Michael Appleton a year on Thoughts ? | Vital Football

Michael Appleton a year on Thoughts ?

B

brisimp

Vital 1st Team Regular
With it being just over a year since he was appointed what are your thoughts.
Personally i like him not flashy says it how it is. has a very good application of what he wants his players to do and achieve.
 
I think I put it on some other thread but I believe he's the best football coach we've had. Not (yet) the best manager, but on a coaching of the game and improving players level he has clear ability which the players get. We know as supporters how he wants to play and we have a better team as a consequence. It's not the finished article by any means and blips will happen, but I do believe that given the time this could be the start of a really exceptional time to be an Imp. I am also confident that our esteemed chairman and board appreciate that this is a long-term plan.
I've never seen City in an league above where we currently are but within the next few years that just might become a reality.
 
I've posted this before, but I will do so again.

@SalfordImp and I spoke to a few Oxford United supporters ahead of the 6-0 defeat and they basically said give him a few transfer windows and we'll do well.

He now has the players he wants here, and we're playing far better as a result, but we're still very much a work in progress.
 
I think that MA is clearly a great football coach, who has both formulated a system that works and between the manager and the football hierarchy at Lincoln have assembled a group of young, hungry and fit footballers who he can possibly mould into a team. Looking at football in this era of Covid, it has suffered greatly, as have the fans by not being allowed in, and we had begun going through bad times with bad owners, Bury, Bolton and Macclesfield being the obvious examples, so the need to cut budgets and develop talent becomes so more important. Michael Appleton is clearly the right man for the job at the moment, and ticks all the boxes for me. He also seems able to attract players who have worked with him before, like the three WBA lads, so they must rate him and want to work under him again. I say this between gritted teeth and with no malice, but I am pleased Mr Cowley has moved on, simply because I don't think he was as good a coach or was able to manage on a small budget, he was just a statistics man and a more charismatic communicator.
As for the future, are we a Championship side, possibly, are we a good Division 1 side, certainly under MA. Long may his reign continue, I'm delighted he's Lincoln City's manager, and I hope he stays in that role for some seasons to come. I also believe he is a great fit for the club as a whole.....it's not all about him, everyone gets a share of the plaudits.
 
I'd like to apologise for writing him off and asking us to get the Cowleys back after their sacking. He has built a good squad with some potential valuable players who will help keep us at a good level. To do that while cutting the budget by 40% is very impressive too.
 
Finances have always been key in football.
It's why Man Utd & Liverpool & Real Madrid and so on are where they are and always will be and where we are and all clubs like us.
But at this time, finances will not just decide the level a club is at but whether there is even a club at all.

As such, the combination of Clive and our board and Michael Appleton running the team is near perfect.
They have got rid of all the high earners.
Provided us with a near entirely new set of players for a much lower cost base.
Getting us to that stage has been a huge amount of work. And if those new players were to do nothing else except just keep us in League One that alone will have been an excellent outcome.

But what we are seeing already is that MA has assembled a thrilling group of young talented players who might just take us to a whole new level.
We've already had a rare League Cup run ending with a spirited performance against the best team around and adding a nice pot of cash to the severely challenged budget.
We're moving onwards in the EFL Trophy too with a decent chance of a long run in it and more funds coming in.
And in the League, well, a tremendous start.
And we now have several players who will one day be earning us some big, very very big, transfer fees.

So me, following the marking above, it has to be an A+ for MA.
 
I think given the turnover in players, change in style etc etc, we've seemed to have gelled fairly quickly, which is a bit surprising.

Saturday was one of those days we'll have and we'll have more of them as well but all things considered (MA following on from DC, change in style, age of players, Covid etc) he's done very well.

They'll be better sides than us in the league but they'll be some worse as well. This is always going to be a season of laying foundations ahead of the next two or three. We'll be fun, naïve, not quite at the races, excellent all at once this season but the green shoots have started to come through quicker than I thought they would.

Let's see where we're at in 10 games time.
 
HoofGrantBrown summarises it pretty well.

Whoever came in after the Cowleys would always start on the back foot given the acheivements of their immediate predecessors.

MA had a clear brief from the board which meant initiating singificant changes to the playing squad in a short period of time, with a significantly smaller budget to put the club in a sustainable position at L1, obviously including retaining that L1 status. He worked hard in the January window to meet the requirements of that brief. Moving on expensive, and in some cases popular older players, both then and in the summer was never going to endear him to some supporters, however necessary most of us saw those actions.

The subsequent impact of the Covid lock-down, season curtailment and finacial constraints of this current closed-door season introduced complications no-one foresaw, and fortuitously the activity in the January transfer window set the club up for survival as well as anybody.

MA's transfer signings and the approach to games all show a clear sighted strategic vision. He now has 'his' squad playing to 'his' method, and by common consent its been a thrilling sight. Far from the finished product, more set-backs such as Saturday will inevitable.

But in the time he's been in place, and the wider circumstances, to expect anything more is delusional. It is in truth still early days for "The Appleton Project" (and also inaccurate to credit it to a single individual given the unified stance of Board, CEO, Jez George etc) but on the progress so far, a solid 'A'.
 
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