The Real Person to Blame?

[GranthamPie]

Does anyone know the extent of Hemmings injury?

[kill_the_drum]

Players always seem more injury prone when their team is playing Shiite, and fatigue seems to set in far easier. The Munto run in from Jan, I think we virtually played every Tue/Sat until May with the same 11.
Dan Jones was a classic against Tranmere. He bottled a 50/50 in our own corner, the abuse flew at him from the stands so he started hobbling.

[Bohinen]

I think our problems started in summer 2017. We had just escaped relegation and KN was a future England manager. Instead of dumping Duffy, Tootle, Hewitt and Dickinson, the view was they needed an arm round their shoulder. Then KN brought in non-league players Hawkridge and Alessandra. The only thing that saved us was Ryan Yates joining.

Who is to blame? Well, the buck stops at the top, so that is Alan Hardy, whose indulging KN in a further transfer window to bring in ****e was the tipping point. And on Twitter, he still believes that when the likes of Vaughan come back from injury, we'll be OK. Lessons have not been learnt, Alan Hardy is a clown.

Alan Hardy
‏Verified account @Bigalanh5
3h3 hours ago

Alan Hardy Retweeted Jordan Hassall

We’ll look a different team altogether when Enzio, Hemmings, Louis, O’Brien, Tootle and Vaughan are all full fit

No, you ****ing clown, we'll have the same bag of ****e that couldn't buy a win at the start of the season

https://twitter.com/BigAlanHardy1/st...14518935994374

[nw6pie]

Neal Ardley said the other week that the reason the players weren't fit enough was because of the hard pitches they had in pre-season, which meant they couldn't be worked as hard as was required. I remember looking at one of the training pitches they were playing on at the end of July, and it was diabolical - parched grass, looked like the kind of pitch you'd find at your local rec. That's presumably the fault of the management at the club for not having professional facilities.

All the warning signs we needed about this season came in mid-July when we got thumped 4-1 by Derby, and just three days later Mansfield played Derby and won 3-1. Nothing has improved since.

[MAD_MAGPIE]

Neal Ardley said the other week that the reason the players weren't fit enough was because of the hard pitches they had in pre-season, which meant they couldn't be worked as hard as was required. I remember looking at one of the training pitches they were playing on at the end of July, and it was diabolical - parched grass, looked like the kind of pitch you'd find at your local rec. That's presumably the fault of the management at the club for not having professional facilities.

All the warning signs we needed about this season came in mid-July when we got thumped 4-1 by Derby, and just three days later Mansfield played Derby and won 3-1. Nothing has improved since.

Perhaps we are reaping what we have sown by not having our own training ground? I don’t understand why we have not had our own training facility a long long time before now. As you say training on baked earth (which is like concrete) with scorched grass in the middle of July in the hottest and driest summer for 40 years is unprofessional for a club like Notts.

As I recall in recent times we’ve trained at Highfields at the University of Nottingham, St George’s Park, Arnold Town and are we not currently training at Basford United??

We are like nomads drifting from place to place. We need to have a training facility to call our own going forward. A facility where the clubs grounds man can make the pitches similar to Meadow Lane.

We should have stayed at St George’s Park as the facilities there are the best. Also wasn’t it in the Keith Curle 11/12 season in which we finished 7th in League One that we were based there? Some people used to bemoan us training there because they thought it made the players think they were bigger and better than what they are, but that is so short sighted. There is nothing wrong in giving players the best environment in which to operate to enable them to forefill their potential and be the best they can be. It’s like when people bemoan about our “premier league” dressing rooms. There is nothing wrong with creating the best environment for people to work in.

[Bohinen]

All the warning signs we needed about this season came in mid-July when we got thumped 4-1 by Derby, and just three days later Mansfield played Derby and won 3-1. Nothing has improved since.

I remember these games. The experts told us that pre-season games counted for nothing

[nw6pie]

We should have stayed at St George’s Park as the facilities there are the best. Also wasn’t it in the Keith Curle 11/12 season in which we finished 7th in League One that we were based there? Some people used to bemoan us training there because they thought it made the players think they were bigger and better than what they are, but that is so short sighted. There is nothing wrong in giving players the best environment in which to operate to enable them to forefill their potential and be the best they can be. It’s like when people bemoan about our “premier league” dressing rooms. There is nothing wrong with creating the best environment for people to work in.

Interesting that Burton Albion use the St George's Park facilities (and they seem to be doing OK, other than when they face Man City). Found this in their local paper from the start of the season...

https://www.staffordshire-live.co.uk...ger-st-1634266

Burton Albion's agreement with St George's Park for the use of the National Football Centre's facilities has helped the academy recruit better players. That's the view of Brewers academy manager Danny Robinson, who credits the home of every England football team for helping the club to integrate themselves into the centre, near Burton in Tatenhill.

"With Albion having no training ground as such and with an academy a little under a decade old, the infrastructure isn't there for the Brewers to compete with the clubs they were beating on the pitch last season in terms of facilities. Step forward St George's Park, the £105m complex opened in 2012. The home of Burton's first-team had been expanded this season to include all academy age groups.

Now, every Albion side gets to train there, creating a close-knit feel. With Joe Sbarra, Ben Fox, Matty Palmer, Reece Hutchinson all coming through the academy to feature in the first-team, the thought of the production line being aided by the facilities at St George's Park can only be a good feeling

"It's a three-year agreement," Robinson said of the current deal with the academy teams training there.

[CheltenhamPie]

Perhaps we are reaping what we have sown by not having our own training ground? I don’t understand why we have not had our own training facility a long long time before now. As you say training on baked earth (which is like concrete) with scorched grass in the middle of July in the hottest and driest summer for 40 years is unprofessional for a club like Notts.

As I recall in recent times we’ve trained at Highfields at the University of Nottingham, St George’s Park, Arnold Town and are we not currently training at Basford United??

We are like nomads drifting from place to place. We need to have a training facility to call our own going forward. A facility where the clubs grounds man can make the pitches similar to Meadow Lane.

We should have stayed at St George’s Park as the facilities there are the best. Also wasn’t it in the Keith Curle 11/12 season in which we finished 7th in League One that we were based there? Some people used to bemoan us training there because they thought it made the players think they were bigger and better than what they are, but that is so short sighted. There is nothing wrong in giving players the best environment in which to operate to enable them to forefill their potential and be the best they can be. It’s like when people bemoan about our “premier league” dressing rooms. There is nothing wrong with creating the best environment for people to work in.

Although Alan Hardy has stated that he has already spent £9m since becoming chairman, if he is serious about the future, he must now develop a bespoke training ground for Notts to include all the teams within the club. Much talk has been made about a new facility, but no action. If Hardy fails to plan for the future then he will be planning to fail.

[jackal2]

I think our problems started in summer 2017. We had just escaped relegation and KN was a future England manager. Instead of dumping Duffy, Tootle, Hewitt and Dickinson, the view was they needed an arm round their shoulder. Then KN brought in non-league players Hawkridge and Alessandra. The only thing that saved us was Ryan Yates joining.

Who is to blame? Well, the buck stops at the top, so that is Alan Hardy, whose indulging KN in a further transfer window to bring in ****e was the tipping point. And on Twitter, he still believes that when the likes of Vaughan come back from injury, we'll be OK. Lessons have not been learnt, Alan Hardy is a clown.

I don't think your assessment is that far wrong, Bohinen, except for the unnecessary insult at the end.

Let's put it in context though. Alan Hardy had the support of the overwhelming majority of fans in the summer of 2017 in thinking Kevin Nolan was someone worth backing, bearing in mind the turnaround in form he had achieved in his first six months. Yes, he got carried away with "next England manager" twaddle, but he (and we) had no reason to believe at that stage that Nolan would not continue to do well.

And indeed Nolan did continue to do well, up to Christmas the following season, but by summer 2018 there were a few more fans questioning whether Kevin Nolan was as good as he first appeared, given the decline in form leading up to and including the play-offs. With hindsight, I'm sure Hardy now wishes with all his heart that he hadn't put his faith in Nolan to spend his money last summer, but hindsight is a wonderful thing, especially for keyboard warriors like us. I would argue it still understandable why, last summer, Hardy decided he should continue to back the judgement of a manager whose team had just finished in 5th place, having originally taken us over in 24th. It appeared to many - including Hardy - that all we needed was the final push of a couple more quality signings and we would have a promotion winning team.

Sadly, it has turned out anything but that way, and yes the owner must ultimately take responsibility, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who can understand why Hardy made the decisions he did in summer 2018, even though they have clearly not worked.

I don't think that's being an "apologist" for Hardy. I think it's a fairly balanced interpretation of the whole situation. If you look at the ups and downs of Dunnett, Pavis, Scardino, Armstrong-Holmes, Trew and Hardy over the past 40 years at our club, not to mention the fortunes of ownership regimes at many other clubs, it's apparent that running a football club carries with it a high degree of risk and chance, where few if any owners/chairmen make the right calls consistently.

And as for Alan Hardy's engagement with Twitter, I repeatedly criticised that and stated he should stay off it.

[Pies4u]

The real blame lies with those responsible for this season's debacle. That is, principally, Hardy, Fletcher, Nolan & those around them.

Obviously, it is deeper rooted than that and goes back to the previous regime too, bad appointments & decisions in every department, but Hardy has to take the main responsibility for our current plight. The more I see & hear about this bloke the more convinced I am that he is culpable & his judgement has proved to be flawed in many respects. He isn't unlucky, he makes consistently poor decisions and has interfered in player recruitment, taken counsel from the ill informed & surrounded himself with sycophants & brown nosing hangers on, rather like his predecessor. He can't take criticism and responds emotionally, not practically or sensibly, when others question his wisdom. That is just poor leadership in any business. The ridiculous public statements, the social media stuff, the intolerance of those who challenge him - all symptomatic of arrogant, over confident and ultimately weak leadership.

Plus, anyone who changes the name of the Wheeler Suite, purely for commercial/sponsorship reasons, & the Masson Suite (for no obvious reason), causing a rift between the Club's greatest player in living memory and the Club, yet still claims to be a "genuine supporter" deserves some flak IMO. Surprised those changes attracted so little comment this far tbh. Dismantling the VP's & alienating some of the most loyal benefactors of the Club also sits badly with me. The fact that Club legends like Brian Stubbs are no longer welcome at the Club is another example of this man's petulant and bombastic style.

If we do go out of the league it wil be the result of several years of mismanagement but the buck stops with the current owner, he has left himself wide open to criticism so any that comes his way is deserved.

If we stay up, it will be a minor miracle, and no doubt many on here will heap credit on Hardy for saving our league status! I will not be among them. For all his faults, I knew Ray Trew well enough to know he did not believe he was "the main attraction" or that he believed he was some sort of hero, he didn't want to pick the team either - I can't say the same for Hardy.