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Michael Jolley and the 3rd round of the Cups.

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mariner91
January 10, 2022, 12:17am
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Quoted from toontown


Our direction before he was appointed was one way only - relegation. He saved us that season, replacing Berrett (?) With clifton gave meant we weren't playing every game with effectively 10 men. He also identified that mitch rosehad a long throw that was quite useful, something slade hadn't deduced in about a year. In fact was mitch rose on pens before he arrived or was it hooper, I think it was. Yet rose probably had the consistently best penalty of any player I've ever seen for Town. That was how idle and lazy slade had become.

I actually think by the end jolley wa a poor manager, the movement under him was dreadful and I can well believe the rumour that even in possession players were told to mark the opposition. But he was still a big improvement on slade and kept us up that first season. Deserved to get sacked when he did tho and not a good manager, just not as woefully incompetent as slade mk2 who would have had us relegated.


I think this hits the nail on the head. There is no doubt that we were going down under Slade. No we weren't in the relegation spots yet but the team was just awful, I was at the last game at Crawley and just couldn't see how a team that bad would have any chance of staying up. We'd not won in two months having played 12 games, losing eight and only managing four goals whilst conceding 21. When Jolley came in it took a while before things started to turn around. However, just by doing the basics such as having some sort of shape and a vague plan, we managed to actually start competing and it eventually turned into enough points to keep us up. Yes there were some huge slices of luck such as the inexplicable handball by the Chesterfield defender and the "foul" on Harry Cardwell that wasn't anywhere near the penalty area but you only get these slices of luck if you're actually in the game, which we would never have been had Slade stayed.

That home game against Notts County we actually played very, very well and were significantly better than a team that almost got automatic promotion. Going in to the new season I was really optimistic about Jolley and our chances. He'd managed to get a tune out of a bunch of losers and implemented a simple but effective system that got the most out of the few strengths the squad had. If he could do that with a squad as bad as Slade had assembled, then surely he could do even better with his own signings? Wrong. He spent the entire pre-season preparing the team to play 3-5-2 without signing a single player capable of playing as a wing back. To say that this preparation and planning was a disaster would be an understatement, it is literally the basics of putting a team together to make sure that the players you have are capable of playing the system you want to play and if not then you find a system that they are capable of implementing. The first game at home to Forest Green was abysmal and it didn't get much better from there winning only one of the first ten games and losing seven. We also didn't really have a properly fit and decent centre forward for most of the first few months as Wes Thomas was signed very late in the transfer window and Louis Robles was complete shite. Throughout the season there were a couple of good spells but there was also large barren periods where we'd be winless for quite a while and we just never really got going.

The next season we started really well thanks in no small part to a purple patch of form for James Hanson. The first few games we were getting the ball forward and wide and whipping the ball in to Hanson who, despite being past his best, was still a beast in the air. Then all of a sudden it just stopped. We just started hoofing the ball forward aimlessly towards Hanson with no runners beyond on or people getting close to him to pick up any knock downs or second balls. Once teams worked out that putting two men on Hanson completely nullified our attack, we were finished. I can quite believe that the players were told to mark their opposite number when we had throw ins because the lack of any sort of movement or attacking structure was farcical. The only real blip in the poor run was away at Exeter who were flying where Hanson was dropped and a forward three of Rose, Wright and Ogbu caused major problems with direct running and balls into Ogbu's feet for people to play off. But showing once again that he never really understood how or why things did or didn't work, Hanson was back in for the next game and we were shite for the last three games before he left.

I think someone mentioned that Jolley lived off the win against Malmo and the video that he did about it. This result and the explanation, plus his qualifications, have led people to believe that he really knew his stuff but in reality there were many examples whilst managing us that would lead you to think he had very little clue tactically. That win against Malmo worked because although they were a bigger club with better players, they were still only playing in the Swedish top division and no offence to that league but it's awful so the standard wasn't particularly high. The idea behind it was that they went man for man marking other than one of the centre backs who was particularly poor on the ball and who would then gave it away as he tried to get further up the pitch and was then punished on the counter. And it worked a charm and the video is very well explained.

However, he then tried the same trick against  a Chelsea team where 6 of the starting 10 outfield players were in the match day squad that won the Champions League less than two years later as well as an England international in Ross Barkley and Pedro who has won literally everything there is to win in world football. Clearly the gulf in physical and technical ability between two teams in the Swedish top division was going to be much, much smaller than the huge gulf between L2 players and a team full of Champions League winners so nobody in their right mind would think that a Town player could go man for man against world class opposition and come out on top right? Well Jolley did and the result was we were annihilated. We had no shape, no structure and the defence parted like the Red Sea at times. Yes Town were always up against it facing that sort of opposition but the tactics or lack of them were laughable and embarrassing. It would also suggest that he didn't fully understand how or why it had worked against Malmo. Just as he didn't understand what personnel or characteristics it would require to successfully implement playing with wing backs or that if you have James Hanson in your team you need to get crosses in from high up the pitch for him to attack or to get runners off and around him if you're looking to play it direct.

He wasn't a bad bloke and he definitely stopped us from going down in 2018 but after that his management was generally poor bar the odd run of good form scattered amongst many long winless runs. His disastrous spell at Barrow and the fact he's only managed seven games in over two years are testament to the fact he wasn't really up to it.


Looking forward to a brighter future now Fenty has gone.
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Kris2
January 10, 2022, 7:20am
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Quoted from Abdul19
AB III left us with Matt Heywood as captain, so he can't possibly have left us in better shape!


As much as I love Alan he really had a bad run in his last spell. Failed to save us from the rot and signed some really rubbish players, he could argue he wasn't supported but I think he just lacked the knowledge and contacts in football that he had in the past. He'd also been out of management for a couple of years at that point so seemed a little out of his depth taking the job. The likes of Matt Heywood, Richard Hope, Chris Llewellyn, Jamie Clarke, Nathan Jarman who was overweight and not even fit when we signed him.
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lukeo
January 10, 2022, 7:53am
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Quoted from jamesgtfc


Slade Mk II on the other hand...

Going through the managers I've experienced:

Alan Buckley Mk II - ✅
Lennie Lawrence - ❌
Paul Groves - ❌
Nicky Law - ❌
Russell Slade Mk I - ✅
Graham Rodger - ❌
Alan Buckley Mk III - ✅
Mike Newell - ❌
Neil Woods - ❌
Rob Scott & Paul Hurst - ✅
Paul Hurst Mk I- ✅
Marcus Bignot - ❌
Russell Slade Mk II - ❌
Michael Jolley - ✅
Ian Holloway - ❌
Paul Hurst Mk II - TBC but currently ❌

I don't think I've forgotten any but 16 managers since 1997!

Buckley Mk III was a tough one. The joint management of Rob Scott and Paul Hurst got into the play offs which was an improvement on 11th under Woods (finished by them) and then their own 11th placed finish.


You're obviously around my age and I'd agree with all of that. Although, you have to sympathies with Lennie Lawrence. Screwed over with hardly any budget against teams with 5 times if not more of a wage bill than ours.. Plus I have to say he's given me the 2nd best ever experience following the Mariners.
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Maringer
January 10, 2022, 8:17am
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For the Buckley Mk III spell, I seem to recall that he'd not even been to a match in the couple of years before he was offered the job! At least that's what I think I read somewhere! Lack of contacts and knowledge of players would have been sadly lacking. We did have some good runs during that spell but ultimately the signings weren't nearly good enough.

Regarding Jolley, I've heard that he was needlessly unpleasant to the non-playing staff at the club and so was widely disliked. Can't see any reason why he would need to take such an approach. Perhaps just not dealing with the stress of the job very well.
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jamesgtfc
January 10, 2022, 8:56am
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Quoted from lukeo


You're obviously around my age and I'd agree with all of that. Although, you have to sympathies with Lennie Lawrence. Screwed over with hardly any budget against teams with 5 times if not more of a wage bill than ours.. Plus I have to say he's given me the 2nd best ever experience following the Mariners.


I'm 32 so although I went before Buckley Mk II, it's all just a blur.

Lennie Lawrence is definitely on the harsh side and I agree there are mitigating circumstances there that meant he was never going to leave us in a better position.

Buckley Mk III was a very tough one too because you can definitely argue he left us in a worse state. He gave us Wembley in 2008 but left us with Heywood etc although we weren't going anywhere under the short management of Rodger that preceded him.

I don't think any of the others are really up for debate. I recall saying we were in freefall under Slade around Christmas when we were just outside the play offs. Fans of other clubs thought I was mad and whilst Jolley only did enough, it didn't look like Slade was going to do enough. The signings of Andrew Fox (rejected by Slade at the beginning of the season) and Gary McSheffrey were the only signings Jolley made to our hopeless team.

A lot of managers had disagreements with Fenty but Jolley has managed 3 clubs and had public disagreements with the board at all 3. There comes a point when you need to look in the mirror and ask yourself "Am I the problem?" and in the case of Jolley, it looks like he is.
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diehardmariner
January 10, 2022, 12:04pm
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Buckley MkIII - Very tough one to call.

He inherited something quite poor.  Yes a team that 5 months before had come within a blatant penalty away and a Marc Goodfellow open goal away from promotion, yet had been ripped apart over that summer. The core was gone and what remained was injured, mainly.

He did improve the side initially, Peter Till and Martin Paterson were great additions.  He blooded the likes of Danny North and Andy Taylor, pairing them up well with Gary Jones.  But he left us with a really, really poor squad.  I'd argue that he inherited a better team than he left with, although how much of that was down to budgets I don't know.  Heywood, Hope, Llewellyn were all quite poor summer signings.  Butler was a farce of a signing too, almost one last desperate throw of the dice that backfired.  The Wembley run masked an awful end to that season.

Really controversially, did Buckley Mk II leave us in a worse position than what he inherited?  Obviously there was a division of difference. Buckley returned in summer '97 with a side just relegated from the second flight, leaving three years later with a side in the second tier.

The side that he built during those three years, especially the first two years was fantastic, that's not up for debate.  But he did inherit a quite decent side to start with, definitely a strong nucleus.  The side relegated in 96/97 should never have even come close to going down.  Injury robbed it of its best defender and it never really replaced the leader in Paul Groves and goalkeeper in Paul Crichton.  But it still should have had enough to stay up.  Alas, it didn't.

But Buckley inherited a very good side, to the point that the defence wasn't added to for the whole of the promotion season (arguably Dave Smith playing the odd game there after his January signing).  McDermott, Handyside, Lever, Gallimore.  The defence that we got relegated with was the mainstay of the side that got promoted with very decent cup runs too.  

The sale of Oster and Mendonca was a blow but it gave Buckley a massive warchest that allowed him to bring in absolutely key additions like Aidan Davison, Groves, Kev Donovan and Lee Nogan.  Then later the likes of Smith and Wayne Burnett.  A decent squad with a sizeable transfer budget in place to use as he saw fit.  He also inherited a quite blossoming youth set-up that he utilised quite considerably in his first year, definitely in the second year.  Jack Lester had not long broken through whilst Daryl Clare and Danny Butterfield were on the edge of breaking through, Matty Bloomer and Ben Chapman too.  Whilst they had collective varying successes, it helped develop his squad.

When he left, the side was pretty poor and probably heading out that division.  Quite clearly there was some problems between him and the board and that was reflected in the sales of his main strikers (Lester and Ashcroft) with what appeared to be a lack of reinvestment.  That summer also saw the departure of Mark Lever who had become a bedrock of the side.  The likes of Burnett and Donovan failed to recapture the consistency, fitness and form of 1997/98, Groves was slowly coming to the end of his career and we had very, very little goal threat.  My stand out memory of the final stages of the final few months of his last full season was the loan signing of Mark Nicholls to solve the striking problem, ultimately he proved useless and the return of Daryl Clare to side was a major boost.  Yet this was Clare who ultimately went onto prove his natural ceiling was the National Conference.  That summed up just how toothless we had become.  The summer recruits of Michael Jeffrey and Paul Raven were downgrades (again probably reflected the budget) and ultimately meant that when Lennie Lawrence took over he inherited a quite poor, ageing squad that lacked any pace, power or physical presence.  Hence the mass recruitment from all four corners of the globe that followed.

I'm not sure when it happened but the final year or so under Buckley he seemed so reluctant to unleash the shackles.  Lester had large spells when he was on the bench when the game was crying out for him, Alan Pouton was sparingly used for large periods when he had the natural energy and spark that we lacked.
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TAGG
January 10, 2022, 1:26pm

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He kept us in the league with a bunch of dross. Better than Hursts efforts.
Shame the pressure got to him.


In his three stints as Grimsby Town manager spanning over 10 years the club was never relegated and he also guided them to three promotions.
Only 14 managers have reached 1,000 matches in charge of a Football League team by 1998 and Buckley is one of them.
GOD
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