If Artell does stay...

Just thinking about what would happen if Artell eeks out the season in about the same position we are now, say finishing about 21st .

The situation with the squad will be that we are still stuck with Eastwood as backup keeper and Cartwright will go back to hull. Probably a good thing as we can get a keeper who is good with his feet to play the Artell way, and hope that he doesn't get injured.

At CB mahers contract is up and surely it won't be renewed, he's been okish at the back when played properly and with a good partner but looks awful now (albeit better than Rodgers). So no loss for Artell's needs, he will want his own CB in which should help us.

However we then have Rodgers on a 2 year contract who is hopeless at the way Artell wants to play, and is probably on fairly big wages as we paid a fee for him I think. So we are stuck with him and his burden on the budget despite being likely 3rd choice.
Then we have Tharme, we've paid a fee for him and he will still have 2 years on his probably generous contract. Only seen 1 game from him, hopefully better than Rodgers but I don't think he's the ball playing CB Artell wants from his first display - Artell didn't seem to think so in his interview! The Gab Sutton bloke didn't seem to think either. Anyway he'll be staying with us.
Mullarkey still has a year on his contract so will have to be paid off if he isn't going to be 4th CB/2nd choice RB. But as he's likely gonna be reserve and not play do you want to spend budget to release him. Probably not.
So in other words we are unlikely to have the sort of CB pairing that Artell needs for his style of football because I can't see us having the budget next year for paying off multiple CBs AND paying top dollar for 2 ballers in that position.

So even if he keeps us up I think the best we can hope for is more months of struggle for him to get his ideas across, as he himself has said will be the case. Not a very appealing prospect for ST renewals, which itself makes the task harder.

Quoted from toontown

Just thinking about what would happen if Artell eeks out the season in about the same position we are now, say finishing about 21st .

The situation with the squad will be that we are still stuck with Eastwood as backup keeper and Cartwright will go back to hull. Probably a good thing as we can get a keeper who is good with his feet to play the Artell way, and hope that he doesn't get injured.

At CB mahers contract is up and surely it won't be renewed, he's been okish at the back when played properly and with a good partner but looks awful now (albeit better than Rodgers). So no loss for Artell's needs, he will want his own CB in which should help us.

However we then have Rodgers on a 2 year contract who is hopeless at the way Artell wants to play, and is probably on fairly big wages as we paid a fee for him I think. So we are stuck with him and his burden on the budget despite being likely 3rd choice.
Then we have Tharme, we've paid a fee for him and he will still have 2 years on his probably generous contract. Only seen 1 game from him, hopefully better than Rodgers but I don't think he's the ball playing CB Artell wants from his first display - Artell didn't seem to think so in his interview! The Gab Sutton bloke didn't seem to think either. Anyway he'll be staying with us.
Mullarkey still has a year on his contract so will have to be paid off if he isn't going to be 4th CB/2nd choice RB. But as he's likely gonna be reserve and not play do you want to spend budget to release him. Probably not.
So in other words we are unlikely to have the sort of CB pairing that Artell needs for his style of football because I can't see us having the budget next year for paying off multiple CBs AND paying top dollar for 2 ballers in that position.

So even if he keeps us up I think the best we can hope for is more months of struggle for him to get his ideas across, as he himself has said will be the case. Not a very appealing prospect for ST renewals, which itself makes the task harder.

Regarding Tharme I have rarely been less impressed with a player on his debut.

How on earth we managed to pay a fee and give him a decent contract is beyond me. He didn't seem to have anything about him at all.

If I'm wrong I will happily eat humble pie but I just can't see the attraction at all when we needed an experienced grizzly organiser at the back.

I actually thought Tharme looked ok. Definitely no worse than our current useless centre backs.

Quoted from davmariner

I actually thought Tharme looked ok. Definitely no worse than our current useless centre backs.

But did he stand out as the ball playing CB Artell's game plan requires for success? I don't think so.

Quoted from davmariner

I actually thought Tharme looked ok. Definitely no worse than our current useless centre backs.

No worse than the current useless centre backs? Exactly.  He was just as bad!

When the new owners came in one of the many things they said they wanted to deliver that hasn’t happened was that they wanted to see more stability in the club with players on longer contracts etc etc . Since then we have had the biggest revolving door of personnel imaginable with virtually all back room staff replaced most of their replacements havent stayed whether CEO commercial managers media staff or myriad of other roles. Including the transition season when Hurst came in half way through with the new owners hanging back to the season end to sign up so they were not tarnished with relegation around 80 players have pulled on a black and white shirt many of which have already been completly forgotten . Out of that 80 I would say no more then 20 are competent EFL players who could expect to regularly play at this level and many of those have gone or are over the hill The only continuity is the fans. If we do go down how many on the staff will really care or will they just put it down to another short period somewhere that didn’t work out. I certainly don’t see anybody on the pitch who appears to care much . What goes on behind closed doors who knows

Quoted from lew chaterleys lover

Regarding Tharme I have rarely been less impressed with a player on his debut.

How on earth we managed to pay a fee and give him a decent contract is beyond me. He didn't seem to have anything about him at all.

If I'm wrong I will happily eat humble pie but I just can't see the attraction at all when we needed an experienced grizzly organiser at the back.

Fair enough, but he had an hour!!! Let’s see, shall we…..

Quoted from Heisenberg

Fair enough, but he had an hour!!! Let’s see, shall we…..

He was pretty good, calm,assured. We were looser at the back when he was off through injury.
He threw two huge throws into their box, better than most of our hopeless crosses. And he scored.
Yeah, all time unimpressive debut.

I read through previous threads on the Crewe forum about Artell and there were many posts about how awful his recruitment was after the talented homegrown players were sold.
Given how awful our own recruitment has been , Conteh apart, this doesn’t bode well for the future.
I’ve been a big supporter of the new owners , but it does make you wonder what’s gone on behind the scenes.
PH seemed to sign more technical players and tried to change the playing style but when it didn’t work and he reverted to his default mode he didn’t have the players to do it. Now we’re stuck with a mish mash of players who don’t seem to gel as any sort of team and a manager who thinks he’s the next Pep, refusing to change his style even though it’s blindingly obvious to all the fans and probably the players as well, that it’s not working.

Quoted from lew chaterleys lover

No worse than the current useless centre backs? Exactly.  He was just as bad!

It’s a point I’ve been making on other threads, and it’s obviously bugging me, but what improvement has there been in our transfer dealings since the appointment of a Recruitment Manager? To date there has been one obvious success, Conteh, not one other player, IMO, has looked an improvement on what we had before. I exclude Rose from this as he is an experienced and well known player who PH and his staff would have been well aware of prior to his signing.