Player ratings vs. Salford City 14.12.24

[matt_magpie]

Funnily enough, Im not even sure promotion is that important. Our time in the NL seems to suggest winning games on a regular basis and entertaining football seem to be enough to get the punters in.

The unfortunate thing is we?re not entertaining or winning matches currently and haven?t done for most of the year.

I think they probably could invest more in the playing squad as they clearly had the money for the pitch, The Nest, Sound system, padel courts etc but they believe if the budgets competitive and they spend it wisely promotion can be achieved and really it should. Let?s face it Didzy, Jones and Crowley aren?t on peanuts and neither probably Platt, Bedeau or Bass as we must have offered something decent.
As for new investors we know before there aren?t that many out there for L2 clubs, probably because the promise land is so far away.

[Elite_Pie]

Entertaining football and winning games also helps generate a good atmosphere, which is also important for attracting new fans/keeping the existing ones who?ve jumped on board in recent seasons.

Quite right. Winning games with entertaining football will see crowds grow. Winning occasionally with entertaining football might maintain the status quo. Winning occasionally with dull football will see crowds fall.

No prizes for guessing which option we're offering at the moment.

[nw6pie]

I think they probably could invest more in the playing squad as they clearly had the money for the pitch, The Nest, Sound system, padel courts etc but they believe if the budgets competitive and they spend it wisely promotion can be achieved and really it should. Let?s face it Didzy, Jones and Crowley aren?t on peanuts and neither probably Platt, Bedeau or Bass as we must have offered something decent.
As for new investors we know before there aren?t that many out there for L2 clubs, probably because the promise land is so far away.

In the past, investors were hard to find. That might not be quite the same in the future, especially if it’s part-ownership:

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/a...s/cgj7pv6qg12o

[Boomerangpie]

Quite right. Winning games with entertaining football will see crowds grow. Winning occasionally with entertaining football might maintain the status quo. Winning occasionally with dull football will see crowds fall.

No prizes for guessing which option we're offering at the moment.

That?s right. A rollercoaster

[jackal2]

Funnily enough, I'm not even sure promotion is that important. Our time in the NL seems to suggest winning games on a regular basis and entertaining football seem to be enough to get the punters in.

Agreed. I think you're right.

Although there was growing frustration about our three missed attempts at promotion from the National League, the consequence was that we spent four consecutive seasons in promotion contention, winning plenty of games, and that undoubtedly helped to grow our gates to average levels that we didn't even get close to achieving when we played in League One or League Two. It must be acknowledged also that the football we played under Luke Williams was sensational for a National League team.

If Notts can establish themselves as a consistent promotion contender in League Two, offering the fans entertaining football and the realistic prospect of success at the end of the season, that could actually do more for growing our gates than getting promoted too soon, before we're really ready, and then struggling towards the bottom end of League One.

Last season we probably over-estimated the strength of our team and underestimated the difficulty of League Two, and even though our recruitment has been a bit hit and miss over the past year I'd still regard Platt, Bedeau, Bass, Macari, Jatta, Edwards and Tsaroulla (and probably a couple others when we see more of them) as good signings who, managed correctly alongside existing talent like Crowley and Jones, should be capable of a play-off challenge at least.

The results and football under Maynard at the back end of last season and in the last couple of months have not been good enough, but we did look much improved at the start of this season, so I'm willing to wait and see if we recover that form and style as/when our star players return. The Head Coach may - I emphasise may - have been unlucky to suffer such a run of injuries to key personnel just at the moment things were starting to click.

On the flip side, if the key players return but performances don't improve, meaning we aren't in promotion contention, then I suspect Maynard would be falling short of the owners' expectations and they would become concerned about this undermining the growth of our support base. If that's the scenario in January/February I wouldn't be surprised to see them make a similar decision at a similar time to the one they made with Ardley, i.e. Maynard isn't the guy to take us forward long-term, so let another Head Coach get a good look at the team in the latter part of this season with a view to improving next.

One thing you can say about our owners is that they give managers plenty of time before reaching a conclusion. It frustrates the football fan mentality perhaps, but I wouldn't want to see a return to the hire 'em, fire 'em, constant chop-and-change culture that we saw in the Trew and Hardy eras, because it ultimately took us downwards and created a really bad culture within the club.

[Elite_Pie]

One thing you can say about our owners is that they give managers plenty of time before reaching a conclusion. It frustrates the football fan mentality perhaps, but I wouldn't want to see a return to the hire 'em, fire 'em, constant chop-and-change culture that we saw in the Trew and Hardy eras, because it ultimately took us downwards and created a really bad culture within the club.

Giving managers plenty of time before reaching a conclusion is usually a good thing, but not always. Does anyone think that Fullarton should have been given more time in case he eventually came good? I realise that Fullarton is an extreme example where Maynard is more in the middle. If you think if he's given longer he will come up trumps then getting rid is silly. If you can't see him ever being a success then sticking with him is equally silly. I'd love him to prove me wrong, but I don't think he will ever be a success.

[Boomerangpie]

The question therefore is, ignoring extreme outliers, how long is required to be given to a new manager to make a definitive judgement to keep or get rid?

Half a season? A transfer window and half a season? A full preseason and half a season? One full season front to back?

How many of our managers have had a full season in charge in the last 20 years?

[Elite_Pie]

The question therefore is, ignoring extreme outliers, how long is required to be given to a new manager to make a definitive judgement to keep or get rid?

Half a season? A transfer window and half a season? A full preseason and half a season? One full season front to back?

So what's your answer to your question?

[marky]

The question therefore is, ignoring extreme outliers, how long is required to be given to a new manager to make a definitive judgement to keep or get rid?

Half a season? A transfer window and half a season? A full preseason and half a season? One full season front to back?

How many of our managers have had a full season in charge in the last 20 years?

Thompson, Macparland, Nolan, Ardley, Burchnall, Williams.

[jackal2]

Giving managers plenty of time before reaching a conclusion is usually a good thing, but not always. Does anyone think that Fullarton should have been given more time in case he eventually came good? I realise that Fullarton is an extreme example where Maynard is more in the middle. If you think if he's given longer he will come up trumps then getting rid is silly. If you can't see him ever being a success then sticking with him is equally silly. I'd love him to prove me wrong, but I don't think he will ever be a success.

Fullarton really is an extreme example, because he arrived at a point when many other managers had already been hired and fired by Ray Trew and most fans had already lost confidence in the owner's judgement, so bringing in a rookie manager, famously on the basis of a Powerpoint presentation, really was the final straw. Fullarton was a lamb to the slaughter and became a lightning rod for the fans' anger with Ray Trew. If Fullarton had arrived in completely different circumstances and been given time it's not impossible he could have done better - his record at Halifax in his next job was not spectacular but not terrible either - but it's a moot point because at Notts he was just the wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. The last deckchair on the Titanic.

Stuart Maynard arrived, like Fullarton, with question marks over whether he was sufficiently qualified and experienced, but it's fair to say he came into a very different environment where even those fans who had doubts were willing to give him a chance, given the owners' success with the similarly unheralded Luke Williams.

Since then, in my opinion, Maynard oversaw an unimpressive and uninspiring ending to last season, and I commented in the summer that if he didn't hit the ground running in August he would be under pressure quickly. As it transpired, he achieved some very impressive results up to October, hence why we were in the automatic promotion places, but since then we've reverted to the form of the closing part of last season.

Like I've said above, there's a reasonable argument/excuse to be made that Maynard's good start to this season has been derailed by misfortune rather than mismanagement, not just in the number of injuries, but the fact those injuries were to our very best players in Jones and Crowley (and the potentially very influential Curtis Edwards too). I'm waiting to see now whether the return of these players sees us recover something like the form of August or September, or whether we continue to be underwhelming.

Ask me at this moment and my gut feeling and mood, influenced by recent results, is that he might not have what it takes, and I felt the same in the summer. However, if you had asked me in August and September then I was thinking actually, this guy might have more about him than I first thought. In other words, I'm certainly not "sold" on Maynard... but I'm not (quite) in the Maynard Out camp either.

What we do know is that the current owners have allowed every one of their managers time, and just as importantly allowed themselves time, before drawing final conclusions. As data-driven guys they don't make decisions based on emotions in the moment as fans tend to do. Rather, they gather a fairly large sample size of data in terms of results and performances, so they can iron out the variables and reach a properly informed judgement about how good or bad a manager is. It won't always be appreciated by us fans, particularly after a performance and a result like Salford when the mood is to sack the manager before the day's out, but thinking about it objectively, our owners probably make decisions in the correct way. It's certainly been more productive to date than the approach taken by previous regimes.