Runaway mad signings

Quoted from diehardmariner

That's the bit that gets me the most.  The absolute contrast of it.  From a guy who brought genuine improvements into our side and got the team playing with a bit swagger and belief to the absolute shower that saw us relegated.

I will explain the contrast of pre and post-Covid. Anthony Limbrick.

Quoted from jamesgtfc

I will explain the contrast of pre and post-Covid. Anthony Limbrick.

I'm not suggesting that Anthony Limbrick leaving the club didn't have a negative impact, but I don't think that the real reason is anywhere near as simple or as innocent as that...

Quoted from BobbyCummingsTackle

Interesting that Clarke is a free agent again. With the way our strike force is shaping up he would be a useful addition.

We're two 33 year old forwards as it is. We don't need another one.

Holloway must have been on the edge of losing his marbles before he joined.

He thought we were the best run club he had ever worked for.

Willing to invest 100,000 quid of his own money then got the 500 pound back that he had invested.

Complete nut job who took many of us in.

Quoted from jamesgtfc

I will explain the contrast of pre and post-Covid. Anthony Limbrick.

Can I just add.....pre-covid Alex May(the man was on the scene well before covid struck btw).....post covid, No Alex May or Fenty...as soon as that deal was uncovered IH couldn't get away quick enough and didn't give 2 sh!ts about the team on the pitch and cobbled together a bunch of cheap, untried and unfit players just to put a team out at the start of the season....listen to James Mac's podcast with DN35....

I fully believe Holloway was actually mentally unstable during his time here. Like, clinically, not just his usual “oooh I’m mental me” routine.

Quoted from Poojah

The first three on that list, Glennon, Benson and Clarke were all decent, or even ‘very good’ in the case of the first two. Garmston is probably the anomaly of Holloway’s pre-pandemic recruitment, but even Grandin looked a good player in the flashes I saw of him and I maintain that Tilley has promise.

It’s what happened next that galls me. Whatever changed before and after Covid, our wretched recruitment last summer coupled with the near non-existent pre-season for a group of players who hadn’t played a competitive game in six months absolutely reeked of a man who no longer wanted to be here and had stopped caring.

I won’t speculate on here as to what precisely changed during that period, I’m sure everyone is capable of working that out for themselves. But I will not have it that Ian Holloway was not capable of keeping this club in the football league - there is stop much evidence to the contrary.

He just didn’t want to.

Tilley has the potential to go on a level above League two IMO.

Quoted from Northbank Mariner

Can I just add.....pre-covid Alex May(the man was on the scene well before covid struck btw).....post covid, No Alex May or Fenty...as soon as that deal was uncovered IH couldn't get away quick enough and didn't give 2 sh!ts about the team on the pitch and cobbled together a bunch of cheap, untried and unfit players just to put a team out at the start of the season....listen to James Mac's podcast with DN35....

I listened to that yesterday. The signs were there early doors he said but I guess at that point, he took on a team of good characters that needed a lift.

The true hard work is done pre-season and I don't think players will have a less gruelling pre-season than last year.

Reading between the lines, we need to get rid of Sam Russell too. McKeown was very complimentary of Croudson and Warrington for their personal traits. Didn't say a single thing about his current coach.

I don't think that we will ever learn the whole truth of Holloway's reign. Pre covid wasn't too bad but then it all started to go wrong.

I am not going to try to defend him, as he was a total a srehole, but did Fenty and Day tell him that because of covid the league and some clubs would not last till Christmas. All he had to do was keep costs (wages) to the bone and field a team till Christmas when the regime assumed their master plan would come to fruition and the league suspended, while some clubs go bust.

Holloway comes to his senses and realises that the league is going to carry on till the end of the season and the master plan is a load of crap. The players he signed were not good enough to keep town in the league and Fenty was about to jump ship.

Exit Holloway blaming the fans for complaining about Fenty because he does want to state the truth, as it might change his pay off details.

As I said I'm not defending him, but this scenario fits the events.

Whichever way you look at it, preseason (or lack of it) probably cost enough points at the start of the season to have kept us up. The ineptitude of this is unforgivable.

It doesn’t matter if the season had only lasted until October, these players were still being paid, the managers/back room staff were still being paid so they should’ve all been doing their f3cking jobs. But it seemed that those at the top in their ivory towers, weren’t paying attention of what was happening. Yet, when the sale of the club went through, it was all big slaps on the back and fat cigars for a job well done.

To use a quote from many a football manager, you play to the whistle. The club as a whole didn’t.