Hurst stats

I'd say that I thought Hursts reappointment was sensible rather than exciting, but I have been really impressed by what he has been able to achieve.

I've not seen anyone describe the situation as I see it, or shared many states to back things up, so I did a few mins digging to see if the stats match my feel for what happened...

I thought that our run before and during the transfer window was what might relegate us. I recall specifically thinking the Cambridge game at the start of the window mattered a lot.

Table after that game: https://www.twtd.co.uk/league-...../type:home-and-away/

Looking back, had we won it, we would have been 20th, so with 4 teams below us and prospective signings would see a concern but not be too hung up about relegation. Instead we look somewhat nailed on for relegation given points and extra games played. Come mid and late transfer window there is no way in my mind the table doesn't limit Hursts ability to sign better players in the window.

Mid: https://www.twtd.co.uk/league-...../type:home-and-away/
End: https://www.twtd.co.uk/league-...../type:home-and-away/

I understand Hurst is the manager but it's not his players, the players we had were questionably not good enough, and as I saw someone else point out (though it's not mentioned enough) he lost 2 of the best players (in terms of creativity and changing a game) in Edwards and Windsor at start of the window so was really playing with his hands behind his back. Injuries didn't help either.

Jump forward a little and despite any impact of league position on who he could get in, our form is not relegation form. I'm allowing a month from window closed for Hurst to start getting his message across and team settled. (BTW I'm old school and am of the opinion a manager needs 1 or 2 seasons to build a team, an approach, and influence an entire club, not weeks, but that's a diff discussion). So given only a month, form from start of March to now:

https://www.twtd.co.uk/league-...../type:home-and-away/

I personally think that if we played these games again a few times, on average we would get more points than we did. I felt we we could easily have added 4+ points and possibly a fair bit more. Even without that, this form over a whole season would see us with 56ish points and around 16th ish.

Don't get me wrong, 16th isn't good enough, but with the massive restriction on bringing players in, no preseason etc, I think thats positive and suggests he could do well with his own players and a preseason.

Its also telling that every opposition commentary I listened to during this run of games said we didn't look like a relegation team, and that we can't have played like this for the whole season else we wouldn't be near the bottom.

I for one am very hopefully for next season and beyond. New owners, new focus, new professionalism. Bring on 21/22.

So to sum up you think he is amazing but still got us relegated after transfer window and half a season in charge.

Genuinely interested to hear the views of those who disagree. As I said I wasn't over the moon when he arrived or certain he would improve us.

Should he have got more from Holloway's players? Should he have got in better quality players?

Is the thought that most other managers who we could attract would have been able to do one or both of these?

Quoted from drbell

Genuinely interested to hear the views of those who disagree. As I said I wasn't over the moon when he arrived or certain he would improve us.

Should he have got more from Holloway's players? Should he have got in better quality players?

Is the thought that most other managers who we could attract would have been able to do one or both of these?

I think Hurst has turned us into a half decent team but along the way made errors that properly put the nails in our coffin.

It’d be wrong to say Hurst caused our relegation in the same way it’d be wrong to say he’s done a great job. You could argue he’s probably underachieved on the whole, given that we’ve been comfortably relegated.

There are signs though he’s the right man for the job next season, I feel pretty comfortable with him here but let’s not kid ourselves on the job he’s done so far.

After inheriting the players that the previous incumbent left him, he had to be ruthless and send most of the loanees back because they were either under performing or didn't play the style of football Hurst wanted. Having recruited 11 players in the January window (plus a few days for Coke) it would have been impossible to have everyone being at the same level of fitness or be match ready. To be honest I'm surprised he started getting results as quick as he did from March onwards. If he had had only two or three new players then things would have hopefully come together sooner. The players he both inherited and signed are only lower league standard and could not be expected to gel straight away.

I think his recruitment process will have been refined for next season and let's hope he steers clear of signing anyone who has played under him before......mentioning no names.

To say that an analyst doesn't get you 3 points on a Saturday, results started to pick up for Hurst once the analyst arrived.

I think Limbrick did a lot of analysis too and the wheels started to fall off for Holloway when he wasn't around.

Quoted from drbell

I'd say that I thought Hursts reappointment was sensible rather than exciting, but I have been really impressed by what he has been able to achieve.

I've not seen anyone describe the situation as I see it, or shared many states to back things up, so I did a few mins digging to see if the stats match my feel for what happened...

I thought that our run before and during the transfer window was what might relegate us. I recall specifically thinking the Cambridge game at the start of the window mattered a lot.

Table after that game: https://www.twtd.co.uk/league-...../type:home-and-away/

Looking back, had we won it, we would have been 20th, so with 4 teams below us and prospective signings would see a concern but not be too hung up about relegation. Instead we look somewhat nailed on for relegation given points and extra games played. Come mid and late transfer window there is no way in my mind the table doesn't limit Hursts ability to sign better players in the window.

Mid: https://www.twtd.co.uk/league-...../type:home-and-away/
End: https://www.twtd.co.uk/league-...../type:home-and-away/

I understand Hurst is the manager but it's not his players, the players we had were questionably not good enough, and as I saw someone else point out (though it's not mentioned enough) he lost 2 of the best players (in terms of creativity and changing a game) in Edwards and Windsor at start of the window so was really playing with his hands behind his back. Injuries didn't help either.

Jump forward a little and despite any impact of league position on who he could get in, our form is not relegation form. I'm allowing a month from window closed for Hurst to start getting his message across and team settled. (BTW I'm old school and am of the opinion a manager needs 1 or 2 seasons to build a team, an approach, and influence an entire club, not weeks, but that's a diff discussion). So given only a month, form from start of March to now:

https://www.twtd.co.uk/league-...../type:home-and-away/

I personally think that if we played these games again a few times, on average we would get more points than we did. I felt we we could easily have added 4+ points and possibly a fair bit more. Even without that, this form over a whole season would see us with 56ish points and around 16th ish.

Don't get me wrong, 16th isn't good enough, but with the massive restriction on bringing players in, no preseason etc, I think thats positive and suggests he could do well with his own players and a preseason.

Its also telling that every opposition commentary I listened to during this run of games said we didn't look like a relegation team, and that we can't have played like this for the whole season else we wouldn't be near the bottom.

I for one am very hopefully for next season and beyond. New owners, new focus, new professionalism. Bring on 21/22.

Good post that. In terms of recruitment, like I said in another thread, it would be interesting to see who was top of Hurst’s shopping list in Jan. I remember in most interviews with him around that time he mentioned being turned down by targets for a variety of reasons, most notably saying that the league position was playing a part and that some players didn’t fancy a battle at the bottom of League 2.

Looking again at what Hurst did when he joined Shrewsbury, he had an extra couple of months there that he didn't have here. That would have been crucial in him getting them above the line in time.

Given six or seven more games, I believe we would have pulled us to safety too, but I also acknowledge we weren't in the bottom two when he took over.

Essentially, Hurst has never been an 'impact' manager. There was never going to be a honeymoon period. He builds squads; he doesn't come in and turn things around instantly through simple motivation and charisma. That's more for (dare I say) a Holloway character to do — which he did with us, initially.

Any managerial appointment at that time was a gamble. There's no way of knowing whether Hurst would've fared any better playing Holloway's signings more, or whether we'd have stormed to safety under another manager.

We can drill down into specifics until we're blue in the face, but the macro view is that we have ourselves a very level-headed and competent manager who, for various reasons, still divides the fan base to a degree, despite what he achieved with us first time round.

For me, there are more pros than cons. Good managers are like good strikers — difficult to find. We have to accept that anyone who comes to manage us in this situation, at this level, won't be faultless.

But after what we've been through since he left in 2016, I'm sort of glad that we can have some sensibility around squad building now. Steady, if not spectacular (although I still have some very fond memories of big wins under Hurst — Gateshead away, Stockport, Halifax and Alfreton at home, Amond, Bogle, Disley, etc, you get my point).

I'd keep Hurst.  We didn't lose that many games under him at the end - lots of shitty draws, but the guy is dealing with a bad hand.  

One of my weaknesses is that I'd stick rather than twist a lot of the time,  but I'm not sure we'd get better than Hurst right now.

I never really understood the anti Hurst thing when we were in the conference......

Quoted from Yossarian

I never really understood the anti Hurst thing when we were in the conference......

People always felt we were too big for the conference and were upset that we were not walking the league. Along with the fact Hurst has opinions and called out fans on their entitlement made a lot of people upset, GTFC's fanbase tends to enjoy managers who suck up to them more for whatever reason. I think it was mostly that people expected us to just be able to walk the league though and saw Hurst as failing when we lost out on promotion a couple of times before we won the playoffs. There are still some people who just hate the guy in general because he felt the fans were wrong in their impatience and lashing out at players when things were not going our way.