Goalkeepers and Clean Sheets

Richard Hughes was an odd one as I remember him looking OK for us, but nothing more, so I was amazed when he went on to play regularly in Portsmouth's Premier League side at the time.

Yeah same, I thought he was just ok.  A Steady Eddie type, but clearly had something more about him to go onto a very decent career with Portsmouth.  I think the bulk of his spell here might have coincided a bit with when the bottom fell out a for us.  Once John Oster's second loan spell ended, we only picked up 2 points from our final 9 games.  Hughes scoring only one of the four goals in that spell as well.

Put it this way, he was better than Chris Bolder.

Whereas Michael Keane seemed to be a complete psycho who was likely to get sent off at any minute, possibly headbutting the referee before heading down the tunnel.

I always have massive regret about the way Groves left the club, but I suppose his subsequent record proved that he wasn't really up to the task as a manager. Such a fantastic player for us, however.

By all accounts an excellent coach though.

His record isn't great, no two ways of looking at it.  Even with the Great Escape here we were quite poor at first under him and then the following 20 months after it wasn't great.  02/03 as a season was a bit of a free hit really.  We didn't have a pot to urine in and were always heading down.

Season after we should have done better.  He seemed to put together a decent squad that just never clicked.  I always felt he became a bit obsessed with needing to sign a 'big man' and just brought in a wave of journeymen No 9's who were completely ineffective, it took until Graham Rodger took over and brought Lee Thorpe in who gave us what we had lacked.  Just a big, unselfish and powerful striker.  Not perfect but worked well with those around him.  

Still feel that dressing room let him down though.  They were the ones putting in the excrement and half-arsed displays.  But part of management is getting the best out of players.  

At Bournemouth his side that started the season only picks up 8 points from the first 11 games before he's sacked, they then go onto drop just 24 points for the rest of the season under Eddie Howe (missing out on the League One title by a single point).  Howe did bring back Brett Pittman who wasn't far off a goal a game but the core of the squad was one Howe inherited, again though you've got to get the best out of players.

Ultimately I don't he wasn't right for management.  But his credit as a player more than bails his reputation out and I think most accept that the task at hand was nearly impossible.  The circling of the drain had started.