To All Who Think Paul Hurst Should Go

Hurst now has a worse win ratio than Holloway, Bignot and Jolley

All of them managed us in league 2 aswell so Hurst has a season in the national league where we won more than we lost to skew the figures in his favour slightly, but even after that his win ratio is still worse

Quoted from MarinerRob

About 16 months ago Grimsby finished 6th in the National League.

They went on to beat Nott County away from home, and they then went on to beat Wrexham 4-5 - in probably the best playoff game in history - before beating Solihull in the final to gain promotion to League Two.

With a ridiculously short pre-season (about 4 weeks, I think) he built a team to take on League Two.

When the FA Cup came around they were drawn against the highest team possible (Plymouth) and beat them 5-1.
In the second round, they beat Cambridge (in a higher league) 2-1 away from home.
In the third round, they beat Burton (in a higher league) 1-0 at home.
In the fourth round, they were drawn away to Luton (in the playoff places to the Premier League) and drew 2-2. At home, they destroyed them 3-0.
In the fifth round, they beat Southampton (from the Premier League) 2-1
In the quarter-finals, they were drawn against Brighton (who were sitting in 7th place in the Premier League and were beaten 5-0. Brighton team was valued at about £370 million. Grimsby about £2 million.

They are the only team to ever get that far in the FA Cup playing all teams from a higher league.

They then finished 11th in League Two, their highest position for about 20 years.

The person who made all the right decisions in all these games was Paul Hurst.

Yet, now, he is not good enough according to some people. Totally bonkers.

All very good.

But in my job if I was performing as poorly as Hurst’s team has this season given the resources he has I wouldn’t get away with excuses like “well, I did well 16 months ago” or “at least I’m better than all the other numpties doing my job since May 2006”.

The frustration is that for all the celebrated recruitment we’re no better than last season if we’re being generous and if we’re not we’ve gone backwards.

Eastwood & Cartwright are probably better long term prospects than Crocombe, but neither fill anyone with much confidence at the moment.

Rodgers is probably an upgrade on Waterfall at this stage of Luke’s career, but yesterday he was bullied for 90 minutes by Orsi.

Last season we had an issue at left-back but Hurst chose to stick with them.

Central Midfield… we’ve signed an excellent player in Conteh but everyone else who’s been picked is absolutely useless. Holohan & Clifton are very competent at showing great energy & popping up with the odd goal here or there, but they are useless at the nitty gritty of midfield play. i.e. winning their individual battles. The sort of thing that Groves & Disley were so good at in their day. The sort of thing that is the foundation of all successful sides.

I have no idea what’s happened with Hunt. Or why Khouri hasn’t been given a run of consecutive games in central midfield is anyone’s guess (and I would include last season in that too). Neither are going to improve unless they’re given games and have faith shown in them. Hurst seems scared to throw the youngsters into the team.

At we’ve got a huge gaping hole where a striker who can score goals regularly should be. I’m not talking about the fabled 25 goal a season striker either. Just someone who will get to 15 goals would be nice.

Danny Rose is the main man, but the sum of his last 2 seasons in L2 before joining Town was a combined 7 goals from 42 starts & 37 substitute appearances for sides that finished 4th & 2nd.

And then there Rekeil Pyke. He’s started 49 EFL games & came off the bench 74 times and has a grand total of 4 career EFL goals.

It’s hard to judge Donovan Wilson. His goals on loan at Sutton were a massive part of them overhauling Torquay for the NL title in 2021 after joining at the start of March. But 55 L2 starts & 19 appearances off the bench since promotion have yielded just 7 goals.

I think we all consider Rose & Wilson as our 2 main strikers don’t we? Between them in the past 2 seasons they have a combined 14 league goals from 97 starts & 55 substitute appearances.

And we all knew this over the summer. We all hoped Hurst might have unearthed another Amond with little to suggest he’s score loads of goals but would prove to be prolific. But he hasn’t has he? We’re relying on goals from areas of the pitch where you simply can’t rely on enough goals being scored over a prolonged period of time.

And yesterday rubbed salt into the wound. As Orsi scored the winning goal after we tore up his contract over the summer. A player who has a goal threat. A player who is a good finisher and a goal poacher too.

But because he’s not as strong in the air as Taylor or Rose Hurst deemed him not good enough.

I’m not calling for Hurst to go. But at the same time I understand those who believe that. And as far as I’m concerned he’s at the “must do better” stage given the resources he now has as his disposal on and off the pitch.

Orsi did well yesterday, but that was in part because the defence as a unit was so far off form it was ridiculous. Not one of them had a good game even doing just the basic stuff and I think that made Orsi look more of a threat than he generally did for us. I remember him having the odd effective game where he was a handful, but it was followed by games where he was pretty much invisible.

I'd have been OK with him staying with us, but not as a first choice. Our injury problems (and the lack of numbers up front) meant he would have played yesterday, but I can understand Hurst letting him go as he couldn't guarantee fjrdt team football. This doesn't absolve Hurst of the blame for failing to sign enough strikers during the transfer window! I wonder which deals we tried to line up but which fell through?

Pyke was pretty dismal in the first half yesterday and doesn't look like a striker, but he actually played a lot better in the 2nd half and linked up pretty well on a few occasions. Not good enough, but I presume the potential is why we signed him. It does seem a bit of a gamble to try and convert a player to a different position at his age, however.

Let's just hope that yesterday was just an off-day. We've played well enough on various occasions this season to indicate we are a lot better than that performance. Swapping the defence around that much seems a bad idea, however, and it doesn't bode well for Waterfall that he isn't trusted to slot into the middle. Mullarkey was poor in the centre yesterday which doesn't speak well for his supposed flexibility. I can forgive Efete for being a bit off it as he's barely played this season.

Two players let go, who are far better than their replacements, Max Crocombe and Danil Orsi.
Don't forget your comments regarding Orsi, who was playing under Paul Hurst.

I think there's a lot of revisionist history with Orsi. He scored 4 goals last season, yes he worked hard but he wasn't a goal threat in most games he played.

Danny Rose is a much better striker than Orsi in my opinion.

Quoted from bax

I think there's a lot of revisionist history with Orsi. He scored 4 goals last season, yes he worked hard but he wasn't a goal threat in most games he played.

Danny Rose is a much better striker than Orsi in my opinion.

Agree with the first bit.

But Rose didn't replace orsi, he replaced taylor. Orsi was our 3rd choice striker (excluding loans like lloyd) and he was replaced by Pyke. Pyke is not a better striker than orsi, he's worse.

Quoted from bax

I think there's a lot of revisionist history with Orsi. He scored 4 goals last season, yes he worked hard but he wasn't a goal threat in most games he played.

Danny Rose is a much better striker than Orsi in my opinion.

As a striker you won't score many in a Hurst team in the EFL though, will you? We are not exactly free flowing creating loads of chances to miss.

Look at when Orsi scored the winner yesterday.  Lots of his team mates buzzing around the box in the last minute of added time trying to create the chance for him which he stuck away with aplomb. Our defending wasn't very good but I bet he will score a fair few with the right service.

Bored off with his pragmatic, dull football. Worried that Stockwood will give him an easy ride while we watch more turgid crap and accept another year of average players feeding off scraps.

I did sit and wonder if Ryan Taylor would have offered more than Pyke yesterday. What a way to be.

Quoted from MuddyWaters

Bored off with his pragmatic, dull football. Worried that Stockwood will give him an easy ride while we watch more turgid crap and accept another year of average players feeding off scraps.

I did sit and wonder if Ryan Taylor would have offered more than Pyke yesterday. What a way to be.

Remember we are using data for decision making this season. The data won’t be looking good in regards to Paul Hurst at the moment.

Quoted from MuddyWaters

37 actually.

I never was good at maths.