Paul Hurst

Quoted from golfer

We've got to talk about something P.P.-had nothing to talk about for such a long time.

I somehow managed to delete my post...technology....

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

That is all perfectly true. It is also true that Scunthorpe's manager(s) this season had a top ten budget despite Swann cutting back. Down they come. Budgets are not everything. Norwich are going up on a shoestring. Huddersfield come down on the same. It just doesn't work consistently. You need luck and you need some clever management of your squad in terms of teamwork and playing systems to keep overachieving. To me Hurst played the percentages far too much and was too easily satisfied with a point when two were more than possible. In fact he was doing what you say here, taking the club's position relative to its budget as success when success would have been exceeding expectations.

I also think he is easily frightened. He had Shrewsbury at the top of L1 for a while and in the automatic places for a while longer but seemed to get scared of continuing the play that got them there and went back to his old ways and lost games against the relegation fodder sides. The Shrews fans posted about this a few times as the season came to an end and then they lost in the playoffs. It surprised me that Ipswich took the gamble on him.

Now I think he has been found out as a "nearly manager" so he has to reinvent himself somewhere. It will be interesting to see where and if he carries on with the same conservative system. If he goes to Scunny he ought to get them back up according to the budget theory, but it won't be with free flowing footie and a Luton style charge at the top of the table. It will be the hard way, crawling through the playoffs.

I think this is absolutely bob-on and I alluded to several of these points in my post. When you look at the calibre of players we had in the year we were promoted, and to a lesser extent, in the years previous, you wonder how Hurst was always about trying to sneak us up through the play offs, playing the percentages and needing luck. We never made a proper assault on auto promotion, and I believe that Hurst's conservative, predictable philosophy was the reason for that. That's why I'd had enough of him by the time he went. Some of those players he signed went on to play at a higher level - Bogle, Amond, Nolan, Toto, Rodman, Tait, Shop, Arnold, Palmer etc and yet he still managed to make his teams scratch around looking for points, playing it conservative, lacking the drive and the confidence that we should have had to take games to lowly opposition and crush them.
After six years of playing this game I was sick of it. Some of those teams we lost to or failed to beat in that period were entirely down to tactical weaknesses and small time management thinking. Keeping it tight, making sure we didn't lose etc. Look at the mess he made of the last part of the season we were promoted......with those players! We should have smashed it, not hung in there hoping for some luck.

Sure he finally got us promoted, and thanks, but boy did he make hard work of it, and not without a huge amount of luck. I hate that kind of management style. I know he got us into contention, but every year I felt his restricted, conservative thinking held us back. He never projected confidence, ambition, a winners mentality. The year we lost to Bristol Rovers in the play off final he spoke like a loser before the game. An underdog. A man with low expectations and low ambition. That projected, and it influenced the result and it contrasted with how their manager set his stall out. I'd had enough by then. Sure, he finally got us promoted with a large slice of luck but he should have made a much better job of it with those players.

Quoted from Mrs Doyle

This will not be popular with many but give Fenty his due he stuck by him until he fulfilled his mantle.

And then he left, strongly insinuating that the main reason was Fenty failing to honour commitments he'd made about backroom staff. I'm sure it's not true that we were just trying to cut immediate cost with no foresight or aspiration to see the bigger picture but that's what he suggested.....

Quoted from RonMariner

Like him or loath him, just look at the players he brought to the club when we were non league....

The Shop
Toto
Nolan
Podge
Bogle
Tait
Magnay
Rodman
Roberson

You have to admit he has a pretty good eye for a player.

There's a longer list of forgotten about shite players.

He was one shirt pull away from leaving anyway. One shirt pull. Despite everything.

Despite what I've said about him, I don't blame him for leaving. He had no resource to work with once we'd made it back to the EFL. Cr@p facilities, no staff etc....

Hurst did sign some good players. Fair play to him for that. You just knew that the budget was turd when you saw us turning out that God awful midfield of Berrett and Summerfield.

Summerfield ok.

Berrett omfg

Toto

Has he been appointed yet, I expected by page 10 to have news.

He’s like the ex girlfriend that you want to forget but deep down you can’t  

Cdajatl