choice goalie that the others were dealing with last season.
injuries not been great but far from a crisis , no defence for Jones your honour
I’d have given Holden more time too. But he did lose 5 in a row and was in the relegation zone
When Ramsay and Jones were injured we were just outside the play offs. Their replacements are much worse and is why our defence has looked terrible until Saturday when Jones returned to it. To say their absence didn’t change the outcomes is just silly, we’ve only won 1 game since and it was against bottom of the league
I think it’s silly to suggest it has changed the outcome…
They both played at Stevenage. They both played at Shrewsbury, which was abysmal and a mirror image of the pathetic win at Burton. Jones played at Bristol R, at the time (since arguably matched) lauded by many as the worst showing in the clubs history.
We were fucking dreadful with them in the team, we’re fucking dreadful without.
Jones is an idiot.
So before the injuries to Jones and Ramsay we were 8th in the table (level with 6th and 4pts off 2nd) with 5 wins, 1 draw and 4 losses
Since they both got injured, up until Jones returned against Lincoln (where we immediately got a clean sheet): we won 1 game, drew 3 and lost 3
And you are saying their injuries didn’t change the outcomes!
The writing was on the wall. We were already delivering several shocking performances and had stopped fluking good results when both players were fit, available and playing some of which I’ve just listed.
But I get it, you clearly want Jones to stay. I think you’re bonkers, but everyone is entitled to their opinion!
We haven't had good enough players or Managers for a while now. It's mostly down to money IMHO
It’s due to poor spending of money. Our budget hasn’t really been a problem other than in 2022/23 when Sandgaard had given up. I suspect that would have been our lowest budget of recent times and we actually finished higher up the league
Poor recruitment is our problem, until that changes we are just going to keep cycling through managers that get an initial performance bounce but then trail off
I just look at the players we've signed for what most people would count as significant fees for this league over the past few years and barely any of them have been a success.
Recruitment needs to be significantly overhauled and I wouldn't trust another transfer window to Andy Scott.
Whoever replaces Jones will have to try and get a tune out of basically the same squad with a couple of January window signings of their choosing and then we'll be sitting here in the summer making another 8-10 signings because the new manager wants their own players.
Feels like a never ending merry-go-round of poor recruitment leading to poor results.
Which is why we need to stick with a manager and/or style. I’d rather not get rid of Jones, but if it does need to happen we will probably be stupid again and jump to a completely different style of football with a manager that will want to rid of most of the squad (which won’t be possible) and we go round the cycle again
One advantage this time is that the players dont fit into the Jones system so trying a different one isn't quite the problem it would have been. The problem is more finding a system in which a group of midfielders with almost identical mid range skills and no real creativity can be moulded into an attacking force to be feared.
Overall I agree with those who look past Jones. I cannot see Jones getting any better and he seems to have some really didgy ideas in his locker as well as a pig headed refusal to change. But the overrriding problem seems to be the recruitment. Someone posted a list of all the players we have off loaded in the last few years, and the vast majority are playing at a lower level than ourselves, which suggests an ongoing failure by whoever is doing the scouting. If this is Scott, he at least should be moved out before january and we should be looking at developing a better recruitment personel.
As for Jones, I think he's a busted flush now. Getting outplayed at home by Crawley and Orient successively says a lot about where we are and we need to change at some point, but how many managerts would fancy the gig is a real problem. The halt, the sick and the lame.
Most of our players have been bought to play Jones style of high intensity direct football. We aren’t playing it well at all and it is quite often not even evident that we are trying it. But you can’t then just expect the same players to play a different style that doesn’t suit them. If we get a new manager Alex Mitchell isn’t suddenly going to be able to play it out from back, Ahadme isn’t suddenly going to be able to control a pass into his feet and lay it off to a team mate. We’d still only have 1 winger and that winger doesn’t have a good enough end product
I think Jones may need to go, I’m prepared to see if he can get a reaction on Saturday but I’m not massively confident he will. But if he does go we can’t just flip back to a completely different style. We are more likely to get relegated trying to do that mid-season with these players than we are by keeping Jones
If we go for a younger appointment that wants to completely change style and try to play nice football, with this squad it could be disastrous, especially mid-season. If Jones does go then we need to be looking at an Alex Neil, Darren Moore etc type manager
Fundamentally disagree with this.
Whilst I think the recruitment has been a disaster, I also think the group is much better than they have been showing and aside from the fact they’re not great, a large part of the reason for their pitiful output is the abysmal “tactics” (I struggle to even use that word as tactics to me intimates some kind of thought to opponents, in game situations and scenarios and altogether something more mindful and considered than what Jones does).
The players look completely bemused now and clearly have no belief themselves in how they’re being told to execute their duties. My opinion is that a more outward looking, sensible manager could “reasonably” easily get this group delivering at least better performances and results than the relegation results, and relegated performances they have been delivering since the first couple of weeks.
One of the key skills of a “manager” (everyone will recall that Jones insisted on that title to the board as opposed to the head coach role of some of his predecessors), is being able to recognise the strengths, weaknesses and abilities of the resources you do have and get the best out of them rather than stubbornly coaching them a single inflexible style.
we dont necessarily want or need a philosophy tiki taka football coach who plays pretty football. We just need somebody who has the above ability, the mindset to play both attacking (can be direct at times) and ugly / defensive football where the situation requires and, crucially, actually tries to win football matches by controlling them in some form and create moments of football which endanger our opponents.
What we definitely don’t want is a manager who actively wants the opposition to have the ball in the hope of them making a mistake and that is his sole plan come rain or shine, hailstones or heat warnings.
Powell’s teams were often direct and also often robust when needed. But it was flexible, attempted to work with the strengths of the resources we had; you’ve got Kermogant, so sign and play direct wingers. We now have Ahadme… and we don’t have a winger in our squad (well, just the one, but let’s play him centre forward instead).
We might well end up beating Mansfield on Saturday. But Jones ain’t for the future, he needs to go.
So you don’t fundamentally disagree at all then. The point I was making was that people have been calling for a younger manager that plays attractive football, but I think that could be disastrous and we instead need a more pragmatic manager like an Alex Neil or a Darren Moore if we are to get rid of Jones
I’m not sure another manager would get better results. How good do you think this squad is? For me it’s a top half league 1 squad, the hope at the start of the season was that Jones would be a good enough manager to over-achieve with it and get in the play offs. We’ve had some key players out injured so are now down to 12th, not great obviously, but without the injuries we’d probably be around where our squad should be
Sorry - should’ve clarified realise thst was a little unclear.
Fundamentally disagreed with the bits about not playing a different style with these players, they have been bought to play his style and we’re more likely to get relegated trying something else / we need a robust manager for this group.
they Can’t play his style which is why we are in catastrophic relegation form for the last 3 months.
I agree, the squad should certainly be capable of 7-12 with any vaguely adept manager and any attempt to win matches
the style is wrong, the manager is wrong
Change both and we shouldn’t be anywhere near relegation
the manager doesn’t need to play robust football they just need to be able to understand and respond to the players abilities / qualities
We are 12th though, and that’s with the injuries we’ve had recently. Without those we’d probably be just about where this squad should be, around 8th-10th
Clutching a bit there. 8 points form 6th, 4 from 21st, 10 points from our last 12 games and arguably fortunate with a lot of the points gained prior
every club gets injuries, we haven’t been that badly done by on them. No excuse.
Jones is an idiot and has to go.
We had games recently where we had 10+ players unavailable. I don’t think other clubs have had it that bad. Jones and Ramsay are our 2 best players too, and the problem is our replacements for them are nowhere near good enough, and they are players that Jones was stuck with because Scott spent money on them last year
We can’t just keep sacking managers at the first sign of bad form
We've got players back now, maybe nothing will change but I think we’re better off trying to give managers time rather than being a club that sacks a manager at the first sign of bad form. Powell would never have got his 2011/12 season with this kind of attitude
I'm not sure how much of a defense injuries are, either. We have good depth and it wasn't like NJ was forced to play youngsters. For many years we didn't even build a squad by the time the season started. I remember the first game against Sunderland at home and playing with a midfield or Levitt, Oztumer and Vennings. In previous seasons we've been stuck playing the likes of Ness and Josh Davison.
By comparison, NJ has been set up for success. A full squad at pre-season and senior cover in practically every position.
Quite. Holden was blooding Asiimwe and Anderson and AMB and Kanu at the beginning of last season. He had far, far more defence for being given time and not being sacked at the first sign of poor form than Jones.
Very few players go through a full season without missing a few games. Ramsay and Jones have both played well over half our games this season. Their backups are “adequate” senior players and their absence didn’t suddenly change the outcomes , we were shite with them in the team. No excuse.
Thats 2 players. Ahadme was out for a bit, he’s terrible anyway. Kanu, but he’s in theory our last choice striker. Mannion, but again the backup was essentially our first choice goalie that the others were dealing with last season.
injuries not been great but far from a crisis , no defence for Jones your honour
I’d have given Holden more time too. But he did lose 5 in a row and was in the relegation zone
When Ramsay and Jones were injured we were just outside the play offs. Their replacements are much worse and is why our defence has looked terrible until Saturday when Jones returned to it. To say their absence didn’t change the outcomes is just silly, we’ve only won 1 game since and it was against bottom of the league
I think it’s silly to suggest it has changed the outcome…
They both played at Stevenage. They both played at Shrewsbury, which was abysmal and a mirror image of the pathetic win at Burton. Jones played at Bristol R, at the time (since arguably matched) lauded by many as the worst showing in the clubs history.
We were fucking dreadful with them in the team, we’re fucking dreadful without.
Jones is an idiot.
So before the injuries to Jones and Ramsay we were 8th in the table (level with 6th and 4pts off 2nd) with 5 wins, 1 draw and 4 losses
Since they both got injured, up until Jones returned against Lincoln (where we immediately got a clean sheet): we won 1 game, drew 3 and lost 3
And you are saying their injuries didn’t change the outcomes!
The writing was on the wall. We were already delivering several shocking performances and had stopped fluking good results when both players were fit, available and playing some of which I’ve just listed.
But I get it, you clearly want Jones to stay. I think you’re bonkers, but everyone is entitled to their opinion!
If we lose on Saturday and don’t play well then I’ll join you. But we were doing alright before the injuries, getting clean sheets and winning games. First game with Jones back and we immediately don’t look like conceding. I’d give him a few games now we’ve got players back to prove that wasn’t fluke like you say it was
The midfield 3 he signed are fucking dire, Alan Campbell is right up there with some of the worst players to ever play for us, but yet still finds himself in the team either starting or off the bench ffs. Berry doesnt get involved and Docherty hides. until finger biter admits he signed a load of shit to play there and does something about it rather then rotating one of them at a time we are going to continue to slide down the table. He also needs to recognise that another one of his signing's Ahadme is a complete donkey and brings nothing to the team. Also lets not forget he outed the best striker we had at the club for a good few years, didn't sign any attacking midfielders and forgot to buy wingers, instead keeping one who is not goot enough and deciding to play him up front for most of the season scoring zero goals and then moving him to wing back ffs. Once he sorts all that out we may have a chance of finishing in the top half as it's too late to do anything else. However none of that will be fixed because the fucking idiot can't see it himself and keeps babbling shit about how wonderful we are and are just unlucky. Deluded idiot!!
We haven't had good enough players or Managers for a while now. It's mostly down to money IMHO
It’s due to poor spending of money. Our budget hasn’t really been a problem other than in 2022/23 when Sandgaard had given up. I suspect that would have been our lowest budget of recent times and we actually finished higher up the league
Poor recruitment is our problem, until that changes we are just going to keep cycling through managers that get an initial performance bounce but then trail off
I just look at the players we've signed for what most people would count as significant fees for this league over the past few years and barely any of them have been a success.
Recruitment needs to be significantly overhauled and I wouldn't trust another transfer window to Andy Scott.
Whoever replaces Jones will have to try and get a tune out of basically the same squad with a couple of January window signings of their choosing and then we'll be sitting here in the summer making another 8-10 signings because the new manager wants their own players.
Feels like a never ending merry-go-round of poor recruitment leading to poor results.
Which is why we need to stick with a manager and/or style. I’d rather not get rid of Jones, but if it does need to happen we will probably be stupid again and jump to a completely different style of football with a manager that will want to rid of most of the squad (which won’t be possible) and we go round the cycle again
One advantage this time is that the players dont fit into the Jones system so trying a different one isn't quite the problem it would have been. The problem is more finding a system in which a group of midfielders with almost identical mid range skills and no real creativity can be moulded into an attacking force to be feared.
Overall I agree with those who look past Jones. I cannot see Jones getting any better and he seems to have some really didgy ideas in his locker as well as a pig headed refusal to change. But the overrriding problem seems to be the recruitment. Someone posted a list of all the players we have off loaded in the last few years, and the vast majority are playing at a lower level than ourselves, which suggests an ongoing failure by whoever is doing the scouting. If this is Scott, he at least should be moved out before january and we should be looking at developing a better recruitment personel.
As for Jones, I think he's a busted flush now. Getting outplayed at home by Crawley and Orient successively says a lot about where we are and we need to change at some point, but how many managerts would fancy the gig is a real problem. The halt, the sick and the lame.
Most of our players have been bought to play Jones style of high intensity direct football. We aren’t playing it well at all and it is quite often not even evident that we are trying it. But you can’t then just expect the same players to play a different style that doesn’t suit them. If we get a new manager Alex Mitchell isn’t suddenly going to be able to play it out from back, Ahadme isn’t suddenly going to be able to control a pass into his feet and lay it off to a team mate. We’d still only have 1 winger and that winger doesn’t have a good enough end product
I think Jones may need to go, I’m prepared to see if he can get a reaction on Saturday but I’m not massively confident he will. But if he does go we can’t just flip back to a completely different style. We are more likely to get relegated trying to do that mid-season with these players than we are by keeping Jones
If we go for a younger appointment that wants to completely change style and try to play nice football, with this squad it could be disastrous, especially mid-season. If Jones does go then we need to be looking at an Alex Neil, Darren Moore etc type manager
Fundamentally disagree with this.
Whilst I think the recruitment has been a disaster, I also think the group is much better than they have been showing and aside from the fact they’re not great, a large part of the reason for their pitiful output is the abysmal “tactics” (I struggle to even use that word as tactics to me intimates some kind of thought to opponents, in game situations and scenarios and altogether something more mindful and considered than what Jones does).
The players look completely bemused now and clearly have no belief themselves in how they’re being told to execute their duties. My opinion is that a more outward looking, sensible manager could “reasonably” easily get this group delivering at least better performances and results than the relegation results, and relegated performances they have been delivering since the first couple of weeks.
One of the key skills of a “manager” (everyone will recall that Jones insisted on that title to the board as opposed to the head coach role of some of his predecessors), is being able to recognise the strengths, weaknesses and abilities of the resources you do have and get the best out of them rather than stubbornly coaching them a single inflexible style.
we dont necessarily want or need a philosophy tiki taka football coach who plays pretty football. We just need somebody who has the above ability, the mindset to play both attacking (can be direct at times) and ugly / defensive football where the situation requires and, crucially, actually tries to win football matches by controlling them in some form and create moments of football which endanger our opponents.
What we definitely don’t want is a manager who actively wants the opposition to have the ball in the hope of them making a mistake and that is his sole plan come rain or shine, hailstones or heat warnings.
Powell’s teams were often direct and also often robust when needed. But it was flexible, attempted to work with the strengths of the resources we had; you’ve got Kermogant, so sign and play direct wingers. We now have Ahadme… and we don’t have a winger in our squad (well, just the one, but let’s play him centre forward instead).
We might well end up beating Mansfield on Saturday. But Jones ain’t for the future, he needs to go.
So you don’t fundamentally disagree at all then. The point I was making was that people have been calling for a younger manager that plays attractive football, but I think that could be disastrous and we instead need a more pragmatic manager like an Alex Neil or a Darren Moore if we are to get rid of Jones
I’m not sure another manager would get better results. How good do you think this squad is? For me it’s a top half league 1 squad, the hope at the start of the season was that Jones would be a good enough manager to over-achieve with it and get in the play offs. We’ve had some key players out injured so are now down to 12th, not great obviously, but without the injuries we’d probably be around where our squad should be
Sorry - should’ve clarified realise thst was a little unclear.
Fundamentally disagreed with the bits about not playing a different style with these players, they have been bought to play his style and we’re more likely to get relegated trying something else / we need a robust manager for this group.
they Can’t play his style which is why we are in catastrophic relegation form for the last 3 months.
I agree, the squad should certainly be capable of 7-12 with any vaguely adept manager and any attempt to win matches
the style is wrong, the manager is wrong
Change both and we shouldn’t be anywhere near relegation
the manager doesn’t need to play robust football they just need to be able to understand and respond to the players abilities / qualities
We are 12th though, and that’s with the injuries we’ve had recently. Without those we’d probably be just about where this squad should be, around 8th-10th
Clutching a bit there. 8 points form 6th, 4 from 21st, 10 points from our last 12 games and arguably fortunate with a lot of the points gained prior
every club gets injuries, we haven’t been that badly done by on them. No excuse.
Jones is an idiot and has to go.
We had games recently where we had 10+ players unavailable. I don’t think other clubs have had it that bad. Jones and Ramsay are our 2 best players too, and the problem is our replacements for them are nowhere near good enough, and they are players that Jones was stuck with because Scott spent money on them last year
We can’t just keep sacking managers at the first sign of bad form
We've got players back now, maybe nothing will change but I think we’re better off trying to give managers time rather than being a club that sacks a manager at the first sign of bad form. Powell would never have got his 2011/12 season with this kind of attitude
Three of those that are back are strikers yet they still look like they can’t hit a cows arse with a banjo.
We haven't had good enough players or Managers for a while now. It's mostly down to money IMHO
It’s due to poor spending of money. Our budget hasn’t really been a problem other than in 2022/23 when Sandgaard had given up. I suspect that would have been our lowest budget of recent times and we actually finished higher up the league
Poor recruitment is our problem, until that changes we are just going to keep cycling through managers that get an initial performance bounce but then trail off
I just look at the players we've signed for what most people would count as significant fees for this league over the past few years and barely any of them have been a success.
Recruitment needs to be significantly overhauled and I wouldn't trust another transfer window to Andy Scott.
Whoever replaces Jones will have to try and get a tune out of basically the same squad with a couple of January window signings of their choosing and then we'll be sitting here in the summer making another 8-10 signings because the new manager wants their own players.
Feels like a never ending merry-go-round of poor recruitment leading to poor results.
Which is why we need to stick with a manager and/or style. I’d rather not get rid of Jones, but if it does need to happen we will probably be stupid again and jump to a completely different style of football with a manager that will want to rid of most of the squad (which won’t be possible) and we go round the cycle again
One advantage this time is that the players dont fit into the Jones system so trying a different one isn't quite the problem it would have been. The problem is more finding a system in which a group of midfielders with almost identical mid range skills and no real creativity can be moulded into an attacking force to be feared.
Overall I agree with those who look past Jones. I cannot see Jones getting any better and he seems to have some really didgy ideas in his locker as well as a pig headed refusal to change. But the overrriding problem seems to be the recruitment. Someone posted a list of all the players we have off loaded in the last few years, and the vast majority are playing at a lower level than ourselves, which suggests an ongoing failure by whoever is doing the scouting. If this is Scott, he at least should be moved out before january and we should be looking at developing a better recruitment personel.
As for Jones, I think he's a busted flush now. Getting outplayed at home by Crawley and Orient successively says a lot about where we are and we need to change at some point, but how many managerts would fancy the gig is a real problem. The halt, the sick and the lame.
Most of our players have been bought to play Jones style of high intensity direct football. We aren’t playing it well at all and it is quite often not even evident that we are trying it. But you can’t then just expect the same players to play a different style that doesn’t suit them. If we get a new manager Alex Mitchell isn’t suddenly going to be able to play it out from back, Ahadme isn’t suddenly going to be able to control a pass into his feet and lay it off to a team mate. We’d still only have 1 winger and that winger doesn’t have a good enough end product
I think Jones may need to go, I’m prepared to see if he can get a reaction on Saturday but I’m not massively confident he will. But if he does go we can’t just flip back to a completely different style. We are more likely to get relegated trying to do that mid-season with these players than we are by keeping Jones
If we go for a younger appointment that wants to completely change style and try to play nice football, with this squad it could be disastrous, especially mid-season. If Jones does go then we need to be looking at an Alex Neil, Darren Moore etc type manager
Fundamentally disagree with this.
Whilst I think the recruitment has been a disaster, I also think the group is much better than they have been showing and aside from the fact they’re not great, a large part of the reason for their pitiful output is the abysmal “tactics” (I struggle to even use that word as tactics to me intimates some kind of thought to opponents, in game situations and scenarios and altogether something more mindful and considered than what Jones does).
The players look completely bemused now and clearly have no belief themselves in how they’re being told to execute their duties. My opinion is that a more outward looking, sensible manager could “reasonably” easily get this group delivering at least better performances and results than the relegation results, and relegated performances they have been delivering since the first couple of weeks.
One of the key skills of a “manager” (everyone will recall that Jones insisted on that title to the board as opposed to the head coach role of some of his predecessors), is being able to recognise the strengths, weaknesses and abilities of the resources you do have and get the best out of them rather than stubbornly coaching them a single inflexible style.
we dont necessarily want or need a philosophy tiki taka football coach who plays pretty football. We just need somebody who has the above ability, the mindset to play both attacking (can be direct at times) and ugly / defensive football where the situation requires and, crucially, actually tries to win football matches by controlling them in some form and create moments of football which endanger our opponents.
What we definitely don’t want is a manager who actively wants the opposition to have the ball in the hope of them making a mistake and that is his sole plan come rain or shine, hailstones or heat warnings.
Powell’s teams were often direct and also often robust when needed. But it was flexible, attempted to work with the strengths of the resources we had; you’ve got Kermogant, so sign and play direct wingers. We now have Ahadme… and we don’t have a winger in our squad (well, just the one, but let’s play him centre forward instead).
We might well end up beating Mansfield on Saturday. But Jones ain’t for the future, he needs to go.
So you don’t fundamentally disagree at all then. The point I was making was that people have been calling for a younger manager that plays attractive football, but I think that could be disastrous and we instead need a more pragmatic manager like an Alex Neil or a Darren Moore if we are to get rid of Jones
I’m not sure another manager would get better results. How good do you think this squad is? For me it’s a top half league 1 squad, the hope at the start of the season was that Jones would be a good enough manager to over-achieve with it and get in the play offs. We’ve had some key players out injured so are now down to 12th, not great obviously, but without the injuries we’d probably be around where our squad should be
Sorry - should’ve clarified realise thst was a little unclear.
Fundamentally disagreed with the bits about not playing a different style with these players, they have been bought to play his style and we’re more likely to get relegated trying something else / we need a robust manager for this group.
they Can’t play his style which is why we are in catastrophic relegation form for the last 3 months.
I agree, the squad should certainly be capable of 7-12 with any vaguely adept manager and any attempt to win matches
the style is wrong, the manager is wrong
Change both and we shouldn’t be anywhere near relegation
the manager doesn’t need to play robust football they just need to be able to understand and respond to the players abilities / qualities
We are 12th though, and that’s with the injuries we’ve had recently. Without those we’d probably be just about where this squad should be, around 8th-10th
Clutching a bit there. 8 points form 6th, 4 from 21st, 10 points from our last 12 games and arguably fortunate with a lot of the points gained prior
every club gets injuries, we haven’t been that badly done by on them. No excuse.
Jones is an idiot and has to go.
We had games recently where we had 10+ players unavailable. I don’t think other clubs have had it that bad. Jones and Ramsay are our 2 best players too, and the problem is our replacements for them are nowhere near good enough, and they are players that Jones was stuck with because Scott spent money on them last year
We can’t just keep sacking managers at the first sign of bad form
We've got players back now, maybe nothing will change but I think we’re better off trying to give managers time rather than being a club that sacks a manager at the first sign of bad form. Powell would never have got his 2011/12 season with this kind of attitude
I'm not sure how much of a defense injuries are, either. We have good depth and it wasn't like NJ was forced to play youngsters. For many years we didn't even build a squad by the time the season started. I remember the first game against Sunderland at home and playing with a midfield or Levitt, Oztumer and Vennings. In previous seasons we've been stuck playing the likes of Ness and Josh Davison.
By comparison, NJ has been set up for success. A full squad at pre-season and senior cover in practically every position.
Quite. Holden was blooding Asiimwe and Anderson and AMB and Kanu at the beginning of last season. He had far, far more defence for being given time and not being sacked at the first sign of poor form than Jones.
Very few players go through a full season without missing a few games. Ramsay and Jones have both played well over half our games this season. Their backups are “adequate” senior players and their absence didn’t suddenly change the outcomes , we were shite with them in the team. No excuse.
Thats 2 players. Ahadme was out for a bit, he’s terrible anyway. Kanu, but he’s in theory our last choice striker. Mannion, but again the backup was essentially our first choice goalie that the others were dealing with last season.
injuries not been great but far from a crisis , no defence for Jones your honour
I’d have given Holden more time too. But he did lose 5 in a row and was in the relegation zone
When Ramsay and Jones were injured we were just outside the play offs. Their replacements are much worse and is why our defence has looked terrible until Saturday when Jones returned to it. To say their absence didn’t change the outcomes is just silly, we’ve only won 1 game since and it was against bottom of the league
I think it’s silly to suggest it has changed the outcome…
They both played at Stevenage. They both played at Shrewsbury, which was abysmal and a mirror image of the pathetic win at Burton. Jones played at Bristol R, at the time (since arguably matched) lauded by many as the worst showing in the clubs history.
We were fucking dreadful with them in the team, we’re fucking dreadful without.
Jones is an idiot.
So before the injuries to Jones and Ramsay we were 8th in the table (level with 6th and 4pts off 2nd) with 5 wins, 1 draw and 4 losses
Since they both got injured, up until Jones returned against Lincoln (where we immediately got a clean sheet): we won 1 game, drew 3 and lost 3
And you are saying their injuries didn’t change the outcomes!
The writing was on the wall. We were already delivering several shocking performances and had stopped fluking good results when both players were fit, available and playing some of which I’ve just listed.
But I get it, you clearly want Jones to stay. I think you’re bonkers, but everyone is entitled to their opinion!
If we lose on Saturday and don’t play well then I’ll join you. But we were doing alright before the injuries, getting clean sheets and winning games. First game with Jones back and we immediately don’t look like conceding. I’d give him a few games now we’ve got players back to prove that wasn’t fluke like you say it was
Jones being out was a big loss, but if we're honest our problem isn't really the defence as we don't concede many and we never get hammered. I think we've only lost by 2 goals once (at Reading), although Bristol Rovers was awful for 70 minutes before we got a couple of goals back.
So whilst having Jones back in the defence is a plus, it doesn't really address our main issue which is the attack and i don't think they can be addressed without a) a change in tactics and b) new players arriving. We have no creative players and no width, so i'm not sure what you're expecting to suddenly change?
Even when it was 'working' early on in the season i think we were fairly lucky. Snatching a late win at Wigan, very late winner v Orient, the uninspiring win at Shrewsbury. No one would really class those wins as good performances and the Orient game in particular i remember being pretty poor. Berry got a goal from nowhere but if it had ended 0-0 then we'd have all been saying how dull the game was but obviously getting 3 points glossed over the actual performance. There's only so long a side that creates as little as we do can ride their luck for before the opposition takes a chance or 2 and we get found out, and that's exactly what has happened.
You could argue that a new manager coming in would (for now) have to work with the same players, but i'd have faith that a new manager would at least address the above issues in January. I don't really have any faith at all that Jones will because his talk of 'not far off being a good side' kind of suggests he doesn't even see the problems that we've all been seeing for ages.
As much as one or more players, not necessarily the same ones each time but a pattern is starting to emerge, are doing something to the contrary I think there is a good squad in there that if it had the right leadership, both off the field as well as on it, should easily have been in that top six atm and still could, and if it can hold its own there could be knocking on the door for the automatics come April and May. As things stand, however, whichever random permutation of players come out of the hat to surprise us each match day just look as bemused as the rest of us as to what they are supposed to be doing. Somebody needs to take control.
As much as one or more players, not necessarily the same ones each time but a pattern is starting to emerge, are doing something to the contrary I think there is a good squad in there that if it had the right leadership, both off the field as well as on it, should easily have been in that top six atm and still could, and if it can hold its own there could be knocking on the door for the automatics come April and May. As things stand, however, whichever random permutation of players come out of the hat to surprise us each match day just look as bemused as the rest of us as to what they are supposed to be doing. Somebody needs to take control.
Dare i say it, but perhaps a squad that had Dobson and May in it........
We haven't had good enough players or Managers for a while now. It's mostly down to money IMHO
It’s due to poor spending of money. Our budget hasn’t really been a problem other than in 2022/23 when Sandgaard had given up. I suspect that would have been our lowest budget of recent times and we actually finished higher up the league
Poor recruitment is our problem, until that changes we are just going to keep cycling through managers that get an initial performance bounce but then trail off
I just look at the players we've signed for what most people would count as significant fees for this league over the past few years and barely any of them have been a success.
Recruitment needs to be significantly overhauled and I wouldn't trust another transfer window to Andy Scott.
Whoever replaces Jones will have to try and get a tune out of basically the same squad with a couple of January window signings of their choosing and then we'll be sitting here in the summer making another 8-10 signings because the new manager wants their own players.
Feels like a never ending merry-go-round of poor recruitment leading to poor results.
Which is why we need to stick with a manager and/or style. I’d rather not get rid of Jones, but if it does need to happen we will probably be stupid again and jump to a completely different style of football with a manager that will want to rid of most of the squad (which won’t be possible) and we go round the cycle again
One advantage this time is that the players dont fit into the Jones system so trying a different one isn't quite the problem it would have been. The problem is more finding a system in which a group of midfielders with almost identical mid range skills and no real creativity can be moulded into an attacking force to be feared.
Overall I agree with those who look past Jones. I cannot see Jones getting any better and he seems to have some really didgy ideas in his locker as well as a pig headed refusal to change. But the overrriding problem seems to be the recruitment. Someone posted a list of all the players we have off loaded in the last few years, and the vast majority are playing at a lower level than ourselves, which suggests an ongoing failure by whoever is doing the scouting. If this is Scott, he at least should be moved out before january and we should be looking at developing a better recruitment personel.
As for Jones, I think he's a busted flush now. Getting outplayed at home by Crawley and Orient successively says a lot about where we are and we need to change at some point, but how many managerts would fancy the gig is a real problem. The halt, the sick and the lame.
Most of our players have been bought to play Jones style of high intensity direct football. We aren’t playing it well at all and it is quite often not even evident that we are trying it. But you can’t then just expect the same players to play a different style that doesn’t suit them. If we get a new manager Alex Mitchell isn’t suddenly going to be able to play it out from back, Ahadme isn’t suddenly going to be able to control a pass into his feet and lay it off to a team mate. We’d still only have 1 winger and that winger doesn’t have a good enough end product
I think Jones may need to go, I’m prepared to see if he can get a reaction on Saturday but I’m not massively confident he will. But if he does go we can’t just flip back to a completely different style. We are more likely to get relegated trying to do that mid-season with these players than we are by keeping Jones
If we go for a younger appointment that wants to completely change style and try to play nice football, with this squad it could be disastrous, especially mid-season. If Jones does go then we need to be looking at an Alex Neil, Darren Moore etc type manager
Fundamentally disagree with this.
Whilst I think the recruitment has been a disaster, I also think the group is much better than they have been showing and aside from the fact they’re not great, a large part of the reason for their pitiful output is the abysmal “tactics” (I struggle to even use that word as tactics to me intimates some kind of thought to opponents, in game situations and scenarios and altogether something more mindful and considered than what Jones does).
The players look completely bemused now and clearly have no belief themselves in how they’re being told to execute their duties. My opinion is that a more outward looking, sensible manager could “reasonably” easily get this group delivering at least better performances and results than the relegation results, and relegated performances they have been delivering since the first couple of weeks.
One of the key skills of a “manager” (everyone will recall that Jones insisted on that title to the board as opposed to the head coach role of some of his predecessors), is being able to recognise the strengths, weaknesses and abilities of the resources you do have and get the best out of them rather than stubbornly coaching them a single inflexible style.
we dont necessarily want or need a philosophy tiki taka football coach who plays pretty football. We just need somebody who has the above ability, the mindset to play both attacking (can be direct at times) and ugly / defensive football where the situation requires and, crucially, actually tries to win football matches by controlling them in some form and create moments of football which endanger our opponents.
What we definitely don’t want is a manager who actively wants the opposition to have the ball in the hope of them making a mistake and that is his sole plan come rain or shine, hailstones or heat warnings.
Powell’s teams were often direct and also often robust when needed. But it was flexible, attempted to work with the strengths of the resources we had; you’ve got Kermogant, so sign and play direct wingers. We now have Ahadme… and we don’t have a winger in our squad (well, just the one, but let’s play him centre forward instead).
We might well end up beating Mansfield on Saturday. But Jones ain’t for the future, he needs to go.
So you don’t fundamentally disagree at all then. The point I was making was that people have been calling for a younger manager that plays attractive football, but I think that could be disastrous and we instead need a more pragmatic manager like an Alex Neil or a Darren Moore if we are to get rid of Jones
I’m not sure another manager would get better results. How good do you think this squad is? For me it’s a top half league 1 squad, the hope at the start of the season was that Jones would be a good enough manager to over-achieve with it and get in the play offs. We’ve had some key players out injured so are now down to 12th, not great obviously, but without the injuries we’d probably be around where our squad should be
Sorry - should’ve clarified realise thst was a little unclear.
Fundamentally disagreed with the bits about not playing a different style with these players, they have been bought to play his style and we’re more likely to get relegated trying something else / we need a robust manager for this group.
they Can’t play his style which is why we are in catastrophic relegation form for the last 3 months.
I agree, the squad should certainly be capable of 7-12 with any vaguely adept manager and any attempt to win matches
the style is wrong, the manager is wrong
Change both and we shouldn’t be anywhere near relegation
the manager doesn’t need to play robust football they just need to be able to understand and respond to the players abilities / qualities
We are 12th though, and that’s with the injuries we’ve had recently. Without those we’d probably be just about where this squad should be, around 8th-10th
Clutching a bit there. 8 points form 6th, 4 from 21st, 10 points from our last 12 games and arguably fortunate with a lot of the points gained prior
every club gets injuries, we haven’t been that badly done by on them. No excuse.
Jones is an idiot and has to go.
We had games recently where we had 10+ players unavailable. I don’t think other clubs have had it that bad. Jones and Ramsay are our 2 best players too, and the problem is our replacements for them are nowhere near good enough, and they are players that Jones was stuck with because Scott spent money on them last year
We can’t just keep sacking managers at the first sign of bad form
We've got players back now, maybe nothing will change but I think we’re better off trying to give managers time rather than being a club that sacks a manager at the first sign of bad form. Powell would never have got his 2011/12 season with this kind of attitude
I'm not sure how much of a defense injuries are, either. We have good depth and it wasn't like NJ was forced to play youngsters. For many years we didn't even build a squad by the time the season started. I remember the first game against Sunderland at home and playing with a midfield or Levitt, Oztumer and Vennings. In previous seasons we've been stuck playing the likes of Ness and Josh Davison.
By comparison, NJ has been set up for success. A full squad at pre-season and senior cover in practically every position.
Quite. Holden was blooding Asiimwe and Anderson and AMB and Kanu at the beginning of last season. He had far, far more defence for being given time and not being sacked at the first sign of poor form than Jones.
Very few players go through a full season without missing a few games. Ramsay and Jones have both played well over half our games this season. Their backups are “adequate” senior players and their absence didn’t suddenly change the outcomes , we were shite with them in the team. No excuse.
Thats 2 players. Ahadme was out for a bit, he’s terrible anyway. Kanu, but he’s in theory our last choice striker. Mannion, but again the backup was essentially our first choice goalie that the others were dealing with last season.
injuries not been great but far from a crisis , no defence for Jones your honour
I’d have given Holden more time too. But he did lose 5 in a row and was in the relegation zone
When Ramsay and Jones were injured we were just outside the play offs. Their replacements are much worse and is why our defence has looked terrible until Saturday when Jones returned to it. To say their absence didn’t change the outcomes is just silly, we’ve only won 1 game since and it was against bottom of the league
I think it’s silly to suggest it has changed the outcome…
They both played at Stevenage. They both played at Shrewsbury, which was abysmal and a mirror image of the pathetic win at Burton. Jones played at Bristol R, at the time (since arguably matched) lauded by many as the worst showing in the clubs history.
We were fucking dreadful with them in the team, we’re fucking dreadful without.
Jones is an idiot.
So before the injuries to Jones and Ramsay we were 8th in the table (level with 6th and 4pts off 2nd) with 5 wins, 1 draw and 4 losses
Since they both got injured, up until Jones returned against Lincoln (where we immediately got a clean sheet): we won 1 game, drew 3 and lost 3
And you are saying their injuries didn’t change the outcomes!
The writing was on the wall. We were already delivering several shocking performances and had stopped fluking good results when both players were fit, available and playing some of which I’ve just listed.
But I get it, you clearly want Jones to stay. I think you’re bonkers, but everyone is entitled to their opinion!
If we lose on Saturday and don’t play well then I’ll join you. But we were doing alright before the injuries, getting clean sheets and winning games. First game with Jones back and we immediately don’t look like conceding. I’d give him a few games now we’ve got players back to prove that wasn’t fluke like you say it was
Jones being out was a big loss, but if we're honest our problem isn't really the defence as we don't concede many and we never get hammered. I think we've only lost by 2 goals once (at Reading), although Bristol Rovers was awful for 70 minutes before we got a couple of goals back.
So whilst having Jones back in the defence is a plus, it doesn't really address our main issue which is the attack and i don't think they can be addressed without a) a change in tactics and b) new players arriving. We have no creative players and no width, so i'm not sure what you're expecting to suddenly change?
Even when it was 'working' early on in the season i think we were fairly lucky. Snatching a late win at Wigan, very late winner v Orient, the uninspiring win at Shrewsbury. No one would really class those wins as good performances and the Orient game in particular i remember being pretty poor. Berry got a goal from nowhere but if it had ended 0-0 then we'd have all been saying how dull the game was but obviously getting 3 points glossed over the actual performance. There's only so long a side that creates as little as we do can ride their luck for before the opposition takes a chance or 2 and we get found out, and that's exactly what has happened.
You could argue that a new manager coming in would (for now) have to work with the same players, but i'd have faith that a new manager would at least address the above issues in January. I don't really have any faith at all that Jones will because his talk of 'not far off being a good side' kind of suggests he doesn't even see the problems that we've all been seeing for ages.
The change will be that now we can keep clean sheets again, we will start to win some games again. It’s not going to be a massive change in style or tactics, but the results should improve which will buy some time to sort the rest of it out.
I’m sure Jones knows that things need to change when we have the ball. The owners will have spoken with him about January and the season so far, and if he wasn’t admitting that then he would be sacked. We were a really poor side that finished 16th last season, we are a work in progress and he’s sorted the defence out but now needs to sort the other side of the game out. We've got half a good team which is probably why he says we’re not far off. He’s built teams before that have scored plenty of goals so I’d give him a bit longer to see if he can do to the attack what he’s done to the defence with a bit more time
I do actually think the defence is fine and the strikers are fine, however we will need to get rid of Aneke and Ahadme at the end of the season. The problem lies with the midfield and Jone's inabillity to see how crap it is and admit the shit he signed for the middle of the park are not good enough. Again as well as not signing wingers.
I do actually think the defence is fine and the strikers are fine, however we will need to get rid of Aneke and Ahadme at the end of the season. The problem lies with the midfield and Jone's inabillity to see how crap it is and admit the shit he signed for the middle of the park are not good enough. Again as well as not signing wingers.
Aneke yes, Ahadme no. He'd do fine if he was given crosses in the box to attack. He's just a square peg in a round hole.
Comments
every club gets injuries, we haven’t been that badly done by on them. No excuse.
I’m not arguing that it’s been good, and it definitely hasn’t been good to watch. But we were 16th last season, our defence was a complete mess. We are a work in progress, Jones has sorted out the defence but on the ball we are terrible. We’ve gone from one of the worst defences in the league to one of the better ones, maybe he deserves more time to see if he can sort the other side of the game out
We can’t just keep sacking managers at the first sign of bad form
We've got players back now, maybe nothing will change but I think we’re better off trying to give managers time rather than being a club that sacks a manager at the first sign of bad form. Powell would never have got his 2011/12 season with this kind of attitude
By comparison, NJ has been set up for success. A full squad at pre-season and senior cover in practically every position.
Campbell hasn’t worked at all, but a loan for the player he could have been was probably worth the risk. Easy to say it wasn’t in hindsight but we were potentially signing a championship level player
What damages us more is the chunk of the budget spent on Gillesphey, REG, Watson, Aneke and Edun. That’s 5 good wages that could be spent on first team regulars
8 ex-Luton midfield cloggers
8 disinterested strikers
8 children
injuries not been great but far from a crisis , no defence for Jones your honour
I think there are enough reasons to give Jones at least a few more games now that we have some players back. If things don’t improve then we act before the January window. If we lose and don’t play well on Saturday then I will probably jump into the Jones out camp, but I do think it’s unlikely the owners will sack him yet
When Ramsay and Jones were injured we were just outside the play offs. Their replacements are much worse and is why our defence has looked terrible until Saturday when Jones returned to it. To say their absence didn’t change the outcomes is just silly, we’ve only won 1 game since and it was against bottom of the league
Since they both got injured, up until Jones returned against Lincoln (where we immediately got a clean sheet): we won 1 game, drew 3 and lost 3
And you are saying their injuries didn’t change the outcomes!
So whilst having Jones back in the defence is a plus, it doesn't really address our main issue which is the attack and i don't think they can be addressed without a) a change in tactics and b) new players arriving. We have no creative players and no width, so i'm not sure what you're expecting to suddenly change?
Even when it was 'working' early on in the season i think we were fairly lucky. Snatching a late win at Wigan, very late winner v Orient, the uninspiring win at Shrewsbury. No one would really class those wins as good performances and the Orient game in particular i remember being pretty poor. Berry got a goal from nowhere but if it had ended 0-0 then we'd have all been saying how dull the game was but obviously getting 3 points glossed over the actual performance. There's only so long a side that creates as little as we do can ride their luck for before the opposition takes a chance or 2 and we get found out, and that's exactly what has happened.
You could argue that a new manager coming in would (for now) have to work with the same players, but i'd have faith that a new manager would at least address the above issues in January. I don't really have any faith at all that Jones will because his talk of 'not far off being a good side' kind of suggests he doesn't even see the problems that we've all been seeing for ages.
So. Just found his level? Or de-Charltonised??