The more the dust settles on this, the more I think Maynard has been desperately unlucky.
His formation wasn?t one that is based on a defensive mentality or deliberate slow play. Macari and Bedeau would overlap and we tried to overload the opposition. Despite people saying he had all the tools to do the job, I would strongly disagree, especially after Jan. We just didn?t have good enough players in the final 3rd.
We had insufficient pace on either wing to get behind the defenders, so they just played in front of the opposition, and we lost our last remaining creative player in the middle.
We?re comparing Nemane/Jones/Crowley with the likes of Gordon/Austin/Grant. It?s not even close!
The two things combined made it so hard to move the ball fast and pull the opposition out of position.
SM tried to counter that by trying to feed the ball into Jatta early and work off him, but he didn?t have the physicality with his back to goal.
The run in from Jan reminded me of just hoping Boldewijn would do something special, but this time it was Didsy.
Unfortunately we didn?t have enough individual brilliance or luck to get us over the line and we certainly didn?t finish the season with a good enough squad to finish top 3.
If the owners primary objective was promotion this season, then I feel the biggest mistakes were made in the transfer market.
If they decided in Jan that Maynard wasn?t the right fit and will go again next season, then that?s fine by me.
Regardless of whether it?s fair/unfair, Maynard had lost the fans which makes his job untenable. So sacking him was the right decision.
I also thought Forest sacking Cooper was extremely unfair but that hasn?t turned out bad for them. So here?s hoping the next guy fires us up to league 1.