Mad Dog on Team Talk

[upthemaggies]

I think folk seem to have a very short memory when they remember Martin Allen. Away from the pitch he was easily the best manager we’ve ever had. Everyone loved him, he’d turn up at kids birthdays, he made the team walk over the Trent to play the reds, he had them helping houses get renovated for disabled soldiers etc etc. What’s not to like?

As for on the pitch, it was clear from day one that his speciality was motivation, but when it came to tactics and getting more talented players to work in his system, it was clear he hadn’t a clue.

His team was one dimensional, and contained many players who would run all day but couldn’t play a ball, and that’s why many of our fans loved him.

His record was decent for a while, but as Brentford fans told us, he can only take a team so far and his domain is league 2 and the conference.

He was sacked because the football was awful and we would have dropped like a stone at some point if something hadn’t changed. We had only taken 13 points from 16 games when he was sacked.

Everything else is just noise.

Because we had somehow picked up a few points in the last few games, it was seen as a surprise by those who didn’t watch them........

The bloke is terrific. But as a manager, he doesn’t have it to manage higher than league 2.

The Sutton fire alarm incident happened as we went into December, lost 4 in a row after that. Something that serious affecting your star player would derail any team. Trew was then putting pressure on him to buy players, presumably one's that Allen didn't think would be right for his team and - as he says in the interview - he was thinking more longer term. We weren't ready to go up that season because we still had high earners on the books who needed to be moved on.

Trew prematurely spunked a significant amount of money on trying to get into the play-offs, failed, then a year later had next to nothing left with Kiwomya now in charge and saying on Radio Nottingham he regretted buying the club and was now open to offers. Sacking Allen has to be seen as a huge mistake in that context, whether or not he would have eventually got us promoted is another question. He probably wouldn't have done but we wouldn't have sunk like a stone either.

We'll be able to move on when we eventually recover to being in a similar position as we were then. Until that time, it's the only memories we've got this century of being a half-decent 3rd tier outfit with the majority of the support backing the manager.