David Artell confirmed as New Manager

Quoted from devs

Lose on Tuesday and the "why didn't they give it Shaun and Ben" brigade will be out in force again...

Well, if they are they’ll be rightfully called daft. They’ve got the right jobs for them.

Quoted from devs

Lose on Tuesday and the "why didn't they give it Shaun and Ben" brigade will be out in force again...

I wouldn't get too excited about Tuesday.
It will take time for him to get the team playing the way he wants to play, and tomorrow will be pretty much a Shaun & Ben team IMO.

Happy days 👍

Welcome David, good luck and lets all hope we see a change of fortune on the pitch.

Quoted from Hagrid

Indeed. Biggest comment i took from it. Because lets face it, it is excrement

Can’t argue with that, but it’s odd in as much as, until this season, Hurst’s Town teams have always had an “identity”. That identify was more attitudinal and ethos-based than playing style; be fitter than the opposition, work harder than the opposition, defend from the front, track back, be defensively organised, be together as a group, be mentally resilient, and so on.

The playing style would generally be vanilla if anything, but the more successful Hurst sides would usually be brought to life not through system but by a single “joker” in a forward position, who was a genuine standout in the division at their specific attacking quality. Think Amond the goalscorer in 15/16, Bogle the unstoppable number 9 in the first half of 16/17, McAtee the talismanic wildcard in 21/22. Liam Hearn is the sort of player you could add to that list, but he was never properly fit at the same time we had a team capable of having a proper tilt at promotion.

On reflection, it seems to me that Hurst was never particularly adept at implementing a particular way of playing, instead setting up to nail the basics and relying upon the talent of a few key individuals to provide threat and unpredictability. This season it appears he took his eye of the basics that had served him so well, and focused on getting us to play in a particular way, ultimately falling sadly short on both fronts.

Artell seems to have strong ideas on playing style and a reasonable record of translating those ideas into practice, and so my hope is that he can indeed coach a workable system and playing identity into a squad that I hope transpires was simply mismanaged earlier in the season (as opposed to being just another set of talentless wage thieves to have adorned the black and white in recent years). I don’t think this squad is anywhere near as bad as our results and league position suggests, but now it’s on Artell to prove that.

Really pleased with this appointment.
As mentioned the honesty/directness of his answers in the interviews is quite refreshing.

Nice to see almost total positivity on here to for a change.

Quoted from CSLM

Nice to see almost total positivity on here to for a change.

We haven't seen this level of positivity at a managerial appointment since... oh never mind.

Quoted from LocalLadGTFC

I think it's more a case of Ben already does a lot within the club around working with the youth etc, trying to bridge that pathway between the youth and first team.. also not so sure he actually wants to be a manager. Think he's very settled in the area and loves his job. Shaun has aspirations to be a manager and has shown all the qualities of a good number 2 since being in caretaker charge.

Ben could have a job for life doing what he enjoys, whereas 8 out of 10 managers will eventually get sacked along with the assistant manager.

Many making the journey down from North East Lincs for a spot of new manager bounce? Hoping there'll be a decent showing from us exiled lot down South. Thankfully, it's pay on the gate for those currently on the fence.

Quoted from ginnywings

We now have 2 no nonsense ex defenders in charge, so hopefully more clean sheets in the offing.

If I was going to be pedantic (I usually am), the same could be said for our previous management team! The fact that our defence has been all over the place this season especially is the biggest surprise for me. I can only imagine that the players they got weren't what they thought or we failed to sign two or three players who they thought would be able to combine to change the style of play entirely.

A tough run of games coming up so I hope Artell can impose something more effective on the team pretty quickly.