Neal Ardley

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Originally Posted by keldsyke

Sad that someone laughs at someone who could have been possibly sacked and on top of that was a great servant to our club regardless of what you think of his performance at Notts, very sad.

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Exactly. Quite rightly recognised by LW along with IB in his post Wembley comments.

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Originally Posted by Elite_Pie

That's complete and utter bollox. Any vaguely competent manager would have kept us up.

All they had to do was better Macclesfield (in a much worst state than us) FFS.

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Any vaguely competent owner wouldn't have allowed any manager, or managers in our case get anywhere near Macclesfield, oh and Yeovil. Don't forget Yeovil.

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Originally Posted by Elite_Pie

That's complete and utter bollox. Any vaguely competent manager would have kept us up.

All they had to do was better Macclesfield (in a much worst state than us) FFS.

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Notts players weren't being paid, there were three distinct factions in the dressing room with an overly large squad. Macclesfield weren't being paid but had a small tight-knit squad that was together. No one was getting us out of that mess.

The moment Duffy turned up to that memorial service with a beer belly I knew we were doomed. Nolan didn't give a monkeys as he wanted out, the pre season was awful and players unfit. Nolan had his "favourites" that split the dressing room.

Kewell came in and actually rocked the boat a bit but seems isolating Stead was his downfall as well as calling us Nottingham County. This split the squad further.

Ardley came in, had to move our best striker on in order to rebalance the squad, replace Fitzsimmons with a rookie keeper because no one else wanted to come because they knew of Hardy and his reputation. After Feb 1st, we didn't have horrific results, not great but we actually were competing.

Macclesfield were a mess off the pitch but on it they were together and fought for each other. JIB came in, mixed it up with a couple of Cambridge players and no one backed him up before the likes of Doyle came in. So no, it wasn't incompetence of the manager!

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Originally Posted by Chicken Balti Pie

Macclesfield were a mess off the pitch but on it they were together and fought for each other.

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100% correct. Macclesfield had a manager who united his squad and made them fight and perform a bit better than they actually were. We were stuck with a manager incapable of any sort of motivation.

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Originally Posted by Elite_Pie

100% correct. Macclesfield had a manager who united his squad and made them fight and perform a bit better than they actually were. We were stuck with a manager incapable of any sort of motivation.

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If that was the case the following seasons ventures into the play offs wouldn’t have happened… as they say and it’s so true in life ‘Theres always two sides to every story!’

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Originally Posted by keldsyke

If that was the case the following seasons ventures into the play offs wouldn’t have happened… as they say and it’s so true in life ‘Theres always two sides to every story!’

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I think hindsight tells us that Ardley was burnt out when he was appointed. You can blame Hardy for that, but Ardley shouldn't have accepted the job if he wasn't in the frame of mind to give it 100%, which he clearly wasn't.

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Originally Posted by Elite_Pie

I think hindsight tells us that Ardley was burnt out when he was appointed. You can blame Hardy for that, but Ardley shouldn't have accepted the job if he wasn't in the frame of mind to give it 100%, which he clearly wasn't.

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Wasn’t he on holiday when he was approached after leaving Wimbledon?

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Originally Posted by keldsyke

Wasn’t he on holiday when he was approached after leaving Wimbledon?

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Yep, he came back from holiday early to accept the job.

It would have been better for him and us if he'd stayed on his sunbed.

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Originally Posted by Elite_Pie

Yep, he came back from holiday early to accept the job.

It would have been better for him and us if he'd stayed on his sunbed.

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I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one

Putting the relegation aside. If we do alright this coming season and look good for challenging for promotion again sooner rather than later, then we probably would have been in L1 by now had we not wasted an additional 18 months on Ardley.