Today v Burton | Page 9 | Vital Football

Today v Burton

Unless fans believe the Steve Evans is taking us down I really can't see there is much to be gained by switching managers right now.The only other reason I can think of is if we are about to be able to spend real funds on players.
Those in my view unlikely scenarios apart I can't see much benefit.Everyone knows my history as far as Evans is concerned so I find myself in a odd position in many ways.But I have never believed in change for the sake of it.If Scally feels that Evans style of football is damaging the club's finances through falling revenues and lack of coaching young professionals then maybe I could understand him considering taking action.
As I said yesterday I believe we have to take relegation seriously. If Evans takes that on board and can offer a way forward without additional funds I can see no reason to remove him unless Scally is of the opinion that financially and league position we will be safer as result.
 
With finances in dire trouble at most clubs to terminate Evans contract now would be counter productive imo. Any replacement would be brought in on a budget with no time or money to change the squad.
This is SE's problem and it is his job to get us out of the current rut and have all players competing flat out from the whistle.
We do have enough quality to hold our own but when you miss 5 open goals in 2 games when it was harder to miss then surely part of that is bad luck. So, apply yourselves players and work harder! Create more chances and let's get a bit 'luckier' in front of goal.
 
chris who said:
https://www.soccerstats.com/formtable.asp?league=england3
If Samuel is not replaced we are no better than teams at the foot of the table .Match them and we will stay up.But our form is not good so I do believe we have to take the possible threat seriously.
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Yes our form now is shocking, but it has also been good at times this season. The season is an average of form.

When it was good people were talking about reaching the playoffs. When it's bad people are worried about relegation. The reality lies somewhere in the middle - or at least in my world it does.
 
LockdownLife said:
Yes our form now is shocking, but it has also been good at times this season. The season is an average of form.

When it was good people were talking about reaching the playoffs. When it's bad people are worried about relegation. The reality lies somewhere in the middle - or at least in my world it does.
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On the whole season you could be right. But I would argue that things have changed in the last few weeks.You take into account we have a defence that is far from secure. A midfield that fails to dominate. A forward line that without Samuel can't hit a barn door with a banjo.In our current position it is hard to see us slipping into trouble. But it depends on if we can improve if we can't improve then yes those points in hand could slip away.
 
LockdownLife said:
Yes our form now is shocking, but it has also been good at times this season. The season is an average of form.

When it was good people were talking about reaching the playoffs. When it's bad people are worried about relegation. The reality lies somewhere in the middle - or at least in my world it does.
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It looks like most people are not saying sack Evans but are pointing out that it is his job to fix things instead of constantly blaming budget and players.
 
I wouldn't suggest sacking Evans - it would waste money and give him an 'excuse' that his problems were all Scally or the Clubs fault.
I think there's a 50:50 chance he'll walk out at end Jan, and a chance Fleetwood will offer him a job.
If he stays, or not, we should have enough to keep ahead of the 'bottom 6' even if one or 2 of those go on a good run. Without the constant angst and criticism from the sideline the team will be more relaxed and take their chances better
But either way we should get to the end of the season (maybe in our usual 15th) and regroup under a new manager and with real crowds in 21/22
 
Well on budget you could say we are already punching above our weight in our current league position, comments like those that JED made shortly before he was sacked at this stage of the season in 2017.
At Gillingham Scally expects us to challenge for a top 6 place without providing the resources needed to do that. Or at least that is the target stated in preseason, perhaps as a means of selling more season tickets.
Last season although we finished 10th on points per game, who knows where we would have actually finished had the season played out. We lost our last home game 1-0 to AFC Wimbledon in a similar manner to the last two 1-0 defeats we have suffered. So while some thought we may have made a late run for the playoffs, it could equally have gone the other way too.
 
Lark said:
Well on budget you could say we are already punching above our weight in our current league position
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I'm not so sure about that. If you look below us, I don't think there are many teams with a what you would think have a significantly bigger budget than us (not that we'll ever know exactly) - people have talked about Bristol Rovers having backing, so they are one , I guess. There are a number above us who clearly have a much bigger budget than us, but at least two (in Acrington and Crewe), who I personally think would have a lower budget - for example, I doubt Crewe could afford Samuel or Dempsey and have Mandron, who was in and out for us (mainly out), as a regular starter (and fair play to him and them, he seems to have done well).

I'd say any where from 20th to 8th is where we should be looking to finish and given the experienced and high-profile manager we have (who with his experienced backroom team can't have come cheap himself), we (and Scally) can rightly have expected us to be looking to finish towards the top of those expectations.
 
One other thought on our recent abysmal three results and performances is that it seems that Evans has decided to try to play a bit more football. I'm not sure why really as our direct, physical long-ball style was working well - most recently so against Rochdale. Whilst they were weak/poor, our style robustly smashed them off of the park and we could have been 6-0 up by the time they scored their late consolation.

Certainly on Saturday, whilst we played plenty of long balls as you'd expected, we seemed to at least be going through the motions of trying to play it on the deck more, including not using our previously successful long throw options, which was bizarre as we loaded the box with big man, which was a waste of time. We even, probably for the first time on Saturday "outpossessioned" the other opponent, but not for the first time this season, it didn't work. I'm not sure why we seemed to change tack - maybe because we were playing against three pretty physical and direct teams themselves in Burton, Plymouth and Northampton, Evans thought we'd be better trying to play a bit more and not go like for like.

Well, it didn't work and I hope we stick to our guns and do what we've done best this season. I'm not sure possession football is the way to go in the lower leagues these days - for example, Portsmouth are one of the most physical direct teams in the division and are going good guns...
 
Colburn said:
I'm with Baghdad on this one. These sort of crosses are hard to attack as you have to out jump the defender and generate all the power. I'd like to see him bring the ball into the box and cut it back sometimes or pick out a man with pace on it like Willock did with Johnson late on yesterday when he clashed heads. Just mix it up a bit. Or go for goal himself
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Mixing it up is the ideal, but only if Graham has been told to do that. Strikers usually like wide men to put the ball in an area, either front post or back post so they know where to attack. I suspect he's been told to stand it up to the back post by the amount of times it's happened but for that to be effective you need your central strikers to be on the move and attack the ball, there in lies the problem we have.
 
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SteveTreacle said:
One other thought on our recent abysmal three results and performances is that it seems that Evans has decided to try to play a bit more football.
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I’m with you a bit there ST.

In the last 4 games (inc Rochdale) I thought at times we played some very good football. Most of the Rochdale game, 2nd half Northampton, 1st 20mins plus lot of 2nd half v Plymouth and decent portions of the game v Burton.

We weren’t very good I’m not saying that, but we tried to play a lot more, not just hoof. There were some passages of very good play.

And yet next day on most forums (particularly ‘that one’) all I read is “shocking hoofball. Worst Gills team ever. I wouldn’t mind if we at least tried to play”.

I was thinking it must be my blue-tinted glasses, but maybe not.
 
SteveTreacle said:
I'm not so sure about that. If you look below us, I don't think there are many teams with a what you would think have a significantly bigger budget than us (not that we'll ever know exactly) - people have talked about Bristol Rovers having backing, so they are one , I guess. There are a number above us who clearly have a much bigger budget than us, but at least two (in Acrington and Crewe), who I personally think would have a lower budget - for example, I doubt Crewe could afford Samuel or Dempsey and have Mandron, who was in and out for us (mainly out), as a regular starter (and fair play to him and them, he seems to have done well).

I'd say any where from 20th to 8th is where we should be looking to finish and given the experienced and high-profile manager we have (who with his experienced backroom team can't have come cheap himself), we (and Scally) can rightly have expected us to be looking to finish towards the top of those expectations.
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Well I guess it depends whether you believe Evans when he says we have the lowest budget and smallest squad in League 1. Admittedly he hasn't said that quite as much this season as he did last season, perhaps Scally has had words with him about it.
With regards to Crewe, Evans wanted to keep Mandron and did offer him a new deal, but Crewe offered more money so he chose them.
Given his family and friends contacts in France you'd think they must have offered him quite a bit more than Gills did for him to go up to the North West - hardly convenient for his trips back to France (although Covid may have restricted the chance to do that so often anyway).
I personally think we are in the lower 4-5 teams budgets with the likes of Accrington and Rochdale and possibly AFC Wimbledon (i imagine we pay similar wages to them given how many players go between the two clubs)
 
wxgill said:
I think we have to accpet we only have the budget for a bottom 10 team.
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Agree. Whatever we have as a budget even if it’s not the lowest, it is definitely in the bottom half. Probably bottom third.

And given that, the fact we are constantly sitting between about 9th and 14th for the last year and a half means we are probably above average performance for our budget.

I still can’t believe we have had those 3 shocking losses after the good performance v Rochdale. Up until then we had been very good against the poor sides, but just struggled against the top 10.

Suddenly, against 3 bottom 8 teams all out of form, we crumbled. If we’d won just one of them we’d be 11th. 2 wins we’d be about 8th and 3 wins we’d be in the play off spots. Inexplicable and just sooo disappointing.
 
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