What strikes me is how he excelled in recruitment at Luton and how that made the real difference. It’s clear, now we’ve seen our new players, he’s not been as successful this summer. I’m left wondering why this is.
Has he recruited too many of his old players? One of the negatives in the post above is how loyal he was to his ‘favourites’ even though they weren’t performing. At Luton he started from scratch, so there were no favourites to bring in. He was forced to go out and find the talent, and coming from an academy coaching/assistant coach position he had recent experience of watching the league’s best young talent
Also, how much autonomy does he have with recruitment? From a few throw away comments already, he has hinted he has had to fight for certain players. That makes me worry about possible friction between him and Andy Scott. I mean what does Scott actually do, I’m sure he’s on decent money, I can’t imagine he’s sat there waiting for Jones to tell him who to buy. Some of the recruitment must be his players and as we know his formula of ‘buying from the division above guarantees success’ has rarely worked out, while he’s been keen to dispose of our best league 1 players. I mean who thought Ahadme was a good player. NJ is famous for playing a tall striker up front but who thought he was the future? Even Cambridge fans couldn’t say what he was actually good at.
Also in that post is a recurring theme of Jones’s side playing with passion and intensity. That was evident in the first few games but it has disappeared in the current losing streak. We’ve dropped our Captain, which is worrying, has Jones had one of his ‘burning the table tennis’ meltdowns already?
What I fear from reading the NJ post is we’ve already seen the best of the man, that the single mindedness worked at a club with no expectations, he wasn’t clouded by previous players and the passion worked with young hungry and talented players.
There’s definitely a trend for successful coaches at this level being first time managers, coming through the ranks with an astute knowledge of up and coming players. I’m hoping Jones isn’t already yesterday’s man.
I think the old Luton players thing is a bit of a red herring to be honest, at least on the pitch. The Hylton signing is the weird one, though I doubt we'll ever see him on the pitch apart from if we need bodies for a banter cup game, but I don't think the other ex-Luton players are where my main concerns lie. Potts is a decent pickup who has had injuries but has 90 odd Championship appearances and has been brought in as short term cover. Berry is similar except he got Premier League games and goals, and Allan Campbell felt like a coup we only could have got with the Jones connection. I don't look at any of those as players and think they're bizarre signings. He's definitely not been too loyal to them either, Berry is the only one who has played consistently so far and even he gets rotated out a lot.
The only thing with the Luton players is we were doing ok, and then we brought in more and more players where Jones was at pains to say they were there to be an example of professionalism to others. Did we already have a problem with attitude that he was trying to address, or did some players take badly to repeatedly being told they needed life chaperones to be brought in and down tools a bit? We haven't heard anything either way but it did seem slightly odd that Potts AND Hylton were talked about glowingly as model pros and then vaguely mentioned to also be footballers when Jones talked about them. The effort on pitch has dipped since then
What strikes me is how he excelled in recruitment at Luton and how that made the real difference. It’s clear, now we’ve seen our new players, he’s not been as successful this summer. I’m left wondering why this is.
Has he recruited too many of his old players? One of the negatives in the post above is how loyal he was to his ‘favourites’ even though they weren’t performing. At Luton he started from scratch, so there were no favourites to bring in. He was forced to go out and find the talent, and coming from an academy coaching/assistant coach position he had recent experience of watching the league’s best young talent
Also, how much autonomy does he have with recruitment? From a few throw away comments already, he has hinted he has had to fight for certain players. That makes me worry about possible friction between him and Andy Scott. I mean what does Scott actually do, I’m sure he’s on decent money, I can’t imagine he’s sat there waiting for Jones to tell him who to buy. Some of the recruitment must be his players and as we know his formula of ‘buying from the division above guarantees success’ has rarely worked out, while he’s been keen to dispose of our best league 1 players. I mean who thought Ahadme was a good player. NJ is famous for playing a tall striker up front but who thought he was the future? Even Cambridge fans couldn’t say what he was actually good at.
Also in that post is a recurring theme of Jones’s side playing with passion and intensity. That was evident in the first few games but it has disappeared in the current losing streak. We’ve dropped our Captain, which is worrying, has Jones had one of his ‘burning the table tennis’ meltdowns already?
What I fear from reading the NJ post is we’ve already seen the best of the man, that the single mindedness worked at a club with no expectations, he wasn’t clouded by previous players and the passion worked with young hungry and talented players.
There’s definitely a trend for successful coaches at this level being first time managers, coming through the ranks with an astute knowledge of up and coming players. I’m hoping Jones isn’t already yesterday’s man.
I think the old Luton players thing is a bit of a red herring to be honest, at least on the pitch. The Hylton signing is the weird one, though I doubt we'll ever see him on the pitch apart from if we need bodies for a banter cup game, but I don't think the other ex-Luton players are where my main concerns lie. Potts is a decent pickup who has had injuries but has 90 odd Championship appearances and has been brought in as short term cover. Berry is similar except he got Premier League games and goals, and Allan Campbell felt like a coup we only could have got with the Jones connection. I don't look at any of those as players and think they're bizarre signings. He's definitely not been too loyal to them either, Berry is the only one who has played consistently so far and even he gets rotated out a lot.
The only thing with the Luton players is we were doing ok, and then we brought in more and more players where Jones was at pains to say they were there to be an example of professionalism to others. Did we already have a problem with attitude that he was trying to address, or did some players take badly to repeatedly being told they needed life chaperones to be brought in and down tools a bit? We haven't heard anything either way but it did seem slightly odd that Potts AND Hylton were talked about glowingly as model pros and then vaguely mentioned to also be footballers when Jones talked about them. The effort on pitch has dipped since then
The other thing with Hylton and Potts is we were told they were going to sign, then there was a four or five week gap, as if Jones was battling someone at the club to get his own way. It does feel as there’s something wrong at the club right now. This dramatic loss of form must be down to something serious.
Which would have got you 10th place last season. I am comfortable with my pre-season prediction that we would end up outside the playoffs around mid table.
His record during that time: W9 D13 L6 // GF34 GA31 // PTS40 PPG1.43
Charlton’s record during the preceding 28 league games: W6 D10 L12 // GF42 GA45 // PTS28 PPG1.00
50% more wins 50% fewer losses 19% fewer goals scored 31% fewer goals conceded 43% more points gained
I think it’s fine to compare with the 28 games that came before him - but that was the form that ultimately got a manager sacked. So to say he’s achieving better than sackable results is pretty faint praise.
So far this season, with a squad constructed seemingly in his image, so far we’ve:
Played 12 Won 5 Drawn 3 Lost 4 Win % 42%
Points per game 1.5 Goals scored 13 Goals conceded 12
It might be better than sackable, but right now it’s not good enough. Let’s hope there’s a significant upturn over the next 28 matches.
His record during that time: W9 D13 L6 // GF34 GA31 // PTS40 PPG1.43
Charlton’s record during the preceding 28 league games: W6 D10 L12 // GF42 GA45 // PTS28 PPG1.00
50% more wins 50% fewer losses 19% fewer goals scored 31% fewer goals conceded 43% more points gained
I think it’s fine to compare with the 28 games that came before him - but that was the form that ultimately got a manager sacked. So to say he’s achieving better than sackable results is pretty faint praise.
So far this season, with a squad constructed seemingly in his image, so far we’ve:
Played 12 Won 5 Drawn 3 Lost 4 Win % 42%
Points per game 1.5 Goals scored 13 Goals conceded 12
It might be better than sackable, but right now it’s not good enough. Let’s hope there’s a significant upturn over the next 28 matches.
It’s a lot better than sackable. We’ve been in decline for nearly 2 decades.
someone needed to come in, steady the ship and rebuild!
jones has had one transfer window. He was never going to turn a team in free fall into the best team in the world in one window.
Callum’s stats show promise. The slide has stopped and we are improving. This was never a one window fix
I believe that when Jones took over at Stoke he brought in Phil Chapple, who had been head of recruitment under Chris Powell, in a similar role. Also played a few games for us.
Not sure where Phil is now, he was at Brighton, but for those who want "understands the club" he does in spades.
How that would work with Andy Scott I don't know. No, that's not true, I think it wouldn't work but Scott and Rodwell did talk about expanding the recruitment/scouting team.
Not sure if I'm the only one who has wiped my memory of this trauma, but when he took over we were only outside of the relegation zone on goal difference, with the team in 21st having 2 games in hand. I think sometimes because we're a big club for this level we lose track of how absolutely dire that situation was, but to go from that to 4th is absolutely worthy of manager of the year IMO. Relegation threatened to playoff hopefuls in a year.
Not sure if I'm the only one who has wiped my memory of this trauma, but when he took over we were only outside of the relegation zone on goal difference, with the team in 21st having 2 games in hand. I think sometimes because we're a big club for this level we lose track of how absolutely dire that situation was, but to go from that to 4th is absolutely worthy of manager of the year IMO. Relegation threatened to playoff hopefuls in a year.
He’s done very well . Not sure we should have ever been that low, mind you . I think we were underperforming last year due to poor recruitment and management and Jones has over- performed with this squad .
Oh agreed, you look at our team on paper last year and with players like May, Dobson, Jones, there is no way we should have been in that position. But it's all about who can bring the best out of them I suppose.
Oh agreed, you look at our team on paper last year and with players like May, Dobson, Jones, there is no way we should have been in that position. But it's all about who can bring the best out of them I suppose.
That position was down to one person. Appleton without doubt the worst manager in our history
Oh agreed, you look at our team on paper last year and with players like May, Dobson, Jones, there is no way we should have been in that position. But it's all about who can bring the best out of them I suppose.
That position was down to one person. Appleton without doubt the worst manager in our history
Oh agreed, you look at our team on paper last year and with players like May, Dobson, Jones, there is no way we should have been in that position. But it's all about who can bring the best out of them I suppose.
That position was down to one person. Appleton without doubt the worst manager in our history
ahem…
Fraeye should get a free ride because he was genuinely so bad - Appleton on the other hand has had "success" in the EFL and yet was just so shocking!!
Oh agreed, you look at our team on paper last year and with players like May, Dobson, Jones, there is no way we should have been in that position. But it's all about who can bring the best out of them I suppose.
That position was down to one person. Appleton without doubt the worst manager in our history
ahem…
Fraeye should get a free ride because he was genuinely so bad - Appleton on the other hand has had "success" in the EFL and yet was just so shocking!!
I suppose that was my point. For me the bloke just didn’t want to be here and literally didn’t give a fuck. I purposely used to avoid his post match interviews as he infuriated me so much. Maybe he knew the general fan feelings towards him when he started and was pissed off but in my view he made zero effort to turn that around
Comments
The only thing with the Luton players is we were doing ok, and then we brought in more and more players where Jones was at pains to say they were there to be an example of professionalism to others. Did we already have a problem with attitude that he was trying to address, or did some players take badly to repeatedly being told they needed life chaperones to be brought in and down tools a bit? We haven't heard anything either way but it did seem slightly odd that Potts AND Hylton were talked about glowingly as model pros and then vaguely mentioned to also be footballers when Jones talked about them. The effort on pitch has dipped since then
His record during that time: W9 D13 L6 // GF34 GA31 // PTS40 PPG1.43
Charlton’s record during the preceding 28 league games: W6 D10 L12 // GF42 GA45 // PTS28 PPG1.00
50% more wins
50% fewer losses
19% fewer goals scored
31% fewer goals conceded
43% more points gained
So far this season, with a squad constructed seemingly in his image, so far we’ve:
Played 12
Won 5
Drawn 3
Lost 4
Win % 42%
Goals scored 13
Goals conceded 12
It might be better than sackable, but right now it’s not good enough. Let’s hope there’s a significant upturn over the next 28 matches.
someone needed to come in, steady the ship and rebuild!
jones has had one transfer window. He was never going to turn a team in free fall into the best team in the world in one window.
Callum’s stats show promise. The slide has stopped and we are improving. This was never a one window fix
Whatever we think about the football, that’s massive improvement on where we have been the last two seasons.
What was the infamous Andy Scott quote " he's great on the grass"