one year ago .............

Quoted from Madeleymariner

No I thought he needed longer to put what he wanted to do in action, I know he was full of bull sometimes but he brought in some decent youing players and was never going to cope with losing Omar on deadline day.

Whilst he signed some good prospects, the way he treated that game against Doncaster sealed his fate. Treating the game like a training session and playing players out of position hugely concerned me. That was the straw that broke the camels back. Although I expected him to last until Sept/ Oct, I was convinced that he would lead us into a relegation battle the next season.

Clearly Slade wasn’t the right solution, but neither was keeping Bignot.

Quoted from blundellpork

Whilst he signed some good prospects, the way he treated that game against Doncaster sealed his fate. Treating the game like a training session and playing players out of position hugely concerned me. That was the straw that broke the camels back. Although I expected him to last until Sept/ Oct, I was convinced that he would lead us into a relegation battle the next season.

Clearly Slade wasn’t the right solution, but neither was keeping Bignot.

Absolutely this. Bignot was a disaster, even some of his own signings had major misgivings about his management (Clements was one of the players who voiced concerns allegedly). You only have to look at his managerial record since he left here to see that he doesn't really have that much about him as a manager.

Quoted from mariner91

Absolutely this. Bignot was a disaster, even some of his own signings had major misgivings about his management (Clements was one of the players who voiced concerns allegedly). You only have to look at his managerial record since he left here to see that he doesn't really have that much about him as a manager.

I think it’s an easy accusation. Several Bignot players are in the Solihull team near the top of the Conference, he clearly did something or said something that upset our board because his results were worthy of longer.

Quoted from MuddyWaters

I think it’s an easy accusation. Several Bignot players are in the Solihull team near the top of the Conference, he clearly did something or said something that upset our board because his results were worthy of longer.

That may be but it's one thing signing some half decent (and not one of those three players are proven in the FL despite two of them both approaching their 27th birthdays) but there was absolutely no evidence of a plan that he was supposedly implementing.

The formation and the personnel changed weekly, seemingly at random which was an accusation thrown at him by Chester fans last season so that throws the theory of him planning something long term out of the window. Despite nearly 30 games in charge there was zero improvement in performance from when he took over, in fact I'd say the performances had got alarmingly worse in terms of consistency, even some of the wins had been after pretty poor performances. There was no clear pattern of play that had been worked on or anything like the slow progressive improvements that MJ has overseen. In short, he's a charlatan and I would be gobsmacked if he ever manages in the FL again.

Given that we all know Shaun Pearson is a loyal, decent chap, his reaction towards Bignot after Wrexham played Chester last season was pretty telling.

I agree. He will never manage in the FL.

Quoted from GollyGTFC

Slade was sacked with us 9 points above the relegation zone. But hey, don't let facts get in the way of the narrative that Slade had us relegated & Jolley came in and saved the day,

Can’t be arsed. Particularly as you used the word “narrative”.

It took Bignot ages to get things going at Solihull. From what I remember, even their fans were wondering what the hell he was doing for the first season or so - and then he hit on the formula and got them promoted (even after losing Bogle to us).

He's clearly a tinkerman. I get the Bignot Bingo thing, it was frustrating to not know who was going to play where, what the hell we were doing sometimes (and there were some dire performances thrown in there before the Donny debacle, like the defeats at Stevenage and Crewe).

But I think it's easy to throw the accusation that he 'didn't know what he was doing' when, I believe, he had some idea. Clearly, he was experimenting. He believed he had the rest of the season to mess around with the squad, test a few players out, etc.

Bignot had a habit of putting out teams that would keep picking up points. Straight after Donny we went and won at Blackpool - a team that got promoted at the end of the season.

I do believe Bignot was a builder - well, more than Slade was - but I agree that the way he went about things and upset the senior players was not wise. Fenty called him a fruit loop but he's never responded to that and it'd be good to know exactly what was said when he was sacked because, as we all know, results alone weren't terrible.

Quoted from GollyGTFC

Slade was sacked with us 9 points above the relegation zone. But hey, don't let facts get in the way of the narrative that Slade had us relegated & Jolley came in and saved the day,

You're forgetting the games in between Slade leaving and jolley joining.be interested to see the table when he did take over. Quite how you think that Slade wouldve kept us up is beyond me

Quoted from mariner91

Given that we all know Shaun Pearson is a loyal, decent chap, his reaction towards Bignot after Wrexham played Chester last season was pretty telling.

What happened? Didn't see anything at the time.

I do remember Pearson being interviewed on RH towards the end of Bignot's tenure about his own future and you could tell something was amiss.

Quoted from GollyGTFC

Slade was sacked with us 9 points above the relegation zone. But hey, don't let facts get in the way of the narrative that Slade had us relegated & Jolley came in and saved the day,

Narrative? It's exactly what happened. With Slade in charge we didn't know where the next shot was coming from, let alone the next win. Jolley transformed the entire atmosphere at the club and without him we'd would 100% be a National League side right now.