Does Anybody Believe MJ Can Turn This Around.

Quoted from Mariner_09

I'm pretty certain that he CAN whether he WILL or not remains to be seen and I hope and think he will be given the time to show if he does. He clearly CAN otherwise we'd have been relegated last season. There are mitigating circumstances, injuries to players you'd rather have in the team and frankly restless fans who take no second invitations at throwing uninformed and unwarranted criticism at the team and manager. Obviously this understandable given the depravity of footballing quality since the turn of the century, but the fickleness of our fans is still undoubtedly present and can be overbearing I fear.

The other is that the problem ostensibly lies far deeper than Jolley. Paul Hurst is the only Town manager to have succeeded in my lifetime and it took him enough time to do so. Therefore a root cause is the only plausible explanation, this being John Fenty. He must set pitiful, alleged "competitive budgets" and seemingly expects minor miracles to occur while his dream of "Fentyism" becoming a reality in the vanity project that is the new stadium fails again and again due to his over-inflated ego. In short Jolley has the capability to turning the situation around but I believed he has been equipped with tools that make the task practically impossible.

Our club is intrinsically associated with failure since the "Fenty era" began and it will not abate until there is either a dramatic change in approach from Mr Fenty or he simply moves aside. Does he entertain outside investment as much as he public claims? I have my doubts. Does he want to step aside as much as he claims? Again, it is relatively clear that he doesn't. Thanks to 17-18 years of consistent failure with one promotion and a handful or memorable moments we are now seen as a club that lurks around the gateway to non-league and it wouldn't be surprising if we went back there.

I won't criticise Fenty for Jolley's appointment as pretty much everyone, including me, were absolutely behind this appointment. I can criticise him for appointing Marcus Bignot (when we were actually quite an attractive prospect I suspect because we had momentum in the right direction for once). I can't understand how on you can have a conversation with Bignot and not come to the conclusion that he is a complete "fruit loop". He still appointed him. Had we appointed Jolley (and given him a genuinely competitive budget) we'd probably be in a much better position now.

Jolley isn't particularly burdened by past failures as most of our past managers were and I hope given his relative lack of scars means he can re-energise the club in a way that previously was impossible. I desperately hope he can because I do think that his long term strategy would be ultimately very successful. Another new manager and then another shed load of new signings is the opposite of what is desirable. We are at the stage in the season where we can afford to give him time. If things don't improve (meaning we still get no points and score virtually no goals) by the end of November then I would act as that would be a decent sample to make a judgement upon. Until then I would try to relieve pressure and encourage motivation and belief. Surely positive energy would be more lucrative than this current atmosphere?

Quoted from ginnywings

Not much choice really, given that we are down to 2 fit centre backs. Davies won't be at full back because he has joined the growing injury list, and Cook is also carrying a knock. Think Hendrie can play centre back, but we have no left backs fit, so i presume he will play there, as he did Saturday when Davies went off. We really have been unlucky with injuries and suspensions so far, which is why i think we should hang fire a bit longer before changing the manager yet again.

Quoted from Northbank Mariner

No I don't wilko back for his coaching methods...all I am saying is that maybe he was the strong hand last season...I have no doubt he kept his trap shut due to slades relationship with Fenty and yes, the games under him were terrible but I think the players probably got more rollockings and were made to listen to what Jolley had to say whereas as now there appears to be a lack of discipline.....

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

Thank you Mrs Jolley!

As a sad and restless fan wishing to throw a bit of unwarranted and uniformed criticism, may I just point out that Mr Jolley may not be overburdened by failure but he is not overburdened by success either. Youth coaching, which like Neil Woods is what Jolley has done most of, is not about results but about player development. When tasked with getting grown men in a first team men to achieve in a league his scoreboard in Sweden was not exactly impressive was it? This is a very different world to the training pitch full of eager young lads busting a gut to do as they are told in the hope of making the first team.

All this chuntering about patience, new attitudes and becoming like Crewe used to be and the like is just so much eyewash. Jolley's job is very, very simple - get points on the board in L2 .........now. Not tomorrow, not next season, not in the new stadium but now .... before it's too late.

I cannot believe he got this job on results so he must have had some very influential acquaintances and a brilliant interview technique.

Quoted from rancido

Jolley was the under 23 team coach at Burnley for three years - hardly youth coaching! I would imagine quite a few of the players he was working with were in the 20 -23 year old bracket and could be described as " grown men ". These would all be players who were on the cusp of playing for the first team and certainly not raw novices.

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

I am not saying he is a useless coach, far from it. But the job is completely different. To the first team manager at Burnley the priority he would give Jolley would be to develop players. That is totally different to being the first team manager. That job is about responsibility for the first team squad and getting results to progress the club. In L2 these are largely mature blokes with homes and families to support on wages that may be reasonable but will not be massive and contracts which are short term. There is a world of difference between dealing with a Burnley U-23 player on the way up and sorting out Danny Collins on his way down. Getting players to buy in to what the manager wants to see as a team on the park is the key factor. Yes, there is an element of player development but the guts of the job is to get results week on week, especially these days where a managerial position can be very short-lived.