Vote of Confidence

Quoted from ginnywings

Another among many examples of the "if we'd won" variety. We didn't win an therein lies the problem. After about 20 mins on Friday, the crowd were ready to rock, there were fireworks going off and i could just sense that Cheltenham were rocking slightly. Gary Johnson has said himself that some of his younger, less experienced players were wobbling a bit but as usual, we let them off the hook and gave Johnson time to work his magic. We never looked like winning from that point on and the game faded into another let down.

I get the sense that whereas most people calm down a day or two after a disappointing result, that's not happened this time and people are still p1ssed off. I can feel a sea change.

To be fair taken out of context. The poster was saying that after a win a survey would probably have had vastly different results. I cannot remember anyone starting a poll after a win though!
Very interesting point about a "sea change". I actually said to my mate last night that the chagrin on here has gone on for far longer than usual after a defeat. By Sunday evening most people are looking to the next game. I suspect only time will tell whether you are right. If you are and gates begin to suffer then heaven knows where it will all end...

EDIT:- As I write this the score in the poll has closed to 60/59 with one person advocating the good cup run so 50/50 against getting rid.

What do you feel we should do Barra? Carry on with Hurst?

Quoted from chaos33

What do you feel we should do Barra? Carry on with Hurst?

Yeah I do. I can't add anything to the debate that hasn't already been said. I'm not in favour of ditching a manager mid-season unless things are tragically awry and even the biggest critic surely cannot think that is the case yet. It's a very tight league this time around and I think we have every bit as good a chance as any of the other favoured clubs.  Obviously I don't know how it will all pan out but neither do those who want him gone.
Incidentally I don't hold with the view that the players would only play for Hurst and not a replacement. It is one of the things that gives me hope in that I believe we (Hurst) has assembled the squad with the biggest desire to play for the club since Buckley's day.

Quoted from ginnywings

Riposte.  

Owned  

IF this poll is roughly accurate, 50/50 is not enough to warrant upheaval yet.

Quoted from ginnywings

Another among many examples of the "if we'd won" variety. We didn't win an therein lies the problem. After about 20 mins on Friday, the crowd were ready to rock, there were fireworks going off and i could just sense that Cheltenham were rocking slightly. Gary Johnson has said himself that some of his younger, less experienced players were wobbling a bit but as usual, we let them off the hook and gave Johnson time to work his magic. We never looked like winning from that point on and the game faded into another let down.

I get the sense that whereas most people calm down a day or two after a disappointing result, that's not happened this time and people are still p1ssed off. I can feel a sea change.

As Barralad pointed out, its the fact that this vote has occured after we'd lost. When have we ever had a vote following a win ? I guess it's because we're british as soon as we lose a game some people are already reaching for their strike banners

I dont ever recall a vote for PH to be given a contract extension after our trips to Wembley, or a statue of Alan Buckley to be built after we won promotion to the championship

I'm genuinely unsure what I want at the minute.

I regard myself a pro-Hurst kinda guy.  I like the way he spots talented players, I like the way the builds a dressing room spirit and I like the fact he's at the helm when we've had this (generally) feel good factor around the place.

I also regard myself quite anti-modern football, sacking your manager when you're in a decent league position with less than half of the season is part of that ideology for me.  I'm a big, big believer in stability producing results.  This 18 month-2 year lifespan of a modern manager really winds me up.  

That said, this is now the side that Hurst built. Everyone player are ones he's either brought into the club or renewed their contracts on his own accord.  If ever there was a squad to judge him on, it's this one.  


Added to that I am disappointed with the way we've not kicked on from the early season promise.  Early results were unexpected but the performances were exciting and I honestly believe had we stuck with the approach, we would be sitting very pretty at the top of the table now.  I don't know if Hurst bottled it or just reverted to type but we're a different creature from the one we saw in those opening weeks.  

I don't know if it's the same but before the weekend we were top scorers and best goal difference.  We can't be that far off, just based on that solely.  We can clearly score goals and any combination of our back four is pretty impressive.  I would go as far as saying we could almost put out a 'reserve' back four and it would be better than most at this level.  

Tactically I think Hurst is dreadful.  It's his biggest flaw.  He doesn't seem to anticipate and when he does react it's far too late.  His subs are so predictable, even down to the minute that they will take place.  East did a decent job on Friday, but just like Saturday at Harrogate, he didn't look like a winger to me.  He's also our best right-back so we lose that impact of him running deep from there.  I'm not Mackreth's biggest fan but he did well by all accounts when coming on at Torquay and then scored twice for the reserves, why pick a full-back over him?    I suspect that Hurst is putting East on the wing to give McKeown an outlet on goalkicks now Monkhouse is out the side.  Surely a better option is to ditch that crappy tactic?  Just launch it down the middle, strikers make a nuisance of themselves even if they don't win the ball, midfield set-up to win the second ball.  

The problem remains the midfield.  Always has been, I hope it always won't be.  Disley is superb, he's the best individual central midfielder in the league.  He's one man.  Clay is great on his day, which is one in three.  When Disley has a bad game, we struggle.  We can't rely on one man to carry us every game.

Biggest irony on Friday was I thought we lacked two main things.  1) Intensity up front and 2) Someone in midfield who would lift their head up and look forward with the ball.  The two things Tomlinson and Robinson brought to the side.  

The underlying thought I've had over the weekend is maybe we're just not that good?   I believed in the summer that we had built a superb squad.  The fact we're in November and bemoaning the lack of a creative midfield influence and alternative option up front suggest it isn't that superb.  I do believe that 4-4-2 as a system seriously hampers us.  We've got a player in Arnold who would the natural link-up between attack and defence, he's wasted in a wide position - even with the freedom he has to cut inside.  

Is disagreeing with the managers tactics enough to warrant sacking him?  Not for me.  I want us to change the attitude we approach games, or rather go back to something like what we started the season with.  We don't have a swagger or a mean streak.  I want us to pummel teams, smell blood and then absolutely rip them apart.  I understand why Hurst felt we needed to adjust earlier in the season when we became a bit leaky at the back, I think he's gone too far though.  The shackles need taking off.

Quoted from diehardmariner

I'm genuinely unsure what I want at the minute.

I regard myself a pro-Hurst kinda guy.  I like the way he spots talented players, I like the way the builds a dressing room spirit and I like the fact he's at the helm when we've had this (generally) feel good factor around the place.

I also regard myself quite anti-modern football, sacking your manager when you're in a decent league position with less than half of the season is part of that ideology for me.  I'm a big, big believer in stability producing results.  This 18 month-2 year lifespan of a modern manager really winds me up.  

That said, this is now the side that Hurst built. Everyone player are ones he's either brought into the club or renewed their contracts on his own accord.  If ever there was a squad to judge him on, it's this one.  


Added to that I am disappointed with the way we've not kicked on from the early season promise.  Early results were unexpected but the performances were exciting and I honestly believe had we stuck with the approach, we would be sitting very pretty at the top of the table now.  I don't know if Hurst bottled it or just reverted to type but we're a different creature from the one we saw in those opening weeks.  

I don't know if it's the same but before the weekend we were top scorers and best goal difference.  We can't be that far off, just based on that solely.  We can clearly score goals and any combination of our back four is pretty impressive.  I would go as far as saying we could almost put out a 'reserve' back four and it would be better than most at this level.  

Tactically I think Hurst is dreadful.  It's his biggest flaw.  He doesn't seem to anticipate and when he does react it's far too late.  His subs are so predictable, even down to the minute that they will take place.  East did a decent job on Friday, but just like Saturday at Harrogate, he didn't look like a winger to me.  He's also our best right-back so we lose that impact of him running deep from there.  I'm not Mackreth's biggest fan but he did well by all accounts when coming on at Torquay and then scored twice for the reserves, why pick a full-back over him?    I suspect that Hurst is putting East on the wing to give McKeown an outlet on goalkicks now Monkhouse is out the side.  Surely a better option is to ditch that crappy tactic?  Just launch it down the middle, strikers make a nuisance of themselves even if they don't win the ball, midfield set-up to win the second ball.  

The problem remains the midfield.  Always has been, I hope it always won't be.  Disley is superb, he's the best individual central midfielder in the league.  He's one man.  Clay is great on his day, which is one in three.  When Disley has a bad game, we struggle.  We can't rely on one man to carry us every game.

Biggest irony on Friday was I thought we lacked two main things.  1) Intensity up front and 2) Someone in midfield who would lift their head up and look forward with the ball.  The two things Tomlinson and Robinson brought to the side.  

The underlying thought I've had over the weekend is maybe we're just not that good?   I believed in the summer that we had built a superb squad.  The fact we're in November and bemoaning the lack of a creative midfield influence and alternative option up front suggest it isn't that superb.  I do believe that 4-4-2 as a system seriously hampers us.  We've got a player in Arnold who would the natural link-up between attack and defence, he's wasted in a wide position - even with the freedom he has to cut inside.  

Is disagreeing with the managers tactics enough to warrant sacking him?  Not for me.  I want us to change the attitude we approach games, or rather go back to something like what we started the season with.  We don't have a swagger or a mean streak.  I want us to pummel teams, smell blood and then absolutely rip them apart.  I understand why Hurst felt we needed to adjust earlier in the season when we became a bit leaky at the back, I think he's gone too far though.  The shackles need taking off.

Can only agree with this and what Tommy said. I'm very sure that we'll end up finishing about 4th this year with the players we've got, but it just seems as though there's a few players missing from the squad leaving us threadbare if we have injuries - only 3 strikers (when you're playing 4-4-2) and only 3 CMs isn't enough, let alone enough to account for the variation we need in those positions.

I just think that while we will get the play offs, I'm not sure whether this team (be it because of the manager or the players) will ever win the league - there's just too many games where I've come away from thinking in isolation it's not the worst draw in the world, but games like Lincoln away where we dominated are the games that champions come away with wins from regardless of us having 10 men. It was so refreshing to hear us dominating the game with 10 men, and I thought we'd go on to get the win, and a win I'd have been delighted with - 10 men for an hour, away at local rivals etc, but we just don't seem to be able to nick those wins which would bring us up to champions standard.

Something that also concerns me is we don't seem to be as good as recent years at playing against better sides - draws against FGR and Tranmere at home, losing to Cheltenham on Friday, all games we've been winning in recent years, but we haven't even put in the sort of efficient performance that we usually would do against those teams. Those are the games where Disley would get a winner in (not a slight on him as he's by a country mile our best midfielder), but it seems in the games I've watched that he's had to play deeper because of the other midfielders not being up to the standard required - we really miss those key goals he used to get.

How about we leave this debate until the New Year,?

If we are in with a chance of going up wait until the end of the season,

Stick with him,

If we are so far behind it will take a really excellent run to make the play offs,

Then lets look who is available,

Its coming up to Christmas and he deserves to enjoy that as our manager at least.

Is the person who voted for mid-table the guy that left at half time at harrogate?!

Well put diehard and Tom. Pete; it'd be nice but highly unlikely barring that elusive long winning streak.

I get the feeling a Robinson and a Tomlinson would have been handy over the course as we a bit light. Neither did the business straight away due to match sharpness or whatever but like a Pell could probably be good squad players (and options) once firing right.

But they were doomed to failure being introduced wrongly making them both instantly vilified. I know Clays personal tragedy was a private matter and he might not have wanted the world to know but some kind of veiled explanation might have quelled some of the disdain. Likewise if Tomlinson had of been mixed in carefully he could have become that different option to have defenders in a mix trying to adapt either if we introduced him in - game or unleashed one of the others just as they'd got to grips with him.

Of course the sticking point to that though is that the parent club would expect them to play. But we should put our own interests first rather than pandering to them too much.

Perhaps better than nothing, but both were done wrong causing a massive backlash. It seems the midfielder and target striker of a higher grade than those two must not be available as I'm sure Hurst is well aware we are lacking there (and has the money left in his budget).