Artell deserves credit

Quoted from pontoonlew

The levels of abuse he got in the weeks he was clearly getting to grips with things was ridiculous. He’s shown himself to be a very tactical astute manager over the past 5 games, we seem to be easing our way into playing a bit of football again at times as well.

I’d say the signs are positive for next season.

I thought he showed naivety in trying to change things straight away and it comes to something when the players have to tell him why it's going wrong.

A great battling performance last night but I am still to be convinced that he will lead us to better things.

One Swallow or two as the saying goes but we may have turned the corner.

Quoted from promotion plaice

Massive 3 points tonight.

Artell seems to have finally turned things around, we might just escape relegation the way it's going.

He's taken plenty of stick on here so credit where its due.

I agree, he’s certainly sorted your defence out it seems.

Pressure now definitely on the Cowley brothers down in Essex, as FGR are also turning things around under Cotterill.

Quoted from Lincoln Mariner 56

Didn’t Michael Beale get some in his first game at Sunderland? He was hardly backed by the fans and performances and results were nowhere as bad as Towns. Most football fans are the same and I honestly believe that the criticism was more vitriolic as we have gone out the league twice in recent memory and those results in January suggested strongly that we were on for a hat trick.

Still not safe but things look much better thankfully.

Beale did and it was embarrassing and ridiculous. It was a crazy appointment but we've had a lot of them over the last decade and more. Beale should never have got the job but to be subjected to such vile abuse during his first match in charge was indefensible. As I wrote in the post you quoted "football fans at every club make their minds up so quickly these days" but an hour into his first game was extreme.

I ended up feeling a bit sorry for Mick Beale, It was the powers-that-be at the club who really deserved the flack. Just waiting to see what prize pudding they serve up come the end of the season; or maybe they'll get it right finally.

Quoted from NorfolkImp

I agree, he’s certainly sorted your defence out it seems.

Pressure now definitely on the Cowley brothers down in Essex, as FGR are also turning things around under Cotterill.

As if things weren't hard enough for Colchester there is a good chance their postponements will see them playing twice a week till the season's end.

If they go down they have the right management team to bounce straight back up. I know geography played the largest part in their decision to go to Colchester but it still seemed an odd choice to turn down easily the biggest club in League Two and two months later join one of the smallest.

Quoted from ROKERITE

As if things weren't hard enough for Colchester there is a good chance their postponements will see them playing twice a week till the season's end.

If they go down they have the right management team to bounce straight back up. I know geography played the largest part in their decision to go to Colchester but it still seemed an odd choice to turn down easily the biggest club in League Two and two months later join one of the smallest.

Are they the right team to bring Colchester straight back up? They haven't managed a non-league team since May 2017.

Quoted from jamesgtfc

Are they the right team to bring Colchester straight back up? They haven't managed a non-league team since May 2017.

Time will tell but I couldn't think of a better one.

Quoted from Hagrid

Im not trying to be difficult here, but it really wasnt ridiculous.

We were getting absolutely humiliated and he was steadfast point blank telling us things that were simply not true. We conceded 5 goals in 3 of our first 5 games of the year. “Lost 5-1. Lost 6-1. And then came out saying we’d played well. I know you love trying to be right, but its not remotely true to say that the abuse/ judgement he was getting was ridiculous


Good on him for changing style, and he’s done it well, not knocking him and he deserves credit for that, I still say he was forced to change as opposed to wanting to change however.

He wasn’t saying things that weren’t true though IMO. He said the data suggested that we shouldn’t have been on the receiving end of those results, watching those games I agreed with him, Walsall in particular was bizarre how we managed to concede 6 goals.

We’ve now got what we deserved from most of our games and only really had one slice of bad luck (Sutton). Before that we’d have something ridiculous happen every single game, I think the upturn has been a mixture of shoring up the defence and finally having the rub of the green in big moments. On top of that, his signings have finally started to bed in, it’s been a long time since we’ve made multiple January signings where they’ve all made a positive impact. Smith is the only one who there are question mark on but that’s more him being a victim of the new system. Artell deserves massive credit for those signings, especially after most completely wrote them off within a week.

Besides, you called him ‘Dopey Dave’, I’d put that in the ridiculous category.

Quoted from ginnywings

Think we also have to give credit to Joe Hutchinson. Artell has said that he is the coach only, so Joe must have been front and centre of recruiting players in Jan that have definitely improved the team.

Definitely. These will be signings mostly identified by Hutchinson, albeit Artell presumably has right of veto. Artell said as much when he joined that it would be a relief to not have to do all the stuff like recruitment which he had been expected to at Crewe.

Tharme was very clearly not an Artell signing - more of a stopper (a decent one tho obviously) than a cultured passing CB. He even mentioned his passing was a weakness when he joined so he's hardly going to be first choice for Artell. On his debut Artell singled him out for criticism for his tendency for a hoof - something he still does by the way, but I'd rather see that than the passing to each other in the 6 yard box!

What dawned on me watching last night was how Artell has been able to totally switch the team’s approach 180 degrees.  He may not want to play like this ultimately, but having had to take a pragmatic approach (yes, after the “clear the air” meeting) he has the ability to do it well.

It’s hurstball but better, no “get Parslow on” panic moves inviting pressure, but set the team up to do a job, and recognise in good time when tactical changes or fresh legs are needed and sort it!

The timely subs last night, particularly Green and Andrews enabled us to generally defend from 20 yards further up the pitch and that helped us see the game out without too many scares.

Well done DA