I honestly think Maynard got the job mainly down to his kind comments about Notts last season.
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I wasn’t able to see the Bradford or Salford games but I was hoping that we had turned the corner after a draw away at Accrington and then a good win away at Bradford. I need to see a couple more games to make my final judgement but it’s not looking good.
LW team beat Accrington, Bradford and Salford so got 9 points. SM’s team got 4 points.
It was disappointing hearing and reading that we lost to Salford and I felt that should have been the pivotal moment in which home fans that had not seen us play away could finally get behind and on board with SM. But it was not to be.
What I don’t understand from what I’ve read is why the changes to personnel and formations again for Salford after a good win against Bradford? I understand that each team will provide different challenges but I’m wondering if we are more concerned about the opposition each game than ourselves under SM.
There is no denying that we are truly awful at home in terms of results this year so far and there needs to be an improvement before the season ends to give some positive and hope for next season.
The other factor is we now the defence is awful and needs an overhaul and for me that is one of the factors that makes me think what would it be like under SM if he had a better defence. This may get fixed by the club in the summer but then the other side of the coin is what happens if we lose Jodi Jones and Macauley Langstaff. Will we become a solid team defensively but one with less creativity? So swing the other way.
I've tried to defend him but his constant chopping, changing and tinkering has worn me down. I don't know if he considers himself as a tactical genius but it's a fair bet that the players aren't and this must be extremely frustrating having to endure the constant changes. It's an out from me.
It’s all about balance isn’t it. Some managers have a Plan A but then when things go south they stick to their principles and then become subject to criticism for not having a plan B and are deemed stubborn. I get and understand it can be beneficial and clever to have a plan B or even C and to be able to react to in game challenges. But when things are not going well and you try and switch and change without it having the desired impact the question then becomes can it be too much that it becomes a negative rather than a positive because of the risk of confusion. So this is where as we see now people will criticise. If we were winning every week and doing well then having a plan A, B, C or D would be deemed as tactical genius.
out
I’m in until the end of the season.
Absolutely no point in sacking him at this point.
He might turn it around. And I’m not sure any caretaker is going to be any better.
That said. If there is a much better option available. It’s the bullet.
Take the comparison (if you like) with golf. You lose your swing and you start tinkering and just lay fault on top of fault and compound the problem until you nearly pack the bloody game in!! But then go back to basics (grip, stance, posture, ball position etc) and it all comes back. Instead of tinkering with players that can't be tinkered with he (SM) would have been well advised to go back to basics (as far as he could with the players available to him).
One more thing I’ll say about Maynard in/out. Regardless of whether we won or lost, matches under Williams and to a lesser extent Burchnall were entertaining. The defeats to Wimbledon and Salford were both boring af.
Not only has he turned us into a losing team at home he’s managed to turn us into a boring team. Unforgivable.
That’s a good analogy. I guess for a new coach making the step up there is also wanting to make your own mark on a team but with the way we play it’s not a complete change of philosophy and it should be subtle differences.
When looking back at the games I’ve seen the Mansfield, Wrexham and Newport games were good performances as well as getting the result at Newport. Bradford seems to have been similar based on others accounts. They are the games where I feel there were subtle differences between how we played under LW and SM and what we could expect.
We’ve had poor performances and poor results in some of SM’s games and also the entertainment levels have dropped as well. Especially in those games where we created little. It sounds like Salford was the same. So it’s compounded because if we were really entertaining and creating chances and not getting the rub of the green people maybe more patient.
So it’s a case now of what was different in the Newport and Bradford games that enabled us to win and win well. Was it because we were at our best, or those at their worst, or a combination of both? What we know is we are not consistent and have not been so far under SM.
We’ve got seven games left and I was hoping we would be mathematically safe by Easter even though it’s very likely we are ok now. I can’t see a dismissal happening before the end of the season now, but what it will do is give a larger sample and a chance to try and get some consistency and some entertainment especially in the remaining home games.
Surely any sample that includes a record-breaking run of 5 home defeats is a big enough sample? Anyway, the samples should have been taken before he joined, not after. Two samples in the public domain were his 30% win rate and a 6-1 home defeat to Notts. I seem to remember LW praising Wealdstone afterwards but those are usually hollow words when they come from the winning manager.
Can we have the updated like-for-like points comparison, btw. I know LW's side won away at Salford so there's 3 points difference for starters.
Out, btw.