Completely missing the point

Please, do try. Was any of what I said incorrect about him?

He may well have learnt from his mistakes at Barnsley and now Bristol benefit, but for me he was the polar opposite of Hecky - a pseudo-scientist justifying his over inflated salary with total nonsense like the infamous presentation, which sadly certain folk have a penchant for and a track record of falling for.

 

The difference I would imagine is that in league one, the side we had were always gunna be too talented to ever go down. We had the best players in the league. In this league we don't.

 

Completely agree with you. Johnson would have carried on regardless of results playing his turgid football in a defensive system with Winnall on the wing if Hammill wasn't forced upon him. I'd say he ha very little to do with the turnaround.

 

Let's be right about little Lee.

The losing run during the promotion season shouldn't be remembered in isolation.

After he took over a winning side from caretaker manager hecky, he won a few and then proceeded to finish his first season with 1 win in 10.

His fortunes only changed when he finally went with 442 after holding back a great squad of players. Even after going on a decent run, he still tinkered with 1 up top against Fleetwood in the semi final 1st leg, and we towed.

By the time we rolled up at Wigan on the last day we were the best team in the league. Even the wigan fans admitted they wouldn't have liked to face us in the playoffs.

Johnson was trying to run before he could walk, and did exactly the same at Bristol last season. Their fans wanted shut.

Yeah he's doing OK now, his chairman is a patient guy, likes him and has plenty of brass to chuck at it.

 

Sorry, but I went to bed.

OK, lets do this. Before we start on Lee Johnson, can I just ask that you read what I wrote about Hecky in post #37. Sometimes in football you have to do things because you believe that it is a step in the direction that you ultimately wish to go. The football that we are playing this season is very different to that we played during the later part of the promotion season and the beginning of the next. It is, in my opinion, not a lot of fun to watch. Why has Hecky gone away from the style that was so pleasing to the eye? He has done so because he has a young team that has not gelled and he has opted for a practical solution, a team that keeps its shape even though that means that it uses the long ball. In time, Hecky will have enough confidence in his new young players to release them from the restraints that he has applied. When he does so, there will be games when the team does not function as well as it is at the moment. There will be times when players lose the ball because they risked a pass in a dangerous position and it costs us a goal. The transition will sometimes be frustrating to watch, but the team will be building upon what it has gone through, the trust and team spirit that it has built. It will be stronger for its experiences and it will have grown together. That is only possible because Hecky has had the time. His achievements in the past have earned him that luxury, and it is not a luxury that many managers get. The fans, and therefore the owners of clubs tend to react before the corner is turned, before the team has had the time that it needs to sort out all the problems. I am firmly convinced that the work that a sacked manager did with players, and this is a general statement, is taken advantage of by the new man who builds upon that work and perhaps adds the right player or two in order to complete the rebuilding process. The fans are only too pleased to give the new man all the credit because by doing so they reinforce their reasoning that it was the correct decision to get rid of the the first guy. I have kept Lee Johnson's name out of the discussion to date because I believe the problem is a general one, and is not specific to Mr Johnson. I did at the time, and my reasoning is the same now as it was then, which is why I supported Mr Cryne when he did not sack Johnson.

Now let us talk about Lee Johnson specifically. You say that Johnson did not want Adam Hammill and you say that after Hammill's first game, he made a derogatory statement about the way that we had played. Now I do not remember that statement, but then again I have no reason to do so because I did not have any resentment towards Johnson and was not storing things away in my little black book to use against him. The statement might well be accurate, and you might well have made an accurate interpretation of its meaning, but equally, you might not. Something that I am fond of saying is that the pros know more about the game than I will ever know, and yet their performance is judged by amateurs (you and I). Johnson took over from Danny Wilson who had tried to rescue us from certain relegation. Danny had spent a lot of money very quickly on all the wrong players and had failed to stave off the inevitable. The rebuilding process began in the following season, when we adopted the strategy of buying young unproven players to improve and sell, but even Danny Wilson with all the credit that he had in his personal bank account from our promotion to the Premier League was not allowed the time to get it right. Hecky was not in charge when Johnson took over, he was merely the caretaker, along with Mark Burton. It was never the intention to make his a permanent appointment at that time.

So Johnson took the wreckage of Danny Wilson's second spell, which included some promising young players (Hourihane and Winnall) and built upon it. There is no doubt that he was funded well in that rebuilding process, or that the funding bought us players who had a lot of promise. I am not seeking to re-write history here. The team that won promotion was one that had a lot of talent in it. But equally, I am trying to ensure that Lee Johnson's role in the assembly of that team is not written out of the script totally. Lee Johnson did the hard yards. He went through the process that Hecky is going through at the moment. The process when the team takes two steps forward and one step backwards. Progress is made through a lot of very small steps, and not a giant leap. You are trying to convince me that the aquisition of Adam Hammill was that giant leap forward, but am equally convinced that the acquisitions of Mawson, Brownhill and Fletcher were equally important steps forward. The process of team building is not quick and it is not easy, but by the time Johnson left, he had won 6 on the trot and that process was well on the way. That is not to denigrate what Hecky achieved either. It is just to spread out the credit for what was achieved over that period.

 

Hammill’s biggest attribute was that he gave the team belief.

When you’ve been coached by a negative manager who believed in slow build up & didn’t like wingers then having someone who came in to a team low on confidence doing step overs, beating men & pinging goals in from 25 yards was a huge boost to everyone else.

Hourihane, Scowen & Winnall looked capable but most of the rest of the team, Mawson, Roberts, Isgrove, Watkins etc had looked average at best