Holloway needs to be given more time

After numerous baffling team selections and rotations, we had poor performances and even poorer results.  As someone said, losing to the basket-case bottom team illustrates where we are going in the future.

Systematic changes needed.  The sooner the better.

I think all the talk that Holloway cannot bring players in is a bit of a red herring - he has proven this last January with some excellent additions which really improved a poor side. Benson, Glennon, Clarke, Gamston, Grandin...

My honest opinion is the club have asked him to work around some ridiculous financial requirements (covid clause) this summer and we have been far to cautious. The fact he wasn't allowed to re sign some of those that were here last year and we let Vernam and Clarke go also speak to this - the board penny pinched on Vernam in particular. As they do all the time, Amond, Magnay, Coulson there is a list you could name.

We need to realise that it isn't always the management team that create this. Time and again managers haven't been backed (conditioning coach for example) which has lead to us fighting at the wrong end of the league - replacing a manager whether its Holloway at the moment or if was anyone else wouldn't really fix the inherent problem we have with how our club is run.

My thoughts are we back him in January to correct the mistakes he's admitted hes made and focus on the change we need at the top. Bringing anyone else in wont address that fact and we will be here again in 12 months time and 12 months after that having the same discussions we have every year.

I think for better or worse, IH  could walk if JF went.  I think the relationship was very significant in IH coming to Blundell.

I don’t doubt his integrity.  I don’t doubt his desire. I have no doubt there have been big errors made, particularly with the benefit of hindsight.  
And things can change very quickly - a week ago inexperienced, non league players who weren’t fit and ready, were typically headless panic decisions made after a late start to recruitment.  Now Jackson Jnr is the successor to Newport’s talisman.

I think - and it comes through in the last 2/3 post match interviews - he is accepting of his mistakes, he is (now) accepting the gravity of the situation, his appreciation of this level of football has been well and truly rammed home, we need some good fortune. I believe in his determination to get it right.

If you believe JF and IH should go, so be it.   But as far as pitch matters are concerned I THINK IH should continue.

Those who disagree, a list of those who would welcome the challenge would be very instructive.

Come on people, we all know this club will jump all over any excuse to trim things. Furlough, covid clause: manna from heaven to this swingeing lot. How many decent players have we lost to short sighted penny pinching? Time and time and time again, we have been obsessed with balancing the books: making a profit, while being utter dross on the pitch. We jumped all over EFL suggestions of covid clauses and the salary cap; were probably first in the queue. All our managers have been working with one hand tied behind their backs, and if we bring in another, it will continue. Paul Hurst gave us a reset, entering the league with a decent squad and the chance to push on. We didn't and he left (for which we got the blame) and things have never recovered since.

We don't need a new manager, we need a new approach, and this current board have shown repeatedly that it won't happen. Again they are fiddling while Rome burns and relegation is looming. They never learn.

When was it we were going to be in the Championship Mr Day?

People need to stop making excuses for Holloway and recognise he isn't the football saviour of this club.

From the beginning I didn't want Holloway as manager, I thought he was a clown and not a very funny one at that and I was also suspicious of his motives for wanting to manage a club in an area for which he has no affinity and no links. My belief then and now is that it was all about Holloway achieving the goal of 1000 games as a manager, GTFC is just a means to an end.

I found this article about Holloway which I thought was interesting.

https://bleacherreport.com/art.....d-manager-in-history

It's from some years back now but it sums up much of what we're experiencing.

UTM

Quoted from ginnywings

Come on people, we all know this club will jump all over any excuse to trim things. Furlough, covid clause: manna from heaven to this swingeing lot. How many decent players have we lost to short sighted penny pinching? Time and time and time again, we have been obsessed with balancing the books: making a profit, while being utter dross on the pitch. We jumped all over EFL suggestions of covid clauses and the salary cap; were probably first in the queue. All our managers have been working with one hand tied behind their backs, and if we bring in another, it will continue. Paul Hurst gave us a reset, entering the league with a decent squad and the chance to push on. We didn't and he left (for which we got the blame) and things have never recovered since.

We don't need a new manager, we need a new approach, and this current board have shown repeatedly that it won't happen. Again they are fiddling while Rome burns and relegation is looming. They never learn.

When was it we were going to be in the Championship Mr Day?

Two years in March Ginny - still time!!

Quoted from Mikey_345

I think all the talk that Holloway cannot bring players in is a bit of a red herring - he has proven this last January with some excellent additions which really improved a poor side. Benson, Glennon, Clarke, Gamston, Grandin...

My honest opinion is the club have asked him to work around some ridiculous financial requirements (covid clause) this summer and we have been far to cautious. The fact he wasn't allowed to re sign some of those that were here last year and we let Vernam and Clarke go also speak to this - the board penny pinched on Vernam in particular. As they do all the time, Amond, Magnay, Coulson there is a list you could name.

We need to realise that it isn't always the management team that create this. Time and again managers haven't been backed (conditioning coach for example) which has lead to us fighting at the wrong end of the league - replacing a manager whether its Holloway at the moment or if was anyone else wouldn't really fix the inherent problem we have with how our club is run.

My thoughts are we back him in January to correct the mistakes he's admitted hes made and focus on the change we need at the top. Bringing anyone else in wont address that fact and we will be here again in 12 months time and 12 months after that having the same discussions we have every year.

Exactly. Every manager is handicapped by our ludicrous board. A while ago we would have been saying, if we got a really good manager, say like Ian Holloway with all his experience, we would still struggle. So it has proved.

Get better players in January, on normal contracts and then we should be ok. Get the board out as no manager in the history of managers will ever get us above the lower reaches of division 4 with this shower.

If I were Ollie I would be off down the motorway to somewhere sane. This club is as mad as a box of frogs. I would agree Ollie has made mistakes but nothing compared to the way the club has just floundered in the last 12 months. Go with good wishes Ollie, go to a town that hasn’t got its head up its bum.

As the song says “No Direction Home.”

The longer this goes on the more seriously do I consider the solution of it to go bust and start again. People keep chuntering  about a fans’ club and saying how well it has worked elsewhere so they would get the chance to shove money where their mouths are and try it. Will it work? Who knows. Grimsby is a law unto itself. Seems to me a lot of people in town and on here are much more interested in the personal and being right-on anti Tory than they are in the best for the club.

The board have given Holloway hardly any chance of making this season a success. It was operation stay afloat. Or operation keep Fentys cash safe. However, I won’t critisise them too much for SOME of their decisions in the summer because I actually thought they were correct at the time. In hindsight I was wrong on this.

But even though Holloway was given a slim chance of making a success of this season, he has made a boat load of mistakes. He hasn’t been in this situation before, no one has, but I think he has tried to over think things. Too big a squad, too many changes etc etc... he seems to be very emotional and relies on his gut, bringing people together and giving them confidence and freedom, rather than a deep thinking tactical coach. He even admitted recently that limbrick and Davies were better planners than him. This scenario really hasn’t suited his management style.

Do these errors cost him his job. In my opinion not yet. But he needs a good January transfer window. The signing of morais gives me hope their are still a few gems out there. If we stay up, and when things get back to normal,  I would be confident Holloway could get us back to playing how we were In feb and March. And that was very entertaining to be fair to him.

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

If I were Ollie I would be off down the motorway to somewhere sane. This club is as mad as a box of frogs. .

He is the perfect fit then, if his managerial capabilities matched his eccentricities we'd be top of the table