Quote Originally Posted by upthemaggies View Post
I remember breaking it down into percentages of blame way back when and I had Ardley less than 50% to blame, but he was still more to blame than anybody else. Hardy obviously 2nd biggest factor but Nolan, the players, the coaching staff and even the fans expectations played a part in what led to Ardley failing to turn it around.

We probably wouldn't have gone down however if we'd stuck with Nolan or Kewell. The players liked Nolan, so would have played for him enough to get the necessary points, Kewell left having taken us out of the drop zone. So that's why I focus on Ardley so much because he was the small margin of error that made the difference between finishing 21st or a few places higher.
If you reverse what happened and imagine Ardley had succeeded in steering Notts away from relegation, I would imagine he would have gotten the lion's share of the credit for it. So, the opposite must surely apply?