Darlo Uncovered

Having insulted, mocked and moaned about him, then changed my mind after the York game I think it's time for another thread about our much maligned manager. Perhaps I'm not the only one feeling a cautious mood of change and maybe Tommy's bending with the wind. He's had a rough ride on the old learning curve but he might be getting the benefit. You can't say he's inexperienced and I think the key is that he's experienced in managing Darlo. If he sees us safe this season he should be allowed another campaign. Continuity counts for a lot at our level and if he gets his tactics settled why look around/ Names like James Coppinger are just that; no experience and hopelessly vulnerable. Craig Hignett was the same, now that John Parkin's come to a standstill what about him ? My point is that Wright is now a seasoned manager and there are definite signs of uplift in the team. The club needs to consolidate for a few seasons. If Tommy can help us do this he could do something important.

Forgive me for finding the above unconvincing.

I see little evidence of TW developing as a manager. Some of the upturns in his management of us seem to have been forced by things like injuries rather than judgment, and his tactical naivety is at time staggering. Also, how confident are we giving TW another Boost the Budget to blow on the likes of Ainge / Maddison / Burn?

His only saving grace for me is that he has brought in some important signings (primarily Styche) and has been obviously up against it financially this term. But I still worry about the wider message of rewarding survival by giving him another season, especially when you see the gate on Wednesday.

Signs of an "uplift"? We have one win in 6 games. We perked up when Nelson came in on loan but that's about it. If you assess Wright over the whole season then he has done a poor job, trouble is people assess managers based on the last few games only. It's the same as last season i.e. go through a dreadful run, finish with a slightly less dreadful run, everyone believes things are on the up.

I'd like to see him have next year, get rid of the dead wood and learn from his past mistakes in the transfer market.

We need, strong, hungry, fit players who give their all, not those that cant be bothered.

give him until end of October/xmas and if flirting with relegation then get somebody else in. out of interest was i the only person who noticed Neil Aspin at the game last Saturday?

bigdavethemaddog wrote:give him until end of October/xmas and if flirting with relegation then get somebody else in. out of interest was i the only person who noticed Neil Aspin at the game last Saturday?

Completely disagree - either get rid in the summer, or assume he'll be here all of next season.

Yes he'll not want to work on just a short contract extension, he needs to be given another season.

This a joke, right! Signs of an uplift......safety gives him another year.........!
Did you really watch the last two home games thinking that this is an improvement . Changing systems again, “ flat” players again, unfit players again, tactical naivity again, barely a shot at goal over 2 whole games.....surely he shoulders a lot of blame for all those things?
If this is a joke, then yes I have fallen for it....

Yawn. Initial post purely designed to stir the pot. Frankly, Wiseacre's Damascian conversion to being a believer in Wright has always been a transparent crock of s***.

HarryCharltonsCat wrote:Yawn. Initial post purely designed to stir the pot. Frankly, Wiseacre's Damascian conversion to being a believer in Wright has always been a transparent crock of s***.

*Damascene.

I love pedantry.

Look at some of our March fixtures: Chorley, Telford, Chester, Stockport. No confidence we'll get anything from those games. Think we'll be OK, but only because Ashton and FC are so poor. Can't see anything other than limping to 46 or so points.

Yarblockos wrote:Signs of an "uplift"? We have one win in 6 games.

Or you can say we’ve had 4 defeats in 13.
1 defeat in 4.
4 clean sheets in 7.

It’s easy to pluck up different ways to make the stats look okay or utter shite.

He has been mediocre at best for the 18 months he has been in charge. Yes he inherited an expensive squad who may well have reached its limitations looking at last season. However, when rebuilding the squad and applying tactics he doesn't fill me with much confidence in maintaining our club at this level. There are some plus points in a couple of the loan signings made but is that just luck or real judgement and he doesn't moan on about financial constraints of being a fan owned club.

Overall just mediocre and it might just be that we have to accept being a mediocre club for now?

AndyPark wrote:

Yarblockos wrote:Signs of an "uplift"? We have one win in 6 games.

Or you can say we’ve had 4 defeats in 13.
1 defeat in 4.
4 clean sheets in 7.

It’s easy to pluck up different ways to make the stats look okay or utter shite.

Yes, but I notice none of your stats mention wins, which do tend to matter more than aything in football.

At least we should not concede this Saturday (23 Feb).

For me, I just struggle to get on board with Wright. I find his tactics baffling half the time, I never see an improvement in the team from the previous game. I struggle to identify where he improves us when the team train during the week. He took Gray's playoffs team with a few out and a few in and took them from 5th to 13th.

This season has been difficult. Budget cuts etc but he's wasted the budget in the main. There are teams doing better jobs with smaller budgets. Thinking of Paul Holleran at Leamington and Curzon Ashton to name a few.

Whatever happens I'll continue to support the club. I'll keep my BTB contribution, which works out as a bit more than an adult season ticket that I'd have if I lived closer, I'll buy a bit of merchandise and get to the 4 or 5 home games that I can get to a season. And I'll throw what I can into the other initiatives

As the poster above rightly says. This is our club. We will get the club we pay for. We'll always achieve more as fans when we stick together.

I am prepared to give TW time - he is under a restricted budget and we are in no mans land with the ground situation with no expectations of it being resolved any time soon. Its tempting to think that Aspin could be available but I don't think we have the finances in place to get rid of the management team and appoint a new one.
I am hoping that the manager is learning and going more local with his signings - the O'Hanlon signing hopefully is a thing of the past, we cannot expect players to commute this far when being part time time and expect to put in a performance every week. At the end of the day Sunderland, Newcastle, Middlesbrough and Leeds will be off loading players every season so there should be a glut of players we can cherry pick and providing we have the right scouts / contacts in place we can pick up some gems who could potentially do well for us.

PierremontQuaker03 wrote:Sunderland, Newcastle, Middlesbrough and Leeds will be off loading players every season so there should be a glut of players we can cherry pick and providing we have the right scouts / contacts in place we can pick up some gems who could potentially do well for us.

With our finances I doubt we can cherry pick anyone at the moment. Even less chance if the some of the club owners decide not to keep paying into the BTB scheme. No doubt the same people who would complain if a benefactor decided to do the same and put the club in trouble, like Raj Singh and George Houghton did.

JE93 wrote:For me, I just struggle to get on board with Wright. I find his tactics baffling half the time, I never see an improvement in the team from the previous game. I struggle to identify where he improves us when the team train during the week. He took Gray's playoffs team with a few out and a few in and took them from 5th to 13th.

Whilst I also struggle with Wright and he was beginning to pull me round until the last few games, where I am back to the point he will never learn.

However you can't say he took a Gray team from 5th to 13th, Gray's team wasn't 5th when he left. The season before we were on a high and overspending. I would guess this season that Wright has had a budget cut of probably 100k from last season.

My big issues with Wright is that he had 5-2-1-2 working with pace & energy, it wasn't fantastic but we drew with Curzon and Alfreton away, got beat by Spenny and I enjoyed the games, the energy of the team and the effort - yes we lacked a little quality.

Wright then feels the need to change as we have no quality goal scorer so he is left trying to force Ainge into a formation that he doesn't work in (if he works at all), he then changes the formation on Wed night again. On Wed night he forced the formation change and Ainge, Henshall into the team, who he must have realised it wasn't working so took them off.

I can't see us changing Wright at this stage if we stay up (which should be likely), I just don't see him learning from what most seem to be able to see.

loan_star wrote:

PierremontQuaker03 wrote:Sunderland, Newcastle, Middlesbrough and Leeds will be off loading players every season so there should be a glut of players we can cherry pick and providing we have the right scouts / contacts in place we can pick up some gems who could potentially do well for us.

With our finances I doubt we can cherry pick anyone at the moment. Even less chance if the some of the club owners decide not to keep paying into the BTB scheme. No doubt the same people who would complain if a benefactor decided to do the same and put the club in trouble, like Raj Singh and George Houghton did.

A major irony of people threatening to pull out of BTB and saying things like 'I pay the wages' is that they sound exactly like Raj Singh

super_les_mcjannet wrote:I can't see us changing Wright at this stage if we stay up (which should be likely), I just don't see him learning from what most seem to be able to see.

Not if Ashton Utd pull off potential results like currently, if they beat Chorley we'll only be 6pts ahead. No doubt we'll get humped by Chorley at home...

real_darlo_85 wrote:

super_les_mcjannet wrote:I can't see us changing Wright at this stage if we stay up (which should be likely), I just don't see him learning from what most seem to be able to see.

Not if Ashton Utd pull off potential results like currently, if they beat Chorley we'll only be 6pts ahead. No doubt we'll get humped by Chorley at home...

And we have a very tough run of games coming up....squeaky bum time.

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Vodka_Vic wrote:Look at some of our March fixtures: Chorley, Telford, Chester, Stockport. No confidence we'll get anything from those games. Think we'll be OK, but only because Ashton and FC are so poor. Can't see anything other than limping to 46 or so points.

Oh s***. Eating my words now.

QUAKERMAN2 wrote:

real_darlo_85 wrote:

super_les_mcjannet wrote:I can't see us changing Wright at this stage if we stay up (which should be likely), I just don't see him learning from what most seem to be able to see.

Not if Ashton Utd pull off potential results like currently, if they beat Chorley we'll only be 6pts ahead. No doubt we'll get humped by Chorley at home...

And we have a very tough run of games coming up....squeaky bum time.

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Agree it's not certain, especially after Ashton's result today. That was the reason for staying up "should be likely" but not definite.

I have no idea if Wright can even get the team going again, I don't have any confidence in him. Those players were playing ok though until he forced Ainge up front and then changed the formation the other night.

We are limping into the end of season run in.

super_les_mcjannet wrote:

QUAKERMAN2 wrote:

real_darlo_85 wrote:

super_les_mcjannet wrote:I can't see us changing Wright at this stage if we stay up (which should be likely), I just don't see him learning from what most seem to be able to see.

Not if Ashton Utd pull off potential results like currently, if they beat Chorley we'll only be 6pts ahead. No doubt we'll get humped by Chorley at home...

And we have a very tough run of games coming up....squeaky bum time.

Sent from my moto g(6) play using Tapatalk

Agree it's not certain, especially after Ashton's result today. That was the reason for staying up "should be likely" but not definite.

I have no idea if Wright can even get the team going again, I don't have any confidence in him. Those players were playing ok though until he forced Ainge up front and then changed the formation the other night.

We are limping into the end of season run in.

Wednesday was a big setback. My heart sank as soon as I saw the team sheet and the match played out exactly as predicted. I’d fancied us to get something up until then.

Ashamed to say that I considered going home when I saw the eleven. The cricket was on the TV and looked pretty appealing. I feel a bit Liam Neeson admitting that but it’s the truth!


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The frustration with Wright is there are some things he does well are things we need in a manager - the Academy, the acceptance of financial restraints and his developing record of selling young players.

However, the negatives are causing the club huge problems. He had what he thought was a budget to challenge for promotion, and has landed us in a relegation battle (and after feeling we'd dragged ourselves out of it I now think we are firmly back in the mix now). The budget has been cut, making his job harder, but that's partly because he got his summer recruitment so wrong. There's been terrible judgement in transfers and very little evidence of a coherent game plan. He seems incapable of setting up a team to have both attacking threat and defensive stability. Its mostly pretty painful to watch.

I think if we avoid relegation he'll be here next season. I have huge doubts as to whether that would be a good thing for our club, but I would understand why the board may come to that decision. If he is here next season, lets just hope he shows huge development, as the task next season will be harder than this season. And also that we can get enough points to survive this season!

Just been reading the league goal scorers table. Taylor at Spenny is top with 19. Styche is third on 15. Nicholson is our top with 9. Saunders has 7 and then Tommo and Nelson have 6 each. Nelson was only here a month.

Says it all really.


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Surely all that tells you is that Nelson was far too good for this level as we all knew from watching his performances. On that subject alone surely Wright should be afforded some credit for bringing him in, his goals that won us matches in that period are the difference between us being where we are an in the relation zone.

Hopefully he’s now realised that Ainge up front doesn’t work and we return to the system that had been showing some promise with Kneeshaw played in the role Nelson was.

divas wrote:Surely all that tells you is that Nelson was far too good for this level as we all knew from watching his performances. On that subject alone surely Wright should be afforded some credit for bringing him in, his goals that won us matches in that period are the difference between us being where we are an in the relation zone.

Hopefully he’s now realised that Ainge up front doesn’t work and we return to the system that had been showing some promise with Kneeshaw played in the role Nelson was.

I forgot Ainge's stellar contribution is 4 goals.

He does deserve credit for Nelson but he must shoulder the blame for us losing Styche and the performance of some of his other signings. A fully motivated Tommo is better than 6 goals at this level surely?