Russell Slade - What went wrong?

Quoted from Rodley Mariner

I'm no fan but he did a good job at Yeovil and Brighton - there must have been something there at some point. The thing that jarred most with me this time was the continued bullshit about 'building something' when it was utterly blatant to anybody that anything but was happening with an ageing defence and mountains of inexperienced loanees. When he lost count of how many loanees he had it pretty much summed it up.

I agree with that Rodders. There were clearly things that fans still know nothing about that had gone on during the appointment process because even Slade would not have signed such players if he could have afforded better ones. We could tell by the long gaps between signings that his targets were going to other clubs and he was having to lower his sights. Whether that was simply a low budget or it was made worse by the size of the Bignot squad, it beggars belief that an experienced manager with wide contacts would willingly settle for the quality he signed. There has to be more to it than just Slade’s judgment of players.

Quoted from jonnyboy82

Football had moved on but Russell was still stuck in the chalkboard and projector era.

Modern attacking football is now what's successful and I'm afraid slade was to negative and his way of football is 10 years out of date.

What do you mean? He got that young lad to do him a PowerPoint.

Quoted from grimsby pete

I am not being funny but I think his age caught up with him,

Some managers can still do a good job into their 70's,

In Slades case he lost the plot at a much earlier age,

He could not remember how many loan players he had brought in,

When he did sign players after looking at them on trial for weeks he did not play them much but they had 2 year contracts,

He knew of only one way to play and always reverted back to his long ball on the occassions he did try and play in on the ground.

I hope he enjoys his retirment because I do not think he will find another job in football,

In one way I am hoping he gets one more chance soon,

Then he can take Clarke and a couple of others off our hands.

He forgot that he'd arranged for Woodhouse to come in for some coaching tips and then blamed Matt Dean.

I think his hunger, work ethic and eye for a player had gone!


He left the training and coaching to others ( at least Newell said from day one he wasn't a coach!). The failure of strikers to score goals is well documented but I'd also add that the target that he really wanted was Nicky Maynard who instead went to Aberdeen.




He has managed 19 games & zero goals!

It all started to go wrong at the fans forum, his 20 minute power point absolutely crashed his computer, it never worked again and that did him.

Quoted from Rodley Mariner

I'm no fan but he did a good job at Yeovil and Brighton - there must have been something there at some point. The thing that jarred most with me this time was the continued bullshit about 'building something' when it was utterly blatant to anybody that anything but was happening with an ageing defence and mountains of inexperienced loanees. When he lost count of how many loanees he had it pretty much summed it up.

This.

Some good posts recently in the thread.

As Cloudy alludes to, RS isn't a training ground Coach.

But if you rely on your ability to build a squad of players and put a team together, you come unstuck if you can't land the players you wanted. Then it becomes necessary to coach the team to play a certain way or have a tactical plan to work with what you have got. This is where RS failed in my eyes.

What went Wrong ?

well in my view nearly every thing, off loading established hungry Town regulars

Death by Power Point I think. There is only so long players can sit in a porta cabin looking at a screen.

Seemed like the players where stifled by a system, roles and responsibilities and paralysed by fear which would explain a drop in confidence when things go wrong.

Coulple that with poor signings, players who didn’t want to be here, injuries at the wrong time (Macca) and negative tac tics well it could only end one way I’m afraid.

It does feel odd they that it all went wrong so quickly though.

Thing is it isn’t even hindsight, most agreed that some of the players he offloaded were a big mistake from day 1 , particularly Pearson . What the hell did he not see that everyone else did .