Most liked posts in thread: Poll: If we don't go up, would you give Adams a second season, based on what we've seen so far?

Yes of course no problem. Every game baring 2 I have felt we were at least competitive, if not should have won. I’m a believer in the manager sets the team up to have more good opportunities than the opposition and the players have the responsibility to implement it on the pitch, only a couple of times has that been reversed so far. This with 15 of the squad last year that could have seen us relegated another year, big changes still need to be made, a lot of these players oversaw 2 6+ losing streaks in a season and have seen off a number of managers.

Adams is far from perfect he wouldn’t be managing in league 2 if he was, he makes questionable tactical decisions but so did Parky, especially in his first season when he was called Plonkinson for 30 games. Bits he’s been there and done it but never in his first season, that is evidence for me that given time he’s got a chance to get us up. Sack him bring who in? Will they get us up, or do we start everything again?

Regarding transfers they actually didn’t seem to start of to bad early summer, but they were terrible and desperate later on non of us know the full score what’s gone on there but at least changes have been made behind the scenes and I’d like to see that given a bit of time to bare fruit.

Finally it’s a gutt feeling, I had the same with Parkinson in his first season. It’s hard to explain but at this level I feel they both share that sort of stubborn steely grit that you need at this level unless you have owners with wads of cash like a Bolton. Simply put in more confident if Adams stays of a promotion next season than if he’s sacked and we’re looking around getting the likes of Campbell applying for the role or whoever is left that we haven’t tried.

All that said I don’t think he’s the one to take us past league 1, like Parky if he could get us top half league 1 and have a settled team and hopefully the club might attract some interest and be sold. From there hopefully develop an off field identity which probably wouldn’t involve Adams, a bit like Rahic tried but with people who are actually competent and push for the championship from there.

Hope that makes sense.

 

We've been systematically broken for a while. A long while. We've not had properly experienced, proven football leaders running this club for years.

Parky came in and galvanised/organised the footballing operation. A proper fitness coach, scouts and contacts that allowed him to recruit well. But it all went with him.

Lets face it, we're a shit show. The owner isn't interested and we have a novice CEO, learning the ropes in difficult circumstances. Our long term and strategic answer to improving recruitment and identifying the right targets through a robust and data driven scouting approach - lasted 6 months. We have to hope Adams can rebuild this club and we have to accept its going to take time. I can fully imagine that whatever promises were made, or expectations were held when he arrived, have evaporated quickly. People make assumptions that we're a big club - don't make me laugh. If we're big, then that's purely about attendance and the ground that we rent. There isn't any other aspect of this club that's 'big'. We recruit poorly, we haven't really had scouts, do we even have a fitness coach any more?

 

Absolutely. Sacking yet another manager isn't the magic solution that suddenly turns us around.

With the current owner of the club disinterested and budgets being lowered year on year only long term planning, and that includes retaining a manager, can give us any chance of that now.

 

At some point we have to break the cycle and stick with a manager rather than pressing the eject button. We create enough chances to win 3 games but don't have the personnel to put the ball away. We have players here from last season (with the exception of Cook) who never scored on a regular basis for us or anywhere they've been. The biggest sin was not securing a goalscorer, for which all parties are to blame. Get that right in January (if possible) and we're suddenly a side that not only creates but finishes chances. That then takes the pressure off the whole team and the confidence we've seen on occasion is flowing throughout the squad. Adams has his faults, but like Parky he has a steely determination to get it right. There's no one I can think of that makes me think they'd do a better job given the tools we have. It's now upto Sparks and Rupp to give him want he wants and we need.

 

The same type that went to Bolton in a similar/worse position 12 months ago?

It won't be our circumstances that puts players off. It'll be a lack of willingness to pay the going rate to attract players of that calibre. Or actually being able to detect good players in the first place.

 

We have new seats, new dugouts, tarted up toilets and a plethora of new 'official partners' but a budget seeing a yearly decrease. All those that though we could do a Morecambe and get promoted with players on minimum wage, give your head a shake. All this negativity and toxicity could have been avoided if our owner was hell bent on promotion. Two or three quality signings and a £500,000 investment to the wage budget wouldn't be a guarantee of success, but it would push us to top three level. These next half dozen games are against so called better opposition, a good indication of just where the season will pan out will be after these games.

 

Yes, the likes of Harrogate and FGR are run better than we are. You only have to look at their cycle of progression over the last 5 years compared to our cycle of decline. When I talk about structure, I don't mean the size of the ground, or having a digital scoreboard, or new seats in the dugout. I'm talking about having capable, interested and ambitious owner, CEO, a quality scouting and recruitment system

It doesn't matter what we're 'content' with or not. Ambition isn't about what your hopes are. Its about the manner of your actions and capability- and we're lacking in both.

 

Got to stop sacking managers every year. We are not Watford.

 

2016-2018: Stuart McCall

2018: Simon Grayson

2018: Michael Collins (Head Coach)

2018-2019: David Hopkin

2019-2020: Gary Bowyer

2020: Stuart McCall

2020: Mark Trueman (Caretaker)

2020: Mark Trueman and Conor Sellars (Joint Interim)

2020-2021: Mark Trueman and Conor Sellars (Joint)

2021-present: Derek Adams

The problem isnt the manager. Ive held my opinion until now on the owners and upper management. I wasnt sure if it was going to be easy after Rahic to fix but its been 3 years and the last game was dire. The direness is not a one off its symptomatic and getting rid of Adams isnt the solution.

 

Without a doubt. We don't have the structure or ambition to get promoted, we have a mixture of inexperience and disinterest in the boardroom, so retaining a manager who's experienced will hopefully limit the risk of going down. Thats where we are now.

 

It's no coincidence that each team promoted from non league seems to more than hold their own in league 2. Look at Barrow, Sutton, Harrogate, etc against clubs with no structure currently in place like traditional lower league clubs like Scunthorpe and Oldham. It doesn't take a lot to stand out in this woeful standard of a division, any team with a shred of ambition and with owners with a realistic game plan will more than likely get promoted.

 

And herein lies the problem.Summed up in one highlighted word.
Until he becomes interested we will go nowhere.

 

Of course we stick with him and give him next summer to build his own squad. Remember with 20 minutes to go last Saturday everyone was delighted how we were playing against Bristol rovers. Now it’s “he’s lost the dressing room” etc after a shocker in midweek. Give him the time,he isn’t going to walk out and we won’t be sacking him, he has a three year deal and we have to be patient. Parkinson was hounded on message boards in his first season when we just avoided the drop, then he rebuilt after that first season

 

We got big earners from the wage-bill in the summer, we upped the season tickets, and budget still slashed.
Rupp's recouping all the money he can before bailing out in about three years.
They'll be no investment in January or next summer, other than the bare minimum, if DA can't get us up, no one will.
One out, one in is the clubs strategy
Regardless of how the CEO flowers it all up, that's the reality.

 

Easy yes.

 

Adams has a decent record at this level in the past 5 years. How many managers have we gone through - at some point the manager is not the issue its whats above him and the resources that are available to him.

 

No, stability with the right manager. Sacking McCall and then T&S was the correct decision. You don’t keep on with a bad plan just because of stability.

Adams is the right man. He needs to be backed to do his stuff, provided it’s not a house of cards that collapses when he does leave.