Ardley an improvement

It's all very well comparing the PPG of three under performing managers to a few decimal places and debating who was most to blame. However it's all pretty pointless unless you take on board and recognise that Hardy had his inept trigger-happy fingerprints all over the debacle from poorly planned preseason to the day he sold the club. He does indeed carry a lot of responsibility, IMO the most, as he made all the biggest decisions that season and had th greatest impact.

He took the responsibility into his hands and we got relegated. The End ;)

Thankfully those days are in the past (and the club is run infinitely better now) although clearly not forgotten.

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Originally Posted by matt_magpie

Ardley said it after the signings and I doubt he would lie publicly. Remember 4 or more were youth players and I do remember at least Dennis went out who was on a fair whack.

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Doyle, O’Brien, Rose, Milsom, Mackail-Smith…. that must have been some whack.

The first four permanent signings.

I think he probably said it before signing all of them. Can’t believe it was reality for those 5 wins I’m afraid. Can you?

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Originally Posted by laddo

It's all very well comparing the PPG of three under performing managers to a few decimal places and debating who was most to blame. However it's all pretty pointless unless you take on board and recognise that Hardy had his inept trigger-happy fingerprints all over the debacle from poorly planned preseason to the day he sold the club. He does indeed carry a lot of responsibility, IMO the most, as he made all the biggest decisions that season and had th greatest impact.

He took the responsibility into his hands and we got relegated. The End ;)

Thankfully those days are in the past (and the club is run infinitely better now) although clearly not forgotten.

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He would have been great as marketing manager. That was all he was good at. Other than getting his tally whacker out on t'internet.

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Originally Posted by laddo

The key bit for me in all that analysis is Nolan recorded 1 point from a possible 15. That is a frankly embarrassing and woeful start to a season having just finished 5th. That firmly set the wheels in motion for the poor PPG records of both Kewell and Ardley. Could it be turned around? Of course? Was it by either of the next two managers? Nope.

Kewell statistically performed the best during his short time in charge but we have no idea whether over the long haul of the rest of the season whether his poor PPG record would have gone up or down as he played more games and the circus behind the scenes cane to light and became more and more a distraction and embarrassment. I'd be guessing to suggest one way or another.

Stats are great#radar but 83% of all statistics on NCM are made up on the spot.

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Hey Laddo, i see you have been busy on the posts lately

For me Nolan should never have been sacked, the fact remains his prior ppg was higher than most managers. Out of all the managers from that season till now ,he has probably turned out the best, he probably getting paid far more at west ham , as assistant or coach , than he ever was a Notts
In isolation 1 point from the first 5 games was shocking, however take Mansfield as an example, under Clough were they not in the bottom 2 earlier this season, after losing 8 games on the trot, look at how things have turned round there
However Laddo in retrespect, the person to blame for Nolan being sacked was Hardy, nobody else , he and Notts paid the ultimate price

In terms of Ardley, we know he was completely useless by getting us relegated, and mainly being outsmarted by a poor macclesfield, who had as much or even more problems off the field than us, that can not be put on Hardy, it was Ardley poor management and nobody else

The current debate is Ardley v IB in the National league
Ib shows no improvement on Ardley, that is simple fact by league position. In fact currently Ardley is higher in the League at Soilhull, a club i should imagine with less resources..
I still think it was crazy to sack Ardley when we did, he should have had a second crack at the play offs. Considering Ardley got Wimbledon up in the play offs finishing 7th in L2, given enough shots in the National League, i think Ardley will get another club promoted through the play offs at some point
At the moment both IB and Ardley have lost 1 each in the playoffs in the National league , but with Ardely ahead as he got us to the final

That's great Davy.

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Originally Posted by queenslandpie

He would have been great as marketing manager. That was all he was good at. Other than getting his tally whacker out on t'internet.

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To give him his due,he was attempting a soft sell.

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Originally Posted by crazyfists

Kewell most likely would have kept us safe. He was starting to address the players that didn't want to play issue and his no nonsense approach would have sorted this out enough that when he added his own players in Jan we'd have been ok. Ardley was too nice a guy to go in and kick enough arse to get to the end of the season. Hardy really was a gloit and carries alot of responsibility.

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I also think Kewell was the most likely of the three managers to keep us up. He might have gone into that dressing room all guns blazing and ruffled feathers but that is what was required. Also results improved as we won three in a row and climbed out of the relegation zone.

We also have to remember that compensation was paid to Crawley Town to bring Kewell to the club and was originally going to be offered a 5 year deal, yet he was only given ten weeks and no January transfer window.

The one player Kewell brought in Jamie Turley who could do a job at centre back and then he went to Leyton Orient in January and got promoted out of this league with them.

A manager can’t do much in ten weeks apart from fire fight. It was costly financially at the time to bring in Kewell, and in hindsight did nothing to save us and so Kewells sacking was even more costly. Even if players went to Hardy player power should not have won as they had no right to any power with how badly they had started the season. Plus Hardy knew what he wanted and had gone out got his man. Complete and utter madness the way I see it.

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Originally Posted by MAD_MAGPIE

I also think Kewell was the most likely of the three managers to keep us up. He might have gone into that dressing room all guns blazing and ruffled feathers but that is what was required. Also results improved as we won three in a row and climbed out of the relegation zone.

We also have to remember that compensation was paid to Crawley Town to bring Kewell to the club and was originally going to be offered a 5 year deal, yet he was only given ten weeks and no January transfer window.

The one player Kewell brought in Jamie Turley who could do a job at centre back and then he went to Leyton Orient in January and got promoted out of this league with them.

A manager can’t do much in ten weeks apart from fire fight. It was costly financially at the time to bring in Kewell, and in hindsight did nothing to save us and so Kewells sacking was even more costly. Even if players went to Hardy player power should not have won as they had no right to any power with how badly they had started the season. Plus Hardy knew what he wanted and had gone out got his man. Complete and utter madness the way I see it.

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It is to some extent understandable why Hardy brought Kewell in as he had done some reasonable stuff at Crawley, however hardly worthy of compensation, but I am sure most Notts fans also have a suspicion that it was also a bit of a vanity project given the Hardy Liverpool connection and that is very hard to ignore. Kewell brought his tough boy Aussie attitude with him. Definately did not instill the required discipline in the squad and he clearly did not get the respect of the players. I do not think it works in modern day football, sports teams are managed very differently here to the U.K. Ultimately Kewell has proven himself several times over to be a mediocre to poor football manager and Ardley has proven himself to be an above average football manager several times over so there can be no argument on that. Unfortunately Neal relegating Notts was a bridge too far for many fans that they would never let him recover from. I still think Ardley was a pretty good appointment from Hardy despite what I think of him. Kewell not so. The heart ruled the head on Kewell. Not so with Ardley who was ultimately too cautious to keep us up and made one big doozy in sending Dennis out on loan.