How Far Have We Come..........

Quoted from KingstonMariner

Only PH's fans were seriously worried about him going to Notts County. The rest either thought he stood no chance or would have been happy or unmoved.

Pluses for Hurst. He has unearthed some good players and has instilled a good team ethic. He seems like a nice bloke. Bad points are he seems to have ditched a lot of the players he's recruited, he's not made the most of players he's recruited and has been outfought by opposition managers too often.

I tend to agree with what Alan Alger said on the Codpod the other week. To paraphrase, steady-eddies tend not to get promotion from this league.

Great post, my take on PH too  

Many, many moons ago we had a manager called Neil Woods who was an excellent coach and a true 'on the floor' football man. We began our marathon in the Conference trying to play L1 football and found ourselves out-thought and outclassed over a season by Crawley who played straightforward fast stuff with the best players available in each position.

Their manager, Mr S Evans T.W.A.T., had already proved he was able to get sides promoted and knew what was needed in this division. He also knew how to spend his budget. He signed Miss Brodie in her prime remember and in one move strengthened his side and stopped York from challenging at the top. Fans of Mr Evans will know too that he changed the style and personnel at Crawley the next season and off they went up to L1. He may be a tool but he knows his stuff.

Budgets do matter but money isn't everything. Luton had money to splash for years and failed. Richard Money was a sort of upmarket Paul Hurst in his management and it wasn't until they got someone who knew the sort of hard defence and fast and direct football the division needed that they went up. Fleetwood were the same. It's a question of spending money throughout the season to keep momentum going and having a ruthless streak. The only other way is luck. A smaller squad who all hit form and play above their ability at the same time like Mansfield and York did.

So easy to see why fans and Fenty went for the Dynamic Duo from Boston. Should have been the same result. But it hasn't been has it? For 3+ seasons we have basically played the same way with different players, had some good results, played nice football in patches, had some poor results and staggered close to the top of the league without ever convincing anyone that we were champions elect and hoping for the breaks in the play offs. Even our latest winning run was peppered with comments on the Fishy and in the official reports about us winning "without looking at our best", or "not getting out of second gear" or ...... you get the gist. But for Amond where would we have been? In other words we woz lucky to make it to 10 unbeaten and the luck ran out on a cold Saturday against a reasonable, average Conference outfit. The real crunch though comes in the next few league games when we see the reaction to that defeat.

It seems likely that Cheltenham and FGR will not now have major blips and the title will probably be decided when they play each other. Both have got sides and squads better than ours even though ours is better than any we have had in this league. February/March is always the best time to get your second wind and hit the top. Chances are that the runners up must start as play-off favourites.

So then, how far have we come? A long way from that first season no doubt. But in the past 3 years? Probably not far enough or fast enough. The signings last summer gave us a better side on the park than last year but everything is relative. The lack of signings to keep improving the squad during the season has left us behind the top two and we are still dropping points in games that a promotion bound side would be expected to win. Possibly if we reach the play offs we could be said to be in better shape than last time because we have better strikers, but that's about all.

On our day we are as good as the top two but there are too many "not our day" games. We don't have that relentless and ruthless look about us. We are definitely better but not better enough.

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

Many, many moons ago we had a manager called Neil Woods who was an excellent coach and a true 'on the floor' football man. We began our marathon in the Conference trying to play L1 football and found ourselves out-thought and outclassed over a season by Crawley who played straightforward fast stuff with the best players available in each position.

Their manager, Mr S Evans T.W.A.T., had already proved he was able to get sides promoted and knew what was needed in this division. He also knew how to spend his budget. He signed Miss Brodie in her prime remember and in one move strengthened his side and stopped York from challenging at the top. Fans of Mr Evans will know too that he changed the style and personnel at Crawley the next season and off they went up to L1. He may be a tool but he knows his stuff.

Budgets do matter but money isn't everything. Luton had money to splash for years and failed. Richard Money was a sort of upmarket Paul Hurst in his management and it wasn't until they got someone who knew the sort of hard defence and fast and direct football the division needed that they went up. Fleetwood were the same. It's a question of spending money throughout the season to keep momentum going and having a ruthless streak. The only other way is luck. A smaller squad who all hit form and play above their ability at the same time like Mansfield and York did.

So easy to see why fans and Fenty went for the Dynamic Duo from Boston. Should have been the same result. But it hasn't been has it? For 3+ seasons we have basically played the same way with different players, had some good results, played nice football in patches, had some poor results and staggered close to the top of the league without ever convincing anyone that we were champions elect and hoping for the breaks in the play offs. Even our latest winning run was peppered with comments on the Fishy and in the official reports about us winning "without looking at our best", or "not getting out of second gear" or ...... you get the gist. But for Amond where would we have been? In other words we woz lucky to make it to 10 unbeaten and the luck ran out on a cold Saturday against a reasonable, average Conference outfit. The real crunch though comes in the next few league games when we see the reaction to that defeat.

It seems likely that Cheltenham and FGR will not now have major blips and the title will probably be decided when they play each other. Both have got sides and squads better than ours even though ours is better than any we have had in this league. February/March is always the best time to get your second wind and hit the top. Chances are that the runners up must start as play-off favourites.

So then, how far have we come? A long way from that first season no doubt. But in the past 3 years? Probably not far enough or fast enough. The signings last summer gave us a better side on the park than last year but everything is relative. The lack of signings to keep improving the squad during the season has left us behind the top two and we are still dropping points in games that a promotion bound side would be expected to win. Possibly if we reach the play offs we could be said to be in better shape than last time because we have better strikers, but that's about all.

On our day we are as good as the top two but there are too many "not our day" games. We don't have that relentless and ruthless look about us. We are definitely better but not better enough.

Good post!

Sums it up for me. Paul Hurst is a nice bloke - probably too nice to be successful in what is a pretty cut-throat league.

Quoted from MuddyWaters

Sums it up for me. Paul Hurst is a nice bloke - probably too nice to be successful in what is a pretty cut-throat league.

This genuinely isnt aimed at you but you mentioned it the latest in a long line of people to do so.
Hurst seems to have this reputation as Mr Nice Guy but his treatment of Amond early doors and latterly Mackreth shows a fairly ruthless streak- sort of my way or the highway.
This board has seen criticism for those events which smacks a little of double standards. Hurst is damned if he doesn't and damned by faint praise if he does....

Quoted from barralad

This genuinely isnt aimed at you but you mentioned it the latest in a long line of people to do so.
Hurst seems to have this reputation as Mr Nice Guy but his treatment of Amond early doors and latterly Mackreth shows a fairly ruthless streak- sort of my way or the highway.
This board has seen criticism for those events which smacks a little of double standards. Hurst is damned if he doesn't and damned by faint praise if he does....

I think there's quite a few people searching for flaws in Hurst as if everything else at the club is perfectly positioned for us to win the league and it's just him holding us back. The simple fact is that there are at least 2 or 3 clubs with bigger budgets than us every season and it's very difficult to finish above them all. I think Hurst's biggest achievement is making it look easy to finish in the top 4 every year. We're still very much in the promotion shake up, the general feeling that we've already failed to go up this year is bizarre.

I think most of us agree our team has improved a little every season we have been down here.

This is our best chance of getting promotion one way or the other,

If we fail again we might do it next season,

BUT

If our team does not improve next season and we do not do as well,

Then is the time to get rid and try someone new,

However I think we will do it this season.

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

Many, many moons ago we had a manager called Neil Woods who was an excellent coach and a true 'on the floor' football man. We began our marathon in the Conference trying to play L1 football and found ourselves out-thought and outclassed over a season by Crawley who played straightforward fast stuff with the best players available in each position.

Their manager, Mr S Evans T.W.A.T., had already proved he was able to get sides promoted and knew what was needed in this division. He also knew how to spend his budget. He signed Miss Brodie in her prime remember and in one move strengthened his side and stopped York from challenging at the top. Fans of Mr Evans will know too that he changed the style and personnel at Crawley the next season and off they went up to L1. He may be a tool but he knows his stuff.

Budgets do matter but money isn't everything. Luton had money to splash for years and failed. Richard Money was a sort of upmarket Paul Hurst in his management and it wasn't until they got someone who knew the sort of hard defence and fast and direct football the division needed that they went up. Fleetwood were the same. It's a question of spending money throughout the season to keep momentum going and having a ruthless streak. The only other way is luck. A smaller squad who all hit form and play above their ability at the same time like Mansfield and York did.

So easy to see why fans and Fenty went for the Dynamic Duo from Boston. Should have been the same result. But it hasn't been has it? For 3+ seasons we have basically played the same way with different players, had some good results, played nice football in patches, had some poor results and staggered close to the top of the league without ever convincing anyone that we were champions elect and hoping for the breaks in the play offs. Even our latest winning run was peppered with comments on the Fishy and in the official reports about us winning "without looking at our best", or "not getting out of second gear" or ...... you get the gist. But for Amond where would we have been? In other words we woz lucky to make it to 10 unbeaten and the luck ran out on a cold Saturday against a reasonable, average Conference outfit. The real crunch though comes in the next few league games when we see the reaction to that defeat.

It seems likely that Cheltenham and FGR will not now have major blips and the title will probably be decided when they play each other. Both have got sides and squads better than ours even though ours is better than any we have had in this league. February/March is always the best time to get your second wind and hit the top. Chances are that the runners up must start as play-off favourites.

So then, how far have we come? A long way from that first season no doubt. But in the past 3 years? Probably not far enough or fast enough. The signings last summer gave us a better side on the park than last year but everything is relative. The lack of signings to keep improving the squad during the season has left us behind the top two and we are still dropping points in games that a promotion bound side would be expected to win. Possibly if we reach the play offs we could be said to be in better shape than last time because we have better strikers, but that's about all.

On our day we are as good as the top two but there are too many "not our day" games. We don't have that relentless and ruthless look about us. We are definitely better but not better enough.

A good, well balanced post which sums up how I see the situation except for the highlighted statement. Any team is susceptible to a blip in form ( and that isn't wishful thinking on my behalf ! ). A key injury, a " bad day at the office " or just a poor result against a " park the bus " team can put a team off its stride and self doubt can creep in.

Quoted from barralad

This genuinely isnt aimed at you but you mentioned it the latest in a long line of people to do so.
Hurst seems to have this reputation as Mr Nice Guy but his treatment of Amond early doors and latterly Mackreth shows a fairly ruthless streak- sort of my way or the highway.
This board has seen criticism for those events which smacks a little of double standards. Hurst is damned if he doesn't and damned by faint praise if he does....

I'm only commenting on his manner and the way that the team never seems fired up at the beginning of every 45 minutes we play. I think the dropping of Amond is more of a reflection of him trying to find the right partner for Omar when early doors Omar was the problem and his treatment of Mackreth seems to follow the pattern of Scott Neilson and,to an extent, Aswad Thomas, neither of whom seemed to want to play the way PH wanted them to.

In most realms of life, nice guys seem to come second, true winners have an edge which I think Paul lacks.

Quoted from MuddyWaters

I'm only commenting on his manner and the way that the team never seems fired up at the beginning of every 45 minutes we play. I think the dropping of Amond is more of a reflection of him trying to find the right partner for Omar when early doors Omar was the problem and his treatment of Mackreth seems to follow the pattern of Scott Neilson and,to an extent, Aswad Thomas, neither of whom seemed to want to play the way PH wanted them to.

In most realms of life, nice guys seem to come second, true winners have an edge which I think Paul lacks.

Teams reflect their manager too. Very few 'nice guys' have had really successful teams. Even the ones with a good public persona like McMenemy for instance have a real edge in the dressing room and dugout. We don't know what PH is like in the dressing room but his sides rarely seem to me to have that dog with a bone bite we remember of Buckley's or Kerr's. He's unearthed some decent players but he needs to find another Bobby C or a John Cockerill to give us that edge on the park.