PAUL HURST

Good luck to them both.

Quoted from ginnywings

I think the club wanted a style of football that he couldn't produce. He tried and failed, and I think it's as simple as that.

That doesn’t quite ring true with the business acumen the owners are supposed to have to me though. We got hurst in for a reason, steady the ship, get rid of the deadwood, start to build a side capable of moving upwards. If we got relegated, which we obviously did, he’s the man with the experience to get us back up. The promotion came immediately, something JS has gone on record as saying before they planned for. The FA cup run wasn’t planned for, and it provided the club with much needed funds for a squad improvement. But hurst is still the man he is, he’s not going to change his beloved tactics and strategy and if you forced him to that’s your responsibility as his employer. We’ll never know if half the players we got were hursts 1st choice or someone else’s, but it was clear hurst was never a manger destined to do the things he was asked to do, if that’s the case.

Hadn’t realised Hurst had been appointed by Micky Moore, Bignot’s former assistant at Town and now director of football at Shrews. Explains what Bignot was doing there, but always thought Moore came across as a bit of a goon when he was here.

Quoted from AdamHaddock

Good luck PH. I suspect He'll make a move for Andy Smith on loan

too late, he's at Cheltenham

Oops

Quoted from ginnywings

I think the club wanted a style of football that he couldn't produce. He tried and failed, and I think it's as simple as that.

So here's another hypothetical question...

If Hurst had been left to his own devices last summer and not influenced to bring in players perhaps not to his preference nor a remit to install a style of play that's less than favourable to him, would we have parted company with him in November after a terrible run?

On the player front I think there's an argument that he managed to push back on a lot and the majority of those brought in were definitely his choices.  But it's the style of play for me.  It didn't sit well with Hurst and I'm not convinced he really knew how to build a squad to play expressive football.  It's kinda left us in no-mans land a little bit. Under Hurst the squad was probably a bit more than just robustness and keeping shape and didn't know really how to play in a Hurst way.  Now we've got a squad that isn't really good or balanced enough to play the expressive way that Artell wants to play.

We'll never know the answer I guess, but I think Hurst will always get the flack for 'wasting' a good budget. When in reality it's probably not quite as simple as that.

Either way, I wish him the absolute best.  Hope he keeps Shrews up.

Quoted from arryarryarry

Well you obviously didn't watch many matches because up to the end of February from when Hurst took over we played  10 games winning 1 and drawing the other. At the end of February we played one of the worst performances of the season losing at Harrogate and after that game I came on here stating that Hurst would take us down and calling for him to be sacked.

He signed some excrement and a player who probably turned up at the ground on crutches, Habergham.

However you try to mask what happened, he performed worse than Holloway in gaining points per game.

I went through my bank statement after the season was over and counted how many tenners I'd spent watching the whole fiasco so can confirm I watched something like 40 matches.

You point to Habergham as Hurst's worst signing but he wouldn't even have been in the worst five Holloway signings that season. Hurst signed our best player that season in Matete and shored up defence, midfield and attack with experienced/decent players in Menayese, Coke and Lenny. It was a decent window all things considered. The window before was a complete and utter shitshow. This is all before we even get onto the fact that Holloway allowed Vernam to walk away from the club despite us having an option on another year.

Holloway: Bilel Mohsni, Ir Jackson Jr, Montel Gibson, George Williams, Alhagi Touray Sissay, Danny Rose, Felipe Morais, Sean Scannell, Luke Spokes, Danny Preston, Owura Edwards, Terry Taylor, James Morton, Kyle Bennett, Owen Windsor, Virgil Gomis

Hurst: Sam Habergham, Stefan Payne, Joe Bunney, Lennell John-Lewis, Julien Lamy, Giles Coke, Rollin Menayese, Jay Matete, Idris El Mizouni, Joe Adams, Jake Eastwood

I wish him well, and think he's a good manager. Most know here that I was probably one of his bigger supporters at times.

He's clearly made some mistakes, and like any human will hopefully learn from them. He's got many good attributes and I think he's got as much chance of turning it around as not. I think he will, and I think he'll progress from here. Obviously it didn't work out here, and Artell is hopefully the right man for the job now. Sometimes life is weird and doesn't work out the way you expect.

Quoted from Son of Cod

I went through my bank statement after the season was over and counted how many tenners I'd spent watching the whole fiasco so can confirm I watched something like 40 matches.

You point to Habergham as Hurst's worst signing but he wouldn't even have been in the worst five Holloway signings that season. Hurst signed our best player that season in Matete and shored up defence, midfield and attack with experienced/decent players in Menayese, Coke and Lenny. It was a decent window all things considered. The window before was a complete and utter shitshow. This is all before we even get onto the fact that Holloway allowed Vernam to walk away from the club despite us having an option on another year.

Holloway: Bilel Mohsni, Ir Jackson Jr, Montel Gibson, George Williams, Alhagi Touray Sissay, Danny Rose, Felipe Morais, Sean Scannell, Luke Spokes, Danny Preston, Owura Edwards, Terry Taylor, James Morton, Kyle Bennett, Owen Windsor, Virgil Gomis

Hurst: Sam Habergham, Stefan Payne, Joe Bunney, Lennell John-Lewis, Julien Lamy, Giles Coke, Rollin Menayese, Jay Matete, Idris El Mizouni, Joe Adams, Jake Eastwood

That's a really good point.  I think people underestimate how much of a repair job was needed at the time.  I'm sorry but the argument about where we sat in the table when Holloway left doesn't wash with him.  We were rotten to the core and getting worse by the week.  

Hurst, without shadow of doubt, improved that spine.  The four of Menayese, Matete, Coke and Lenny were significant improvements on what we had.  Where Hurst failed was that he didn't really improve anything beyond the spine.  We were still pretty excrement out wide and whilst Lenny did Lenny stuff up top, we weren't very threatening for a long, long time.  

He also, arguably, took too long in making us solid.  There was a crucial few weeks when we looked ready to have a go at teams and try and win games, but he was too focused on avoiding defeats.  The win over Crawley should have been the springboard to really get more wins on the board, but we went to Harrogate four days later and put in one of the most negative displays I've ever seen.  We had to wait exactly another month for the second win under him and even with a little flurry at the end it was too much too late.  

8 games undefeated in the midst of trying to get out of the relegation places, that should be something to be inspired by.  But in reality we only picked 10 points.  At a time when points were crucial.  10 points adrift when we started that undefeated run, yet it only reduced the gap to 7 points when it ended.

The likes of Habergham are always brought up as bad signings.  He literally was out there with his begging bowl trying to get anyone in who would play for 4p and a banana.  Fair enough, he gambled on Payne but that was all he had - a single roll of the dice. Coke and LJL hadn't played for ages because of the NLN closing down, the loan lads had limited game time, the free agents had barely seen the grass in god knows how long.  Those that were here when he arrived were unfit.  The final two months of the season were frantic.  Tuesday-Saturday every week with even a Tues-Thurs-Sat thrown in there.  Our ragtag lot couldn't handle it.  

Could he have done things different?  Definitely.  Could he have done better?  Probably (always room for improvement).  Did he make mistakes? Of course.

But the blame doesn't lie at his feet, the damage was done. He just couldn't do the repair job in time.

Quoted from Son of Cod

I went through my bank statement after the season was over and counted how many tenners I'd spent watching the whole fiasco so can confirm I watched something like 40 matches.

You point to Habergham as Hurst's worst signing but he wouldn't even have been in the worst five Holloway signings that season. Hurst signed our best player that season in Matete and shored up defence, midfield and attack with experienced/decent players in Menayese, Coke and Lenny. It was a decent window all things considered. The window before was a complete and utter shitshow. This is all before we even get onto the fact that Holloway allowed Vernam to walk away from the club despite us having an option on another year.

Holloway: Bilel Mohsni, Ir Jackson Jr, Montel Gibson, George Williams, Alhagi Touray Sissay, Danny Rose, Felipe Morais, Sean Scannell, Luke Spokes, Danny Preston, Owura Edwards, Terry Taylor, James Morton, Kyle Bennett, Owen Windsor, Virgil Gomis

Hurst: Sam Habergham, Stefan Payne, Joe Bunney, Lennell John-Lewis, Julien Lamy, Giles Coke, Rollin Menayese, Jay Matete, Idris El Mizouni, Joe Adams, Jake Eastwood

That you can only name 4 players out of the 11 that were decent, not sure you can complain about Holloway's signings. The first 3 of Hurst's you mentioned were really crap.

Your quote about improving in February doesn't match the facts as below :-

Last 10 games Holloway was in charge = 10 points (he actually achieved in total 19 points from 19 games)

First 10 games Hurst was in charge with Holloway's signings and his own = 4 points.

If we had continued at Holloway's rate of scoring points I believe we would have stayed up with 46 points.