Ppl can still hang on heckys coat tail and make excuses. He had more money to spend and support than any previous manager. Fact is he was interested in other jobs. Thought he was better than us. He’s a average manager and 1 win in 20 says it all. Time to move on, bored of hearing about him
He probably knew the writing was on the wall and couldn’t believe his luck when dirty Leeds came in for him . I don’t think the new owners wanted him as a long term option anyway . Mr Lee etc want to “ internationalise “ the club and broaden its appeal further hence why we have JM and his staff . I bet they can’t believe their luck not having to sack “ one of our own” and getting some cash aswell ! Win win all round I’d say .
Hecky said himself we can't compete on wages to bring in proven championship players so we have to give players the chance to step up and prove themself in this league. That's why he had to pick from a smaller pool as we are a small fish in this division. He also said we won't be just signing players for the sake of it we want players to improve the team. He worked closely on recruitment even though some like to make out he had players forced upon him. His failure to highlight another striker and goalkeeper as key cost us dearly for the 1st half of the season.
If he's on 20k a week bloody hell. If she's still working good for her wanting to earn her own money for her own independence. At least she's not needy. With the hours a football boss put in, it will be good for company.
I’m talking about positionally, I know about our recruitment strategy. He repeatedly said we were signing too many attacking midfielders & wanted some central midfielders. How anyone can criticise him for the striker situation is beyond me, he repeatedly said he wanted four first team strikers to play his favoured system, I believe it was Swansea’s fault the McBurnie deal didn’t happen in August but either way I highly doubt the manager who was saying how desperate he was to get another striker in publicly was doing the opposite behind the scenes. There was no failure to sign a goalkeeper in the summer, virtually no one felt we needed a Davies replacement then as he’d only had one bad month of form following the Wednesday game in April 17. A few on here mentioned it might be an idea to have a better number 2 but most felt that for a club like ours it would’ve been a big expense to have two goalies on first choice wages as Davies had not long before signed a new contract.
I think everyone realises recruitment has been a car crash since we assembled and trained our promotion team for a year and half. Since promotion we've wasted a vast amount of money on players who cant get in the matchday squad or who have been loaned out to league 1. In terms of the ex head coach, he's made his choice. If he didn't love the club (which then makes his many comments about being a lifelong fan dubious at best) enough and didn't like the people around him and didn't like the contract he'd signed days before and didn't mind taking or trying to take our entire back room team so recently after Patricks sad passing and days before a huge Yorkshire derby.... then off course that's all completely up to him. Money in football is obscene, even as a manager and without the human condition of greed, many a person could work a few years and not need to again. Love of something, your care of it can and should count for something though. To go to a club he openly stated he hated, on such a short length contract, and with its track record of sacking managers, even the least sceptical could see that the downside is just a big pay off. Of course, you could say why not get a bigger pay off and protect a very wealthy family. But you might think morality plays a part. Would a vegan animal lover go and work in a battery farm for 3 times their current pay deal? The whole incident shone a light on him in a way it hadn't been before. That the appreciation quickly turned into a mix of apathy, hatred and vitriol is largely down to what the shone light highlighted. That the ex head coach simply wasn't the person we believed him to be.
It's simple to me. I don't like him being Leeds boss, but I don't really care. I don't like that he took us on a long, winless streak, but I still supported him I don't like that he went from managing a team of winners to managing a team of lost boys, but I was still behind him. I don't like the fact he started coming across as arrogant, but I put it down to the fact he was comfortable in his own self and with the club he felt close to. I don't like the fact he started to believe he was the new Flicker who changed a winning formula into a record winless run but I still backed him. But most of all, regardless of all that, I don't like the fact that he left HIS club, OUR club, in the mire, shot on confidence and facing the drop, without so much as a by your leave. Left them to start again, 2 thirds of the way through a dreadful season. HIS players. Bettering himself or whatever, I could accept normally, but whether he is 'frum tarn' or not, I can't forgive him for bailing out.
I'd certainly consider it. But there are a good handful of companies in my industry that I would never work for, no matter how much they offered me. It's an arbitrary line, of course, but everyone will have one. I would have thought that Leeds United would have been on the other side of any Barnsley supporter's line.
Hecky did have a say on players he said himself. Tbh I don’t think he had the nack of spotting a player. All our best players were signed by previous managers. Only a couple of players have really stood out that was signed during heckys tenure....
A post about missing the point that’s missed the point by so far it’s not even in the same postcode! Job security? Plenty were baying for blood and it wouldn’t have been much longer coming that it was spilt. The blokes a football manager, there’s no security or loyalty. Yes he is from Barnsley and he is a fan, makes me laugh when folk expect that to be enough.
But he had the final say on every transfer all the spradsheet did was highlight players based on statistics. He gave the green light for all the number 10s and I never saw or heard him say about the number 10s untill it was way too late. It looked to me as if he wanted to try 5 in midfield and one up top with all the midfielders been recruited and that was the system taken up since Conor left even though we had the players to play 442. As for Davies we didn't need a replacement last summer but it was obvious we needed cover everyone could see Townsend isn't good enough for this league the fact he was loaned out to Solihull speaks volumes. Under hecky they was no doubt in my mind he was taking us down. Even with another window I'm still far from convinced he would have kept us up. He has took Leeds into free fall and has one of the worst managerial records in English football over the past 12 months. If he would have stayed I would have given him untill the end of season but at what point would you draw the line and say enough is enough?
After his sacking he will be known as "Ex Leeds United Manager, Paul Heckingbottom" which sounds a whole lot better and will give him a better standing in the game than "Ex Barnsley..." A place on Gillette Soccer Special awaits.
If we put more time and development in to Potts Moncur Pinnock Pearson McCarthy Mcgeehan, Thiam then we could end up with some quality players and then the recruitment spreadsheet wouldn't look that poor.
Hasn't he got 5 kids? Bearing in mind how much just one costs, I reckon you'd need about 20 grand a week to keep five fed, watered, transported, educated gadgeted etc etc!
He didn’t want to play 4-5-1, he said repeatedly his preferred system was 4-4-2 but we didn’t have the personnel to play it. He tried it a couple of times & it didn’t work so he reverted to 4-5-1. Townsend was loaned out to Solihull because it was outside of the summer transfer window & he couldn’t go on loan to a league club. The rules changed & you can only do short term loans to non-league clubs outside of the two windows. Hecky said he talked Townsend round last summer into staying & fighting for the number one spot when he wanted a loan spell. You might think he was taking us down, I don’t, I think we’d have been comfortable adding Moore & McBurnie to the squad & him having Gardner, Yiadom, Isgrove & Cavare who’d missed large chunks of the season available. I’m not saying we’d have won loads of games but I think we’d have been a few points better off on a similar tally to Hull. Draw the line? Well to me, if he kept this squad up given how bad it was August - January then he would’ve done a superb job. If we’d have narrowly gone down I think he’d probably have done a job most expected. I know a lot of people on here have changed their tune but the majority thought we’d go down last summer & the only thing that’s changed in the meantime is he’s joined Leeds so a lot of people have changed their tune & pretended he was doing a job. If we got cast adrift then yes he’d deserve the sack. People like to talk about stats but they’re pretty irrelevant, it’s all about context, if you have a bottom 5 wage budget & lose 8 of your starting 11 within 12 months & replace them kids with little / no championship experience then you’ll struggle regardless of whether Heckingbottom, Johnson, Guardiola or whoever’s in charge. Leeds is irrelevant, I don’t follow them, I couldn’t name more than about 5 of their team, whatever happened there has no bearing on the job he did at Barnsley. Football’s littered with managers who do well at one club, poor at their next then do well again. It’s why so many of the same managers keep getting jobs at clubs of a similar standing.
I hardly think he sabotaged us, he kept the worst squad in the league outside the bottom 3 & then signed Moore & McBurnie who look like they’ll score the goals that keep us up You can still love something but put your career first. The 3rd point is a lie that keeps getting repeated, the old ‘it was Johnson’s team’ one. It’s getting as bad as the Hammill no goals no assists one. If anyone wants to just have a look at difference in the team sheets, if rebuilding the back 4 mid-season & still winning most games isn’t doing a good job I don’t know what is. It doesn’t fit the narrative of most now he’s joined Leeds but Hecky spent the last few months with Scowen at right back, with right back George Williams a player Johnson didn’t want playing at left back after Hecky pulled him out of the reserves & a centre back partnership of Roberts & Mawson after Kevin Long departed. Barring 10 minutes at Wembley Marley Watkins never played under Hecky that season, Bree barely played for him, the successful Hammill - White partnership was soon broken up with White out for the season. Ashley Fletcher got better by the game & looked unplayable in April & May & still to this day hasn’t come close to reproducing that form. Even when Hammill (remember the one man team claims) got suspended for 3 games we went & won every one of them. He did a phenomenal job that season. I get that we think he’s a ***** now, I completely get that, I just don’t understand why so many what to belittle our achievements & try & pretend it wasn’t a great season. The two don’t have to go together, you don’t have to like someone to appreciate the job they did. I can’t stand Mourinho but he’s a superb manager, I don’t like Warnock but he’s quality at this level. I’ve no time for Hecky now but he did a very good job at Barnsley. On the contract thing, the club would’ve known he was interested in other jobs, let’s not kid ourselves. There’s no secrets in football. Ganaye, Cryne & everyone else at the club, they will have all known he was interested in the Norwich & Sunderland jobs. They’ll have been delighted to get him to sign a new contract to increase any compensation they got.
