Manager | Vital Football

Manager

Old Poolie

Vital Squad Member
Announced on official site Matthew Bates has left the club. I'm a little surprised at this, but I guess the run of defeats coupled with the drop off in attendance made it inevitable.
 
Yes Bates is on his way. I wish him well for the future because he has been a great servant to the club and saved us from a pretty terrible position last season. I don't think he had the necessary experience/know how to mount a sustained campaign at this level. We now need a manager with plenty of National League experience so I'm hoping Raj understands this. Look at the difference John Still made to Barnet for example?
 
Raj's statement on the official site makes it plain that Hignett will be in charge on Saturday whilst they look for a new manager.
Hopefully whoever they bring in as permanent manager gets to recruit at least a couple of experienced players - holding midfielder and bustling centre forward - or else the sacking of Bates will prove to be nothing more than a hollow gesture!

Martin Gray is free after "leaving" York City - would certainly expect more effort from the players.
 
[QUOTE="Old Poolie,
Hopefully whoever they bring in as permanent manager gets to recruit at least a couple of experienced players - holding midfielder and bustling centre forward - or else the sacking of Bates will prove to be nothing more than a hollow gesture!
[/QUOTE]

The trouble with this is that it implies the problem might be with the team rather than with the manager. It seems unfair not to try recruiting experienced players before sacking the manager, rather than afterwards.
Hodcroft played this same card with Mick Wadsworth. Wadsworth was constantly told there was no money for fresh players, then was made to carry the can for not getting results. But if Wadsworth had been given the cash made available to his successor, he might well have made a go of it.
I appreciate there's a bit of a difference, in experience and capability, between MW and MB, but the point still stands.
 
Bates signed the players in the current team as well as getting rid of a few. It is his team, so if it is falling apart as is evident, he must be held responsible. We are not a party to what has been going on over the past few weeks but some are suggesting that Bates has "lost the dressing room". Having lost six on the bounce it is hard to think things could be turned round by a couple of signings unless those signings were Rinaldo and Harry Maguire.
 
I expect Bates signed the players funds would allow for. Do you know of any better players who would have come here for the same salaries as those paid to the current squad?

As to turning things round, things could be turned round tomorrow if we had a consistent striker.
 
Whilst not disagreeing altogether with other people's points of view, I do believe from witnessing most home games this season that the team lacks a focal point in the forward line.
Luke James, who has generally lead the line, gets buffeted from pillar to post, week in week out, by centre halves who tower over him. At the end of last season we had Cassidy, Oates and Rodney who were all at least a physical match for most National League centre halves. To believe changing the manager will have any impact on this situation is IMO mistaken.
Admittedly adding a couple of signings won't turn Pools into title challengers, but it might make them more competitive - to fail to make additions to the squad will inevitably result in the long term failure of whoever is unfortunate enough to get the managers job!
 
In fact if Pools appoint a manager without giving him scope to make additions to and reshaping of the squad we'll be having these same debates about the capabilities of the manager by the end of January.
Don't forget that since the season started Cassidy, Laing, Woods and Hawkins have all left the squad, albeit Cassidy and Hawkins only on loan, their replacements Butler and O'Neill allegedly not costing the budget anything significant.
 
I expect Bates signed the players funds would allow for. Do you know of any better players who would have come here for the same salaries as those paid to the current squad?

As to turning things round, things could be turned round tomorrow if we had a consistent striker.

Well I wouldn't know about the availability of players at the start of the season because I am not a professional involved in the sport. Bates would have known and decided which players to sign. Just like the manager of say... Solihull Moors, or Eastleigh, or Ebbsfleet to name but three teams who are performing fairly consistently this season. Solihull were almost relegated last year but are now doing well and I don't suppose their budget compares to ours.

Do you really believe that all Pools need is a "consistent striker". I presume you think our leaky defence and ineffective midfield are just fine.
 
At the start of the season we lost only twice in seventeen games and were consistently in or around the play-off places. The only problem was that we didn't have a striker who was consistently scoring. Then the wheels fell off. The squad was more or less the same so it must be something fundamental not just a poor group of players. To me that suggests a management/coaching problem.

The situation with Noble who was one of the best players also suggests poor management. Yes he said things that he shouldn't but the manager should never have allowed it to get to that stage.

Who will replace Bates ? It seems unlikely that we could head-hunt an established manager from another club. It will be a test of the club's owner's ambition if we can attract the sort of man we would all want - and I have no idea who.
 
Quality certainly is very important in football but organization and team spirit are also absolutely crucial. I am sure many of us recall how Wimbledon beat Liverpool in the FA Cup final all those years ago. A prime example of how organization and team spirit got the better of a much more skilled team. Pools began the season well organized and with plenty of team spirit but this seemed to ebb away following the Salford defeat and has now disappeared altogether. I don't know why, how or who is to blame but the fact is something is wrong and must change because we cannot keep on losing game after game. Raj has acted in a timely fashion and lets hope a capable replacement is appointed.
 
Do you really believe that all Pools need is a "consistent striker". I presume you think our leaky defence and ineffective midfield are just fine.

No I don't believe that. But we were talking about what might turn the team round. As Block Sands has pointed out the team were doing pretty well at the beginning of the season, except that we didn't have a consistent striker. You could draw many conclusions from that (including the possibility that MB is at fault), but you surely can't deny that an effective striker now would make the biggest single difference to our results. Anyway, it's all just opinions. I don't particularly care about proving other posters wrong.
 
As you say Grabeca it is all about opinions, partly that's what makes football so fascinating. I'm sure we've all got our ideas of which is the best way to play, who are the most effective players, etc. and I doubt there would be too much agreement over any of it. However, I do hope we all agree that we wish to see Pools doing well.
 
Indeed, Old Poolie. Live in hope :)
As an aside, last time I went to a match (which was admittedly some time ago) Donaldson had a brilliant game. It looked then that, if only someone could get on the end of his crosses, we'd be sailing. But no-one seemed able to, partly because the named strikers were often nowhere near the box. Obviously morale drops when there's much effort but no end product.