Update from Doug O'Kane

Yeah, we must be fick!

 

and had we failed to have reached the playoffs with Collins folk would have said we should have sacked him weeks ago.

The club cannot win.

 

They'd picked up form from the horrendous run of consecutive losses, but I seem to recall that they'd got Hecky more involved with the first team squad at the time. I certainly don't give much credit to Johnson for the improvement, given that it also coincided with Adam Hammill re-signing for us.

I think we were 12th when he left us. I'm 100% certain that, had he stayed at the club, we wouldn't have reached the play-offs with LJ in charge, although there's no way of proving it.

I think we're in a similar scenario now with Devaney. The worst he can achieve, for me, is being no better than Collins to the end of this season, but with a chance of some upside from that.

 

whim? You mean because he was doing so well lately!?

 

Personally, I think the first eight words of the second paragraph are more pertinent. "Sometimes it's better to remove a negative influence"

 

No, of course not.

But we'd taken 48 points from 22 games, including 1 defeat in an 18 game period prior to a poor run of 8 or so games, but we were still in the playoffs.

At least we've appointed a suitable replacement straight away.

Oh wait.

 

T-I-N-P-O-T

 

I know getting us to 5th with 1 game to go the rotten b@#t@rd..............sithi.

 

Ah yes.

And the players immediately responded with a performance that conclusively proved that Collins was those 8 words.

 

I really hope we win all 3 games and give him the job, just can't see it on the showing so far when he's been in charge.

 

Well only positive is it earned them some gate receipts because there wouldn’t have been the demand Saturday if he was still in post.

 

And that proves what? They didn't do any worse than the recent Collins' performances. They were arguably a bit better, particularly in the first half, where the approach was a bit more direct than we'd seen under Collins. The limitation for anyone, an incoming new coach included, is that they're working with the same squad who've been playing the same way all season. There's no option to overhaul the entire tactical structure, which is why the alleged rush to appoint Thalhammer makes no sense to me. The differences come down primarily to team selection, in-game coaching, and use of substitutions. As far a Devaney being in charge goes, up until the 94th minute I'd have argued that there'd been an improvement in that regard, but the Cotter substitution ultimately led to their goal.

I still don't think we're any worse off from Collins not being there. You obviously feel differently, which is fair enough.

 

Just focusing on your last paragraph - I'd like to flip it. We aren't better off with him gone either. The only way we could have been better off is if we appointed a Monster Motivator to get us through the next fortnight. But we haven't.

Opinions are like arseholes though.

 

I get the waiting to see what league we are in but disagree re playoffs bit of a free hit for me pull it off brilliant fail and it's someone else's fault.

 

This^ plus heard from many he had fallen out with a few key players over the period since the Bolton game added to the fact the home end sold out v Cambridge which with collins in charge just wouldn't have happened.
And let's be honest fans never took to him.

 

It depends whether you think he was having a negative impact or not, which is the point I was originally making. I'm more comfortable with us ultimately going into these games with one less person in the dugout, albeit acknowledging the fact that it could well be a consequence of the club being unable to do what they'd originally intended as their 'master plan'.

Ultimately, the person whom this episode reflects badly on is Mladen Sormaz, who seems to be the most influential person behind the change, and certainly the public face of it from the club's perspective. I admire the fact that they've made a change, as it was a bold move in anyone's book (and I'd rather they tried something than not do anything). It's the first anyone has really seen of him since his appointment, and the information suggests it's been a monumental ****-up of what had been originally planned.

When I read the announcement, the only logical options I could see was that we'd leave Devaney in charge or bring in a 3-4 game 'quick fix' to make the minor tweaks referred to earlier. It actually looks like they'd gone down the route of making a full-time appointment of a complete unknown, as far as both the supporters and players were likely to have viewed Thalhammer. That looks to be as questionable a first interaction with the fanbase as Khaled's decision to shut down the West Stand was. Regardless of how the season pans out, I'm now seeing huge red flags about the capabilities of him in the role, as it seems we've got to this point via a lucky/unlucky accident following easily avoidable mistakes being made in the process.

 

Are you inferring that Nixon pulled that story out of the ether? Or perhaps some other dark place.

 

The Thalhammer story is true.

 

Ok back to normal.. disagree, id say we need as much help as we can get from anywhere we can get it, the way we are playing..We definitely need some inspiration from somewhere. We were void of any under Disco and Stead in the last game.

 

Just wait until they're bleating on about filling the gap...