Most liked posts in thread: Recruitment help on the way

All this talk and we're still tinkering around the edges whilst ignoring the elephant in the room....McCall simply isn't a good manager.

We are seemingly shaping the whole ethos of the club around trying to put him in the best possible scenario. Unfortunately he's like Goldilocks and the mythical middle ground that is "just right" is basically impossible to achieve. There's either too much influence on transfers, or not enough help. Too much input into training or not enough guidance.

Long term having a more solid structure for the club is the right thing to do. But building that structure around a manager that has led us to 16th place in league two previously and currently has us sat in the relegation zone to non-league is madness. If it was Peter Taylor at the core of this would people be ignoring the major issue?

No matter how much we like him as a player or a guy there is going to be no positive changes until his failure as a manager is acknowledged. Sure, we could just keep stripping away aspects of his job and outsourcing them until he's nothing more than a ceremonial managerial figurehead but surely the more obvious solution is to grasp the nettle and see him for what he is.

 

Killed our midfield for two seasons

 

The lack of infrastructure is actually quite shocking when you put it like that. Successive owners and directors letting it get to that state should be ashamed if it’s true.

 

They've neglected the back room for a long time and it shows. They will always say that they were diverting as much money as possible towards the first team and while that's the most important thing, it's not always the wisest way to invest the money. A decent back room team may have stopped a lot of wasted wages towards players that didn't improve us or weren't good investments.

We're run like a Sunday team. Lads that the manager knows are the first point of call for the first team. Jobs that should be done by employees are done by associate directors who pay for the privilege.

I really hope that Ryan Sparks sees the huge hole in our back room that needs filling with a proper, professional, 2020 and beyond set up.

 

Stuart is of a 'certain age' and continues to live in it. We know of him at his best in the past. The McCall we love and admire so much. Today's McCall seems out of touch with current coaching and managing expertise and new ideas. He seems to hark back to a 'better time' when he did all his coaching badges and life was simpler. He just hasn't kept up with the myriad of changes that have occurred in football. He seems to be anti-social media because he doesn't appear to really understand it and the voice it gives to fans. In short, he's currently a dinosaur. I would love to see him become an Honorary Director of the club. An Ambassador. In other words, please please allow him to bow out gracefully as our current manager.

 

Meeting is today, expect an announcement on Feb 1st

 

Seriously what does this mean?

Someone is going to get paid to watch McCall's ipad?

 

It belays a worrying lack of realisation as to how dire things are. I genuinely think there’s a view that we’ll be ok once our ‘injured players are back’. I’ve no idea why. I don’t think Evans makes a difference. Staunton is clearly better than BRE but we’ve not exactly been solid with him in the team. Clarke and Novak are better than Samuels and DMH, but even with them in the side earlier in the season, we weren’t scoring goals. We need a minimum of 4 quality players. Bare minimum. When did we last deliver that in a single window? It was during the Parkinson era and entirely down to Parkinson’s support team, not anything or anyone else at the club. But even if we get January spot on, we still have the following games to play before the end of 2020:

Oldham A
Crawley A
Cambridge H
Grimsby A
Tranmere A
Port Vale H

4 away games, 2 at home. The only game from that list I give us any chance of getting something, would be Grimsby. We could very easily be 7 or 8 points adrift before January even gets here.

McCall ain’t turning this around. We’re going down with him at the helm. Now, I assume the extension of his contract was motivated by an attempt to create the illusion of stability for discussion with January targets and to try and settle any anxiety over an imminent sacking amongst the current squad. But it needs to be rethought. Now. A manager change now would still give the new man 2-3 weeks to line up targets for January. I think the club has handcuffed itself to a belief that backing McCall is the best way through what’s needed in January. Every step we take on the journey to extinction is grounded in poor decision making and misjudgment. This club is done. Its going down. Everything points to it.

 

The conclusion from that is that if you don't have one, you'll gravitate towards the bottom league. Clubs in higher leagues have them. Res ispa loquitur.

 

Spot on. Even then, I'm not sure Stuart's conclusions are correct - maybe he's treating his knowledge of other clubs like the league table and not checking. Admittedly the following is from a scan of Wikipedia, but I just wanted to do a quick check for the job titles that other clubs in L2 list as part of their footballing personnel that we don't list on ours.

Director of Football / Head of Football: Bolton, Cambridge, Carlisle, Cheltenham, Colchester, Crawley, Newport, Orient, Oldham, Port Vale, Salford
Head of Recruitment: Cambridge (marked as vacant), Mansfield
Head of Performance: Cambridge, Colchester, Salford, Scunthorpe
Sports Therapist/Psychologist: Barrow, Bolton, Exeter, Harrogate, Orient, Mansfield (vacant)
Sports Scientist: Barrow, Bolton, Colchester, Grimsby, Orient (vacant), Mansfield, Morecambe, Newport, Salford, Tranmere

The closest we have to any of the above is a Performance Analyst. Despite initially wanting to look over other the footballing staff at other clubs out of curiosity, now leaves me feeling a little alarmed at how much we are lacking behind the scenes. In short, a lot has been made about this role over the past few days as a great step forward when in fact, it appears to me that this is merely us playing catch up.

 

I liked Hanson to the end but swapping him for Wyke was one of the most obvious upgrades in terms of replacements that I can think of in the last 10 years.

The fact that McCall had a face like a slapped arse all the way through the discussions should pretty much sum up his eye for talent. He should have been jumping for bloody joy!

 

Absolutely this. I own a medium sized Metalwork Company in Halifax who employ 23 people. It’s impossible to all the work on your own, you employ good people to do the work for you - who probably do it better because they only have to focus on the job in hand, not a multitude of things. Building a good team is what makes a business successful, not being pig headed and stubborn like our current set up. As we are set up we are absolute set up to fail as we have absolutely no leadership. It really is a sad state of affairs.

 

I think he's treating his knowledge of other clubs on how things were done in 1984.

 

It’s a total *@?$ up all round. We’re a laughing stock. We’ve just given a manager who’s taken us to our lowest league position in years (ever?) an extended contract, and now those responsible for that decision are scratching around trying to find someone experienced to help him do his job, because he’s not good enough!
You couldn’t make it up.

 

Incredible story about signing Schwarzer and Geoffrey Richmond loved telling it. He was on trial for Manchester City and played for their reserves against our reserves in the good old days when we used to have a reserve team. I was at the game and he had a blinder. His parent club was Kaiserslautern and they wanted about 150 K for him but incredibly Manchester City were skint and couldn’t raise the cash. Once Geoffrey got to know he immediately did the deal with Kaiserslautern and we signed Schwarzer. Amazing to think now when you look at Manchester City ,and us who are usually skint. What a difference a couple of decades ago.