Ardley an improvement

[Stan Marshall]

People forget that Ardley had totally run out of ideas at the end of his tenure with Notts. Results were getting worse and wasn’t there a players meeting which resulted in the change to 5 at the back? Enzio became a right wing back and Ruben wasn’t even in the team.
Ardley is a likeable chap, and I was desperate for him to succeed at Notts, but sadly he wasn’t good enough. He’s had a decent budget this season, which enabled him to sign some decent players, including Dallas, despite, I believe, interest from Notts.
Like other posters, I’m puzzled as to why he was so negative at Notts when he is now putting out a side playing attractive football and scoring plenty of goals.
I do believe he was given sufficient time to succeed at Meadow Lane though.

[nw6pie]

People forget that Ardley had totally run out of ideas at the end of his tenure with Notts. Results were getting worse and wasn’t there a players meeting which resulted in the change to 5 at the back? Enzio became a right wing back and Ruben wasn’t even in the team.
Ardley is a likeable chap, and I was desperate for him to succeed at Notts, but sadly he wasn’t good enough. He’s had a decent budget this season, which enabled him to sign some decent players, including Dallas, despite, I believe, interest from Notts.
Like other posters, I’m puzzled as to why he was so negative at Notts when he is now putting out a side playing attractive football and scoring plenty of goals.
I do believe he was given sufficient time to succeed at Meadow Lane though.

Agree with all of this. Ardley was a broken man by the end of his time at Notts - remember the interview after the 2-2 at Yeovil on the eve of his departure? And I still have nightmares about some of those home games last season where the team were incapable of crossing the halfway line.

Ardley and IB both seem like genuinely nice guys - but we all know the cliche about what type of person is a winner. Maybe IB needs to develop a meaner streak - or unleash Doyler and tell him to be more like he was on the pitch than he appears to be in the dugout. Can’t believe he hasn’t been sent off once since becoming assistant manager,

[countygump]

Agree with all of this. Ardley was a broken man by the end of his time at Notts - remember the interview after the 2-2 at Yeovil on the eve of his departure? And I still have nightmares about some of those home games last season where the team were incapable of crossing the halfway line.

Ardley and IB both seem like genuinely nice guys - but we all know the cliche about what type of person is a winner. Maybe IB needs to develop a meaner streak - or unleash Doyler and tell him to be more like he was on the pitch than he appears to be in the dugout. Can’t believe he hasn’t been sent off once since becoming assistant manager,

I think Ardley was all but a broken man when he arrived, sacked by the club he had played and managed for all of his career. We just made sure of it.

[Elite_Pie]

I think Ardley was all but a broken man when he arrived.

That sums it up for me. It seems that Ardley is a decent enough lower league manager overall, but for us he was a complete and utter disaster in the season we were relegated. Because Yeovil imploded so badly that season, all he had to do to keep us up was to get 6 LESS points than crisis club Macclesfield. He wasn't even capable of that.

[slack_pie]

People forget that Ardley had totally run out of ideas at the end of his tenure with Notts. Results were getting worse and wasn’t there a players meeting which resulted in the change to 5 at the back? Enzio became a right wing back and Ruben wasn’t even in the team.
Ardley is a likeable chap, and I was desperate for him to succeed at Notts, but sadly he wasn’t good enough. He’s had a decent budget this season, which enabled him to sign some decent players, including Dallas, despite, I believe, interest from Notts.
Like other posters, I’m puzzled as to why he was so negative at Notts when he is now putting out a side playing attractive football and scoring plenty of goals.
I do believe he was given sufficient time to succeed at Meadow Lane though.

It's weird, isn't it. He seemed to constantly play down the fact that we had quality players for this level and resources most team would love to have. He constantly talked us down pre-match while talking-up the opposition, even if they were a genuinely poor side. He got his excuses in early and mostly used excuses that applied to every team in the league ("Saturday-Tuesday, Saturday-Tuesday"). It's like he'd just forgotten how to get a team playing with passion and confidence. Most of the games we won were simply due to moments of brilliance from our better-than-average players.

At least with IB we have a footballing identity that's based on possession and attacking in numbers. Personally, I think it's probably the wrong identity for this league, but it's better than just hoping for the best.

Whatever the outcome of this debate, it seems that the end result will be the same whether it's Ardley or IB - no promotion. There comes a point where discussion about footballing styles becomes pointless. What matters is results, and I'm sure we'd all rather get promoted playing ugly long-ball football. I'm willing to give IB more time. He deserves a good part of next season to make progress. But if we're not in the leading pack come winter, I'd be looking elsewhere.

If only we could Warnock out of retirement for one last dance.