Parallels

[Piggy_]

Anyone else getting 2009/10 vibes when Steve Staunton took over?! Both him and JG were appointed at around a similar time of the season, both have inherited a side at rock bottom, allegedly first team senior players have had their noses put out of joint and a raft of unknown, unproven youngsters have been drafted in. We all know how SS’s tenure finished up, I’m hoping it’s different this time round, but with four relegated I just can’t it happening…

[MB86DFC]

Anyone else getting 2009/10 vibes when Steve Staunton took over?! Both him and JG were appointed at around a similar time of the season, both have inherited a side at rock bottom, allegedly first team senior players have had their noses put out of joint and a raft of unknown, unproven youngsters have been drafted in. We all know how SS’s tenure finished up, I’m hoping it’s different this time round, but with four relegated I just can’t it happening…

A blend of Staunton and the final Tommy Wright season for me. A crap squad, poor management decisions, piss weak kids in the team. The perfect s***-storm.

Armstrong has absolutely stuffed us with his poor summer recruitment, but the appointment and performance of JG is extremely worrying. Last night was as low as I’ve felt watching Darlo in the last 10 years, and to hear that game described as “morale boosting” is an absolute insult.

[JasonDeVos]

Anyone else getting 2009/10 vibes when Steve Staunton took over?! Both him and JG were appointed at around a similar time of the season, both have inherited a side at rock bottom, allegedly first team senior players have had their noses put out of joint and a raft of unknown, unproven youngsters have been drafted in. We all know how SS’s tenure finished up, I’m hoping it’s different this time round, but with four relegated I just can’t it happening…

A blend of Staunton and the final Tommy Wright season for me. A crap squad, poor management decisions, piss weak kids in the team. The perfect s***-storm.

Armstrong has absolutely stuffed us with his poor summer recruitment, but the appointment and performance of JG is extremely worrying. Last night was as low as I’ve felt watching Darlo in the last 10 years, and to hear that game described as “morale boosting” is an absolute insult.

It has Staunton all over it.


It was woeful last night - little to no width high up the pitch on the right or left. No out ball from Blyth corners, no attacking threat with an isolated Hazel.

Five at the back will take us down

Certainly not a moral boosting point in my eyes.

[QUAKERMAN2]

Anyone else getting 2009/10 vibes when Steve Staunton took over?! Both him and JG were appointed at around a similar time of the season, both have inherited a side at rock bottom, allegedly first team senior players have had their noses put out of joint and a raft of unknown, unproven youngsters have been drafted in. We all know how SS’s tenure finished up, I’m hoping it’s different this time round, but with four relegated I just can’t it happening…

A blend of Staunton and the final Tommy Wright season for me. A crap squad, poor management decisions, piss weak kids in the team. The perfect s***-storm.

Armstrong has absolutely stuffed us with his poor summer recruitment, but the appointment and performance of JG is extremely worrying. Last night was as low as I’ve felt watching Darlo in the last 10 years, and to hear that game described as “morale boosting” is an absolute insult.

Agree 100%.Playing Griffiths CB, persisting with Salkeld as a RWB, pulling Simms at HT and bringing on a defensive midfielder, leaving Hazell on for 80 minutes when you have Nelson on the bench.He is making far too many changes in a short space of time for my liking and no doubt more changes for Saturday.Results have to pick up and quickly, but no more " morale boosting" comments please unless it's for 3 points.

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[Old Git]

Sadly I am forced to agree with the comments above. I am very much reminded of the Staunton situation when I think we ended up fielding a record number of players in a season. I think after just 13 games we have already used around 23 players and possibly another one to come in on Saturday.
Having said that I think Josh is right in bringing in new blood because clearly some of our existing squad have not performing well enough. Still very much hoping he can lift our fortunes, but fearful that he might not.
It’s all well and good keeping a clean sheet at home against Blyth but somehow we will need around another 42 points from the next 33 games. That probably means winning around a third of those matches as well as picking up some draws. We will have to target say 8 wins from the remaining 16 home games, so we will have to become more ambitious and try and actually win games. A lot of work to be done.

[tdk1]

It's easy to draw parallels with Staunton, but really when it comes down to it while Staunton too inherited an unbalanced squad put together on the fly, he also had the disadvantage of being a useless halfwit who couldn't manage a rice pudding, and I feel that is maybe a more pressing issue.

If gowling goes and signs Noel Whelan from top shop in Leeds or whatever, I might agree with you. As it is I'd say were in a different situation, with different personalities.

Why is everyone so worried about players being dropped or offloaded when we have won three games in 28?

[CrazyDarlo]

Anyone else getting 2009/10 vibes when Steve Staunton took over?! Both him and JG were appointed at around a similar time of the season, both have inherited a side at rock bottom, allegedly first team senior players have had their noses put out of joint and a raft of unknown, unproven youngsters have been drafted in. We all know how SS’s tenure finished up, I’m hoping it’s different this time round, but with four relegated I just can’t it happening…

A blend of Staunton and the final Tommy Wright season for me. A crap squad, poor management decisions, piss weak kids in the team. The perfect s***-storm.

Armstrong has absolutely stuffed us with his poor summer recruitment, but the appointment and performance of JG is extremely worrying. Last night was as low as I’ve felt watching Darlo in the last 10 years, and to hear that game described as “morale boosting” is an absolute insult.

Agree 100%.Playing Griffiths CB, persisting with Salkeld as a RWB, pulling Simms at HT and bringing on a defensive midfielder, leaving Hazell on for 80 minutes when you have Nelson on the bench.He is making far too many changes in a short space of time for my liking and no doubt more changes for Saturday.Results have to pick up and quickly, but no more " morale boosting" comments please unless it's for 3 points.

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- Griffiths had a very good game as right sided centre back, back three worked well
- Salkeld is one of our best performers at the moment, RWB is his most natural position of a 5-3-2
- Substitution significantly improved us second half
- Nelson done nothing this season to indicate he would have the desired impact.

All about opinions

[theoriginalfatcat]

I especially agree with the last two points above.

The half time change made us better and as for Nelson, he always looks the part but sadly produces little.

[real_darlo_85]

Yep, the parallels are there. The main worry is that JG is not a proven manager and similarly so was Staunton when he was appointed. I think in the situation we are in the club has scraped the barrel and gone for what has been the best of those who applied - a punt on a young manager wanting to make a start, and may be less financial risk.

The pressure was already on because of the situation we were in, he has inherited a squad devoid of confidence and to a degree ability and has had no major response or results since taking over. That new manager bounce appears to have been as flat as a fart, so he is now having to play the most crucial card already, a rebuild of the squad mid-season whilst the club sits marooned at the bottom of the table. It's now that he'll be judged, on tactics but most importantly player recruitment, and time will tell if he's successful or whether we end up down that 09/10 path.

[beatroute66]

Maybe I'm being overly-picky and too sensitive, but a fair few online last night/this morning complaining about Griffiths playing in a back three - that kept a CS and him being a very solid part of it?

Or am I missing something? It was our second CS of the season - I don't get why Robson, Griffiths, Lawlor and Burton aren't getting praise for that.

[tdk1]

Also, no we haven't had a new manager bounce but we have had gradual improvement, which if anything is better

[Spyman]

Also, no we haven't had a new manager bounce but we have had gradual improvement, which if anything is better

Only if we continue to gradually improve beyond 0-0 draws at home to Blyth!

I'm not panicking yet. Despite some of the sneering at Gowlings "morale boosting" comment, a clean-sheet when you've not managed one for god knows how long is morale-boosting for the players involved and will give them some belief that conceding in every game isn't an inevitability. The more we can shut the other team out, the more the midfield players can start trusting the defence and looking forward, and in so they an start offering a bit more to the forward players. It also takes the pressure off those forward players as scoring one or two goals is a lot easier than having to bag four or five!

Whether this 0-0 is the start of that process remains to be seen but its a step in the right direction.

[quaker4life]

My concern at the moment is out of the seven players Gowling has brought in so far, four of them have been on loan (one of whom has already returned to his parent club) and the other three have come from the lower leagues. As it stands once Robson, Burton and Simms complete their loans, with the exceptions of Ngandu, Rowe and Lindley, we will be left the majority of the squad the previous manager had.

Sticky plaster short term signings will not help us in the long run and only cause further imbalance and instability in an already struggling team when they leave and those gaps will need to be plugged again. I understand Gowling's desire to bring younger talent in and wanting to create competition for places but we do not have the luxury of time to overhaul the squad less than a third of the way through the season and bed new players in when we are becoming cut adrift at the bottom of the league.

Also one for the nerds we are three points better off and have scored three more goals than the infamous class of 2009/10 did after thirteen games, the small mercies count!

[Spyman]

My concern at the moment is out of the seven players Gowling has brought in so far, four of them have been on loan (one of whom has already returned to his parent club) and the other three have come from the lower leagues. Once Robson, Burton and Simms complete their loans, with the exceptions of Ngandu, Rowe and Lindley, we will be left the majority of the same squad the previous manager had, sticky plaster short term signings will not help us in the long run and only cause further imbalance and instability in an already struggling team when they leave and those gaps will need to be plugged again.

I understand Gowling's desire to bring younger talent in and wanting to create competition for places but we do not have the luxury of time to overhaul the squad less than a third of the way through the season and bed new players in when we are becoming cut adrift at the bottom of the league.

Also one for the nerds we are three points better off and have scored three more goals than the infamous class of 2009/10 did after thirteen games, the small mercies count!

Whats to say some (or all) of those loans won't be extended?

And even if they are just sticky plasters, as you say, maybe they are buying us time to find more permanent solutions? For example Lindley who has been brought in to at least the end of the season, has presumably taken a few weeks to unearth. We may also need a bit of time to offload players to free up budget for other longer term signings.

[Yarblockos]

Staunton did win a few games if I recall, Gowling is paralleling Paul Futcher at the moment! For those of you old enough to remember, Futcher took over in the latter part of the 94/95 season and didn't win any of his first ten games before getting the push. I do think November and December will see an improvement, we are playing a lot of teams in the bottom half, so if we don't win any of those games then Gowling may well go down as the benchmark for poor appointments.

[Yarblockos]

Sadly I am forced to agree with the comments above. I am very much reminded of the Staunton situation when I think we ended up fielding a record number of players in a season. I think after just 13 games we have already used around 23 players and possibly another one to come in on Saturday.
Having said that I think Josh is right in bringing in new blood because clearly some of our existing squad have not performing well enough. Still very much hoping he can lift our fortunes, but fearful that he might not.

I recall Hereford fans saying that we'd see a huge turnover of players with Gowling in charge. Seems that is what he did at Hereford, and often the ones who he brings in are quick out the door too. So I expect lots more in and outs.

The appointment of Gowling smacked a bit of a board who didn't think we were in a serious relgation fight, rather thinking that we just needed someone with fresh ideas and a bit of organisational skills. DJ was even saying we were still aiming to finish higher than last season when he spoke about the appointment. Maybe the analysis Gowling presented at the interview wowed the board enough that they overlooked his record at Hereford. Kind of been a luke warm feeling about the appointment from day one, but who knows, maybe he will come of age as a manager and turn us around.

[Spyman]

The appointment of Gowling smacked a bit of a board who didn't think we were in a serious relgation fight, rather thinking that we just needed someone with fresh ideas and a bit of organisational skills.

To be fair, I think that statement can be used a bit more widely than towards the Board.

I'm sure if we go back and look through much of the commentary on here and other online forums, the general consensus was exactly that, and that we had the quality (and budget as we know) to finish safely mid-table.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing - I don't think many among us thought we were in quite the trouble we now appear to be in terms of the quality of the squad.

[Darlofan97]

Staunton did win a few games if I recall, Gowling is paralleling Paul Futcher at the moment! For those of you old enough to remember, Futcher took over in the latter part of the 94/95 season and didn't win any of his first ten games before getting the push. I do think November and December will see an improvement, we are playing a lot of teams in the bottom half, so if we don't win any of those games then Gowling may well go down as the benchmark for poor appointments.

You’re not going to get a better chance of picking up a win than 4 home games out of 5 against Gloucester, Scarborough, Kings Lynn & a toothless Blyth.

[Old Git]

The appointment of Gowling smacked a bit of a board who didn't think we were in a serious relgation fight, rather thinking that we just needed someone with fresh ideas and a bit of organisational skills.

To be fair, I think that statement can be used a bit more widely than towards the Board.

I'm sure if we go back and look through much of the commentary on here and other online forums, the general consensus was exactly that, and that we had the quality (and budget as we know) to finish safely mid-table.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing - I don't think many among us thought we were in quite the trouble we now appear to be in terms of the quality of the squad.

Quite correct and I have to admit to being one of those who thought a new manager would be able to galvanise the existing squad into a more effective unit. That now looks a naive opinion and we are in a much more serious position than most of us realised.

[60yearsdarlo]

It does not matter how much you polish a turd - it will remain a turd.

The guy seems to be polishing it as well as he can.

We look more organised at least.

Give him a chance.

[Heaton out]

^^This^^