New Manager

I’m totally on the fence with this one day I think we need a man in charge prepared to be brave and attack, the next it’s like well Hughes needs a few games to get the formation working and things will hopefully click.
I’m not sure why we didn’t just sign players that would improve the formation from last season, we had a decent blueprint albeit boring to watch at times but we still ticked along nicely. It’s almost a reset that wasn’t needed.

Hughes talks about guile and intensity but it appears he doesn’t communicate this to the players or the players don’t listen, or It might just be that one of main problems is Trueman in a coaching role , he is the one constant in the sub plot to this.

I hope we come out and go at them on Saturday but I n my experience these pivotal moments hardly ever fall in the side of City so it will be Crewe switch ends score early and the atmosphere is flat to toxic..

never been keen on 3 at the back even less so with our cBs, 4321 or 442 for me but we will get 343 and Cook will still be isolated

 

Spot on

Head of football recruitment and DoF are one and the same anyway. These different title preferences are just pearl clutching to dress up a pretty meaningless debate.

 

Maybe come 5pm Saturday that could change .

 

I've posted the same why go down the route of a new formation, just bring more quality into the positions he believed we were weak in, we weren't that far off an auto place.

 

I don’t really want him to go as that would signal another 2 seasons of resetting the playing squad and ultimately another 2 seasons in league 2.
I want him though to accept that this playing style and the awful formation is not crowd pleasing and will ultimately cost him his job.
I want him to field the most attacking formation possible on Saturday and if we lose the game 5-4 so be it.
So many people on here after the Carlisle loss said it was a 2 year project but in reality our best chance of promotion was last season and we blew it.

 

I hope you don’t go. You make very valuable and constructive postings. Like you I keep changing my mind. I also don’t like the superiority postings as if those that disagree are second class citizens. I would love it if we could put a winning run together but I can’t see it happening. You are just as entitled to your view as anyone else in here.

 

Just go ask Gillingham how it works, worst team in the country at Christmas and in January they brought Kenny Jackett in as director of football. Since then they have the best form in the country and will end comfortably about us despite keeping the same manager that had them bottom.

You may not like modern football and want to keep it when the likes of Brian Clough controlled the clubs and played 442 every week but football evolves. All successful clubs have a director of football for continuity which is as important as anything in professional sport.

 

Kenny Jackett is an ideal DoF contender at this level.

It's not that Jackett is a perfect manager or has a fantastic style of football, it's that he's extremely experienced, extremely knowledgeable, and has operated at a high level and know what things 'should' look like.

Hughes ticks a lot of those boxes, but depending on how his time at City ends will determine whether there would be any chance of retaining him in a DoF position.

Probably not.

Credit to Gillingham's owner for realising the club needed an expert in charge of the actual Football.

 

Are you suggesting that Kenny Jackets arrival in January immediately transformed their fortunes????
Or was it simply that a new billionaire owner arrived which enabled the manager Neil Harris to strengthen the squad during the transfer window?
I don’t believe for one minute that Jacket had any influence in such a short space of time.
If he did, then he might as well have just stood in the dug out and made Harris redundant?

was there a DoF at Millwall when Harris was there and got them promoted? Or was it that he alone built a successful team?

is there a DoF at Luton and Sheffield United?

 

You raise a very good point about Trueman, one which I brought up with family at the weekend.

I'm sure he has quite a bit of input in training and my worry Is he is still been groomed to be given another chance as manager with more coaching experience behind him. Big pal of Sparks I believe

 

Continuity is the key word. Our recruitment has been a complete shambles for years and the reason for that is because there is no cohesion between the players being brought in and the way those players are being set up to play out on the pitch. We have no strategy, identity or direction and every time a new manager comes in, (or even from one season to the next with the same manager), it's rip it up and start again time. It's a ridiculous way of doing things, has cost us an awful lot of wasted time and money and it doesn't work. If Hughes left tomorrow and a new manager came in, everyone would be saying 'it's not his team, he needs a couple of windows to bring his own players in' and then when that happens but we still find ourselves stuck in league 2, people will start shouting for him to be sacked and the whole sorry cycle will start again. We need to change the record because it is well and truly broken.

 

We have exhausted almost every type of manager since we got relegated to L2.

McCall - club legend
Trueman - rookie
Adams - proven
Hughes - big name

I guess we just have to try a foreigner or bring back a cult hero like Jewell or Parkinson and we can safely say we have tried bloody everything.

 

How it goes wrong Saturday
Plays a back 5
Plays the exact 11 that started Morecambe
If he does this Hughes is on his own, and has no idea. I understand we have a smaller squad with a few injuries, however starting smallwood is a red rag to a bull. Go a goal behind it gets toxic, lose and performance is shocking it gets worse. Valley parade when toxic is not a very nice place. Do I want Hughes to succeed course, do I believe he can no! Do I bring Evans in yes past is past he is the man for the job.

 

We even tried the bat shit crazy owner/manager/recruitment director/wannabe player all in one package. I've absolutely no idea why that didn't work....

 

I am not going to comment on whether Hughes should go or stay but we will not recover from
The play of defeat last season and this season will not be a success. Will stand by that and it’s another year in league two

 

@Sergio Pinto III
Stuart will never be a manager (too nice a guy)
Truman was a complete Rookie appointment
Adams a disaster from day one on and off the pitch
In my opinion we need a young keen relatively experienced enthusiastic manager from conference level who wants to make a name for himself
He could work and learn under a director of football who has brought him in to play the way he and the club want him to and be that experienced head to challenge/advise what he does (oh wait a minute) !!!
Not rip up the team and style of play every time we employ a dud manager
File Hughes away in the same bin as Bryan Robson Peter Taylor etc etc big names who don't need the hassle/cash wanting acclaim and think they know it all
Our lack of football men at the club is what's costing us (no one to challenge MH and his negativity)

 

I’m suggesting Jackett came in and identified what was missing from the club, yes absolutely I am or why would a smart investor waste money on that position? He’s not a billionaire, some have said on here he has a net worth similar to Rupp, difference being he’s got experience in sport and understands what was missing.

Yes Sheffield United and Luton both have heads of football operations, they don’t have the exact title director of football but nor do they need to. You’re stuck in the past, a bit like this club tbh.

 

I agree and I'm sure the majority of fellow Bradford City fans also agree.

 

And guess who their manager was before Neil Harris joined in January 2022, Steve Evans the same Steve Evans some fans are calling for to take the Bradford City job if it becomes vacant, funny old game .

 

You say you want him to stay but have a complete change of management style
Bit puzzled with that one my friend why not go the whole hog his reputation at VP is flawed now and replace him
Am not one for changing managers at the drop of a hat but he must have seen how and why he failed last season and as yet has not addressed it he may do in time (I doubt it)
Another season of drab negative predictive football is not going to get us out this league
Teams have learnt stick 2 defenders on Cookie and we are done