I've bet on them to win the league. Although comes across as a bit of a d!CK seems a very good manager, had a decent side last season and seriously strengthened over the summer.
Naturally hope I lose that bet.
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Talking of managers misbehaving, spoke with my pal at Aldershot and he tells me on 3 occasions during the game yesterday Chesterfaild's James Rowe offered the Aldershot directors out for a fight. Apparently when he was there a few years ago as assistant he was a complete dickhead and bully and lost the plot with the directors when Danny Searle was appointed manager over him.
I reckon he will be a right gobby sh1te mr big bo110x this season, especially after the Tshimanga signing. By all accounts they were second best for most of the game until they got a dodgy peno. Really hope we stuff 'em again when we play them.
I've bet on them to win the league. Although comes across as a bit of a d!CK seems a very good manager, had a decent side last season and seriously strengthened over the summer.
Naturally hope I lose that bet.
Believe me I haven't. I still have the nightmares.
For me, the difference between Elliott Hewitt and Brian O'Callaghan playing at right-back is that O'Callaghan tried. He wasn't very good I'll grant you, but I don't remember watching him and thinking he wasn't giving it a go - he was just very slow and physically limited. There were many occasions I watched Hewitt jog alongside his winger, at least five feet away from tackling range, and concluded that he simply didn't intend to affect play. That's unforgivable, not least because he had more physical attributes to his advantage than someone like BOC.
PS. The only player I can remember being less inclined to defend than Hewitt was Michael Emenalo, but he was a left-back (allegedly!).
As Jacob said earlier, the one criticism you can’t level at Elliott Hewitt is lack of effort, and I never saw him give less than 100% in a Notts shirt. I saw him as a good holding midfielder with the right player alongside, a decent emergency centre back, but an awful right back. He just doesn’t have the positional sense to play there. It’s not so much that he can’t tackle, more that he gives his opponent so much space that a tackle isn’t a real option. Clough openly suggesting that he didn’t tackle because the opponent was his mate is sinking very low, and if I were the Radfords I would be having strong words with the manager about the tone of that interview.
I simply disagree, so far as his performances specifically at right back were concerned. Let's be fair, he played there more times than he should ever have been allowed to do, so it wasn't as though I didn't have the time to ask myself, 'Is this guy just p*ss poor in this position or is he actually not bothered?'
I can remember various instances of attacks coming down his side and him making no effort to do anything about it, to the point where I focused in on him and asked myself if I was being unreasonable about what I was expecting him to do, but genuinely, even I could have done more to affect the game than he was (and believe me, that's a condemnation if ever there was one!)
For whatever reason, Hewitt seemed far more 'at it' when he played in midfield, perhaps because you literally cannot 'do nothing' in that position (...unless you're called Ian Hamilton or Mark Fotheringham!).
Last edited by jackal2; 22-08-2021 at 01:53 PM.
Well, if nothing else, Mr Hewitt has triggered a debate between those who say he's lazy and those who say he's just untalented. He must be so proud.
If anyone wants to take the position advocating that he was actually a good and committed right-back, we've still got a vacancy...
Was that due to poor positional sense or lack of effort? I’ll go for the former. When Stags signed him, a Grimsby fan told them they were getting a good centre back but an awful right back. It doesn’t make sense to me that he would show effort in some positions but not in others. It seems that both Notts and Grimsby fans can see that Elliott Hewitt isn’t a right back, but Nigel Clough can’t!
Last edited by Elite_Pie; 22-08-2021 at 02:11 PM.
Clough also criticized Hewitt and another Stags defender for not committing a foul in the 90 minutes, which felt like a very old-school comment to make (though I’m not sure his dad would ever have said it). I generally like Nigel Clough, but he was super-grumpy yesterday. You can hear the nervousness in Jake “Just a couple from me” Garner’s voice as the interview progresses.