Could we? will we.maybe?..

Just to get away from the Artell stuff for a while I got to thinking...
Could we do a Scunthorpe?(drop 3 levels)
Will we be the next Wrexham?(spend countless years in the cesspit of the NL)
Maybe we'll the next Stevenage?.(stave of relegation and get promoted next season)...

Who knows but this is going to be one long week utmx

I doubt PH will want to do it a third time!

Quoted from 141325

I doubt PH will want to do it a third time!

Doubt it it’s scunnys turn next assuming that he will never darken Ipswich’s door again

Can’t imagine PH return even if he was offered

Never go back, look at Sheff Utd.

Quoted from 141325

I doubt PH will want to do it a third time!

Why would we want him back ? We all seem too quick to forget that the squad he assembled last summer, coupled with his tactics he used this season , led to his demise and the need to bring in another manager. Now I'm not going into the outcome of DA's appointment but to be fair he inherited a limited squad, several of whom were underperforming according to the general consensus on this site. Nearly all the players released by DA in January were classed as " not good enough for our league level " by many posters on here. The replacements may or may not be good enough but they were mostly endorsed by the same posters who wanted new players in those positions. The Conteh situation is a tricky one given that he had a release clause in his contract and his departure was inevitable at some stage. It is a fairly recognised fact that the January transfer window is more of a " sticking plaster" situation as opposed to a major rebuild. Although DA is accountable for the players he brought in here cannot be held responsible for the players he inherited, especially if they were brought in for a plan or playing style in PH's head that obviously DA would not be privy to. Now, I'm not making excuses for DA's playing style or decisions but he had , and I add willingly, inherited players who don't fit into his mind-set or tactical ethos.
I honestly don't know where we go to from here. Sack DA , at some cost, and bring in a new manager who hopefully can get this disfunctional squad into grinding out enough results to ensure Football League status. Obviously if that manager can't then we still get relegated and have less cash to fund a major restructuring of playing staff to play non-league and hopefully bounce back almost straight away. We could sack DA and hope that SP and BD fill in to try to ensure League status and then see what to do in the summer as regards a permanent manager. The last choice is to stick with DA and hope that he can , over our last 15(?) league games, get enough points to ensure we stay up. Whatever decision is taken by the owners, I don't envy them .

Quoted from rancido

Why would we want him back ? We all seem too quick to forget that the squad he assembled last summer, coupled with his tactics he used this season , led to his demise and the need to bring in another manager. Now I'm not going into the outcome of DA's appointment but to be fair he inherited a limited squad, several of whom were underperforming according to the general consensus on this site. Nearly all the players released by DA in January were classed as " not good enough for our league level " by many posters on here. The replacements may or may not be good enough but they were mostly endorsed by the same posters who wanted new players in those positions. The Conteh situation is a tricky one given that he had a release clause in his contract and his departure was inevitable at some stage. It is a fairly recognised fact that the January transfer window is more of a " sticking plaster" situation as opposed to a major rebuild. Although DA is accountable for the players he brought in here cannot be held responsible for the players he inherited, especially if they were brought in for a plan or playing style in PH's head that obviously DA would not be privy to. Now, I'm not making excuses for DA's playing style or decisions but he had , and I add willingly, inherited players who don't fit into his mind-set or tactical ethos.
I honestly don't know where we go to from here. Sack DA , at some cost, and bring in a new manager who hopefully can get this disfunctional squad into grinding out enough results to ensure Football League status. Obviously if that manager can't then we still get relegated and have less cash to fund a major restructuring of playing staff to play non-league and hopefully bounce back almost straight away. We could sack DA and hope that SP and BD fill in to try to ensure League status and then see what to do in the summer as regards a permanent manager. The last choice is to stick with DA and hope that he can , over our last 15(?) league games, get enough points to ensure we stay up. Whatever decision is taken by the owners, I don't envy them .

Great post 👏🏻 it's such a hard decision purely because of money. I don't think many people realise how much it costs all these sackings. I just hoped DA would of kept us up with enthusiasm for next year but it clearly isn't happening.....he should go now but if he wins a couple of games somehow quick he saves the owners a problem. One thing I would say, the owners are getting a lot of grief but if they go F you then we're pulling out....we are even more doomed, who would take over this sh#t show. So be careful what you ask for

Disagree with some of points referencing quality of players and anyway head of recruit influenced decision too so not all accountability sits on PH.

Removing the money factor.

Better chance of remaining in the league with DA or without DA? This is key question right now for me.

Quoted from Blundellite

Great post 👏🏻 it's such a hard decision purely because of money. I don't think many people realise how much it costs all these sackings. I just hoped DA would of kept us up with enthusiasm for next year but it clearly isn't happening.....he should go now but if he wins a couple of games somehow quick he saves the owners a problem. One thing I would say, the owners are getting a lot of grief but if they go F you then we're pulling out....we are even more doomed, who would take over this sh#t show. So be careful what you ask for

It was a great and rational post.  A lot of fans seem to think to fix this is as easy as doing a restart on a crashed laptop.  Not one of the decisions mentioned would guarantee success (us staying up).

Quoted from 141325

Disagree with some of points referencing quality of players and anyway head of recruit influenced decision too so not all accountability sits on PH.

Removing the money factor.

Better chance of remaining in the league with DA or without DA? This is key question right now for me.

The Head of Recruitment identifies players that fit a required position but the final decision rests with the manager. This is the same as a HR Manager at a large company who advertises for a given position. He screens through the applicants, gets a short list and then interviews the selected applicants in conjunction with the Head of Department for the required position. The final decision rests with the Head of Department.

Quoted from rancido

The Head of Recruitment identifies players that fit a required position but the final decision rests with the manager. This is the same as a HR Manager at a large company who advertises for a given position. He screens through the applicants, gets a short list and then interviews the selected applicants in conjunction with the Head of Department for the required position. The final decision rests with the Head of Department.

Whoever is responsible it hasn't worked very well.

Quoted from arryarryarry

Whoever is responsible it hasn't worked very well.

Yes and he was sacked.

There are so many variables in football that it's virtually impossible to guarantee a signing will work out.

Let's say we sign someone purely on data (and let's not kid ourselves; data is just 2024's way of saying 'they're good on paper' — football isn't played on paper, or on Excel spreadsheets).

The data analyst does their job in identifying a player who we think is undervalued in the market. He's available, he agrees terms, he signs.

Turns out he's fragile. Doesn't like being away from home, can't make friends or get on with teammates; he becomes quiet, reclusive and can't perform anywhere close to the potential that his data suggested.

Maybe he performs well in a strong team, but joins an underperforming team where the players around him aren't good enough to sustain the data he's achieved.

Without turning this into a data discussion (again), I think it can be useful but let's keep it in perspective. Recruitment should be done with proper old-fashioned scouting, and by getting to know the player on a human level to know they'll fit the dynamics of your current squad.

Data can aid the shortlist but in my mind it should be 5-10% accountable; the other 90-95% of recruitment should be based on human decisions, not cold and sterile data that cannot measure the mental strength of an individual.

We really made a mess of recruitment this summer. Well, Rose was a great signing and solved the main problem we had last season. I thought Eisa, Vernam and Wilson were all decent signings. Conteh's made us money.

So while it's easy to say recruitment was bad as a whole, it's only really the defensive side of recruitment that PH got badly wrong. Rodgers, Mullarkey and the goalkeepers are not an upgrade on what we had. In midfield, Andrews has offered nothing, Khouri continues to be kept out of the side despite being 21 now, and Clifton's form has plummeted.

Quoted from Blundellite

Great post 👏🏻 it's such a hard decision purely because of money. I don't think many people realise how much it costs all these sackings. I just hoped DA would of kept us up with enthusiasm for next year but it clearly isn't happening.....he should go now but if he wins a couple of games somehow quick he saves the owners a problem. One thing I would say, the owners are getting a lot of grief but if they go F you then we're pulling out....we are even more doomed, who would take over this sh#t show. So be careful what you ask for

I am sure they said early on when they left they would want their investment back in the same way JF did, so I would doubt they would just walk away without that.

Quoted from Blundellite

Great post 👏🏻 it's such a hard decision purely because of money. I don't think many people realise how much it costs all these sackings. I just hoped DA would of kept us up with enthusiasm for next year but it clearly isn't happening.....he should go now but if he wins a couple of games somehow quick he saves the owners a problem. One thing I would say, the owners are getting a lot of grief but if they go F you then we're pulling out....we are even more doomed, who would take over this sh#t show. So be careful what you ask for

We're in the realms of history repeating itself here - sacking, appointment, failure is very much the stuff of the previous owner.

None of us know what happened to the FA Cup money, the money accrued from recent transfer windfalls or even  the money from promotion before that. As someone else has said, 1878 would want their investment back - I don't see them getting it until things improve and I don't see them improving fast enough under Artell. In fact, I think it would take us to go down and rebuild before it did and I don't imagine anyone wants us to go down.

Quoted from rancido

The Conteh situation is a tricky one given that he had a release clause in his contract and his departure was inevitable at some stage. It is a fairly recognised fact that the January transfer window is more of a " sticking plaster" situation as opposed to a major rebuild. Although DA is accountable for the players he brought in here cannot be held responsible for the players he inherited, especially if they were brought in for a plan or playing style in PH's head that obviously DA would not be privy to. Now, I'm not making excuses for DA's playing style or decisions but he had , and I add willingly, inherited players who don't fit into his mind-set or tactical ethos.

I was gutted when Conteh left, my instinctive reaction was it could drop us into a relegation scrap because I felt the remainder of our central midfield (as we are seeing) isn't really league two competitive.  I understand the release clause was probably the only way we got him to put pen to paper, just a shame we couldn't restrict it to activating from summer 2024 onwards - having to replace a key player mid-year is a big ask.

I have a lot of sympathy for DA on that front, I think with Conteh in the building, it would have been a much steadier ride through to the summer at which point DA could overhaul the squad.  I guess there's a little less sympathy in that our other signings don't seem to have shored up the defence, maybe they'll come good - I sure hope so.

It looks like the Board are choosing to "stick" and I hope they are proven right -  but if DA does keep us up - without a major upturn, the current run will make it harder for him to convince other players to sign in the summer.   It's hard to be optimistic about much atm - I'd hoped these kinds of days had left with Fenty.  

You would think reading this thread that nobody ever recruited anyone without data.

Personally I have recruited dozens of people where data is not easily available.

I can’t think of any of my recruits were wrong, but none of them were football coaches.

Quoted from grimsbybrown

I'd hoped these kinds of days had left with Fenty.  

I know - sigh

PH’s summer recruitment was not great but our transfer activity in January was absolutely abysmal and in reality there is not one of the players brought in that looks like an improvement on what we already had in place. Left back is ok but not sure he’s any better than Glennon and certainly his dead ball delivery is nowhere near as good.

Given the Recruitment Manager was also responsible for the initial sifting of managerial applicants I have serious concerns about his judgement!!

Quoted from Lincoln Mariner 56

PH’s summer recruitment was not great but our transfer activity in January was absolutely abysmal and in reality there is not one of the players brought in that looks like an improvement on what we already had in place. Left back is ok but not sure he’s any better than Glennon and certainly his dead ball delivery is nowhere near as good.

Given the Recruitment Manager was also responsible for the initial sifting of managerial applicants I have serious concerns about his judgement!!

I think it’s less about the left back than the defensive ability of the player in front who very rarely tracks back.

Quoted from Lincoln Mariner 56

PH’s summer recruitment was not great but our transfer activity in January was absolutely abysmal and in reality there is not one of the players brought in that looks like an improvement on what we already had in place. Left back is ok but not sure he’s any better than Glennon and certainly his dead ball delivery is nowhere near as good.

Given the Recruitment Manager was also responsible for the initial sifting of managerial applicants I have serious concerns about his judgement!!

Is it really the Recruitment Managers fault? All he's doing is coming up with a long list which is whittled down. Everyone always says January is quite hard anyway. I doubt there was that many realistic options. In retrospect we should have waited until 50 points or the summer before making big changes.

Quoted from GrimRob

Is it really the Recruitment Managers fault? All he's doing is coming up with a long list which is whittled down. Everyone always says January is quite hard anyway. I doubt there was that many realistic options. In retrospect we should have waited until 50 points or the summer before making big changes.

By what we’ve seen so far I can then only assume he prepared a very long list and these guys were on page four.

Quoted from GrimRob

Is it really the Recruitment Managers fault? All he's doing is coming up with a long list which is whittled down. Everyone always says January is quite hard anyway. I doubt there was that many realistic options. In retrospect we should have waited until 50 points or the summer before making big changes.

If he comes up with the long list, one would assume those we signed were on it so you do have to ask how some of them even made the list.

Quoted from grimsbybrown

I was gutted when Conteh left, my instinctive reaction was it could drop us into a relegation scrap because I felt the remainder of our central midfield (as we are seeing) isn't really league two competitive.  I understand the release clause was probably the only way we got him to put pen to paper, just a shame we couldn't restrict it to activating from summer 2024 onwards - having to replace a key player mid-year is a big ask.

I have a lot of sympathy for DA on that front, I think with Conteh in the building, it would have been a much steadier ride through to the summer at which point DA could overhaul the squad.  I guess there's a little less sympathy in that our other signings don't seem to have shored up the defence, maybe they'll come good - I sure hope so.

It looks like the Board are choosing to "stick" and I hope they are proven right -  but if DA does keep us up - without a major upturn, the current run will make it harder for him to convince other players to sign in the summer.   It's hard to be optimistic about much atm - I'd hoped these kinds of days had left with Fenty.  

The money we make from Conteh will be chicken feed compared to the cost of relegation. His departure worried me. He must have been desparate to get away. A Bristol Rovers side treading water mid table in League One is not a great move for his career. But maybe he and his agent saw the shitshow coming.

Hopefully, both the full-backs brought in last month will come good. Both have a reasonable pedigree and you'd hope that they will improve. That said, the bigger issue at the moment is the dysfunctional midfield in front of them. That's the biggest area of concern at the moment. Thompson also has a good pedigree and should theoretically make a decent replacement for Conteh, but it's a problem if he's only going to be fit 50% of the time.