Russell Slade - What went wrong?

I'm loving the positivity flowing around following the MJ appointment and have really hugh hopes for our medium-term future under his tutelage.

One thing that's been bugging me for a few weeks and just can't get my head around is what on earth actually happened to Russell Slade? How did he turn into such an incompetent manager? You could argue that he's had a successful managerial career, albeit not actually winning any silverware. He did a good job in his first spell here, narrowly missing out on automatic promotion, he did a good job at Yeovil, Brighton (they love him there), and Orient and to a lesser extent Cardiff.

You don't turn into a bad manager overnight as they say, but how can you display good managerial characteristics and build successful teams and then have it go so badly wrong. He failed miserably at Charlton and Coventry and obviously we know what's happened here this season. He's displayed no discernable attributes this season, his tactics were unknown or ancient, his signings beyond poor, his team selections and substitutions baffling and communication with the media and fans sub-standard.

So my question is, what is what actually happened? How do you go from relative success at the clubs aforementioned to looking like he'd never managed a football club before. Has time caught up with him? Has he lost a spark or an edge that he had previously? Did he just run out of luck?

I'm really intrigued with the theory or leadership and management and would really like to get the bottom of how you go from being a successful, well-thought of manager with a history and shrewd recruitment, great man-management and effective tactics to what we've seen this season. It's like two completely different people.

I'll probably get red-crested to death for bringing Slade up when we should be discussing the future under MJ, but I'm just interested in people's thoughts of what went wrong for Slade and if his time in management is up. We've seen time and time again where a manager has relative success with a team, leaves and never replicates that success again. Gary Caldwell did really well at Wigan in winning L1 but had proved disastrous since, and and he's just one example. But why? Surely it has more to it than luck?

Thoughts ladies and gentlemen?

Don't hold your breath 'cos at nearly eighty this
will take me a week to type.

I think the basic of it all is, that he lost the players, he lied to the media, and it all started going downhill very rapidly.

he wasn't here very long, yet so much happened...

Pretty simple, really.

During his first spell, he signed some good players, during his second he didn't.

I'd imagine that it's much the same case at his previous failures over the past couple of years.

Three sackings before he came here seemed to indicate that his football philosophy, tactics and appraisal of players ability was becoming out dated. Even his previous history seemed to indicate he was more of a " steady " manager than a good one.

I saw RS in action for a few days when they couldn’t get on their normal training pitch and he looked very much a ‘hands off’ manager , allowing others to take the training whilst he sat inside and he just appeared to have very little input.
This is only my opinion of what I saw and I may be wrong.

Out dated ideas and philosophy

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.

At his so called successful clubs including his first time here, his saviors were his players who successfully masked his shortcomings, and once that outlet went, his sales talk failed

His father failed to withdraw. Seriously I think the bloke meant well but as others say his methods were sadly outdated now.

Russell Slade - What went wrong?
Fenty re employed the clown 🤡

Quoted from Mighty_Mariner

One thing that's been bugging me for a few weeks and just can't get my head around is what on earth actually happened to Russell Slade? How did he turn into such an incompetent manager? You could argue that he's had a successful managerial career, albeit not actually winning any silverware.

you have answered your own question there...he has never won anything as a League manager end of therefore, ultimately he hasnt been successful. You could argue success can only be gauged against achieving any targets he was given....well he failed miserably with the targets he was set here...play offs, smaller but better quality squad .....errr ..no and no .....and i cant imagine that he left any of his other appointments as a result of achieving his targets either.
Maybe he came close at Yeovil ,as he got them to a relatively good position before losing out, the fact he got them that close could have been seen as relative success but no one really sees losing in the play offs as being successful do they ?  

The game has moved on from the times he was seen as a good managerial prospect...i personally think he relies too much on a single star player to do the business, back at Scarborough he had Sestanovich who was undoubtedly a quality player, certainly for that level...with us he had Reddy who was again a quality player who quite literally could get a goal from virtually nothing...nowadays having a single player with quality is easy to nullify with a park the bus formation...i think Slade expected Dembele to be completely unplayable and surrounded him with mediocre players.

He was employed with a brief - to hold the fort and steady the budget. Once again Fenty fell between two stools, ambition and safety first. Hence so many loanees and young “maybes”.

Some fans could not see that and blamed Slade for not being another sparkly young thrusting up and coming go getting coach who would get results on no money with donkeys playing like Buckleys.

On the field the one failure that would haunt Slade would be the lack of goals, his failure to sign a proper out and out striker. If the side had been winning consistently even by 1-0 he would have had no problem, play-offs would have been a cert and fans would have been happy with the situation even if they were not seeing pretty football.

But he didn’t ............. and the 1-0 became 0-0 then 0-1 etc. and that was never going to be forgiven.

I am more puzzled about what went wrong after the Mansfield game? OK we had not been playing great but we were picking up points and were in a handy place in the league. What went on between Christmas and the New Year? We will probably never know.

Quality of signings for me. The ability of players is far more important than systems IMHO. PH has a great eye for a player, and probably more importantly he could persuade them to come here. Most of Slade's signings might have been good once but they are at the wrong end of their careers. He probably approached better players who turned us down, the only people he could bring in were those who probably didn't have a lot of other offers.

For me, he lost the respect of too many people (players included I suspect) following the Matt Dean forum debacle. Here's a stat for you.

Points per game pre-forum: 1.45
Points per game post-forum: 0.31

Over the course of a season, that's the difference between finishing on 67 points versus 14.

I was relatively pro-Slade prior to that evening, we were unspectacular but were beginning to at least look fairly organised and solid. He showed though, in the heat of his rant, that he was no longer a man in control.

And we've seen time and time again at the top-level that once you've lost the dressing room you're as good as finished. My only hope is now, with fresh blood and fresh thinking at the helm, that the players quickly rediscover their steady, mid-table form.

Mediocre will keep us up for now.

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

He was employed with a brief - to hold the fort and steady the budget. Once again Fenty fell between two stools, ambition and safety first. Hence so many loanees and young “maybes”.

Some fans could not see that and blamed Slade for not being another sparkly young thrusting up and coming go getting coach who would get results on no money with donkeys playing like Buckleys.

On the field the one failure that would haunt Slade would be the lack of goals, his failure to sign a proper out and out striker. If the side had been winning consistently even by 1-0 he would have had no problem, play-offs would have been a cert and fans would have been happy with the situation even if they were not seeing pretty football.

But he didn’t ............. and the 1-0 became 0-0 then 0-1 etc. and that was never going to be forgiven.

He was employed with a very clear aim of play off/ promotion this season and also to reduce the squad down to 22 senior pro's ...we ended up with not even achieving his minimum aim of 50 points , 34/35 pro's and so many loanee's we cant even include them all in the matchday squad.

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

He was employed with a brief - to hold the fort and steady the budget. Once again Fenty fell between two stools, ambition and safety first. Hence so many loanees and young “maybes”.

Some fans could not see that and blamed Slade for not being another sparkly young thrusting up and coming go getting coach who would get results on no money with donkeys playing like Buckleys.

On the field the one failure that would haunt Slade would be the lack of goals, his failure to sign a proper out and out striker. If the side had been winning consistently even by 1-0 he would have had no problem, play-offs would have been a cert and fans would have been happy with the situation even if they were not seeing pretty football.

But he didn’t ............. and the 1-0 became 0-0 then 0-1 etc. and that was never going to be forgiven.

I would agree in part, in my opinion his main problem was he signed a shed load of pretty crap players, Hooper, Kelly, Dixon, Woolford, Rose, Matt, Clarke, Osborne.

Quoted from Poojah

For me, he lost the respect of too many people (players included I suspect) following the Matt Dean forum debacle. Here's a stat for you.

Points per game pre-forum: 1.45
Points per game post-forum: 0.31

Over the course of a season, that's the difference between finishing on 67 points versus 14.

I was relatively pro-Slade prior to that evening, we were unspectacular but were beginning to at least look fairly organised and solid. He showed though, in the heat of his rant, that he was no longer a man in control.

And we've seen time and time again at the top-level that once you've lost the dressing room you're as good as finished. My only hope is now, with fresh blood and fresh thinking at the helm, that the players quickly rediscover their steady, mid-table form.

Mediocre will keep us up for now.

I agree with that. Untold damage was done with that forum; we had found a bit of form and it seemed to give Slade and Fenty an excuse to settle some scores. They should have known a lot better and I said at the time it would come back to haunt them and so it has proved.

I also agree with Robs post above - I don't know for sure but I would imagine all of his first choices (apart from Clarke) said no, and he probably chased them too long leaving us with also rans. He should have been backed better by the board to get the players he wanted.

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.

Age has caught up with him. Young players probably can't relate to him, and of course he signed a load of dross. It's not all his fault- the board have to take a lot of the blame too. Employing him in the first place was a huge mistake, and one i still can't believe they decided to take. We were comfortably mid table, could have put the tea lady in charge for the rest of the season and took our time to find the right type of manager for us. I also think that there is still this belief that we are the club we once were and are trying to run before we can walk. Even at the press conference yesterday, there was talk of League 1 and the Championship in 5 years, which again smacks of fiddling while Rome burns. We could well be relegated and still be in non league in 5 years.

He was well past it before he came here.. all he did was turf out the better players and bring in dross.. totaly ruined a fair squad . I hope he never gets another job in football for what he did here

Doubt he'll need to work again. I imagine he he's been paid a fair whack over his career.

In his first spell he signed players to fit a game plan, a lot of pace and power. This time he seemed to have no game plan and signed players with neither pace or power. Why? I assume he misread his stats or something.

Poojah makes a good point,  it was the forum debacle that finally did it for everyone, players, fans et al.  Everybody lost faith in the club, manager, JF and board

Quoted from Poojah

For me, he lost the respect of too many people (players included I suspect) following the Matt Dean forum debacle. Here's a stat for you.

Points per game pre-forum: 1.45
Points per game post-forum: 0.31

Over the course of a season, that's the difference between finishing on 67 points versus 14.

I was relatively pro-Slade prior to that evening, we were unspectacular but were beginning to at least look fairly organised and solid. He showed though, in the heat of his rant, that he was no longer a man in control.

And we've seen time and time again at the top-level that once you've lost the dressing room you're as good as finished. My only hope is now, with fresh blood and fresh thinking at the helm, that the players quickly rediscover their steady, mid-table form.

Mediocre will keep us up for now.

This is so true. The entire Curtis Woodhouse reaction was such a bizarre over the top reaction to a pretty minor story that I think it showed something was badly wrong in the camp. I think for a lot of people (and probably some players) it was a final straw.

Too many players have completely lost form for it to be a conincidence. Hopefully jolley will make the difference.

Some interesting (and valid) points on this thread. There is no doubt that player acquisition was a major reason - the most extreme example being Dixon. His inability to deal with any kind of pace is frightening to say the least. Clarke and Collins as a pairing are too old and slow and Osbourne continually gets the wrong side of his man. We have no craft in midfield and are totally impotent in attack!

The forum just compounded the problems...the behaviour of a number of individuals that night was embarrassing, petulant and unprofessional. Whatever feelgood remained from Operation Promotion was totally lost that night.

Hopefully Jolley will be given the freedom and time to change things from top to bottom.

Quoted from The_Laughing_Mariner

Poojah makes a good point,  it was the forum debacle that finally did it for everyone, players, fans et al.  Everybody lost faith in the club, manager, JF and board

Except Slade..... he lost trust  

Quoted from Poojah

For me, he lost the respect of too many people (players included I suspect) following the Matt Dean forum debacle. Here's a stat for you.

Points per game pre-forum: 1.45
Points per game post-forum: 0.31

Over the course of a season, that's the difference between finishing on 67 points versus 14.

I was relatively pro-Slade prior to that evening, we were unspectacular but were beginning to at least look fairly organised and solid. He showed though, in the heat of his rant, that he was no longer a man in control.

And we've seen time and time again at the top-level that once you've lost the dressing room you're as good as finished. My only hope is now, with fresh blood and fresh thinking at the helm, that the players quickly rediscover their steady, mid-table form.

Mediocre will keep us up for now.

I was never a Slade fan but thought him a steady if unspectacular Manager who I regarded a safe pair of hands.That night at the forum I saw him in a different light I saw him for what he really was a Schoolteacher masquerading as a football manager complete with the I AM GOD attitude. You saw the classic square pegs in round holes scenario a live radio broadcast and Slade is effin about with flipcharts and video analysis for 30 mins on why you keep all 10 men back for a corner to 100 bemused and bored fans. I said at the time I just thought that a diversion tactic to nullify the room but odd behaviour for a guy with his experience. On the night most comments went to JF and whether RS was bored or felt left out I don`t know but when they started getting stuck into MD you could see the glee in his eyes when he joined in the attack admonishing the naughty schoolboy.

In my experience guys like Slade get lucky now and again but can`t sustain it because of the massive flaws in the overall plan. Look at the age of the players he brought in vs what he let go.Look at his reluctance to give the Youth a game.Where was his public eating of humble pie upon his return to at least try and pacify those like me who had a poor opinion of him?Slade and Buckley both get accused of being dinosaurs and out of touch and this is true BUT the difference between them one is a football man who knows the game and how it should be played.Buckley was scathing of Slade for his treatment of young Clifton and anyone who heard it would have agreed with every word.Slade should never have been brought back and in a catalogue of errors over 14 years this was the easiest one to avoid.

Quoted from Abdul19

In his first spell he signed players to fit a game plan, a lot of pace and power. This time he seemed to have no game plan and signed players with neither pace or power. Why? I assume he misread his stats or something.

I think he was trying to be clever this season as, if you remember, he was trying to get us to play a 4-2-3-1 formation throughout pre-season and also at the start of the season. Unfortunately, he couldn't get it to work, not least because most of the players he signed weren't up to the job and we didn't really have anybody capable of playing as the holding midfield two. I suppose Summerfield and a fit McAllister might have coped in this role, but that was never an opportunity. As you note, we ended up with a squad badly lacking in pace and power so the plan 'B' ended up being hit and hope to some degree, though initially with some moderate success until the wheels fell off.

What I never quite worked out with all the signings in January 2017 was that both Osborne and Jones reportedly like to play as attacking midfielders, but neither were ever played in this role for us under either Bignot or Slade! Perhaps understandable with Jones as he did a decent job up front and got his goals, but it seems very odd that Osborne was always stuck out on the wing. Maybe because his fitness was suspect last season and then, of course, he picked up his early injury this season.

If you remember, Slade attempted to play with a 3-4-3 formation when he joined the club first time around before abandoning it after the results didn't come (despite some decent football). Difference back then was that we had the pace of Reddy and Crowe, persistence of Parkinson, height of Rob Jones as well as several other decent players (Gritton, Sestanovich, Pinault) to get us through a disappointing first season before he managed to sign the likes of Gary Jones, Bolland and Cohen the next year to make us promotion contenders. Of course, his luck ran out with the next batch of signings. I still have nightmares about Mendes.

My point is, I think Slade ultimately moved to percentage football on both occasions he was at the club after earlier plans didn't work out. Difference then was that we had players good enough and with the physical attributes to play that sort of stuff. This time around, are there any other teams in the division with such a lack of height, pace and strength throughout? Little chance of a percentage based plan 'B' working with this lot. Let's hope Jolley can come up with a different plan 'B' which is effective enough.

Quoted from denni266

He was well past it before he came here.. all he did was turf out the better players and bring in dross.. totaly ruined a fair squad . I hope he never gets another job in football for what he did here

Unless it's at Scunny.  

The thing I found strangest about it all, and which I still can't fully understand was how an experienced football manager like him was so thin skinned, defensive, and unable to take criticism or accept the reality.

Maybe his state of mind was not good, and it must have been an awful lot of pressure he was under. But continued comments in reaction to questions by Tondeur relating to the fans "Well they're entitled to their opinion John" and never being able to hold his hands up and show a little humility was baffling.

It'll have to go down in club history as one of the most bizarre tenures of a manager in recent decades.

Quoted from Les Brechin

Unless it's at Scunny.  

Good thinking  

Quoted from denni266

Good thinking  

He knew he was out of his depth

Fenty, Slade and the Board showed poor judgement, were arrogant and over-confident.

Slade had shown that he was failing before being appointed. The fans could see this.   After his behaviour at Cheltenham why was he re-appointed?

The Board might not have backed him as much as they could have done.  He was a poor recruiter of players, despite his vast experience.  Hurst was much better here.

The Fans Forum was a perfect storm.  In addition to the collective failings above, Slade was also a bully and showed a lack of class.  Was his presentation a tactic to reduce the time for any hostile questions?

Fenty wanted the Fans Forum before the 3 consecutive wins (whatever they are). His arrogance cannot be kept in check.  

Poojah's evidence of the severe reduction in league points after the forum is no coincidence.  What goes around comes around. If Slade behaves like that in public, what does he say in private to the players, and how does he cocme acroos to them?  Do they respect him?

Fenty should have sacked him much earlier.  Slade was out of his depth and past his sell-by-date.  More evidence of the collective failings shown above.      

The management of the Fans Forum was the catayst for our freefall.  The Club turned on itself.  The Board had set their stall out in a "war" with fans over Bra-gate and the lost of the SLO. The players were not exactly motivated to perform at their best with all this constant turmoil played out in public.

Does he drink ?

He never had it. His first spell was dire football-wise and he snatched play off defeat from the jaws of automatic promotion before flipping off. The whole Lincoln half-time debacle sums the bloke up and aligns nicely with the god complex comments on here. This time round all his failings are multiplied and even worse he has raped the club of and skill and dedication. We are left with a knackered Dembele (Gary Cohen anyone?) who has been run into the ground carrying the team. He failed to manage the players let alone coach them into a cohesive unit. I loath him for what he’s done.

Quoted from golfer

Does he drink ?

Think you have to , to stay alive

Quoted from ginnywings

Doubt he'll need to work again. I imagine he he's been paid a fair whack over his career.

Maybe that's part of it - he's on his way down, made his money, hunger no longer there. Compare to the work ethic of Hurst and hopefully Jolley who are desperately trying to climb the ladder.

Quoted from Theimperialcoroner

He never had it. His first spell was dire football-wise and he snatched play off defeat from the jaws of automatic promotion before flipping off. The whole Lincoln half-time debacle sums the bloke up and aligns nicely with the god complex comments on here. This time round all his failings are multiplied and even worse he has raped the club of and skill and dedication. We are left with a knackered Dembele (Gary Cohen anyone?) who has been run into the ground carrying the team. He failed to manage the players let alone coach them into a cohesive unit. I loath him for what he’s done.

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.

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 .

Glad to see the back off Him It got that bad we had Town Fan's nearly coming to blows in the Stands 6 years of  stress, hard work, toil, sweat and nearly men in Trying to get bout of the tin pot  Conference.
WASTED
TACTICS out date ,Team selection Poor, Players he brought in would struggle to get in my old Sunday league team. Leading by example pathetic, excuses time and time again in post match interviews instead of being honest and addressing the problems   it only took him 9 months to destroy the playing squad

This Club was one all pushing in the same direction Slade is a incompetent con man blagging his way round the Football clubs he took more pride and passion throwing his earnings away  at the bookies and he was excrement at that.

I hope he never has the opportunity to manage again and put loyal passionate supporters through the hell he has caused

GOOD RIDDANCE

Quoted from Eastendmariner

Glad to see the back off Him It got that bad we had Town Fan's nearly coming to blows in the Stands 6 years of  stress, hard work, toil, sweat and nearly men in Trying to get bout of the tin pot  Conference.
WASTED
TACTICS out date ,Team selection Poor, Players he brought in would struggle to get in my old Sunday league team. Leading by example pathetic, excuses time and time again in post match interviews instead of being honest and addressing the problems   it only took him 9 months to destroy the playing squad

This Club was one all pushing in the same direction Slade is a incompetent con man blagging his way round the Football clubs he took more pride and passion throwing his earnings away  at the bookies and he was excrement at that.

I hope he never has the opportunity to manage again and put loyal passionate supporters through the hell he has caused

GOOD RIDDANCE

So what's the message?

Slade was forced to substantially revamp the squad but his player recruitment was a disaster.

Hurst had allowed the likes of Amond, Toto, Nolan, and Arnold to go, and recruited Berrett and Sumerfield after they had help take York down. Then Bignot swamped the  squad with almost a dozen midfield players resulting in a large,  unbalanced, and expensive but ineffective group of players

Accordingly its possible that part of his brief was probably to slash the wage bill, even if that meant getting rid of some of the better players. If so that counts as the worst possible false economy and may partly have been sanctioned to cover the cost of paying off Bignot.

Once the rot had set in he simply did not have the right team selections, motivational skills or tactics needed to get results.

The January transfer window was a fiasco.

In the final analysis he was simply not up to the job.

Slades percentage game just does not work anymore. Admittedly he stopped us getting hammered like we did under Bigclot but his luck also ran out.

The players he had were ordinary, to say the least, but then to urine players off and get rid of the best although instructed to do so did not help.

He started with a big squad that he never really got to grips with, many were just cast aside and forgotten the toxic atmosphere, for instance, forced Osborne away I am sure of that.

He came here desperate to resurrect his managerial career and ended up with the great Grimsby Town F.C. managers graveyard lol he's in honored company a lot of managers over the years here and away has fell foul to the dreaded CURSE.

There are so many reasons why it failed but nobody came out of this smelling of roses.

I never hated Slade and I know Fenty was his friend but the desperation appointment backfired on Slade and GTFC.

For those like myself that never forgave him the first time around KARMA kicked the good luck door shut good and proper and got him in the end.

Be very lucky to stay in league football now but he has a few bob no doubt.

I feel sorry for RS in a way. He inherited an oversized squad and I feel Bignot signed a few players who had some talent but bad attitudes. The other players in the squad were Hurst's hard working pros, but without Bogle that squad would have been in trouble last season. Slade seemed to favour the same style of player as Hurst, hard working and professional that get on with it. This left us with pretty much Hurst's team without Bogle's goals.

His recruitment was poor. I think a combination of having spent the last few years at a higher level and not knowing the lower league market any more, and going after a marquee signing like Maynard wasted too much time and didn't have many options left. He also signed too many players and I think it was impossible to keep a squad that big happy and playing for him.

I don't think the style of football or his methods being dated is as big an issue as being made out. Notts County play percentage football and hoof it, but they have players good enough to get results with it. We don't.

I never wanted him back his career was clearly in freefall. Player recruitment was abysmal, look at his number one target Maynard not one goal this season pfft.

The writing was on the wall from preseason and I thought it telling that we played no games against teams  close to our level but instead opted for a couple of games up the pyramid and then loads of games against teams several levels down. A much more robust preseason against conference +north/south sides would have obviously found us out too early in Slades mind.

Quoted from Eastendmariner

Glad to see the back off Him It got that bad we had Town Fan's nearly coming to blows in the Stands 6 years of  stress, hard work, toil, sweat and nearly men in Trying to get bout of the tin pot  Conference.
WASTED
TACTICS out date ,Team selection Poor, Players he brought in would struggle to get in my old Sunday league team. Leading by example pathetic, excuses time and time again in post match interviews instead of being honest and addressing the problems   it only took him 9 months to destroy the playing squad

This Club was one all pushing in the same direction Slade is a incompetent con man blagging his way round the Football clubs he took more pride and passion throwing his earnings away  at the bookies and he was excrement at that.

I hope he never has the opportunity to manage again and put loyal passionate supporters through the hell he has caused

GOOD RIDDANCE

So he did that deliberately? Nobody would last 5 minutes in football if they were truly as bad as your diatribe makes out. Like Rodley says, there are clubs where they think he’s an OK bloke and manager. So he didn’t fit in at Grimsby, so what?  Criticise by all means but use a bit of common. It takes 2 to tango and Slade had his partner at the club.

Quoted from Mrs Doyle

Slades percentage game just does not work anymore. Admittedly he stopped us getting hammered like we did under Bigclot but his luck also ran out.

What's worse though - some wins, but an occasional hammering? Or consistent mediocrity. I think I'd take the occasional hammering in exchange for some actual wins from time to time.

Quoted from chicaneuk

What's worse though - some wins, but an occasional hammering? Or consistent mediocrity. I think I'd take the occasional hammering in exchange for some actual wins from time to time.

What you describe there is in effect what Bignot gave us but  not many of us forgave Bignot's 5-1 defeat at home to Donny (which was probably the final straw for the board).

Quoted from chicaneuk

What's worse though - some wins, but an occasional hammering? Or consistent mediocrity. I think I'd take the occasional hammering in exchange for some actual wins from time to time.

The percentage game does work. Ask Hurst. He's using it now, just the same as he did here. How well it works is like any other tactic, it depends in the players you've got. If it had worked for Slade and we had picked up five or six 1-0 wins on the trot in boring games and were in a playoff spot, would that be consistent mediocrity or promotion form? I'm all for the Buckley/Clough game but results matter more than flowing football.

It all depends on how you look at it. To my mind, what got Slade the bullet was not the fans or Matt Dean or any of that stuff, it was simply the failure to sign someone who could score a few goals, and I mean a few. Probably 10 goals and we would likely have been in good position for the playoffs.

Quoted from pen penfras

I feel sorry for RS in a way. He inherited an oversized squad

I don’t agree with this at all.

If you take a look at the current squad list on Cod Almighty we currently have 32 players signed up.

5 of these are young lads who are unlikely to get much - any game time - Clifton, Wright, Keeble, Sawyer, & Rose (Akeem).

Of the 27 players left, Slade signed or re signed 20 of them, 75% or 3 quarters, whichever way you want to look at it.

His problem wasn’t that his hands were tied with a bloated squad.

His problem was that he signed a load of junk - how many of his signings have been ‘successful’?

Quoted from pen penfras

I feel sorry for RS in a way. He inherited an oversized squad and I feel Bignot signed a few players who had some talent but bad attitudes. The other players in the squad were Hurst's hard working pros, but without Bogle that squad would have been in trouble last season. Slade seemed to favour the same style of player as Hurst, hard working and professional that get on with it. This left us with pretty much Hurst's team without Bogle's goals.

His recruitment was poor. I think a combination of having spent the last few years at a higher level and not knowing the lower league market any more, and going after a marquee signing like Maynard wasted too much time and didn't have many options left. He also signed too many players and I think it was impossible to keep a squad that big happy and playing for him.

I don't think the style of football or his methods being dated is as big an issue as being made out. Notts County play percentage football and hoof it, but they have players good enough to get results with it. We don't.

I don't feel sorry for Slade in the slightest.  He came here after having yet another pay off.  There are various rumours as to his wage.  But I got from a very reliable source that his was very good.
I reckon he got the job by promising JF he would keep the budget down and not pressure the board for money. When asked at the fans forum would he be looking to strengthen in the Jan window and in what position, he batted it off completely by going on about it being a squad game etc. I actually posted that I didn't think we would be spending in that window, I was right.  However,  I was relatively happy when he joined.  I saw it as a 'steady the ship' signing.  Instead, it would appear that in his stupid attempt to save the club money he may well have condemned us to non-league obscurity yet again. Of course this was all done with the approval of JF and his crew of nodding donkeys.  So, I tell you what went wrong, we had the wrong manager with the wrong board at the wrong time.
Let's just pray it doesn't turn out to be a catastrophic as it may appear.  

Quoted from Mrs Doyle

Slades percentage game just does not work anymore. Admittedly he stopped us getting hammered like we did under Bigclot but his luck also ran out.

.

Bignot's worst defeats were

Exeter & Doncaster at home
Crewe & Portsmouth away

Two of those teams were promoted and another lost in the Play off final so yeah, disappointing outcomes, but clearly better teams who took us to pieces

There were quite a few heavy losses under Slade this season too though I might add,

Mansfield, Crawley, Yeovil away
Accrington home

which compounded with all those games lost by narrower margins because of our inability to score, his departure was inevitable

Russell who ?

Quoted from oldun

I am more puzzled about what went wrong after the Mansfield game? OK we had not been playing great but we were picking up points and were in a handy place in the league. What went on between Christmas and the New Year? We will probably never know.

I think around that time we began 'resting' players that were to leave in January, or that we were hoping to sell. For me Jones not being played and being 'injured' was a part of that.  Although his form had dipped and at times he didn't seem interested he was one of the few players we had who could actually find the net.  

The resting of players prior to and during the window, and then weakening the team letting players go in January without strengthening has been key to his failure for me.